Middle East Aggression, Bradley Manning, Hillary Clinton, Georgia, Iran … and other stuff

In the United States we have a massive “news” operation whose primary purpose is to shield us from stuff that is true. Here are a few examples:

Bradley Manning committed (exposed) a crime

Bradley Manning: Pfc. Bradley Manning leaked a film of U.S. soldiers massacring civilians below from a helicopter above. But this story really goes way, way back, to Vietnam. Many on the right blame “the media” for our “loss” in Vietnam. In a sense they are right, but it wasn’t an organized media conspiracy that led to wide public disenchantment with that war. It was pictures. They simply did not understand their impact. Even as Walter Cronkite was reading a submissive narrative on how the U.S. was achieving its objectives, as was his job, the pictures that accompanied his words were telling a different story.

After Vietnam, the U.S. had to gently ease us back into war-making. The war in Afghanistan in the 1980’s had to be done out of sight, and Nicaragua and El Salvador had to be fought by proxy.

LIttle Grenada was a news management experiment
Grenada (October 25, 1983) was the first test case for the new strategy for news management in war. In that attack, all of the reporters were put on a ship and spoon fed bullshit about what was going on. Only later, after the conflict, were they allowed to view the damage.

The strategy was successful, but required a compliant news corps. There were renegades who refused to buckled under the new guidelines, like Peter Arnett of Associated Press, and later CNN.

Journalosaurus in natural surroundings (Museum of Natural History)
He and his breed are long gone now, and news reporting of war is done mostly stateside, and by reporters who seemingly are in the war zone, but are in fact embedded within the shadow of Pentagon brass, and being fed bullshit. On-the-ground reporters are embedded with American soldiers, where they tend to bond and view events in a sympathetic manner. Otherwise, they would never be allowed near battle zones.

Images are tightly controlled. We are not even allowed to view the coffins of dead soldiers. Major U.S. news outlets cooperate with this regime, and do not show the grisly aftermath of bombing or the effects of our violence on ordinary people. It’s all part of thought control – images tell stories, while words are mere sound.

Bradley Manning, under the new regime, has committed a “crime.” He leaked some truth to us in the form of images which tell a story that completely negates years of intense propaganda.

US Military Photo: Iraq Invasion
For this, he might be imprisoned for up to 52 years. In earlier times he might be called a “hero.” Under the current regime, he will waste away, and will serve as an example to any others who are so impudent as to think they can countermand orders to keep the American public in the dark. The full weight of military justice will come to bear on him.

Meanwhile, the helicopter pilots who murdered twelve people that day in the film that Manning leaked … no action. Not guilty!

See how it works? This is both imperialism and counterinsurgency. Both are easier to ingest if we don’t have to see the images.

RNC Chairman Michale Steele: Mr. Steele is in trouble on a much lower scale, and his punishment will be far less severe, and he is surely no hero, as he was merely doing his job: analyzing the political implications of our latest war within earshot of a microphone.

Michael Steele (photo courtesy of Daily Show)
But he too will pay a price. He’ll have to step down now that he has said something true.

Here’s what he said:

“Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in. But it was the president who was trying to be cute by half by building a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?”

Steele is being lambasted for his “gaffe”, which indeed it is. One must understand our toxic environment, as a “gaffe” is merely a true statement. Obama did indeed “demonize” Iraq, for political purposes. Even though “he” has prosecuted that war in the same manner as Bush before him, our perceptions have been altered. That war is no longer given much coverage, and emphasis is now on Afghanistan. Obama did say he was going emphasize Afghanistan while campaigning. All that indicates that that the policy shift had already taken place within the Pentagon in early 2008.

Obama is no more in charge of war policy than children are of household budgets. All that can be read here is as follows: The Iraq conflict was widely understood to be “won” – the bases and puppets were in place, and the population subdued by massive violence (as exposed by Pfc. Manning above). Virtually all was concealed from us. It was merely time to move on.

In 2001, while George W. Bush was president, the Pentagon launched on an ambitious plan to take control of the Middle East and Central Asia. Afghanistan was but a doorway, with Osama bin Laden the hated face used to justify the attack.

The face of propaganda
But the real prize was Iraq. Soon after that Iran, Syria and Lebanon were to fall. Afghanistan matters, as a pipeline will run through it, and maybe the resources are important.

One can only guess, but it seems as well that Afghanistan is a parking lot. Plans to topple Iran have stalled, the Russian bear is resurgent, and yet we need to be poised and ready. If an “event”, staged or real, opens up a new front in Iran, I suspect that Afghanistan will once again hit the back burner.

