I'm busy writing three posts which will come before this one, but I'm also working on something for class, as well as cleaning out a link folder that had become unmanagable. So... this is one of those "collection of stale links" posts whereby I collect all the crap previously unfit to print and expect you to read it. Yeah. Because I'm sadistic like that.
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When you're sick of the Huge Lie, first uttered by Dear Leader and then endlessly circulated by his Cult, that holds that "They Hate Us For Our Freedom", read this piece in the NY Review. Or don't, because denial makes it easier to slag people like Ward Churchill, the late Susan Sontag, and that Anti-Christ Noam Chomsky for having a stronger explanation than Dear Leader's, or his Cult's, for the resentment the "other" feels for US.
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Arthur C. Clarke from Sri Lanka. One of the links I'd meant to post during my hiatus. I'm glad Ebert took the time to post it after the tsunamis.
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I'd like to read this book. I hadn't known that the FBI spied on anthropologists, but should have assumed it. The feds were capable of anything, after all -- they used to send Dr King messages urging him to commit suicide. Of course the rightwing (well, aside mAnn Coulter) which always loves this sort of authoritarianism has long since stopped trying to openly defend its practice in the past, and instead settle on a "blame it all on poor misguided Hoover" stance. But fuck them. Haha, wingnuts, charade you are! They loved it then and they love it now, which is why they embraced Ashcroft, were thrilled with "TIPS", and some even advocate(d) concentration camps; and even the technocrat liberals joined them in calling for "intelligence reform", which was ostensibly to avoid miscommunication between agencies, but in practice has made it where the agencies are but one behemoth. With an aim, I believe, that agencies like the CIA, DIA and NSA can now spy on American citizens, too, right along with the FBI, where formerly -- even in the bad old days of Hoover -- they were rightly forbidden to do so.
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Who needs the Koufax awards? Norbizness has done far better for himself. Well, not really, but it's funny. Recommended for baseball fans.
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I heartily recommend the Private Sector Imperialism series at Hobson's Choice.
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A Regime Change I can endorse: a garden-variety wingnut's blog is hijacked by two libruls.
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Ah, finally he has permalinks! The Analogy to End All Analogies. Parody or not, it's hilarious either way -- and the same could be said for the whole blog. Anyway, I'm proud to be one of the "Good People Right About The Iraq War Being Wrong" which is a far better fate indeed than being one of the "Bad People Wrong About The Iraq War Being Right".
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Ahhhh. PusBoy notices that there hasn't been any terror warnings since the election. I think he's right, and am pissed, then, that I hadn't noticed it. But then everyone sentient knew they were a political ploy all through last summer and fall.
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Mea Culpa. This is all my fault; I'm a homewrecker; I'm sorry. And I'm the real Daddy.
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In addition to the links collected in a previous post on John "Death Squad" Negroponte, there's this, this, this, and this.
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The King of all Bad Memories. I had to leave a comment.
And this was the soundtrack:
Someone's taking over
And it look like they're aiming
Right at you
Someone said we'll be dead by morning
Someone cries leaving
Red skies at night
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"Outrageous and reprehensible"? Pbbbt. Fuck off.
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The New York Times as horny ex-boyfriend. I told you she was good at bloggin'.
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Sad story. Imperialist looting; a familiar story, too. I wonder how many of the missing treasures from the Iraqi museum wound up in private collections, and not necessarily via some Iraqi peasant's hands. Good luck to the Ethiopians, though. I hope it doesn't take them as long as it's taken (taking) the Greeks to get back the Elgin Marbles from Her Majesty's government.
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The fallout of Friedmanism in Chile. In the original Times story, though, it's mentioned that
The main architect of the Chilean system is José Piñera, who was labor and social security minister from 1978 to 1980 during the Pinochet dictatorship. Mr. Piñera is now chairman of the International Center for Pension Reform, co-chairman of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice, and he has been a board member of several Chilean corporations.
Well, well, well. So CATO employs one of Pinochet's goons; since he's a Friedmanite, apparently, it's okay to CATO to employ a former member of a thoroughly fascist government. I used to think of CATO as one of the better libertarian organisations (though that is damning with very faint praise), but lately I'm thinking it might as well throw in with Dr Peikoff and all the other apeshit nutbars of that persuasion.
Frankly, there are two ways to take Atrios's observation by which he sets up a hell of a false dichotomy. On the one hand, it's probably just latent Economics Professor bullshit from Professor Black's technocrat days; on the other, if the pensions were being systematically pilfered pre-Pinochet (which I doubt), it was hardly unheard of in any South American government of those days, and probably no worse, hence hardly a gun-to-the-head scenario.
For a real assessment of Chicago School BS in Chile, read this.
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What a set-up.
Late on 25 February Zakhidov and Akhmedov left the editorial office to go home but found that Ismailov?s men had been waiting for them outside. They put them in their car. "First we were told that we had a few issues to clear. Then we were taken to Tri Palmy restaurant and policemen brought in two girls," said Zakhidov. The editor said that physical force was used against him and he was undressed. Then he and Akhmedov were photographed naked with the girls. After this, Zakhidov states, they were beaten again during 15-20 minutes and taken to the police. "There it was suggested that we signed the account of the incident written by the investigator warning us that it would get worse if we refused. Then the events in question took place," said Zakhidov.
A Nixon-worthy or even Rove-worthy dirty trick for sure. Incidentally, Azerbaijan is one of those faux-democracies that Dear Leader Who Loves Freedom wholeheartedly supports.
Anyway, the story reminds me of the one Gore Vidal often mentions of his grandfather, the blind Senator T. P. Gore of Oklahoma, who was set up in a similar fashion: he was asked to meet with a constituent at a hotel lobby (not uncommon in the turn of the century, especially for Populists), the constituent turned out to be a lady hired by political enemies to lure Gore upstairs and yell, "rape". It almost worked.
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More to come as I find them.
posted by RETARDO MONTALBAN @ 6:41 PM
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