Democratic Dominoes

Went to bed last night high and happy -- the Republican Regime had lost the House. (I really am a political junky.) Better news at noon -- bye bye Rummy. And this evening, it appears that the Senate has gone to the Democrats. These are not my Democrats (the centrists, the compromisers), but it's a first step towards righting the wrongs of the past six years.

Feel like it's my birthday or 'Eid or Christmas or Hanukkah. And I want a hot fudge sundae or cheesecake or both. But I settled for a large pizza from Domino's, delivered (yes, we do have delivery in Belenistan).

When and if I find out that Patricia Madrid has won over Heather (oh my God, my son has seen Janet Jackson's nipple during half time and I'm totally apoplectic) Wilson, I may treat myself to that hot fudge sundae.

Broken Glass

I'd love to be in the "GLASS IS HALF FULL" group, which prompted the uncharacteristic optimism of my last post on voting. The "GLASS IS HALF EMPTY" group is negative and wishy-washy, implying that with a little push from below (or above), the liquid in the glass might rise slightly (or that the glass will shrink, giving the appearance of fullness).

But today I feel that THE GLASS IS BROKEN. No Democratic majority in the house or senate can fix what has been broken in the last six years. Broken glass is broken glass. It cuts, it shreds, it maims and murders. It can't even be swept away with any certainty. And, if walked on, it will only break further.

Didn't the authors of our constitution have solutions (within the rule of law) to remedy a broken executive, a broken judiciary, a broken congress? And why are we just sitting on our hands, waiting for November 7 to hope and pray for the glue or bonding agent which might put the glass back together? Hey folks, it ain't gonna happen. Broken is broken.

When the entire system is corrupted by large sums of currency, large infusions of power, and some crazy form of religious zeal intent on controlling our bodies, our thoughts, our diets, our money and our children, we need to look to the constitution for the remedy. And failing that, can we screw the rule of law, the constitution, and the power structure and just revolt? Isn't that what the founding fathers really had in mind? "The revolution (may) not be televised" but there's nothing saying it can't be sent out over the internet, at least not yet (as long as we still have some measure of net neutrality).

I may not live long enough to see redress (impeachment is way too good for the shrub called Bush, the evil Cheney and all the other players who appear to be the illegitimate love children of Barbara Bush and the Pillsbury Dough Boy), but I'd like to see the beginnings of an outrage, an outrage that builds across middle America over our wars of aggression, the decimation of our political and judicial system, the death of our civil rights, the loss of human dignity, and our blindness to how the dots are connected from the White House to Congress to K Street to Tel Aviv, to Gaza, to Baghdad, to Tehran, to South Lebanon, to New Orleans, to Blackwater and Halliburton and KBR, to the loss of independent media, to the stripping of our language as an exercise in Orwellian semantics, to Guantanamo and Baghram and Diego Garcia, to Belenistan and Kazakhistan ... just fill in the blanks.

The Red Queen (with grey hair flying) rises painfully and, between hits of oxygen from the durable medical equipment throughout her house, shouts hoarsely, "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

To quote the Red Queen:

"Freedom is on the march..." George W. Bush
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..." Janis Joplin

Vote!!!

Vote! Please, please, please vote!

Vote your conscience, vote your wallet, vote your heart. Vote for what will matter to you most in the coming years: your social security, your personal safety, the lives of those your love. Vote for the Gold Star Mothers so that there will be no more Gold Star Mothers. Vote against violence, aggression, hatred and bigotry. Vote for what you believe in, what will serve you and your community.

Vote for health care, clean air and water, nutritious food, better education, good resources, your grandchildren (born and yet to be born) who are too young to get to the polls and vote on their own.

No excuses, no lesser of two evils, no party line. If weather is a problem, vote absentee, but vote. Don't vote what your minister or husband or lover or boss advises. Look at the issues on your own. Really listen to the attack ads on television and figure out who is doing the attacking and why. Look at the faces of those asking to be reelected and ask if you would want them in your home for dinner or coffee. Would your trust them to baby sit? To fix your car? To balance your checkbook?

Listen to what the candidates say in your town hall, on your television, on the Sunday Morning talk shows. Does any candidate who answers a direct question with "I don't recall..." deserve to have that job? When appearing on TV to answer questions, is any politician who says "I haven't read/seen/heard the article/report/book" really doing his or her job? Would you hire them?

Look at the faces of those asking to be sent to Washington and ask if you think they're smart enough, honest enough, independent enough to work for you over the coming years. You are the boss. This is your country. Washington is supposed to be doing your bidding, not the bidding of the corporations and Wall Street and K Street. Not even Main Street. The folks who get elected in two weeks are supposed to be working for those who live on your street, USA.

Voting is not a luxury. It's not even a privilege, at this point. It's an obligation you have to the future -- yourself, your children, your grandchildren and their grandchildren.

9/11 - A Test of Faith

I knew. I knew the minute I turned on the television, before my first cup of coffee, before I could light my candle, before the sleep was out of my eyes. I knew. I knew that what I saw transpiring some 2,000 miles away on my television screen was going to be a test. A test of my faith as an American Muslim.

After five years, my faith as a Muslim remains unshaken. Sadly, I can't say the same about my faith in America and Americans.

This was not my first personal test and I'm not a wuss. I've lived through three major earthquakes and two riots in Los Angeles, two battles with cancer, marriage, divorce and a 10 year battle with COPD. But they were nothing compared to 9/11.

Nor was this my first political test. I lived through the protests against the war in Viet Nam in the 60's, organizing and protesting the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 (and then losing my job because my boss saw me on television protesting in front of the Israeli Consulate), physical attacks and death threats from the JDL (and losing a friend to a bomb planted by the JDL on the door knob to his office in Santa Ana, California) and having my birthday clouded forever by the coincidence of the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. But they were nothing compared to 9/11.

I lived through setting up press conferences at the Islamic Center to defend Islam as a peaceful religion in the wake of the terror attacks on Istanbul's synagogues in 1987, being strip searched at Heathrow in January 1991 (and the horror of watching bombs fall on Iraq a few hours later), worrying about friends stuck in Kuwait and unable to flee the invasion, and the first attack on the World Trade Center a few years later. But they were nothing compared to 9/11.

I lived through all of the above and more. But I always felt like an American. Now? Not so much ...

In the days immediately after 9/11, I noticed the flags. Flags, flags everywhere. On poles, on cars, on pickup trucks, on clothing and lapels. Red White and Blue. But more importantly, I noticed the rhetoric. Phrases like "crusade", "clash of civilizations", "with us or against us".

And living, as I do, alone, 30 miles south of the middle of nowhere and 250 miles west of East Armpit, Texas, for the first time in my life I began to be afraid, very afraid. Not afraid of an airplane crashing into my house. Not afraid of another terrorist attack. But afraid that, isolated as I am, I needed to be very aware of my surroundings, my neighbors, my internet activities, my phone conversations.

