20090303

GOPgle - Don't Be Evil

A few quotes of the week :

Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity on FOXnews about Barack Obama : "So I shamelessly say, no, I want him to fail".
Michael Steele to CNN about that bout : "Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment. (...) Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly."
Michael Steele to Politico.com a little later : "My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. (...) I was maybe a little bit inarticulate".

Well, you WERE articulate, Mike.

And you were RIGHT :

- First, Limbaugh IS an entertainer. In the same interview, he managed to smack this pearl of wisdom well over the fence : "I'm a thinker. A lot of people, I guess, aren't - People are emotional and they react emotionally to things". Or to credit FDR for Hoover's failure, and to consider WWIII as the solution to our problems : "The new deal didn't work. You know, Hoover was president through the depression for one year. FDR prolonged the new deal for seven or eight years, and yet he's given credit for ending the depression. Didn't happen. World War II ended it. "

- Second, yes, what Rush says is both ugly and incendiary. Not his wishing for a failure of "socialism" (what he actually meant), but his venomous speech about race throughout the interview, the typical way he's denying racism while fueling it - something Steele must have felt even more acutely than I did.

Steele first reacted as a sound leader for the good of his party, his country, and mankind. I don't think this man will manage to kick fundamentalists out of the GOP*, but I like his early-Googlish "Don't Be Evil" approach. Republicans must redefine themselves and if they keep positioning themselves AGAINST things or people, they are bound to remain at least one step behind things and people.


Yes, Steele did make a few political concessions to his right afterwards, but unlike Rahm Emanuel (who deliberately fueled Limbaugh's fire a little bit earlier), he did the right thing in the first place.

Bobby Jindal obviously didn't the right thing in his first major speech as the top contender to a match up with Obama in 2012**. "Being compared to Mister Rogers is better than some of the other comparisons we've had here in the past" - in very deed, Piyush : you should be glad not to have been compared to Fred Rogers' coathanger instead.


Anyway, forever lost in his own angry Limbo, Rush won't be seen singing "Won't You Be My Neighbor ?" anytime soon.

This great self-proclaimed "thinker" probably never dared consider that "Love Thy Neighbor" could mean anything beyond "Be a good Amerikan : get your gun and join my Neighborhood Watch".


* remember ? "
GOP : Time to Split" !
** or rather 2016 - see "
GOP Primaries 2012 Kick-off - Charlie Crist's Second Coming"

20090227

USS War Censorship Sunk

Robert Gates announced the end of the ban on photographing caskets of war dead*, a ban initiated by George H. W. Bush during the 1991 Gulf War.

To me, this tells a lot about a country willing to make peace and end war, and puts an end to a shameful tradition of hiding the truth to the US audience.

Remember how US Weapons of Mass Disinformation used to make a show of "surgical strikes" and other "clean war" impostures ?

Remember how the first pictures of scores of caskets, lined up in an army aircraft on its way from Baghdad, caused a scandal not because of the reason why those unlucky people where sent to death in the first place, but because such "un-American" images could undermine the morale of a nation at war ?

Remember how W. got reelected because he had the courage to take the decision of going to war, and not kicked out of the White House because he was coward enough to dodge his own military duties decades earlier, and crazy enough to take that doomed decision on the sole basis of
his own fundamentalist's hidden agenda ?

Of course, let us not be fooled by the timing of Gate's announcement : the Defense Secretary is not only speeding up the withdrawal process (now US viewers must all understand it's better to get the heck out of Iraq as scheduled), but also pointing out fundamental differences between Obama and Bush at the very moment when journalists take notice of some similarities in the way war is being waged.

The Bush-Cheney propaganda era may be over, some positive spin can't hurt.

Can it ?


* as long, of course, as each family agrees - see "
Pentagon OKs media photos of war dead overturning Bush's 1991 ban" (NY Daily News 20090226)



20090221

Terminator 5 - Rise Of The Taxes

$42 bn. Petty money these days. Not even a Madoff.

$42 bn. The deficit of the World's 8th economy. The Golden State. The Land of Milk and Honey.

California.

From 49ers to 42ers. From Gold Rush to Bank Rush. From Californication to Califoreclosure. From No Problemo Gubernator to Hasta La Vista Berniemador.

To add insult to injury, they're going to pry tax raises out of Schwarzenegger's hands, over his dead Hummer.

It keeps getting better.

20090217

Vice Senators, Vicious Governors, Virtuous Circles

Time to hatchet the Burris ?

So Roland Burris lied. He did have a chat with Rod Blagojevich's brother regarding Obama's seat in the US Senate.

