The Distant Ocean

Moore's Rebellion

I've been trying to give Michael Moore the benefit of the doubt about his appearances at Occupy Wall Street even though it went against my better judgment (since I'm well and truly tired of watching him try to position himself at the front of every movement).  Maybe he just wanted to help by bringing out more media coverage with no thought for his own ego, right?  C'mon, it was at least theoretically possible.

Then on last night's local newscast I saw him say this after speaking at Occupy Oakland: "I made the movie. It was called 'Capitalism: A Love Story' and I called for this rebellion. And I'm just thrilled."

Good grief.  Even when he's trying to help, Moore can't help but try to make it all about him.

I PRESUME: And furthermore:

[Moore] said the movement has already had "a number of victories in our first six weeks," saying, "We've killed despair across the country and we’ve killed apathy."

Not to be a grammar nazi, but I have this rather strong conviction that people who haven't spent a good portion of those weeks freezing their asses off in a tent or risking brain damage in a police riot should think twice before cavalierly tossing out pronoun forms like "our" and "we" around people who have.

(Yeah, sure, "we are the 99%"—but inclusive slogans don't change the fact that it's just .00099% of us out there right now making the sacrifices and taking the risks.)

And he eats adorable infants like popcorn, too

I don't have much to add to this and I don't even think it's one of Ran HaCohen's best, but I'm always happy to endorse any article that associates Elliott Abrams and Hitler.

(HaCohen was right, by the way; guess what the top Google hit is now for "Abrams Hitler"?)

Like schoolgirls critically supported Elvis

Ha ha ha!

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you both supported President Obama.

CORNEL WEST: It was critical support, I think, we both had—

MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

Here's Michael "yeah, yeah" Moore offering his critical support of Obama on inauguration day, my friends:

We have made it through the Dark Ages and here we are, in one of the most redemptive moments history has ever witnessed. Barack Obama is our best hope to get it right, to heal our national soul, to reach out to the rest of the world with an olive branch instead of shocking brutality. [...] It has been a heartbreaking time. But the sun comes out at noon today. [...] We are fortunate to have a new president who is smart and kind and committed to serving his country.

And just a few months later he declared his intention to "await the President's next superhero move"—though I suppose you could make the argument that that's closer to qualifying as critical support than "one of the most redemptive moments history has ever witnessed", in about the same sense your golden retriever might be considered more critically supportive of you at one year old than he was as a puppy.

Who says you can't change the past?

"Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized"

It's a well-known fact that people these days are flush with cash.  If you're in a quandary about what to do with your own surplus fortune, why not give some of it to Wikileaks?

Announcing a "temporary suspension" of the whistleblowing website's publishing activities, Assange said the site had been deprived of 95% of its revenue by the "dangerous, oppressive and undemocratic" blockade, and now needed to direct its energy purely into "aggressive fundraising" to fight for the organisation's survival.

"This financial blockade is an existential threat to WikiLeaks. If the blockade is not borne down by the end of the year the organisation cannot continue its work," Assange told a news conference in central London.

Look at it this way: it's better than blowing it on prostitutes.

Miscellania

I greatly approve of the "other" in this headline from Democracy Now!:

New figures show President Obama continues to pull in huge donations from the financial sector, with more money from Wall Street this year than all other Republican presidential candidates combined.

Not sure if this was intentional, but I'll take it anyway.

Also: you might hazily recall that just last week the very existence of the United States was threatened by a dastardly scheme cooked up by Iran to employ rum-running Jamaican voodoo priests to pilot exploding narwhals into our precious bodily fluids, if I understood it correctly and I'm pretty sure I did.  One of the best headlines I saw about this dread existential threat came from Tony Karon, and went a little like this:

"Obama's Iran Dilemma: How to Respond to a Plot Seemingly Designed to Provoke Escalation?"

You can just imagine the 1939 version of Tony Karon responding to the Gleiwitz incident with the plaintive question, "Hitler's Poland Dilemma: How to Repond to a Plot Seemingly Designed to Provoke Escalation?"

And finally: congratulations to our teen-killin', dictator-bombin' Nobel laureate for bringing us a few more corpses closer to world peace.

(Was my omission of those g's inherently racist?  Empty minds want to know.)

