agitprop version 2.0

American Jihad?

The recent re-branding of the War on Terror Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism is further proof of what Tariq Ali calls The Clash of Fundamentalisms--the concept that the conflict between the U.S. and Islamic terrorists is a clash of fundamentalist ideologies. The intermingling of U.S. imperialism and Christian fundamentalism is currently duking it out against Islamic fundamentalism.

Immediately following the 9/11 attacks President Bush warned of a coming "crusade" against terrorists. We would be hunting down "evildoers" who had attacked God America. Ever since 9/11, religious rhetoric and symbolism have played a large role in defining military conflict.

Jim McKay points out that "struggle" is in fact the meaning of the word jihad. He also notes that "struggle" in German translates to kampf, as in Mein Kampf  by Adolf Hitler. These translations are rather unsettling. Bush and company should have consulted my readers' advice first before going ahead and changing established war nomenclature.

The War on Terror Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism: George W. Bush's kampf to re-subjugate unholy brown people!

Goons of Hazzard

Brainless pop bimbo Jessica Simpson and ex-boy band husband Nick Lachey appear to have woken up to the true horrors of the Iraq War:

The pop singers-turned-reality TV couple traveled to the war-torn nation to visit U.S. troops as part of a recent ABC-TV variety special, and Contactmusic.com reports that they were both left shellshocked by what they saw. But all the controversial moments and harrowing footage of the trip didn't appear in the fun-filled TV show.

"It was unbelievable," Simpson says. "They didn't show a lot of what really went on with the enemy attacks and the shelling. There was so much stuff that went on, and somehow the tapes got mysteriously misplaced. It put everything in perspective for me. It really did teach me the definition of sacrifice. I can't even fathom being out there right now. I was ready to come home."

I love the smell of censorship in the afternoon. If ABC prevented the raw, truth-telling footage from being shown on their network, I wonder how tightly the Pentagon controls the channels of information coming out of Iraq. Can we trust the official new releases from the military? Not when Baghdad Bob gives anonymous quotes to the Pentagon for official release:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon will investigate the use of a quote from an anonymous Iraqi that was issued almost unaltered in a second news release referring to a separate incident, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The investigation will attempt to determine whether the quote was accurate in the first place and whether the military needs to change its procedures and take disciplinary action, said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita.

In light of the censorship, propaganda and misinformation spilling out of our government at a rate of five turdblossoms per second, I have formed The Agitprop Information Awareness Office. Take a look at the right sidebar for some new RSS/live news feeds.

Technorati: dukes of hazzard jessica simpson iraq politics war freedom pentagon propaganda

Operation Nuke The Mullahs

Last week I pointed to an article in The American Conservative of all places which stated that Vice President Dick Cheney has ordered the Pentagon to draft a plan to attack Iran with nuclear weapons in response to another 9/11-style terrorist attack. The article, by Philip Giraldi, is now available here on their website.

Juan Cole notes that the NeoCons in the White House and Pentagon thought they could use Iraq as a spring board to attack Iran. Taking a look at their grand strategy it appears that Iran, not Iraq, was their prized possession all along. However, this strategy has been somewhat foiled since Iraq's government is now dominated by Shi'ites which are friendly with Iran's Islamic Shi'ite theocratic regime. Thus, is war with Iran still a possibility? Scott Ritter has argued that the war against Iran has already begun with CIA-sponsored covert missions.

At Counterpunch, Gary Leupp responds to Giraldi's claims about Cheney's plans to nuke Iran asking:

Can it get madder than this? The neocons' plans for a total reorganization of the "Greater Middle East" have been plain for some time now. Many have been warning against the prospect of an expansion of the Iraq War into Syria and Iran. You'd think that reality would smack these guys in the face and they'd call off anything so stupid. But they apparently think that by using conventional and nuclear weapons (first time any nation will do that since Nagasaki); by employing the Mujahadeen Khalq; by activating agents in place to organize demonstrations (as the CIA did so successfully in Iraq in 1953); by attacking from Azerbaijan they can actually pull this off. Do they even realize that southern Iraq and Iran constitute the heartland of historical Shiism, and that an attack on Iran will negate any goodwill among Shiites U.S. forces have acquired in Iraq?

Leupp hopes that the Air Force would resist or at least question such an insane plan as a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran. He offers the following rhetorical questions:

What do they mean by "another 9-11"? Could any, even small-time terrorist act in the U.S. (say, killing 52 in the Boston subway) be the signal for us to start bombing Iran?

Does the Vice President's office anticipate this second 9-11 sometime soon?

What does Vice President Cheney know that we don't? Does he have access to intelligence which predicts an Iranian-sponsored attack on the United States? I urge you to consider these candidly truthful words Mr. Cheney uttered last year on the campaign trail:

"It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."

I think it's clear that we made the wrong choice on November 2.   

Technorati:  dick cheney iran iraq politics war freedom

Fitter Happier More Productive

I admit that I've slacked off lately when it comes to doing a proper Thursday Review. But today, Thor is back in action, here to bring you a variety of links with a random post-title to boot. Does anyone know where this post-title comes from (without using Google)?