Big deal.

As if anyone doubted there was anything fishy. Democrats badly needed someone ASAP to vote for the bailout-recovery-stimulus-hail-mary Obama plan, and they couldn't wait for impeachment. So be it.

This plan by no means perfect. Bullet trains make sense in California, but the LA-LV axis doesn't seem an environmental priority... unless you go all the way to Denver, Saint Louis and Chicago, that is (not to say hello to Burris, but to pave the way for a major nationwide network).

But even if it only manages to succeed halfway, this plan will have been worth it. Provided the political will to change remains strong ; I do hope the lack of details was only a trick to pass the bill quickly, and that the Obama Administration will seize the opportunity to set the pace for a new global framework, a more balanced order (see "
This is not a financial crisis").

The Burris incident proves that change has not totally come to DC (not to mention Chicago). But when Politico's Arena raises the question : "Should the Constitution require elections to fill Senate vacancies?", I'm not sure that's the kind of changes needed.

French politics are president-driven. "Dissolving" the national assembly is a national pastime, and reducing the Presidential mandate from 7 to 5 years (same as a MP) undermined the balance between the executive and legislative powers. Chirac should have either picked 6 years or reducing national assembly cycles to 4 years.

American politics are calendar-driven. You do elect Vice-Presidents but not Vice Senators, and that's OK, untill you get a Governor with one Vice too many.

US politics have their flaws, but the priority seems to make sure federal elections are fair. One nation, one president, one process. And not one of the 305,833,705 members of the US population (05:16 GMT (EST+5) Feb 17, 2009) left behind*.



* BTW : I don't like the idea of Rahm Emanuel's Executive Office of the President controlling the US Census Bureau, but it didn't certainly belong to the Commerce Department in the first place. I would put it in the OMB (Office of Management and Budget).


20090216

Next Stop : Pakistan

They have fled Iraq for Afghanistan. For many, it was a way back to where it all started. Others learned their trade in Iraq, a giant terrorist training camp created by George W. Bush in his fundamentalist crusade in a country that really didn't need this kind of touristic resorts.

Now that a surge is on the way to Kabul and Southern Afghanistan, they are touring Pakistan beyond their usual Northern safe havens.


Pakistan is not safe, and the economical, social, and political situation worsened since last November, when I wrote these already gloomy lines (see "Lessons from Mumbai ?") : "The main target in the Mumbai attacks was Pakistan, the weaker link, and the democracy the most likely to fall for fundamentalism if the international community fails to help it help itself."

44 started using the same military quick fixes as 43/36* : air strikes as "surgical" as Israel's bombs on Lebanon or Gaza. But make no mistake : diplomacy is on its way. Not the naive, vintage dovish kind of diplomacy, but resolute and fair.


Diplomacy is on its way, and Barack's most lethal weapons are on their way : ahead of Hurricane Hillary, "diplomatic equivalent of a hydrogen bomb" AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Hamid Karzai... and The H. Bomb clearly avoided the kind of toasts Carter shared with Shah Reza Pahlavi over 30 years ago.

Last week, a local governor made an international show of a bonfire of puppy crops and illegal drugs seized in his region. A small step for Afghanistan, but a major leap out of the loop for ever the media magnet Karzai.

A surge on the ground, elections and potentially new faces at the helm of the country... change is probably coming to Afghanistan.

A Taliban surge, a catastrophic economic downturn, déjà vu short sighted legal and constitutional compromises with fundamentalists, radical factions fueling the seeds of civil war... change is surely coming to Pakistan.

President Obama must keep his eyes on the ball. Keeping in mind the fact that dancers are once again changing ballrooms.


* not Lyndon Baines Johnson but George Walker Bush : 43 has just been awarded the 36th position in the best POTUS contest. Dubya's behind Hoover but before Fillmore - the latter does have the name of a villain in a Harry Potter book, while W. enjoys the fame of Daddy Herbie (41 went up from #20 to #18).

20090205

The Screwing Up Buck Stops Here

"I think I messed up. I screwed up"... "This was something that was my fault"... "It's something that I take responsibility for"... "I'm going to screw up sometimes"... "Making sure that when I screw up that I'm taking responsibility for it"...

...

I think we got the message, Barack.

On CBS News ("
Obama On Daschle : I messed Up" - 20090203), President Obama offered a mea culpa* diametrically opposite to Sarah Palin's utterly screwed up bravado facing the same Katie Couric last autumn (in memoriam, watch the far less embarrassing Poehler-Fey version : "Couric-Palin @ SNL").