The awesome media power of blogs

The Christian Science Monitor asks if Ron Paul is really still being ignored by the media and concludes that no, he is not.  Why not?  Well, first because surveys showing that he's not getting much attention are looking at a mere 52 different news outlets from newspapers, cable news, broadcast television, the 12 most popular news websites in the country, and radio news—apparently an inadequate measure of mainstream media attention in CSM's view.  But the second reason is the one that caught my attention:

Of all GOP candidates, Paul gets the most positive coverage on blogs. Some 48 percent of conversation about him on the Internet tubes is positive, according to Pew’s analysis. Only 15 percent is negative, with 38 percent neutral. No other White House wannabe comes close in terms of good blog tone.

It’s true that Paul is only the fifth-most-discussed candidate on the Internet. But that’s where the core of his support – and his coverage – lies.

(Note that CSM admits that Paul only gets the fifth-highest level of discussion overall even in the murky waters of the blogosphere—but they nonetheless dismiss the Paul-is-being-ignored notion based on the fact that a higher proportion of that smaller amount of discussion was positive.  I wonder what they'd make of my 100% approval rating among writers of this blog?)

Yeah.  See, as overjoyed as I'd be if the things I choose to expatiate upon here actually were responsible for setting the national policy agenda, I suspect they don't carry quite as much weight as the front page of the New York Times.

Inspiration on strike

But may return at any time.  If it does, you'll be the first to know.

Investment in the future

Item:

For the second year in a row, U.S. President Barack Obama has waived a Congressionally-mandated ban on military aid for four countries that use child soldiers.

The four countries that will continue to receive military assistance despite the use of child soldiers in their armed forces include Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yemen and the newly independent nation of South Sudan, according to a memo released by the White House late Tuesday.

All four, which are slated to receive a total of more than 200 million dollars in military aid in 2012, were given waivers by the administration last year, as well.

I have to say that the heat Obama's taken over this is a perfect example of knee-jerk leftist posturing.  Don't these "critics" understand how much more it costs to train a child than it does to train an adult?  Not to mention the expense of new uniforms every few years.  Think, people.

Dark anniversary

Malalai Joya is always worth listening to, and especially so as she looks back on ten years of U.S. killing and destruction in Afghanistan.  On Obama:

During these bloody years, tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed by occupation forces and terrorist groups. When Barack Obama took office in 2008, unfortunately his first news for my people was more conflict and more war. It was during Obama’s administration that civilian death tolls increased by 24%. And the result of the surge of troops of Obama’s administration is more massacres, more crimes, violence, destruction, pain, and tragedy. That’s why he has proved himself as a warmonger — as second even more dangerous Bush.

On Afghanistan:

I believe that the only solution for the catastrophic situation of Afghanistan is withdrawal of ALL of the troops of our country because their presence is making much harder our struggle for justice and peace. By empowering the reactionary dark minded terrorist groups who are great obstacles for true democratic minded elements. If honestly they leave Afghanistan , the backbone of fundamentalist warlords in Taliban will break.

And on what she wants from all of us:

So now I would like to ask all peace-loving, justice-seekers, anti-war movements and democratic-minded intellectuals, individuals around the world to join their hands with democratic-minded people of our country who are able to fight against fundamentalism and occupation. Therefore, my message to you is please empower my people educationally, as I believe education is a key against ignorance and toward emancipation.

One of the things I've always appreciated about Joya is how she connects the fight against foreign occupation by the U.S. with the fight against domestic occupation by the fundamentalist yahoos who still hold sway in Afghanistan and the broader region (and who are only strengthened, as she points out, by ongoing U.S. violence).  There aren't many people who'd get my vote for emperor of the world, but she's one of them.

Read the rest.

The sting of plagiarism

Apparently I forgot to copyright my point about the oddly incongruous reaction of Michael Moore (et al) to evil Georgia's killing vs. saintly Obama's killing, and now Glenn Greenwald is shamelessly swiping it:

Remember, Good Democrats hate the death penalty because they think it’s so terribly barbaric to execute people whose guilt is in doubt (even if, unlike Awlaki, they’ve enjoyed an indictment and full jury trial, lawyers, the right to examine evidence and to confront witnesses, multiple appeals, and habeas petitions).