Steele didn’t do anything wrong but offer up for public consumption the inside knowledge that Afghanistan is merely a diversion. Lives and dollars, civilians and poppy plants .. none of it matters. Afghanistan, if Steele is telling us the truth, is merely a place to park troops and tanks as we wait for (or cause) the Middle East to explode again.

Michael Steele is going down, of course. He said something true, and that is not allowed here in the Land of the Free.

Hillary Clinton on Georgia: This has a humor element to it. Secretary of State Clinton criticized Russia for its “occupation” of Georgia, which is considered a “breakaway” state. The Russians are angry that she used the word “occupation,” but mostly just shrugged.

Pictures help here. In the map above, the state of Georgia can be found between the Black Sea and Azerbaijan, and directly north of … Iran. It’s very small and not easy to spot on the map. The location is just a coincidence, I suppose.

But of course what Russia is doing is an “occupation,” just as the U.S. is currently occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Panama, and the sovereign state of “just about everywhere else” with our 700+ military bases.

The U.S. wanted to occupy Georgia, but as Russia grows in strength, it is getting harder to make incursions on former Soviet territories. Military bases in that region are a prized asset. The U.S. invested a lot of money in Georgia, undermining their elections and instigating an uprising. But the Russians were surprisingly aggressive, and fought back. For the time being, it appears that military bases in Georgia will have a decided reddish hue to them.

And for that reason, Hillary Clinton is pissed. The Cold War is still going on. It never stopped, really. The Soviet Union imploded, lost much of its territory, most notably the ‘stans’ of Central Asia and the countries on the Balkan Peninsula. But the Bear is back, and is contesting U.S. aggression on a modest scale.

As Russia and China grow stronger, the world will be safer. If they and India ally and form a power bloc to contest the mighty U.S., we might experience a decade or two of peace on Earth.

Right, righter, rightest

Editorial pages of mainstream newspapers are boring affairs. Is it just me? Most people automatically turn to the letters, as the editorials and op-eds are predictable, pompous, and heavily tilted right.

Most newspapers have glop of local luminaries, usually tilting towards business and academia, that form the “editorial board.” These people write the opinions on the left-hand side of the page.

A typical newspaper editorial board
Group constrictions usually mandate that the glop avoid extremes, and so the opinions are predictably either non-ideological or right-leaning. These opinions are unsigned, either the product of group consensus (yawn), or an outlier opinion. The latter will usually tilt right.

On the op-ed side, there is a stable of right-wing writers who grace every newspaper in the country. These range from George Will to Pat Buchanan to John Fund and Ann Coulter, and here in Denver, the local right-wing radio jock. These folks are usually unrestrained in their writings, as there is no natural force in our business or political culture acting as a damper on right-wing radicalism.

There is hardly any published voice on the “left” to counteract the extreme right wing extreme views that find their way into mainstream print. Editors feel little restraint on their right side, but on their left it’s a little different. There is a need for perceived “balance,” and so opinion page editors look for “reasonable” voices to represent the “other” point of view.

But it cannot be a lefty point of view. Usually, they settle on Ellen Goodman,

Ellen Goodman: A right-wing editor's dream girl
the mild-mannered Boston centrist. In American media, the right wing is allowed any offense or disposition, but the left must be polite. Otherwise, we are offensive.

I call it the “Goodman Line” – “this far, and no further”, as Captain Jean-luc Picard said of the Borg. In the mind of a typical opinion page editor, even Ellen is pushing some kind of “left-wing” agenda. They are that extreme, these editors … and yet, when we are mostly right wing extremists, does anyone notice? They are usually self-avowed “centrists.”

It is not a conspiracy, but rather by the power of money. It is no different than metal particles aligning themselves under a magnet. And it is not just the opinion page. All who work for a media small and large, colleges and universities, feel the force of the right-wing magnet.

Typically, an editor will say that there is an impenetrable wall between news and opinion, but as we all know, only lead can stop Superman’s x-ray vision. All editors feel power, no matter how pompously they parade their independence.

Poor old Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury), who tends to be critical of powerful people now and again, is usually relegated to opinion page where he is “balanced” by some lame-brained talking duck. Even the comic page guy knows about the magnet!

Wherever two people have lunch and talk about a third, there’s a conspiracy afoot. That’s been true since caveman days. Conspiracies are all about us, and are interesting and fun to ferret out. But they are not nearly so important as power itself.

We are not relegated to two right-wing parties and hundreds of right wing newspapers because of conspiracy. Our form is a result of our structure. We are allowed to legally bribe politicians, so that it naturally follows that politicians will serve moneyed interests. Since those moneyed interests are usually bent on wealth preservation and expansion, elimination of regulation, minimal taxes and access to the commons, they generally tend to be “right wing.” They are the magnet that controls the particles.