John McCain did use the same words in front of David Letterman... but in order to apologize for a no (TV) show. Not to take the blame for a series of unfortunate vettings as a President-Elect as well as as a POTUS.

Change has come to America : mistakes are being done, but they are spotted early, recognized as such, and dealt with swiftly and in full transparency.


Not to mention the fact, of course, that they have far milder consequences.

A few weeks after Israel**, America is using executive power a very disproportionate way.

But this apparently weaker message resonates much stronger.

And the World is listening.


* mea minima culpa - thou art forgiven, my son

** see "Come Feb. 10th, Will Israel Embrace History Or Vote Bush-Cheney 2004 ?"

20090121

True v. False vs Good v. Evil

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

I must confess I had the political equivalent of a quick but intense orgasm when I heard that sentence, to me the climax of an otherwise not-so-great but nonetheless perfectly powerful inaugural speech.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" celebrates the end of the Bush-Cheney era.

This "we" goes far beyond "We the People of the United States", which does already incompass a large spectrum of origins, colors, beliefs, non-beliefs... you name it, and did Barack name a few during his 18 mn speech !

This "we" includes human beings from "each nation, every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity".

The verb "reject" resonates strongly in such an inclusive speech and it should because it denounces our worst enemy, the one from within. When we forget who we are.

The Bush-Cheney equation was "false". This is not a moral judgement, "right" vs "wrong". And this is certainly not a religious statement about who is "good" and who is "evil". This is a clear definition of what mankind is all about.

At this defining moment, Barack Hussein Obama reminded us the true definition of freedom and democracy.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

We reject as false the Bush-Cheney definitions of "freedom" and "democracy".

To add insult to injury, the Supreme Justice nominated by George W. Bush fumbled with the 35 words of the Constitution he was supposed to protect during that glorious inauguration. And of all words, he put "faithfully" in the false position.

President Obama later talked about things that were "true". One may question "patriotism" or other examples, but the word "true" has a more forgiving and subjective meaning. It is about loyalty to life, whatever or whomever you care for. Your ideals.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

Obama's first decision is to close Guantanamo and put an end to Bush-Cheney's caricature of justice.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

At this defining moment, America declared its independence from Amerika.

blogules 2009

20090116

Bush's Farewell : Mission Accomplished... as Fundamentalist in Chief

"There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions, but there can be little debate about the results".

Well. The least one could say is that George W. Bush was not very open to debate before nor during these decisions, but I agree with him on this : "there can be little debate about the results". Thanks to him, Muslim, Christian and Jewish fundamantalists are far better off than before 9/11.

Because George W. Bush never acted as a POTUS for the good of his country,
and George W. Bush never even acted as a Republican for the good of his party
George W. Bush always acted as a Fundamentalist for the good of fundamentalism.

So Mission Accomplished, Mr Fundamentalist in Chief.

Now, let History do its job and put "
The Bush Legacy" into perspective.

Justice in America, No Democracy in Israel ?

Yesterday, Eric Holder confirmed that waterboarding was torture, and that "Adherence to the rule of law strengthens security by depriving terrorist organizations of their prime recruiting tools". In other words : yes, the Bush-Cheney Administration fueled terrorism by disgracing the very values they were supposed to defend. No wonder Karl Rove wants Holder's head before he get yours, Dubya.

Once again (see "
Universal Declaration of Independence from Fundamentalism"), the only way of fighting against terror and fundamentalism is at their roots : poverty, unjustice, and wrongdoings of supposedly model democracies.

Once again (see "
The Stolen Election"), America has only gone halfway towards redemption by electing Barack Obama, and will finish the job by bringing actual justice to the people who insulted her. Gonzales must pay, Cheney must pay, Rumsfeld must pay, Bush must pay. Their desperate attempts of rewriting History are bold revisionism (see "The Bush Legacy").

Meanwhile, Israel confirms its wrong choices (cf "
Come Feb. 10th, Will Israel Embrace History Or Vote Bush-Cheney 2004 ?") : by banning two Arab parties from upcoming elections, the Government clearly stated its poor consideration of democracy and its will to exclude from the Nation its non-Jewish citizens.

Muslim Israelis (about 16% of the population) were already asking themselves questions : they pay taxes but don't think the money is well spent in the Gaza invasion. Actually, extremists from both sides would love to see them turn into radicals.

At this stage, the Hamas alibi doesn't stand. It's not about Israel v. Hamas but about Israel v. Israel. Like Amerika v. America. Israeli voters are entitled to know where this Government actually wants to go. Keeping digging deeper and deeper as if there were no limits is totally suicidal.

