Real life events on the U.S.-Mexican border last month are disturbingly similar to the storyline of a film from a few years ago, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. The only unfortunate thing is that there is no Pete Perkins to act as an agent of redemption for Ramiro Gamez Acosta's killer, Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett.
Corbett and the Border Patrol claim he was acting in "self defense". It looks like Acosta was cocking his arm to throw something. Like a rock, maybe? All that Corbett needed to do was point the rifle and say "Alto!", whether Acosta was aiming at him or the BP truck, which is what it looks like to me.
All that things like this are going to do are polarize each side even further without contributing anything to a possible solution...
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Trying to imagine...
what it would be like if the roles of two nations (and the people impacted) were reversed:
Baghdad Burning:
So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.
On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?
The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?
Let me paraphrase one small section of this latest entry to reflect the alternate possibility:
Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Canada or Mexico? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?
The reality of these circumstances that would drive one to abandon all that has ever been known to them is so foreign to me that I have nothing but admiration for all those who have had to stay and survive the Hell that they have had to endure for the past four years.
Best of luck to Riverbend and her family in their travels. Hopefully they will be able to return to their home soon.
Baghdad Burning:
So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.
On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?
The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?
Let me paraphrase one small section of this latest entry to reflect the alternate possibility:
Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Canada or Mexico? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?
The reality of these circumstances that would drive one to abandon all that has ever been known to them is so foreign to me that I have nothing but admiration for all those who have had to stay and survive the Hell that they have had to endure for the past four years.
Best of luck to Riverbend and her family in their travels. Hopefully they will be able to return to their home soon.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Two fairly significant events this week...
The first of which is the airing tonight of Bill Moyers documentary "Buying the War", marking his return to investigative journalism after an absence of three years. Amy had him on Democracy Now! this morning to talk about it.
Digby also notes the curious lack of a review in the NY Times and what that may mean:
LA Times:
Phil Donohue, fired as host of an MSNBC show in early 2003 says he was told he could have a war advocate on his program as a solo guest, but dissenters had to be balanced out from the right.
"Our producers were instructed to feature two conservatives for every liberal," he says.
There is no on representing the conservative argument here, not the deeper ideological reasons for believing in the Iraq invasion. But that's partly Moyers' position: In the run-up to war, point-counterpoint emerged as a devastating sham.
I guess it's not so surprising that the NY Times didn't bother to review this. It's cowardly, however.
I'm glad that Moyers has amassed the footage and put it all in one place so that people can see it again in its glory. It's a big story and I'll be interested to see how many of the most dizzying moments during that long national acid trip Moyers was able to capture.
The second is the release of the paperback edition of Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, which features some new material that the Cranium doesn't want you to read.
Greg's most recent post also sheds some interesting light on the role of Gonzo as the most recent sacrificial lamb to be left twisting in the wind:
1. It’s all about the 2008 election.
2. It’s not about Gonzales.
We’ve been here before. Gonzales is getting Libby’d. Takes the bullet for Karl Rove and the White House. If you wondered why the Republican jackals like the sinister Senator Specter piled on Gonzales — it’s because they were told to.
Rove and Bush are doing the Nixon Twist on Gonzales.
Look, I have no sympathy for Alberto the Doomed. He’s guilty of a crime I employed in racketeering cases: “Willful failure to know.” It’s a kind of fraud; Alberto was going way out of his way to not know what he had to know, that Rove and the President were toying with prosecutors.
Gonzales is their glove-puppet. Why fire him? The nation watches these hearings and wants to kill something.
But why shoot the puppet? It’s time to fire the puppeteer. Eh, Mr. Rove?
The more folks see the Cranium for what he is, the tighter the sights will train in on him...
Digby also notes the curious lack of a review in the NY Times and what that may mean:
LA Times:
Phil Donohue, fired as host of an MSNBC show in early 2003 says he was told he could have a war advocate on his program as a solo guest, but dissenters had to be balanced out from the right.
"Our producers were instructed to feature two conservatives for every liberal," he says.
There is no on representing the conservative argument here, not the deeper ideological reasons for believing in the Iraq invasion. But that's partly Moyers' position: In the run-up to war, point-counterpoint emerged as a devastating sham.
I guess it's not so surprising that the NY Times didn't bother to review this. It's cowardly, however.
I'm glad that Moyers has amassed the footage and put it all in one place so that people can see it again in its glory. It's a big story and I'll be interested to see how many of the most dizzying moments during that long national acid trip Moyers was able to capture.
The second is the release of the paperback edition of Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, which features some new material that the Cranium doesn't want you to read.