Newspaper owners and editors, radio and TV station managers are intrinsically aware of the magnets of money and power in the community. It all tilts right.

The only answer, if we really cherish freedom, is to take money out of politics and to foster and fund public broadcasting without corporate interference. Until such time, we will be a land of right wingers, half of whom imagine they are not.

In a land of no left there are only right, righter, and rightest.

All is projection

Man who said true stuff

This is the nature of democracy: You send in the planes and drop the bombs. Then you gather in the journalists and tell them to applaud. We need to study that.
-Russian General Alexander Lebed, commenting on US air strikes in Iraq, 9/96

It is painfully obvious that that the United States and the Soviets were mirror images of one another. Each projected itself on the other. Lebed seemed to grasp that concept. (He died in a helicopter crash in 2002, sadly. I hope it was not murder. Aeronautical crashes killing important people are always suspect.)

Christians and Muslims project themselves on each other. Neither has the answer. Both were likely founded by charlatans.

Here in America we have two political parties comprised of groups who project themselves on one another. Party leadership is unified in objectives while the people below fight their fights.

Russians should study that. When it comes to organizing the masses, two parties work better than one.

A new attack on Social Security is mounting

Most of us have seen the above video, where we diligently count the number of times a basketball is passed unaware that a gorilla has just walked before our eyes.

This is an apt metaphor for our two-party system. The “gorillas” are the wealthy corporations and individuals who govern us. Distraction is the game. We are usually busy counting passes as they go about their business.

Social Security has long been on their hit list. And since I watch the “two” parties closer than most, I know that if the program goes down, it will be Democrats, and not Republicans, who do it. They are gorillas in human suits.

Bill Clinton had a plan to privatize Social Security, and it was in an advanced stage when the Monica crisis set upon him.

Monica saves Social Security - her weapon of choice: a cigar
His personal reputation, his presidency was at stake, and in one of the most fortunate of unintended consequences of his seedy administration, Social Security was spared. His sorry philandering ass was saved, and the fight to privatize Social Security was temporarily shelved.

It appears that Obama has a plan as well, and sadly for us, his personal habits appear clean. So we will have to hit the streets to save Social Security, and there is a big problem: Democrats will be busy watching the basketball as the gorilla mingles among them.

The plan is unfolding via a group called “America Speaks,”behind which lurks the Pew Charitable Trusts. They are running public forums.

Dress well, be civil, ask questions, present facts. (Drives them nuts!)
They most likely will try to make their top-down plan to privatize Social Security seem like our idea. We will be told that we have to scale it back, lower our expectations, and perhaps, maybe, well you never know … might have to privatize it.

When George W. Bush went after Social Security in 2005, he had his hat handed him. This time might be different, as the gorilla has put on his Democrat suit. Because President Obama is a Democrat, and because Democrats do not see gorillas when Democrats are in office, we could well be in deep trouble.

The faces change, but not the agenda
The reasoning behind the “crisis” in Social Security is specious. They merely add up projected expenses in the long haul, and revenue in the short run. Then they say that the program is “unsustainable.”

If one were to apply this financial model to any other government or corporate enterprise, whether it is the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the space program, subsidies for oil and gas and sugar or the bailouts, none would pass. But Social Security is an egalitarian program that manages billions and billions of dollars. It is well-managed with low overhead. Not one Wall Street banker receives an obscene bonus from it. Therefore, it is targeted.

Politics in America is one scam after another. We get tired of fighting the corporate PR machine, we get lazy. But it takes fighters, and we need fighters most when Democrats are in office. That’s when the worst damage happens. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is one of many groups that are fighting this fight. There are others – join any or many, and remember that the best way to do politics in our country is away from the two corporate political parties.

They have a plan. This time, we need to be the gorilla.

Pew Charitable Trusts, Montana Logging Division

The following is a comment that Matt Koehler left on a post down below.

I had to chuckle a little when I read the comments from Mr. Gabriel Furshong, MWA’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act Campaign Director, over at George Wuerthner’s excellent perspective piece on Tester’s bill over at NewWest.net titled “Tester’s Response Poor Strategy“:

Mr. Furshong stated:

“Wilderness philosophers from other states can postulate all they want about Montana politics – such chatter will never result in actual legislation to protect 500,000 acres of ground in the largest National Forest in the lower 48 states and create new jobs at Montana mills that have a record of stewardship best practices.”

You know what? Mr. Furshong’s dismissive comment is striking when compared with the fact that just this week the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved 26 bills establishing new Wilderness areas and dealing with other public lands issues. Those 26 bills were approved by the ENR Committee en bloc, by unanimous consent.