In the first year, my health deteriorated sharply. I stopped teaching Arabic and giving seminars on Islam and the Muslim World. I relied on my dogs to alert me to strangers on my property. And I actually read the "so-called" Patriot Act and HEPA and all the other pieces of new legislation meant to "protect us". I even called the police one night to come replace a burned out porch light because I was frightened, disabled, alone and more than slightly paranoid as Jenin was being decimated and the US marched blindly towards war in Iraq ... and the police came and put in a new light. (There are advantages to living in a town this small.)

I changed. I could no longer watch a sitcom with a laugh track on television. Still can't. And I take notes while watching the news, often taping one program while watching another. In five years the rhetoric has only become more strident, with even the President using terms like "Islamic Fascists". Every utterance by a talking know-nothing head, a "so-called" expert, a media darling, or a member of the Bush Regime spouting the hateful talking points of the day, grates like fingernails on a blackboard.

If I was a news junky before 9/11, I'm a full-blown addict now. But over the last five years I've narrowed down the voices I can trust to just three: Amy Goodman, Keith Olbermann, and Jon Stewart. The fact that the third is a comedian speaks volumes...

So this weekend, as every television station is commemorating the 5th anniversary of that horrible morning, as ABC is getting ready to air yet another inflammatory made for TV movie, as CNN continues to run "In the Footsteps of Bin Laden", as the talking points roll around the echo chamber that is the media, and as more and more truths come to light in the mainstream, I mourn for my American identity. I mourn for the faith I had in this country and its people to always do the right thing -- eventually. I mourn for the America that came together to rescue Baby Jessica from the well. I mourn for my lost innocence.

Every morning I light a candle which burns throughout the day on my kitchen stove. And on that candle I place my prayers for my family, my friends, for women and children everywhere, for Iraq and Iran and Palestine, for Darfur and Gaza, for troops everywhere in harm's way and for the victims of collateral damage.

Starting tomorrow, I will also place prayers for my lost America.

Truce?

As Rome burns, Nero diddles in Texas and we approach the fifth anniversary of the "Global War on Fundamentalist Extremist Factions and Non-State Actors who would do us harm because they hate our freedoms and want to see Islamic Fascist Anarchy from sea to shining sea while they carry out their barbarous acts of mayhem and murder on our bravest and finest as well as innocent civilians, purposely refusing to wear a recognizable uniform and stand in a straight line and shoot like real men but opt instead to pursue Weapons of Mass Destruction related capabilities funded by narco-terrorist states collaborating with teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs (apologies to the Austin Lounge Lizards) who have entered our fine country illegally and use the internet in an effort to cut and run back to their reality based world."

This weekend, the major television outlets turned their attention, 24/7, to the arrest of terrorist suspects in the UK and the logjam at European and American airports, a relief from the need for "talking heads" to reiterate their "expert opinions" and their "faith-based facts" on Hezbollah's connections to Syria and Iran and Israel's "right to defend herself" against aggression.

I am bone weary of the opinions of Israeli ambassador to the United States Dan Gillerman and the American Zionist Alan Dershowitz. No one reports on the bombing of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon (or even explains why Palestinians have been in these camps in Lebanon for the last 58 years). And I've stopped waiting for that "Anderson Cooper/Katrina" moment: Cooper, along with all other major broadcasters, have so drunk the Likud Kool-Aid.

While the world's attention was focused on Lebanon (and now Heathrow), Israel continued to cut access for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, stage mass arrests, and kill children and women with impunity.

As for looking for the "precipitating event" for the July 12 incursion across the blue line into South Lebanon, George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian, may have answered my question:

"On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad - Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub - were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994. Militants in southern Lebanon responded, on the day of the bombing, by launching eight rockets into Israel. One soldier was lightly wounded. There was a major bust-up on the border, during which one member of Hizbullah (sic) was killed and several wounded, and one Israeli soldier wounded. But while the border region "remained tense and volatile", Unifil says it was "generally quiet" until July 12."

Then an Israeli soldier was captured in Gaza and two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon and all hell broke loose. The response was immediate and totally out of proportion -- obviously the Israelis had another agenda (see Seymour Hersch's article in The New Yorker).

What gets little press is this: Of the casualties on the Israeli side, at least 2/3 of them are military; and of the remaining 1/3 (civilian) deaths, about 40% are Arab (Palestinian) Israelis without access to bomb shelters and/or air raid sirens. And Israel's inflated injury figures include citizens suffering from "anxiety", according to an Israeli military source. Anxiety? Don't get me started ...

So, we are now into the 15th hour of a cease fire -- and we'll see just how long this lasts. It pains me to say, but I doubt Israel wants a true peace with its neighbors. If it did, it would have acted in 1967 and implemented UN Resolution 242 instead of waiting 39 years for 1701, which does not address the root issue of the Palestinian people and their right to a state, a homeland.

Dare I ask, at what point does a country lose its right to exist?

Dear Anonymous

Sorry, friends, but I need to reinstall the word verification filter that prevents spam from being posted on my blog. If you want to comment on any of my thoughts, just follow the instructions and the comments should post and come through to me via my e-mail.

Wish the web were a friendlier place for bloggers, but I guess there will always be jerks who feel the need to "flash" the world (or just make trouble for the sake of trouble). But I can blog on trouble later ... There's certainly more than enough to go around.

Day 16

Day 16: This war has gone on long enough for CNN to have accumulated "stock footage" to run as filler on all of its programming -- a woman wailing in a Haifa doorway, leaflets falling from the sky in Tyre, tanks lining the road on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, motorbikes dodging rubble in southern Beirut. I keep waiting for that "Anderson Cooper/Katrina" moment when someone in the western media will finally have seen enough carnage and wanton destruction to finally question why 2,500 lb. bombs are falling on civilian slums and speak truth to power. Waiting. And waiting ...

Tonight I noticed that most of the coverage is coming from south of the blue line (because its far safer?) And the IDF will not allow embeds. So the few journalists left in Lebanon do "talking points" rather than actual reporting and answer only the questions that are asked, never deviating from the script.*

Much has been made of the ball bearings in the Katyusha rockets, designed to inflict "maximum civilian damage" -- Katyusha rockets which are basically "point and shoot" like my $6 camera, with no targeting capability. Yet there's little mention of cluster munitions and phosphorus bombs being dropped on civilian areas of Lebanon with great precision, except when one happens to take out a UN station or a string of Red Cross ambulances "by accident". Since the US is providing these laser guided missiles and bunker busters (on a rush basis, I might add), I wonder if they, too, are tipped with depleted uranium such as the US military has been using in Iraq and what the long term environmental/health effects will be.

So far, in addition to UN outposts and Red Cross vehicles, the IDF has managed to hit roads, bridges, food depots, airports, gas stations, fuel depots, Palestinian refugee camps (dating back to 1948), civilians holding white bedsheets out the windows of minivans while attempting to flee to higher ground, and even make several successful strikes against Lebanese Army barracks, the very same Army that the world is counting on to take up the slack (under UN Resolution #1559) once Hezbollah is eliminated, or at least contained. Does anyone else see parallels with Fallujah in this picture?