Israel cannot postpone an official declaration about how it defines itself in the XXIst Century, its nature, its values, its political project.

Presented at birth as the State of the Jewish People, this country chose democracy and republic, and Non-Jews represent 20% of its population.

But the 1948 project of Constitution failed because of disagreements between fundamentalists and partisans of secularism, and nothing has really changed ever since.

It's time to stop kidding and play out in the open : does Israel want to become a democracy among peers or a Jewish sidekick to Iran-style Islamic Republics ?

If Israel prefers the latter, it only has to keep insulting fundamental values and rights, refusing international law, and of course giving terrorists "prime recruiting tools" by multiplying illegal exactions and usages of WMDs...

But the USA may not keep using their veto rights to absolve them much longer...

Obama pledged to close Guantanamo et restore Justice and Democracy at home. I sincerely hope he will help democracy in Israel even quicklier.


---
PS: "Six Days Seven Nights" - Jon Stewart on W.'s farewell speech, mistakes, disappointments, and soul sales :



20090108

Come Feb. 10th, Will Israel Embrace History Or Vote Bush-Cheney 2004 ?

Israel 2009 mirrors America 2003 : a “war on terror” deliberately meant to fuel hatred and secure the victory of hawks in upcoming elections1, outright propaganda with daily lines carefully edited by spin doctors, and media either kept in the dark or turned into weapons of mass disinformation.

In 2003, Americans overwhelmingly supported the invasion and in 2004, America embraced Bush's Amerika.

Israeli moderates have a choice : making sure Israeli embraces post Nov 4th History, or remaining silent and letting their country vote for Bush-Cheney 2004.

Barack Obama will have one shot and about 3 weeks to put his weight in the balance.


1- see "
A Christmas Gift for Fundamentalists ?"

20090101

Happy new year 2010

Sorry, but I want to forget 2009 :

January - Tel Aviv hawks perfectly used the window of opportunity before Obama's inauguration, igniting a 3rd intifada and an attack from Hezbullah. The Likud is disbanded (too far left) and on February the 10th, Yigal Amir's National Nationalist Party wins in a landslide. All Israelis of Palestinian origin lose their citizenship and their rights to the Geneva Convention but as a compensation, receive a one-way ticket to the Gaza Ghetto. Moderate Jews are considering a secession and by April, medias start talking about a civil war.

February - in order to celebrate Darwin's bicentennary, Sarah Palin burns the Library of Congress and a few science museums to the ground : "Them scientists have been lying to us for too long, and this fake Santa deserves to fry. Burn'em all ! And let's check if they taste like monkeys ! If we descend from the apes, how come I'm dumber than a moose ?"

March - Bernanke is arrested for a massive pizza scheme : he traded all the Federal Reserves with anchovies and pepperoni. China saves the US from bankruptcy but the country has a new currency : the Western Yuan. A Big Mac costs about two redbacks.

April - Gordon Brown choses the 60th anniversary of the Republic of Ireland to become the new King of Scotland. And 20 years after Tiananmen, the Politburo proposes a new deal to the Chinese People : "a slower growth but even less freedom". Wu Jintao is ousted within one day, and Wen Jiabao becomes the new Leader of the Cultual Revolution. By the end of his first 5 year plan, he should become the next Dalai Lama.

May - Alberto Gonzales escapes prison and manages to fly to North Korea where he becomes Honorary Chairman of the Waterboard.

June - Europe votes : 75% abstention and 95% NO. NB: it wasn't even for a referendum but to elect members of the Parliament...

July - No fireworks on the 4th. Need more ammos for Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia and Estonia.

August - A new Putin blitz : invades Vatican the 5th, becomes Pope the 6th, canonizes Stalin the 7th.

September - Black Thursday the 24th. Quotation suspended for the S&P500. As of today, it's still uncertain whether it will become the SubStandard & Poorer 300 or 200. The latter wording has the favor of people who want to be at least once ahead of the market.

October - The corpse of Francis Bacon, 100, paints a vivid portrait of Hank Paulson screaming on the electric chair.

November - George W. Bush collapses at the end of a gigamass in his honor. The autopsy shows he choked on the Eucharistic bread. Human right activists who wanted him to share Dick Cheney's cell find it hard to swallow.

December - The Nobel Peace Prize goes to Robert Mugabe for his role in the reconciliation between the ANC and COPE. He also gets the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his eradication of AIDS and all other human diseases in Zimbabwe (no more Zimbabwean alive to celebrate at home).
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