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Friday, August 06, 2004 Oh yeah, that Iraq Body and Soul updates us on what's going on in Iraq. Hint: People are still dying, Halliburton's still getting rich, and things are generally a mess. Despite what the President has to say about it. posted by chris at 11:47 PM   Outfoxed Just got back from seeing Outfoxed, the documentary that examines Fox News Channel's "Fair and Balanced" claim. It does a pretty good job of showing how utterly UN-fair and balanced Fox really is. And while you could just take the word of the documentary commentators, the clips of the Fox correspondents speak for themselves. Check out the trailer here. It's only playing in select cities right now, so if it's not in your city, you can buy the DVD here. And most importantly, you can take action here. posted by chris at 11:05 PM   The spoils of war The Center for Public Integrity ranks the contractors who are making money off the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guess who's number one? posted by chris at 2:11 PM   Baby steps, right? "Economic growth is strong and it's getting stronger," President Bush told a conference of minority journalists in Washington today. "And that's good for everybody in America." Except for that troublesome little thing called reality: The nation's pace of hiring slowed dramatically last month, the Labor Department reported today, reinforcing the increasing belief that economic growth in this election year is hitting a rough patch. posted by chris at 12:32 PM   ------------------ Thursday, August 05, 2004 A most unfortunate quote Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America: "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." (via Kos.) UPDATE: You can watch the video here. (Fast forward to about the 8 minute mark). posted by chris at 12:50 PM   The convenient timing of those "non-political" terror alerts It's all here. posted by chris at 12:47 PM   Professor of the neocons [Leo] Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger. Also: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, all chief architects of the Bush administration's policies. This article details three key points of Strauss' philosophy. Anything sound familiar? Rule One: Deception It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical -- divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right -- the right of the superior to rule over the inferior." Second Principle: Power of Religion According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control. At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers." Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united -- and they can only be united against other people." Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)." Is this the kind of philosophy we want our leaders to follow? posted by chris at 12:22 PM   ------------------ Wednesday, August 04, 2004 Faking compliance From the Progress Report: This week, President Bush claimed he was embracing the bold institutional changes proposed by the 9/11 Commission by creating this national intelligence director. In reality, he is resisting key elements of the proposal, such as putting the new position in the Cabinet (and thus ensuring the new director would stay in the loop), giving the director the power to hire and fire, or granting the director control of his budget. The result? A weak figurehead without power to effectively oversee the 15 agencies in the U.S. intelligence community. Key 9/11 Commissioners joined members of Congress yesterday to argue that the proposed national intelligence director must have the power to hire, fire, and control a budget. Period. posted by chris at 3:09 PM   When fear rules our lives Iraqis visiting on a civil rights tour were barred from city hall after the city council chairman said it was too dangerous to let them in. The seven Iraqi civic and community leaders are in the midst of a three-week American tour, sponsored by the State Department to learn more about the process of government. The trip also includes stops in Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago. The Iraqis were scheduled to meet with a city council member, but Joe Brown, the council chair, said he feared the group was dangerous. "We don't know exactly what's going on. Who knows about the delegation, and has the FBI been informed?" Brown said. "We must secure and protect all the employees in that building." Elisabeth Silverman, the group's host and head of the Memphis Council for International Visitors, said Brown told her he would "evacuate the building and bring in the bomb squads" if the group entered. Story here, via Atrios. And another example. posted by chris at 11:01 AM   ------------------ Tuesday, August 03, 2004 The Great Deceit David Sirota and Christy Harvey break down what the Bush administration knew and when they knew it. posted by chris at 7:53 PM   Low wages everyday Employment practices at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer with relatively lower labor costs in the retail sector, cost California taxpayers about $86 million annually in public assistance to company workers, according to a study released Monday by a UC Berkeley research institute. The study estimates that low wages force employees to accept $32 million annually in health-related services and $54 million per year in other assistance, such as subsidized school lunches, food stamps and subsidized housing. Story. And another report shows that almost 9 million Americans lost their employer-provided health insurance from 2001 to 2003. Can we say "the Wal-martization of America"? I knew we could. posted by chris at 1:47 PM   More on Abu Ghraib It has been months since the now-infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed that American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners -- yet the Bush administration has failed to get to the bottom of the abuses."There are some serious unanswered questions," says Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is stalling on several investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The foot-dragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib. Rolling Stone obtained those files in June and offers this report on their contents. The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside. Much more. posted by chris at 10:11 AM   Terror threat based on three year old information Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday. More than half a dozen government officials interviewed yesterday, who declined to be identified because classified information is involved, said that most, if not all, of the information about the buildings seized by authorities in a raid in Pakistan last week was about three years old, and possibly older. "There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don't know that." See, here's the thing: everyone in the country knew that the terror alert was raised yesterday for DC and NYC. But how many people are now going to be aware that it was based on 3 year old information, from before the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Ah, but fear is a much better motivation factor than knowledge, isn't it? Bob Harris has more. (edited for clarity.) posted by chris at 8:48 AM   ------------------

    

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