In addition to the stock footage, new myths (or talking points) have developed over the last 16 days: Hezbollah as Jihadist, ties to Syria, Iran and even Al-Qaeda, a new Caliphate from Iran to Spain, and the ever popular (and particularly disgusting) Islamo-Fascism. As Gaza and the West Bank fall off the media radar and Iraq and Afghanistan recede into the background, all the rhetoric is now applied to Lebanon. Shrill voices are calling for Lebanon to uphold UN Resolution #1559 while the 66 plus resolutions (beginning with 242 and 338) regarding Israel's occupation are forgotten. (And John Bolton will probably squeak through the Senate towards a permanent appointment to the UN and be in a better position to keep the 66 plus resolutions regarding occupied territories, apartheid walls, civilian infrastructure, water grabs, land grabs and the protection of civilian populations under occupation from ever being discussed, let alone enforced.)

The US is generously giving $30 million in emergency aid to Lebanon. That's 1% of the $3 Billion given annually to Israel. One percent. The Bush Regime likes quantifiable data and metrics, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld. How's this? The Bush Regime has quantified Lebanese (or Palestinian) life as worth one percent of Israeli life.


*A footnote: Did anyone else think that Prime Minister al-Malaki's speech before the bicameral session of congress sounded like it had been written by Karl Rove or Dick Cheney and then translated into Arabic?

Clean Up in Aisle L

So ill from the news. Shades of 1982, 1988, 2000, 2003. I won't update this site with *news* because anyone who has found the site has already heard it all. But the idea that the Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora is talking of suing Israel for damages struck me as not quite good enough. I put forth the following:

Sue George W. Bush and Condi Rice for not demanding that Israel stop the indiscriminate killing and wanton destruction in Lebanon from Day One. The idea of giving Israel "another week or so" to clean out Hezbollah is just disgusting. It will only create more destruction and more enemies.

Sue every member of the Senate and the House, present and past, living and dead, for the last 58 years for gifting $3 billion plus of American tax dollars annually to the State of Israel to use as it will, ignoring any caveats against the use of funds for construction in the occupied territories and/or offensive war.

Sue every major (and minor) weapons and equipment manufacturer who has sold weapons to Israel which are now being used to target civilian populations and infrastructure. And don't do it in American courts but on the international stage, beginning tomorrow.

Once all these lawsuits have been filed, I'd suggest that it's time for Abu Mazen to think of a Clean Up on Aisle P (which includes W and G), beginning with a lawsuit against Caterpillar. Let's not wait until even more Palestinian infrastructure is demolished, more Palestinian land appropriated, more women and children dead.

Of course, none of these lawsuits will bring back the life of a single child. Time for me to cry now.

War on Wheat?

After watching 24 straight hours of news on CNN and MS-NBC, I've concluded that Israel has declared a "War on Wheat".

Words like "asymmetrical", "disproportionate" and "restraint" have been repeated until they have lost their meaning. The media keeps reminding me that Hamas started this cycle of violence by kidnapping an IDF soldier on June 25, while neglecting to mention that on June 24 the IDF kidnapped a Palestinian doctor and his brother from their home in Gaza and they have not been heard from since (see Ha'Aretz's Gideon Levy's reports of July 8) or that the previous months were a living hell with indiscriminate rockets, bombs, gunboat and helicopter strikes against 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza, the nightly sonic booms keeping frightened children awake, the closing of border crossings turning all of Gaza into one large open-air prison. Nor do they discuss the incursions into the West Bank, the land grabs, the detentions and the arrests which occur on a daily basis.

But, unlike Gaza, where every missile or bomb is a direct hit on a "munitions factory or warehouse" and all the dead and injured are "militants and/or armed terrorists", there are actually international media in Lebanon who can send out live feeds and actually report what might pass for a truth if there weren't so much ridiculous and ill-informed commentary.

In retaliation for Hezbollah's attack on IDF forces at the blue line of Israel's northern border and the capture of two soldiers, 15 civilians in a minibus were obliterated in Southern Lebanon Saturday while trying to seek protection from nearby UN forces. Other "legitimate" targets have included airports and landing strips (3), border crossings into Syria (2), roads, bridges, ports, lighthouses, gas stations, petrol tanks and reserves, religious and political offices in heavily populated civilian neighborhoods, television and radio stations and several actual Lebanese military installations.

But strangest of all, the Israelis targeted and took out three wheat silos. Since when does a country declare a "War on Wheat"?

Eyeless in Gaza

Eyeless in Gaza -- apologies to Aldous Huxley.

Eyesless in Gaza -- as the mainstream media avoids reporting on Gaza (for days on end) until today's events on Israel's northern border. And, once again, Israel uses a blow torch to swat a fly. And, once again, Palestinians (and now Lebanese) pay the price while the Regime in Washington tries to drag Syria and Iran into the conflict.

Eyeless in Gaza -- now eyeless, headless, and homeless. No bridges, electricity, running water, sewage or trash services; no food, medicine, money; no access or exit; no airport, sea port, border crossings; no hope. Was this the plan behind Sharon's unilateral withdrawal 11 months ago -- to create one large open air prison where not even the press or NGO's can access the truth and to drive 1.3 million men, women and children (mostly children) either mad (as in insane) or mad (as in another generation ready to experience yet more war)?

Eyeless in Gaza -- no witnesses. Only tears falling from blind eyes.

It's the Economy (Stupid!)

Watched the Dow plummet 135 points on Friday due to a variety of factors, one of which was fear of inflation due to the dramatic increase in the average hourly wage paid in May -- an increase of 0.5%. The "average hourly wage" is more than three times the "minimum wage" of $5.15 per hour (which Congress refused to increase -- again -- while voting themselves a hefty sum). Didn't catch the exact number quoted for the "average hourly wage", but it was less than $18 per hour.

I'm not a math whiz, but 0.5% of $18 is nine cents. So a whopping nine cents sent the Dow reeling at week's end. Interesting ... I wonder who got the nine cents (72 cents per day), what he or she plans to spend it on, and who will take the blame the problems with the economy (stupid!)

Not Getting "It"

I don't get it ... It's justified as self-defense for the IDF to target cars carrying elected Hamas officials with missiles fired from helicopters and to bomb a Hamas-run Islamic University in Gaza, but if the PA or Hamas were to target a Yeshiva in the Occupied Territories, it would be labeled as anti-Semitic; if a Muslim were to damage one stone of a seminary anywhere in the Western world, it would be considered an act of Islamic terrorism.

I don't get it ... It's perfectly acceptable for George W. Bush or any number of talking heads from the US government, its think tanks or the media (Fox News, CNN, MS-NBC) to make reference to "Islamo-Fascism", but if anyone were to refer to Judeo-Fascism, they would be labeled as anti-Semitic; if anyone were to utter the words Christian-Fascists, they would be considered a threat to Western Civilization as we know it.

I don't get it ... The Bush Regime labels Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". Then the Regime refuses face-to-face talks with either Iran or North Korea, but invades Iraq (Hello? No WMD!), continues to threaten Iran (while still refusing two-party talks), and is "shocked, just shocked I tell you", when the one country who actually may have or want such weapons attempts to launch a missile that might, just might, have the range to hit Alaska. And Bush still refuses face-to-face talks, calling for six-party talks that have never worked.