No Wonder Popular Music Sucks

Because big corporations tell radio stations what to play! New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has gone after Sony BMG Music Entertainment for bribing radio stations to play their artists on the radio. Spitzer called the practice “pervasive” in the industry and suggested other music industry giants could face similar penalties. How bad is the payola? The LA Times reports that Sony offered a radio station program director a 32-inch plasma TV in exchange for adding Jennifer Lopez songs to the station's play-list. Please do good music a favor, listen to indie radio and buy your CD's at an independent music store. 

DLC: Democratic Losers Council

Some Democrats are already looking forward to losing the 2006 midterms and the 2008 presidential election. With Hillary Clinton as their new coach, the DLC laid out its liberal agenda at its annual summer meeting which includes: increased defense spending, free trade economic policies and family values rhetoric. If you can't beat the Republicans you might as well join them, right? John @ Blogenlust has jumped in on the action and is selling "The DLC: Where Republican Talking Points Go To Die" apparel.

Republicans Heart Terrorists

Next to Osama Bin Laden, Luis Posada Carriles must be the Republican party's favorite terrorist. Posada is accused of carrying out the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane which killed 73 people including the entire Cuban Olympic fencing team. Like Bin Laden, Posada was also on the CIA payroll, which is why the U.S. wants to protect him and not allow him to be extradited to Venezuela for prosecution. Posada is also the suspect for an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro in 1998 when he was attending a Latin American summit as well as the 1997 hotel bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist. 

Move Over Karen Hughes

Latin-pop sensation Ricky Martin has announced that he will try to change negative perceptions of Arab youth in the West through the work of his foundation. He's been out of the limelight for several years spending his time in India practicing meditation and working as a United Nations Children's Fund goodwill ambassador. Martin commented: "My role is entirely humanitarian, and I will continue to promote the elimination of stereotyping anyone--be they from Latin America, the Middle East, or anywhere across the globe". I commend his noble work. I'm just sorry that his songs were butchered by this clown who's droning still echoes in my ears every once in a while.

They Hate Us For Our Freedom Fries?

Michael Smerconish has a good post titled Why Do They Hate Us? up on the Huffington Post. He discusses Michael Scheuer's book Imperial Hubris and tackles some strategies for winning the War on Terror Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Scheuer's main thesis is that the West has been treating this conflict as a chance to build empire as opposed to a mission dedicated to eliminating terrorists. Scheuer argues that the United States must get tougher and in his words annihilate "most of this first generation of Islamists". Sounds harsh eh? I seem to think that the more of them we kill, the more pop up in their place.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The BBC reports that Japanese scientists have created a female human-looking robot android called Repliee Q1. I didn't know that the Laura2005 was available in a Japanese version yet. Now the Japanese can satisfy their odd sexual fantasies by including robots in their bukkake orgies.

Today in History

1794 - The Reign of Terror ends in France when Maximilien Robespierre is guillotined in front of a cheering crowd. What goes around comes around . . .

1914 - World War I begins when Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Serbia failed to meet the conditions of Austria-Hungary's ultimatum on July 23 following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian assassin. This war of imperial powers took the lives of 8.5 million people.

1932 - President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army to forcibly evict the Bonus Army of World War I veterans gathered in front of the White House. They gathered to demand their bonuses that they were promised for fighting in WWI. Have Republican presidents ever really supported the troops? Maybe Iraq War vets should march on Dubya's lawn and we'll see if Barney and Miss Beasley are sent out as mediators.

1998 - Monica Lewinsky receives transactional immunity in exchange for her grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with President Bill Clinton.

That said, I will leave you with this quote from Randi Rhodes, who spoke at last weekend's Downing Street Memo gathering in NYC. It tends to put things in perspective (this is paraphrased from what I heard on the air yesterday):

Clinton had sex, was impeached, put on trial and was acquitted. Bush is f*king the world and getting away with it!

Life goes on, I guess.

Stephanie Klein cafta space shuttle discovery politics karl rove freedom

Rummy Goes To Iraq (Again)

                      

22 years later: same American guy, different Iraqi puppet. Hopefully this puppet won't turn on the United States like the last one did.      

technorati:  Iraq

Forgotten Places

      

The mainstream media (MSM) creates and defines our reality. If we see a story on TV, then it must be real and it must be important.  The media pundits and talking heads will debate these stories thus elevating them to prominence within our national discourse. But what about the stories that don't make it to television or print media? Many stories are forgotten simply because the media chooses not to cover them. In their failure to cover such stories, thousands of lives are thrown into the dustbin of history while media monopolies profit from their info-tainment programming.

In Nicholas Kristof's column All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt, he lambastes the media (including his own "liberal" New York Times) for failing to give any attention to the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan:

If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.

The BBC has shown that outstanding television coverage of Darfur is possible. And, incredibly, mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at universities) has covered Darfur more seriously than any network or cable station. When MTV dispatches a crew to cover genocide and NBC doesn't, then we in journalism need to hang our heads.