You'll be hearing from my lawyers, Glenn.

Seriously: there comes a point in a liberal Democrat's political existence where they're given an umbiguous choice between either a) staying true to their values or b) powering through the cognitive dissonance and embracing party loyalty—and the Awlaki hit truly is the distilled essence of one of these moments, coming as it does after eight years of shrill Democratic denunciations of Bush's disregard for civil rights, due process, the rule of law, etc.  It's just this simple: anyone who attacked Bush over Guantanamo, renditions, military tribunals and the rest but who rationalizes away Obama's assassination of Awlaki is nothing more than an empty partisan shell.  And quite possibly a skunk-raper too.  But definitely an empty partisan shell.

STUNG AGAIN: Mr. Greenwald today:

[S]elf-identified progressive Democrats — who a few years ago were shrilly objecting to Bush’s mere attempt to eavesdrop on or detain Americans without due process — now running around defending the President’s power to target American citizens for assassination...

"Shrilly"?  Yes, I see.  Think the judge is going to believe that was just a coincidence too, Glenn?

Susan Rice harshly critical of Susan Rice

Susan Rice confesses the Obama administration's shame to the world:

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said they had carried out a "cheap ruse" because they would "rather sell arms" to a "regime of thugs" than protect peaceful demonstrators.

Clearly in reference to this:

The Obama administration has announced plans to sell $53 million worth of military equipment to Bahrain just months after the Gulf state brutally cracked down on Shiite protesters. The proposed sale includes bunker buster missiles, armored vehicles and wire-guided missiles. Maria McFarland of Human Rights Watch criticized the arms deal. McFarland said, "This is exactly the wrong move after Bahrain brutally suppressed protests and is carrying out a relentless campaign of retribution against its critics."

We'll see if she'll end up resigning over her anguished realization that she's part of an administration that would "rather sell arms" to a "regime of thugs" than protect peaceful demonstrators, but either way, I'm sure her moral clarity and consistency are an inspiration to us all.

RICE ON RICE, CONT'D: Here's more from our outraged diplomat:

"And during this season of change, the people of the Middle East can now see clearly which nations have chosen to ignore their calls for democracy and instead prop up desperate, cruel dictators."

Why yes, Susan, I imagine they can.

Insane Iranian makes absurd suggestion

Iran's defense minister Ahmad Vahidi responds to Admiral Mike Mullen's notion of setting up a "hotline" between Iran and the U.S.:

“We do not need such a line in the region,” General Vahidi said, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency. “They are seeking to set up a hotline in order to solve any potential tensions, whereas we believe if they leave the region, there will be no tension.”

Clearly our enemies are too irrational to be reasoned with.

ALSO: The same New York Times article begins by noting that "Iran announced the mass production of a new cruise missile on Wednesday, the latest in a series of belligerent-sounding proclamations from that country"—which would no doubt inspire Krazy Vahidi to ask if announcements of new weapons systems by the United States are also considered "belligerent-sounding".  Ha ha ha!  Fortunately, the Times understands that the mere fact of whether or not a country regularly uses its weapon systems to kill people around the world gives us no information one way or the other about its level of belligerence.

It was really a very small beaver

Point:

"Everyone's saying we hate beavers, but this is not about liking beavers or not liking beavers," said public works director Dave Scola, a third-generation Martinez native who ordered the beaver's removal. "We went through a lengthy planning process, and never once did anyone ask for a beaver. Not one person said, 'Hey, I have an idea, let's put a beaver in there.' "

Counterpoint:

"I feel they do not respect me," said artist and Martinez resident Mario Alfaro, whose colorful homage is on Main Street near Estudillo Street. "Every day, people ask me, 'Where is the beaver?' So I want to please the people and I put in a beaver. It was really a very small beaver. But the city did not want it."

I only hope some day I'm fortunate enough to find myself in a situation where I can assert, forcefully and in a rodentially appropriate context, "this is not about liking beavers or not liking beavers."  Or, "it was really a very small beaver."  Or, "let's put a beaver in there."  Or, "every day, people ask me, 'Where is the beaver?'"  I'm not picky about this, universe.  Just give me this chance!

P.S.: Since you ask, why, no, this is not my first trip into large rodent territory.