I don't get it ...

Miami Heat

Got caught up in CNN's coverage of last night's raid on a poor section of Miami and the arrest of seven would-be "terrorists". For three hours I watched (and listened closely) as various reporters on the ground, pundits, experts and politicians tried to fill hours of air time with little or no information.

After years of being a news junkie, my first prayer was: "Oh God, please don't let them be Muslim or Arab or Black." Don't think He heard me. But as the evening unfolded on CNN, I watched the case unfold as well.

A reporter on the ground was asked to describe the neighborhood and he obliged with: "Well, it's lower cla... I mean, lower income." That was a brilliant start!

Another pundit was asked to speculate about the seven men arrested and he obliged with: "They may be Nation of Islam or Black Muslims or Black Separatists or Black Panthers or Five Percenters." (My God, does he even understand what a Five Percenter is?)

And within an hour it was pretty clear from the coverage (and lack of information) that this would be a case of "conspiracy" trussed up by an "undercover informant/agent" and that the whole thing smacked of entrapment.

My instincts aren't bad. Today's four separate news conferences outlining the four "conspiracy charges" against the seven alleged terror suspects reinforced my initial reaction that this would probably fall apart on grounds of entrapment.

Unfortunately, the damage has been done to both American Muslims and Blacks, immigrants and Haitians. Tonight's press release from CAIR (the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations) requesting that "...media professionals not to refer to the seven terror suspects arrested in Miami as 'Muslims'" came 24 hours too late. As the story continues to unfold and more is learned of "The Seas of David", CNN (and every other major news outlet) had carried the water for the Bush Regime, once again.

The more important story of today's revelation about a secret government program to track global bank transfers was buried. And the image of "Home-Grown" Muslim Terrorists "conspiring with Al-Qaeda" in the Miami Heat is what everyone will remember.

V-Day and Iraq: an Analogy

As part of Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything, I've been pondering V-Day, Wednesday's call for awareness of and action to prevent violence against women.

I've come up with a rather strange analogy and, please bear with me, it may or may not make sense. But I feel compelled to post it anyway.

Iraq is a woman abused

Iraq is a woman raped, plundered and battered, then impregnated by her abuser (a cop) with a myriad of unruly children which she can not control. Her only option is to marry her abuser and now, three and a half years on, she sees no way out of a bad, very bad situation.

Like most abused women, she has been divested of any funds or resources, her attempts to rid herself of her abuser have gone awry, and with each passing day, the situation grows more dire. The children (read various militias) are totally out of control. She looks to her abuser for everything from shelter to food to keeping the lights on. And it's simply not working. Yet she sees no way out of the situation as she continues to give birth to even more unruly children, some of whom she doesn't even recognize.

The rescue options available to most abused women -- family, friends, cousins, siblings (read Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Turkey) -- have been demonized and/or frightened by both the situation and the abuser into ignoring her plight. Her only other option (without actually sticking a knife into her abuser in his sleep and setting the bed on fire) is to appeal to the authorities (read UN), but they, too, are powerless to help her as her abuser is part of that authority, i.e., he is a cop.

Cut and Run

We've heard all these stories before about abused women and why they stay with their abusers. And, lately, we've heard a hell of a lot against what is being called "cut and run". In this case, the abuser has no desire to cut and run. Why should he? He's got it made. But perhaps Iraq can do it for herself, with some help from the progressive left and the worldwide antiwar movement.

Here the analogy starts to fall apart; Iraq can't really leave Iraq, although her best and brightest have been doing so for the last three years.

But if enough people, through various NGOs, pledge their support, perhaps it makes sense for the woman to demand a divorce, push the abuser out the door and then call in the therapists, the professionals, and the neighbors to help heal the unruly children, clean the place up, bring in a few groceries and help her get a fresh start.

Somehow we're going to have to act or the abuser will simply move next door (Syria or Iran) and repeat the same pattern with his next victim. And we'll have even more broken households, battered women and unruly children to deal with. We need to stop this abuser in his tracks, now.

Freedom?

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." (Janis Joplin)

Can there be freedom under occupation? All I'm seeing is more civil war, more atrocities, more 'collateral damage' and more Press, Pentagon and Washington spin while Congress debates the "important" issues like preventing those dangerous gays from marrying, keeping angry protesters from burning the red-white-and blue and making sure that the wealthiest 2% get yet another tax break (the so-called Death Tax -- Orwellian-speak for the estate tax that the 2% didn't pay before they were taken up by the Rapture). Somehow, this is supposed to create more jobs for white Americans, help small businesses, keep our borders safe from small brown people and help pay for the War on Terror.

While wasting time and treasure on the above, there's little chance Congress will get around to the growing debt, rising oil prices, falling stock market, fixing the levies, discovering who (or rather how many) leaked the identity of Joe Wilson's wife to Robert Novak, or any of the other issues which are not quite so "sexy" but are matters of life and death to folks like you and me and the folks on both sides in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, by the way, am I the only one who heard what Bush said during the Bush/Blair (Eng/Cheng) prime time joint news conference just before he disclosed the one or two "mistakes" he had made in the last five years? Didn't I hear him use the phrase "Islamic Fascists"? Like nails on a blackboard, if Bush gets off script he's likely to say what he really thinks as opposed to what his minders have coached him to say. Ooops ...

Angry? Who me? I'm just exercising one of my constitutional rights while I still have any and there still is one (constitution).

Outrage Fatigue

Outrage has paralyzed me for the last several weeks. Anger, outrage, disbelief -- all have contributed to a downward COPD spiral, bordering on exacerbation. But, my hero, "The Steroid Steed", has come to the rescue and I now feel I can at least begin to address the myriad of notes and scribblings I've accumulated while watching CNN and MS-NBC and put my thoughts into some sort of cohesive order. Or it just may be the steroids talking ...

My old mantras, "Semantics Matter" and "Connect the Dots", are now joined by "Follow the Money", and "Who Stands to Benefit?"

Who benefits from diverting public attention away from Iraq and focusing it on undocumented workers aka "illegal aliens"? Has anyone else noticed that the estimated numbers have risen from 8 million a month ago to 12 million and now 20 million? And that the folks calling for English as the National Language (the mono-linguists who run Washington) can barely speak it themselves? Who benefits from this diversion? What investigations have been put on the back burner while Congress hammers out ridiculous legislation to strip even more small brown people of their basic human rights? Which corporations are quietly getting rich and watching the price per barrel of oil steadily rise while righteous Americans call into talk radio to vent their collective racist spleen at the rest of us?

Who benefits by starving the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, withholding their tax revenue, allowing only a trickle of medical supplies to seep through while Hamas and Fatah battle it out in the back alleys of Khan Yunis and Rafah? And who benefits from Israeli air strikes on cars carrying mid-level Islamic Jihad functionaries (as well as women and children)? Certainly not the Palestinians. Do the Israelis even benefit in the long or short term? If someone wishes to follow the money trail it probably will lead back to Washington -- politicians, of course, but also the religious right and their corporations.