Greg's most recent post also sheds some interesting light on the role of Gonzo as the most recent sacrificial lamb to be left twisting in the wind:
1. It’s all about the 2008 election.
2. It’s not about Gonzales.
We’ve been here before. Gonzales is getting Libby’d. Takes the bullet for Karl Rove and the White House. If you wondered why the Republican jackals like the sinister Senator Specter piled on Gonzales — it’s because they were told to.
Rove and Bush are doing the Nixon Twist on Gonzales.
Look, I have no sympathy for Alberto the Doomed. He’s guilty of a crime I employed in racketeering cases: “Willful failure to know.” It’s a kind of fraud; Alberto was going way out of his way to not know what he had to know, that Rove and the President were toying with prosecutors.
Gonzales is their glove-puppet. Why fire him? The nation watches these hearings and wants to kill something.
But why shoot the puppet? It’s time to fire the puppeteer. Eh, Mr. Rove?
The more folks see the Cranium for what he is, the tighter the sights will train in on him...
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Appropriate use of racial terms
like this one which has been stirring up so many Hornets as of late?
NONE.
No one should ever use any terms that are even questioned in terms of their volatileness. If you have to ask if you should use them, then you know not to.
NONE.
No one should ever use any terms that are even questioned in terms of their volatileness. If you have to ask if you should use them, then you know not to.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Never let a good gag go to waste...
Shame on all of us for thinking that it was his original idea...
Thank goodness he couldn't resist and thus has further mired himself in the pit of controversial hawkdom that may be his undoing as a candidate...
Thank goodness he couldn't resist and thus has further mired himself in the pit of controversial hawkdom that may be his undoing as a candidate...
Here's the scary thing...
...these people are dead serious.
WBBM 780:
The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims’ funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.
The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other “sins of the flesh.” Phelps’ daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.
“The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,” Phelps-Roper said. “You don’t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.”
They may not be affiliated with any national Baptist organization, but one has to assume that they work from a scripture that has the same template as all the other Christian rooted faiths. You know, the one that preaches loving one's fellow (wo)man and practicing tolerance and forgiveness of all one's fellows?
UPDATE 21 APR 07 21:46
And how do we think they'll react to this?
WBBM 780:
The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims’ funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.
The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other “sins of the flesh.” Phelps’ daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.
“The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,” Phelps-Roper said. “You don’t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.”
They may not be affiliated with any national Baptist organization, but one has to assume that they work from a scripture that has the same template as all the other Christian rooted faiths. You know, the one that preaches loving one's fellow (wo)man and practicing tolerance and forgiveness of all one's fellows?
UPDATE 21 APR 07 21:46
And how do we think they'll react to this?
Lost in the Shuffle...
Hidden amongst the indignant howling over gun control, weapons sales that never should have taken place, stress management in the workplace, the alleged lack of psychiatric help for disturbed individuals at our institutions of higher learning, and the completely ineffective rationalization and defense of the political machinations of the Executive branch on the Judicial branch of our government are two episodes that likely will have greater impact farther into the future than any of these things: the obvious and inflammatory taunting of the Iranian Nation and people by John McCain (pretty much topping any of the cowboy invective uttered by the Shrub) and the start of construction of a wall designed to separate Sunni Iraqis from their Shite neighbors in order to minimize violence between the two.
The fact the John McCain (the lost fourth Wilson brother) had this witty alternate version of one of the Beach Boys greatest songs so readily handy to unveil for a group of his veteran friends shows that the prospect of taking such action against Iran is in the forefront of his mind and there is a very ready and willing mindset to follow through at the slightest provocation (this actually may be in the process of occurring as I write this). In the self quoting spirit of Arthur, I'd like to harken back to this post of mine from early March:
Iran is not an immediate threat to the United States or its allies in the region. IF Iran is pursuing nuclear enrichment technology for the purpose of developing a weapons program in addition to an energy program, it is not an offensive act. It is an act of defense motivated by the fact that Iran is now surrounded by declared and undeclared nuclear powers: Russia to the North, Pakistan, India and China to the East, Israel to the West, and the United States to the South in the Persian Gulf with an disproportionately sized naval armada.
If there were a situation where the United States was surrounded in such a manner (Canada and Mexico possessing proven nuclear weapons and another major power such as China or Russia having placed a similarly sized force in the Gulf of Mexico) I'm sure that the United States would be rattling its nuclear sabers, and if the U.S. didn't have nuclear weapons, it certainly would be pursuing that technology as vehemently as Iran and most likely more so, all the while defending its inherent right to that technology and the right to possess it for use as a DETTERENT. This is the reason the U.S. gives for possessing nuclear weapons (despite the fact that it is the only nation to have actually used them on another country) and yet it tries to deny other countries with a legitimate case for possessing nuclear weapons as a DETTERENT the opportunity to do so.