So while we have every right to criticize Mr. Bush for his passivity, I hope that he criticizes us back. We've behaved as disgracefully as he has.

So far in 2005, the stories that have received 24-hour MSM coverage have included a dying brain-dead woman, a living brain-dead woman, an exonerated child molestor, and the dying and death of a Polish hero. If the media is so "liberal" as most conservatives claim, then why doesn't the media focus more on widespread issues of human rights and human suffering--typical points of liberal fascination--rather than sensational tales of personal drama?

I think our culture has a strong strain of sadism. The media covers stories about sensational violence which serve as pure entertainment value. Here in Southern California the local news will devote hours on end to police car chases that end in bloody shoot-outs. But when it comes to real violence in the world that humans could stop or prevent, the media and the public tend to look the other way. The media monopolies choose to either promote violence (cheerleading for the Iraq War) or simply ignore it (Darfur genocide, chaos in Haiti, oppression in Burma, etc).

In Darfur, about 400,000 black Sudanese have been systematically killed by government-sanctioned Arab "Janjaweed" militias. The complacency of both the media and the public is to blame. The United States declared the crimes in Darfur as genocide last year but has done little to stop the killing. The U.N. has done even less.  Have we not learned from the lessons of Rwanda? Bill Clinton just publicly apologized for failing to intervene to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide. At the time he was probably too busy trying to grope interns or stop Newt Gingrich from taking over the Congress.

Links about other Forgotten Places:

• Truth Out:  UN Sees East Congo as Worse Crisis Than Darfur
• Amnesty International:  Crisis In Haiti
• The Heretik:  Dog Days (Haiti)
• Freiheit und Wissen:  Free Haiti - A Month of Tragedy
• Darfur: A Genocide We Can Stop
• Save Darfur
• The Burma Campaign

technorati: Darfur  Sudan  Haiti

AGITPROP IN 3D!

As you may have noticed, I have been changing things around on the page for the past few days. I have a new page header. I also added a comment policy (thank you Vaughn) and a photo of yours truly on the About Page. There might be a few more enhancements in the near future so stay tuned.

                               

George Tenet, Boy Genius: I stuck the WMD up my butt. It sure felt like a slam dunk!   

War on Terror Renamed

Last August, during the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign, President Bush struggled to re-define the War on Terror with the following statement: (video available @ onegoodmove)

We've actually misnamed the War On Terror it ought to be the the the s-s-struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon, to try to shape the conscience of the free world.

Today The NY Times is reporting that the Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Bush's slogan above is a little too lengthy to catch on with the American public. Rumsfeld is currently describing this conflict as America's battle against the enemies of freedom and the enemies of civilization.

Maybe what they need are some hip Madison Avenue executives who can help sell the war properly. It could be cool and sexy, or just brutally honest. How about Operation White Man's Burden or War Against Imperial Subjects?

I invite you readers to offer up suggestions for what to name Bu$hCo's post-9/11 quagmire era . . .

Other Agitprop posts on the hypocrisy of the War on Terror Terra: [Semantics & The War on Terror]  [The Bogeymen Cometh, A Conspiratorial Rant]  [Friendly Evildoers]  [In Memoriam: Life and Truth]

politics war on terror war-on-terror

Bald = Power = Sex Appeal?

I find an odd similarity between Ghost Face Killa, Moderate RINO Arlen and Kojak.

I guess you could add Dr. Evil to that list as well.

John Roberts & The Federalist Society

The Washington Post reports that although Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name does in fact appears in the organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory.

Having served only two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after a long career as a government and private-sector lawyer, Roberts has not amassed much of a public paper record that would show his judicial philosophy. Working with the Federalist Society would provide some clue of his sympathies. The organization keeps its membership rolls secret, but many key policymakers in the Bush administration are acknowledged current or former members . . . Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Roberts "has no recollection of being a member of the Federalist Society, or its steering committee." Roberts has acknowledged taking part in some Federalist Society activities, Perino said. The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by conservatives who disagreed with what they saw as a leftist tilt in the nation's law schools. The group sponsors legal symposia and similar activities and serves as a network for rising conservative lawyers.

How does one have no memory of belonging to an organization as influential and elitist as The Federalist Society? I admit that this story is less titillating than a pubic hair on a coke can, but it sounds like lying to me. I personally remember being a member of the Cub Scouts over eighteen years ago. Why can't Roberts remember his membership in The Federalist Society only seven or eight years ago? Either Roberts is hiding his membership in order to deceive the American people or he is a chronic pot-smoker who's memory has been virtually erased from decades of toking. I would venture to guess that it's the former reason.

Although The Federalist Society states that their goals are to combat the plague of liberalism affecting American with conservative-libertarian jurisprudence, their ultimate goal is a return to 19th century America ripe with capitalist robber barons and non-existent labor unions. Their Board of Visitors includes Robert Bork and Orrin Hatch as co-chairmen. Their recommended reading list for pre-law students features Milton Friedman for economics, Irving Kristol and Thomas Sowell for neoconservative ideology, and Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork for constitutional law and political theory. I certainly can't pass up that reading list . . .

            

             

john roberts