Who benefits from the Apartheid Wall which continues to snake through the West Bank, creating new "facts on the ground" daily as Olmert and Bush shake hands in the White House over the idea of a unilateral pullout from small parts of the Occupied Territories, leaving Bantustans of Palestinian farmers who can't access their land and whose water rights are being usurped? Even Bush and Olmert know that these actions are against all international laws and treaties governing occupied peoples, as well as against a myriad of injunctions in scripture against the destruction of fields and olive trees and date palms, but who's paying attention? Oil is not the only motivating force in the Middle East -- the Water Wars have already begun.

Who benefits from threatening Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and any country in the Western Hemisphere who dares to believe and then elect a leader who will stand up for the rights of the Indigenous, the concept of fair and equitable land distribution, the concept that mineral resources belong to the people under whose homes they lay? Once again, look to Exxon, Halliburton, Bechtel -- all the usual suspects are still the usual suspects, even if the names change. The fact of robbing the poor to feed the rich and fat remains the same no matter who wears the mask.

If you're looking for answers to any of these questions, sorry. You've come to this blog on the wrong day. I may not have the resources to actually follow the money trail, but it doesn't mean that I can't see it just as clearly as if it were a Yellow Brick Road leading to Oz. Pull back the curtain, and the Wizard is probably Cheney (or someone who looks a lot like him).

It's a small planet, folks. All the dots connect, semantic still matter, and you and I are definitely not benefiting from any of this.

"You're doing a heck of a job (insert name here)"

Warning: I'm in a snarky mood, but please indulge me. After all, I'm BWM (Blogging While Muslim) and just can't help myself ...

This seems to be the week that Hell may freeze over. Good old Rummy is still doing "a heck of a job" and Cheney is scarce, but Rove has had his duties limited to smearing the opposition in the upcoming mid-term elections and poor Scott McClelland has gone bye-bye. Poor Scott. I always wondered if there was a little man sitting behind the podium during the daily press gaggle, holding a fire extinguisher, ready to put out the fire in Scott's pants at a moments notice. And we never saw Scott in profile -- always full on. Was that because his nose was growing? It can't have been a fun job. The bets (as of 7:00 p.m. this evening) are that his replacement will be someone from Fox News, sort of lateral a move, as it were.

Speaking of smears, has anyone else notice how hard the right wing echo chamber is trying to get word out on John Conyers, Jr.'s alleged misconduct regarding using staffers as babysitters? Even CNN has drunk the Kool-Aid. But so far, it all points back to the American Enterprise Institute. Just how stupid do they think we are? The Honorable Congressman from Michigan has been very busy on the Hill, trying to get to the bottom of everything from the Downing Street Memos to impeachment hearings for Bush and the gang and gathering support for a single payer health plan for all Americans. Conyers is not DeLay (thank God) and the smear just won't stick, no matter what knife they use to spread it. So enough already. The story doesn't have legs. Just give it up. You're picking on the wrong guy.

On the topic of wrong, just whose idea was it to crown a Miss Iraq in the middle of a war? The poor girl was not the first choice (others had rejected the offer for good reason). But Miss Iraq has now gone into hiding in fear for her life. Why do I get the idea that whoever staged a Miss Iraq pageant during a time when all of Iraq is in turmoil, can't form a government four months after elections, and is still dealing with electrical grid problems as they come up to their fourth long, hot summer since "liberation", is part of the same gang that designed the "new" Iraq flag during the early Bremmer regime? Remember the one? A white flag with two dark blue horizontal bands with a religious symbol in the middle? If you squinted even a little, it looked Israeli. Ooops. That flag, needless to say, never flew in Iraq. Back to the drawing board.

And still on the topic of "wrong", what is Karen Hughes, our Good Will Ambassador to the Middle East, doing in Latin America? Does she now have a team of Spanish language translators or is she still using the Arabic ones? Having Karen Hughes as an Ambassador to the Islamic World was on a par with appointing Laura Bush to head a Gang Task Force (whatever happened to that brilliant idea from one Bush's State of the Union addresses?) or making steroid use in baseball a "federal case" via another State of the Union address just after the Mission was Accomplished in Iraq.

Priorities, folks. Priorities.

Skating with "Scooter"

At 9:50 a.m. (MDT) today, I celebrated as though it was my birthday, 5 months ahead of schedule. On hold with my home oxygen provider, watching MS-NBC with the sound off, I witnessed a "Breaking News Story" of epic proportions. It was akin to getting a brand new pair of roller skates (with key), an electric wheelchair, new power tools and paint brushes for the studio, and a TV that is not only cable ready, but has a built-in VCR and DVD player and actually will pick up public television in Belenistan, 30 miles south of the middle of nowhere and 250 miles west of East Armpit, Texas! It was better than a birthday!

It was the day that the prosecution in the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame case announced that Libby had outed both Dick Cheney and George W. Bush as the sources for the NIE statement, declassified by Bush, for the purposes of outing Ms. Plame in order to cover up the infamous 16 words in the State of the Union address.

I feel I must backtrack: Since I first heard Ambassador Joe Wilson allege that Robert Novak outed the Ambassador's wife, a CIA undercover operative working on weapons of mass destruction, in July 2003, I have been waiting for this day. Wilson said he wanted to see Karl Rove "frogmarched" out of the West Wing and while there is no Karl Rove in today's announcement, it is nearly as satisfying. I had set Google Alerts for any mention in the media of Valerie Plame Wilson and/or CIA and Rove set on my computer (along with any mentions of torture and John Israel or torture and Diego Rivera -- not realizing that there is a ball player by that name!) for nearly two years before the Fitzgerald investigation began to actually make more news than my e-mail inbox could handle. I was profoundly disappointed when it seemed that the trail would end with "Scooter" Libby and mere charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. But patience is rewarded -- eventually. (Hey, maybe that's the definition of patience...) And today was the day.

Unfortunately, for the next few hours, the 24/7 cable news outlets downplayed the significance of the story and made excuses for Bush as Justice-Commander-Theologian in Chief (he can declassify whatever he wants, apparently, at whim). But by this evening it seems that the outrage moves forward. (And under the radar of this story, Bush appointed Mr. Duct Tape and Plastic Sheeting to head FEMA. But I'll let that go ...)

I can only hope that we will see Rove and Cheney and Bush "frogmarched" out of the West Wing before I actually celebrate my birthday in September. If that happens, I'll just settle for one new paint brush and maybe a ride on the back of my son J's skateboard.

Rant #3 - The Wall and the Lobby

Unreported in mainstream media that at least two people died in a flash flood in the Palestinian town of Bil'in because of the construction of the "security fence" aka "apartheid wall" or "land and water grab barrier". Also largely unreported, the deaths of dozens (many of whom were women and children) in rocket and helicopter attacks into Gaza and other Palestinian areas by Israeli Defense Forces (a misnomer on the order of the U.S. defense Department, formerly known as the War Department).