Justin had some similar thoughts in this post following the serenade of the VFW in Murrells Inlet:
I know the Iranians appreciate the humor, just as we would find it uproariously funny if Iranian President Ahmaninejad or some other relatively well known Iranian politician who wanted to become the Iranian leader sang about bombing America in front a laughing crowd. We Americans eat that kind of shit up! What would be even funnier is if Iran invaded Canada and Mexico, sent Iranian battleships off the coast of the U.S. to conduct war exercises using high tech bomber planes, conducted clandestine raids and sponsored terror attacks on U.S. soil, and so on.
And Brian offers these thoughts about how it's going over in Tehran and the rest of the sovereign nation that is Iran:
I don't know what the reaction to the McCain video has been in Iran. But since they're the weaker nation, if their reaction is anything other than passive acceptance of our dear senator's foolishness, then our reaction to their reaction will determine whether this becomes a big deal or not.
The World wonders...
As far as the newest no bid boondoggle of a project in Iraq, I will yield to Tristero in this entry at Digby's Blog:
the American military is building a wall to physically separate a despised minority from their neighbors in order to protect them. And vice versa.
But let's not infer the worst here. After all, history teaches us that sealing off ghettos does reduce violence. That's simply an indisputable fact. For example, attacks against Sunni Jews declined markedly and rapidly under the Nazis. Had they not built walls around the ghettos, which enabled an entire Jewish population of a given city to be quickly rounded up and sent off to the camps, attacks on Jews would have gone on for much, much longer.
Seriously, is this the best way to show the Iraqis how to govern themselves, police themselves, and live amongst themselves? By building barriers to keep them separated from each other? What an example we're setting for the rest of the world...
The fact the John McCain (the lost fourth Wilson brother) had this witty alternate version of one of the Beach Boys greatest songs so readily handy to unveil for a group of his veteran friends shows that the prospect of taking such action against Iran is in the forefront of his mind and there is a very ready and willing mindset to follow through at the slightest provocation (this actually may be in the process of occurring as I write this). In the self quoting spirit of Arthur, I'd like to harken back to this post of mine from early March:
Iran is not an immediate threat to the United States or its allies in the region. IF Iran is pursuing nuclear enrichment technology for the purpose of developing a weapons program in addition to an energy program, it is not an offensive act. It is an act of defense motivated by the fact that Iran is now surrounded by declared and undeclared nuclear powers: Russia to the North, Pakistan, India and China to the East, Israel to the West, and the United States to the South in the Persian Gulf with an disproportionately sized naval armada.
If there were a situation where the United States was surrounded in such a manner (Canada and Mexico possessing proven nuclear weapons and another major power such as China or Russia having placed a similarly sized force in the Gulf of Mexico) I'm sure that the United States would be rattling its nuclear sabers, and if the U.S. didn't have nuclear weapons, it certainly would be pursuing that technology as vehemently as Iran and most likely more so, all the while defending its inherent right to that technology and the right to possess it for use as a DETTERENT. This is the reason the U.S. gives for possessing nuclear weapons (despite the fact that it is the only nation to have actually used them on another country) and yet it tries to deny other countries with a legitimate case for possessing nuclear weapons as a DETTERENT the opportunity to do so.
Justin had some similar thoughts in this post following the serenade of the VFW in Murrells Inlet:
I know the Iranians appreciate the humor, just as we would find it uproariously funny if Iranian President Ahmaninejad or some other relatively well known Iranian politician who wanted to become the Iranian leader sang about bombing America in front a laughing crowd. We Americans eat that kind of shit up! What would be even funnier is if Iran invaded Canada and Mexico, sent Iranian battleships off the coast of the U.S. to conduct war exercises using high tech bomber planes, conducted clandestine raids and sponsored terror attacks on U.S. soil, and so on.
And Brian offers these thoughts about how it's going over in Tehran and the rest of the sovereign nation that is Iran:
I don't know what the reaction to the McCain video has been in Iran. But since they're the weaker nation, if their reaction is anything other than passive acceptance of our dear senator's foolishness, then our reaction to their reaction will determine whether this becomes a big deal or not.
The World wonders...
As far as the newest no bid boondoggle of a project in Iraq, I will yield to Tristero in this entry at Digby's Blog:
the American military is building a wall to physically separate a despised minority from their neighbors in order to protect them. And vice versa.
But let's not infer the worst here. After all, history teaches us that sealing off ghettos does reduce violence. That's simply an indisputable fact. For example, attacks against Sunni Jews declined markedly and rapidly under the Nazis. Had they not built walls around the ghettos, which enabled an entire Jewish population of a given city to be quickly rounded up and sent off to the camps, attacks on Jews would have gone on for much, much longer.
Seriously, is this the best way to show the Iraqis how to govern themselves, police themselves, and live amongst themselves? By building barriers to keep them separated from each other? What an example we're setting for the rest of the world...
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