The land grab goes on and on while the Christian Right in this country line up behind AIPAC to form mega-lobbies to ensure that there is no peaceful solution in Palestine. They'd rather bring on "the rapture" than give an inch or a (hectacre). While I've said elsewhere that our own southern border is basically arbitrary, there is nothing arbitrary about the method by which the Israelis are redefining "facts on the ground." Wish I had solutions. Wish someone had solutions. The only two that come to mind are moving the wall to the 1967 border, making everyone on the west side an Israeli citizen and everyone on the east side a Palestinian citizen (including those who wish to remain in their settlements) and making al-Quds (Jerusalem) and international zone or country a la the Vatican. Or, remove the wall, dismantle the current governments and establish one large country from the River to the Sea under secular law, one person, one vote, and the freedom to practice one's religion but not impose it on a neighbor.

Of course, I'm dreaming. No one could possible think outside the box to that extent. Rational solutions need not apply.

Rant #2.1 - OUCH

On the non-political front, I think I broke my toe. Running barefoot through the house in a race to the fridge at midnight, dodging a sleeping pug in the hall and a wolf-hybrid doing his ritual evening "happy dance" in the living room, and trailing 50 feet of oxygen tubing behind me with my crazy hair (sha'ir majnoon) flying every which way, I caught my foot on a chair around the bend, not for the first or tenth time. But this time I my have broken something -- my foot is swollen and black. Naturally, I didn't stop to ice it but, mishuginah or majnoona (crazy person) that I am, I decided, then and there, to rearrange the furniture in the kitchen so I'd have something new to bang myself on next time. And I'm not even on steroids (since last September) -- just adrenaline. Can't even remember what I wanted from the fridge!

Anyone out there with a remedy for a broken toe?

Rant #2 - No News not Good News

Very little news coming out of occupied Iraq and occupied Palestine. Mainstream media busy covering pedophiles, Tom DeLay, border issues and Black congresswomen "attacking" heavily armed Capitol police with dangerous cell phones. (Ouch!) At least there are no runaway brides this week.

But seriously, when the mainstream media is quiet about the war, I start to panic. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is making noises about not wanting Ibrahim Jaafari to hold office. The media alternates between referring to the young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a "firebrand", a "radical", a "terrorist" and a "militia leader". The administration and media refuse to accept that Iran just might want to enrich fuel to generate electricity. Just how many Iranian spokespeople can say it, how many ways, before the US accepts that they might just be telling the truth? (And just when is Ambassador John Bolton's term up as a recess appointee to the UN? Not soon enough, I fear.) Nor can anyone in power believe that the last thing Iran wants or needs is an uprising on their long, long border with Iraq.

Unreported, the true locations of the insurgency and the fighting. "Somewhere west of Baghdad", "somewhere north or south of Baghdad". What does that mean? Why don't they just own up to the fact that fighting going on in Tal Afar (the US military success story of the month), in Fallujah (which looks worse than Rafah in the Gaza Strip or Jenin after 2003), in Baghdad (where only the Green Zone is secure) and around Balaad (where the US has built a mega-base complete with fast food joints and cinema -- a hard, permanent base complete with shopping malls and underpaid foreign [non-Iraqi, non-American] workers.)

The leader of the "Free World", with his zeal and fervor to spread "democracy and the rule of law", should probably consider accepting the votes of the majority in Iraq, Palestine, Venezuela, Bolivia, Haiti, Iran. Last time I looked, democracy did not mean meddling in the business of foreign entities and sovereign states, nor did it mean national building or micro-managing the planet and executive power only.

And in the same vein, someone in Washington should look up the meaning of "rule of law". They obviously don't know since they use it to justify all sorts of malfeasance.

"Rule of law" means that "no branch of government is above the law, and that no public official may act arbitrarily or unilaterally outside the law". It also means that "no written law may be enforced by the government unless it conforms with certain unwritten, universal principles of fairness, morality, and justice that transcend human legal systems". It does not mean issuing secret "signing statements" along with the signing of legislation, basically saying that the chief executive does not have to abide by the law just signed (i.e., Patriot Act and anti-torture legislation) and ignoring international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions. In other words, crossing one's fingers behind one's back while putting pen to paper and saying "Na nana na na" just doesn't cut it when we're supposed to enjoy separation of powers.

Rant #1 - Xenophobia

My brain is about to explode because I haven't blogged in quite a while. So I'm hoping to catch up and empty my head, one subject at a time. Please bear with me. I'll start with Immigration.

I was born in East Los Angeles and I'm so proud of the kids in LA who left school and took to the streets to protest draconian immigration reform. (I remember their parents and/or grandparents doing the same in 1968.) And I'm proud of Los Angeles in general for the half million or more who marched last weekend and the hundreds of thousand across the country who also participated. Tonight's local news out of Albuquerque ran a story about a town in Texas which is banning students who marched there from attending their senior prom. Why am I shocked?

If I hear one more newscaster or politician deny being "xenaphobic" I'll start throwing darts at the TV. I think "xenaphobic" means fear of pointy breasts and bad dialogue. It's "xenophobia", guys. And you are xenophobic, all of you who think of the 10 or 12 million undocumented workers in this country as "illegal". There are no illegal people, except perhaps George Bush and Dick Cheney and all the illegitimate love children of Barbara Bush and the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

There has to be a better solution than suddenly declaring workers and their support groups (priests, nurses, teachers, doctors) felons. Aren't are prisons full enough already? And do we really want to break up families, leaving children here under an already stressed foster system as we jail and/or deport their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles? Didn't we do that in the 30's and the 50's, sweeping up thousands of American citizens in the process and dumping them across the border into Mexico?

My grandmother never did learn English and didn't become a citizen until well into her seventies after she'd lived and worked in this country for more than four decades. But she didn't take anyone's job or money nor did she hurt a soul as she struggled to raise four children on her own. Besides, there was no country for her to return to once the Ottoman Empire collapsed. And many of the folks we are demonizing in the press feel that they have no place to go either.

It's time we began to think outside the box on a host of issues, beginning with our own borders. They are arbitrary as well as porous. They're not carved in stone. There must be a better solution to fixing a broken system, like scratching it and starting over.

Numbers

Numbers. Math. Numbers. It always comes down to the numbers.

Administration poll numbers are down and the number of Americans dead in Iraq are up (2311 earlier today and counting), but no one counts the maimed, the injured or the irreparably damaged on both sides, the number of years it will take to rebuild Iran, the number of hours of electricity that can be counted on each day or the number of children who will be born with defects due to the use of depleted uranium by US forces.

The debt ceiling has been raised to $9 trillion so that we can keep spending money, money that belongs to my granddaughters and their granddaughters.

Three years on and the world is worse than ever -- Iraq, Gaza, America, the real Triangle of Death. Cheney, Rumsfield and Rove -- the real Axis of Evil. Washington, DC and Crawford, TX -- the real Outposts of Tyranny.

Today the talking heads on the morning shows were debating the definition of a civil war and analyzing the success of the latest air war in the so-called Sunni Triangle. Reading River's blog at "Baghdad Burning" and wondering if anyone at CNN, MSNBC, or even the Pentagon, has spoken with a real live Iraqi in the last three years. Not the Iraqi talking heads living in the relative comfort of the Green Zone or the Iraqi exiles who returned after the Mission was Accomplished, but a real Iraqi, living somewhere in Baghdad or Ramadi or Samara. But guess what, folks, it's hard to get the opinion of the man or woman on the Arab Street if the Iraqi is terrified to leave the relative safety of his/her home or apartment and if the one asking the questions never steps foot on the street without a military or paramilitary escort and a team of translators and the experts reporting from Baghdad each evening never leave the roofs of their hotels.

(Three years on and we still don't have an Arabic speaking military. It's not brain surgery, guys. It's a language. Children learn it. Or are they busy studying Farsi in anticipation of the next great experiment in forcing democracy and "civilization" down the throats of yet another people -- more on the looming threat to Iran later ...)

Meanwhile, the third anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie by Israeli forces using a Caterpillar bulldozer went largely unmarked in the mainstream media. This was supposed to be "Sunshine Week", the week in which the media would shine some light on what goes on behind the scenes in government. But that's a bit hard to do if the Senate is proposing legislation that could result in the arrest and jailing of journalists who disclose information about government surveillance programs or any other information which could be classified or re-classified at a later date (retroactively making the disclosure of same a crime).

Al-Jazeera is reporting that the UN is warning that starvation is just around the corner for 1.5 million souls in Gaza since for the past two months the border crossings are not allowing wheat flour to enter the Strip (nor allowing greenhouse grown produce to get to market, thereby strangling any hope of an economically independent Palestine). Forty percent of the children in Gaza already suffer from malnutrition. Palestinian funds are frozen and the Israeli ministers are calling the lack of flour and foodstuffs "a diet". I don't see too many Israeli politicians going hungry ...

Secretary of State Rice has testified that there is no greater threat to America and Israel than Iran but no one -- and I truly mean no one -- has offered a shred of proof to back up her statement that Iran (whose clerics have issued fatwas against nuclear weapons) is hundreds of times more dangerous now than ever. Hundreds of times? A hundred times zero is -- well, zero. You do the math.

(A snarky aside that I just can't resist -- Speaking of math, last year CNN's Kyra Phillips did an interview with a spokeswoman from the Texas Eagle Forum who was trying to pass legislation in Texas to prevent homosexuals from fostering and/or adopting children. She claimed to have a study that showed that children raised in gay and/or lesbian households were 11 times more likely to become gay -- not 11%, 11 times! Phillips did not ask the name of the study nor did she question the math. Okay, folks: Social scientists agree that one in ten people (that's 10 percent) of the general population, worldwide, is homosexual. So, following the math presented on CNN if one in 10 children are gay and the other nine are 11 times more likely to become gay if raised in a homosexual environment, then 99% of non-gay children raised in a homosexual home will become gay. Didn't anyone bother to check the facts or the numbers on that one?)

The only number which seems to have any meaning anymore is the number of days left before the next presidential election, which I believe is 963 and counting down ... Feel free to check my math and get back to me.

Tone Deaf? Tone Deaf??

If I hear one more pundit say the Administration and/or Bush is "tone deaf" I may never be able to stop screaming. Bush is to tone deaf as Ray Charles was to near sighted! Where do they come up with these inane phrases? Is there a committee? Or can anyone submit the phrase of the week: We do not do torture. We don't want to play the Blame Game. You're either with us or you're with the enemy. We can't comment on an ongoing investigation. Freedom is on the march. We'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up. No one imagined that the storm would breach the levies. We've turned a corner.

Well, there's a corner I'd like for them to turn (180 degrees) -- tell the American people the truth. Bush is not Jack Nicholson and Americans can handle the truth. Don't compare apples and tennis shoes. There is no comparison. The truth is the truth; there are no mixed realities. Keep it simple.

We've gotten into Iraqi based on lies and greed and hubris. We don't know how to get out. We've wasted billions in funds, buckets of blood, tons of depleted uranium and thousands of lives. All of the reconstruction money has gone into building prisons, hard bases and outsourcing security. And there is no "coalition of the willing" -- only the "coalition of the oops, where did everybody go ..." We can't keep trying to micro-manage the world, the United Nations, South America and the Middle East. It's not what the American people want. (And no one else wants us meddling in their business.) We've done some very, very bad things but we'll own up to them if given the chance. Truth and reconciliation can work.

Instead of threatening the press with sedition for publishing leaks, we should be rewarding whistle blowers. And it's ridiculous and confusing to classify then declassify and then reclassify bits of information at whim. Who the hell can keep track? We should all stick our heads out the window and yell, "What part of 'bend over' are we not understanding?" 'Cause we're all getting screwed by an administration that believes that the only entitlements are their own, that a plant can be called a leak, that poverty is a crime, that plausible deniability is equal to ignorance as an excuse for stupidity or cupidity, that blatant racism can be covered up, that it's okay to practice selective ethics, that hubris is a virtue, that liberal is a four-letter word, that torture and extraordinary rendition and wiretapping are acceptable practices that can be excused because of a fabricated war on an unknown enemy for an endless amount of time, that tapes and transcripts will and can disappear and, that if caught, one can plead that one is tone deaf ...

History and Bumper Stickers

Who said that those who don't read history are condemned to repeat it? Okay, so Bush and the gang don't read. But you'd think they could watch a movie and learn something.

Last week I watched "The Battle of Algiers". This week I rented the late Mustapha Akad's "Lion of the Desert", the story of Omar Mukhtar battling the Italians in Libya in the years between the wars. I first saw it in 1981 but today it's messages are even clearer. People don't like occupation. Colonialism is ugly. Asymmetrical warfare (guerilla warfare) is never pretty. And the occupier eventually loses (except in the case of the Americas and Australia, but that's yet to be proven -- history is long).

I guess if you don't read you take the word of folks like Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith and Daniel Pipes and their interpretations of biased "scholars" like Bernard Lewis and Raphael Patai, canonize them, and wind up with never-ending torture at Guantanamo and Abu Graib, insurgencies in the so-called Sunni Triangle, and some very unhappy Shi'a in and around Basra. And because you don't read and are unable to think for yourself, you stick to your slogans and never say "Ooops".

"When the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" is not a strategy. It is a bumper sticker. My all time favorite is still "Semantics Matter", followed by "If all the world's a stage, I want better lighting", and "Friends don't let friends drive naked". But this week I think I'll design a new one: "Guns don't shoot people, Dicks do".

State of Disunion and Wardrobe Malfunctions

Still recovering from Tuesday's "State of Disunion", even though I decided against watching it. I opted to watch Gilmore Girls and a video instead because throwing socks at the TV screen in the hopes of banging one off Bush's nose is no longer fun -- just stupid. But of course, media junky that I am, I couldn't help myself from catching it all on the back end for the rest of the week from the likes of the CNN talking heads, administration stooges like MS-NBC's Chris Matthews, and even the good folks on PBS who think they're unbiased but who play right into the hands of those in power. Only Jon Stewart grabbed my undivided attention when he pointed out the take-away line about Bush warning us to be vigilant about preventing doctors from doing interspecies cloning. (Now that warrants wall-to-wall prime-time coverage.)

I doubt it's a coincidence that this is the week that the Muslim world is up in arms over culturally insensitive cartoons published first in Denmark and then reprinted in media from every xenophobic country in Europe. You can tell who welcomes dark-skinned folks and who shuns them by the news that filters in on the margins. Basically, all of Europe (and much of the U.S.) is anti-Muslim, anti-black, anti-brown, anti-anyone not "one of us", whoever "us" is defined as.

Before the speech, CAIR urged Bush to avoid loaded terms in his address, terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' 'militant jihadism,' 'Islamic radicalism,' or 'totalitarian Islamic Empire' I've yet to read the address in its entirety, but I heard all of these terms on the back end from those who carry the water (and drink the kool-aid) for the administration. Just as Rumsfield was so eager at one point to rename "The War on Terror" the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism", semantics do matter. Whether or not these terms were used, anything which confuses 9/11 with Iraq, Usama bin Laden with Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, and Hamas with international terror is not accidental. And as Knight Ridder reported, on Wednesday, one day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic advisor said that the president didn't mean it literally.

It is also no coincidence that this is the week in which we've pushed the Iranians' buttons to the point where they're ready to throw out the inspectors. Or that, surprise of suprises, White House e-mails covering the period around the outing of Valerie Plame have gone missing from the government's computer archives (as in "the dog ate their homework.") Or that, as Juan Cole points out, 120 Bulgarian troops have been stationed at an airforce base in Iraq to guard 4000 members of an Iranian dissident terrorist cult which has been instrumental in manufacturing stories about Iran's desires for nuclear weapons.

Or that (and this part is really frightening) Business Wire has published that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton, an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year base period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. (More jobs for Texas.) KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The contract may also provide immigrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts. (Has no one asked where they were after Hurricane Katrina? It's only paranoia if they're not watching you ... I can't imagine a scenario in which the U.S. would have to house enough illegal immigrants to warrant a $385 million facility. But I can imagine such a facility housing American dissidents...)

Doesn't any of this sound at all familiar? Were we not in this same place three years ago with the infamous 16 words? Or are we all, as a nation, too wrapped up in Superbowl Sunday and the 5-second delay which ABC has put in place so that our poor, innocent children will not be subjected to a horrific repeat of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction by the Rolling Stones during the half-time show...

Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything

Reading Elizabeth de la Vega's January 18th piece at www.TomDispatch.com gives me hope that my own theories are not as crazy as some may think. If Congress, Justice and the Courts can let GWB get away with his "Unitary Executive Theory of the Presidency," I should be able to get away with what my friend T. calls "Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything."

Granny Franny's Theory is still a work in progress but basically it involves connecting the dots -- all the dots, everywhere. I began to connect the dots in late-2000 when the Supremes handed GWB the presidency, continued through 9/11 and its aftermath when my phone line would automatically begin dialing in the middle of the night and I would hear my computer or fax machine make the noise that we used to call "shaking hands", when long-distance calls to friends would suddenly be interrupted or begin to echo on only one side of the line, when mail arrived late (or opened by accident), when I had to sign HEPA forms to get my oxygen, my prescriptions, see my doctor or dentist but no one had actually read the forms which were being signed, especially the part about the government being able to access one's medical records in case of (undefined) national emergency (it's only paranoia if no one is actually watching you!!).

More dots evolved as the Mission was Accomplished in Iraq and the war against a few dead-enders escalated to the point where the insurgency was "in its last throes", when "the L word" began to mean Liberal and "the P word" Progressive, when comparing someone to Michael Moore became an insult rather than a compliment, when Terry Schiavo was pronounced medically viable by the Senate and the President, when Cindy Sheehan became "anti-American", when athletes on steroids and gang activity warranted mention in State of the Union addresses, but the Downing Street Memo didn't warrant the same concern, when Abu Ghraib fell off the radar and no one in the media seemed concerned that any one of the many hurricanes heading toward the U.S. were projected to pass right through Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when free elections in Iran, Palestine, South American and the Caribbean were called into question even as our own 2004 election passed muster (though votes were still uncounted in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico) and "Brownie" was doing a "heck of a job" for FEMA -- well, the dots began to form a pattern. (Whew! That was one heck of a run-on sentence!)

As we enter the sixth year of the Orwellian world of the propaganda and disinformation machine variously called "The Media" or "The Administration", I continue to connect the dots. If I ever get all the dots connected and "Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything" is published, it will come with a free yellow bumper sticker which will read "Semantics Matter."

I have a dream

If The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive today, could he, would he make a speech beginning with the words: "I have a dream." Or would he revisit his speech of four decades past and say, "I had a dream ... and it is unfulfilled." I still have trouble listening to the speech in its entirety because every year I start sobbing part way through and then have to turn away in shame and embarrassment because we have failed King so terribly, so completely. And each year it is only worse.

I wonder what King would make of Guantanamo, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, talk of crusades and waterboarding, unfettered presidential or executive power, the wretched masses left behind by FEMA in New Orleans, the uninsured and underemployed, the idea of school vouchers and no child left untested, the disenfranchisement of black voters in Ohio and Florida, the redistricting of Texas, the various scandals and inquests and investigations and the notion that high crimes and misdemeanors can be used for sexual misconduct but ignored for graft and corruption and abuse of power and people. (That's one hell of a run-on sentence but this is, after all, a blog.)

If I knew more young people I might be more optimistic. My grandchildren seem upbeat; by children less so. Is this pessimism a byproduct of age or has our age become so bad that one can't help but be pessimistic.

I'm not framing these thoughts as questions because I expect no answers. But, the pacifism of King and Gandhi and Nelson Mandela aside, I sure would like to see heads roll.

Schadenfreude

I'm a horrible person. All my good intentions and resolutions for the new year -- down the drain. Heard the "news" about Jack Abramoff pleading guilty to felony charges in exchange for testimony against his friends on The Hill and my face lit up like a Jack-o-Lantern. (Never mind that the Abramoff story was two and a half years in the making ((www.sourcewatch.org)) and that commentators and Washington insiders claimed to be "shocked, just shocked I tell you.")

Add the Abramoff story to the NSA/FISA scandal, the ongoing CIA leak investigation, the unresolved Downing Street Memo/Impeachment hearings and a dozen other open questions making their way through the halls of Congress and the White House, and I'm experiencing extreme Schadenfreude.

It's not the war in Iraq, Osama bin Laden or our dwindling status on the world stage that will bring down the Bush Administration and the GOP; it'll be domestic issues like bribery, incompetence, cronyism, FEMA, the rigged Medicare drug plan with its nonexistent savings and Washington's infamous revolving door.

My friends may get their Schadenfreude fix by watching sitcoms or reality TV or American Idol; I watch Washington. As I said, I'm a horrible person.