Somehow, Mr. Furshong's predecessors pulled this off!

Tester publicly promised in 2006 to protect Montana's roadless lands

Reader’s will recall that Senator Tester’s FJRA [Forest Jobs and Recreation Act] is currently before this same Senate ENR [Energy and Natural Resources] Committee. Sometime in May, the ENR Committee sent Senator Tester a draft revision of this bill, which his office shared with the collaborators. Once the media questioned Senator Tester about the ENR’s draft he proclaimed it “Dead on arrival.”

So now, on June 20, the Senate ENR Committee approved 26 bills dealing with Wilderness and public lands issues

Something I’d encourage Wilderness supporters to consider is the very likely fact that if Senator Tester and the collaborators (Mr. Furshong and MWA included) would have accepted the ENR Committee’s draft revisions when they were shared about a month ago, it too would have been approved by the Committee this week.

So despite Mr. Furshong’s claim that “such chatter will never result in actual legislation” it sure seems to me that MWA and the other collaborator’s insistence on mandated logging and motors in Wilderness might have cost all of us the opportunity to designate over 660,000 acres as Wilderness and get some good restoration and fuel reduction work accomplished as proposed in the ENR Committee’s draft.

Some details of the ENR Committee’s draft:

* It would protect over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness. However, it doesn’t undermine Wilderness by allowing military helicopters to land in Wilderness or ranchers to ride their ATV’s in Wilderness, as Senator Tester’s draft allows.

* It drops the controversial and unprecedented mandated logging levels on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai National Forests. It adds language requiring that any project carried out under the bill must fully maintain old growth forests and retain large trees, while focus any hazardous fuel reduction efforts on small diameter trees.

* It would also establish a “National Forest Jobs and Restoration Initiative” that would “preserve and create local jobs in rural communities…to sustain the local logging and restoration infrastructure and community capacity…to promote cooperation and collaboration…to restore or improve the ecological function of priority watersheds…to carry out collaborative projects to restore watersheds and reduce the risk of wildfires to communities.” Much of this work would be carried out through stewardship contracting.

Senatorial candidate Jon Tester promised, before witnesses, that he would …work to protect all of Montana’s remaining roadless areas.” What we got instead is mandated logging, violations of the spirit of the Wilderness Act itself, and Baucus-style ‘rocks and ice’ wilderness designations. This is not a nuanced interpretation of what the candidate said versus what reality dictates to the Senator. It a broken promise.

Period.

Something should be done here about MWA’s name – perhaps a contest and a new name for this once-proud defender of Montana wild lands. Here are some suggest new names:

Pew Charitable Trusts, Montana Logging Division
Montana Facilitators Association
The Baucus (Jr.) Caucus
Collaborators Roundtable

Paul Richards pulled out of 2006 Senate race based on a Tester promise to protect roadless areas

Other names will surely occur to me later today …

Now we all know how long it takes for an honest farmer from Big Sandy, Montana, to transform into a Machiavellian and dishonest Washington DC politician. (Paul Richards a Boulder, Montana, former candidate for U.S. Senate)

Collaborators versus negotiators

Light green areas are remaining roadless lands
Light green areas are remaining roadless lands
I was very active in Montana wilderness issues up until about ten years ago. At the time I withdrew, I was convinced that there would never be anymore new wilderness in Montana, and that worse than that, in the future we would be fighting to preserve what we had. I had visions of developers banging on the doors of national parks and existing wilderness areas. The motorbacks were just coming into their own, and were making “share the trails” demand much in the same way that smokers might demand to “share the air” in our restaurants. The idea of saving any of our then-roadless lands seemed out of reach.

The players were:

Sen Conrad Burns and his replacement, Jon Tester

Senator Conrad Burns: He was the focus for conservationists, as he was openly antagonistic towards wilderness, and easily adopted the posture of motorbacks that machines should go everywhere. He was a rallying point, and served the cause of preservation well by bringing various groups together in opposition.

Senator Max Baucus, faux bonhomme

Senator Max Baucus: He was the man who undermined any efforts to preserve additional lands. Industry had long lost interest in high and rocky lands and lightly timbered ones. Baucus gathered up all of these areas in his own Wilderness Bill, the “Rocks and Ice” Bill. Predictably, wherever there was serious movement at preservation, Baucus trotted out rocks and ice, and said “this or nothing”.
MWA Founders Ken and Florence Baldwin ... wherefore art thou?

Baucus was the real enemy, yet I will never forget John Gatchell’s words to me after the 1996 election, when Max won another term: “At least we still have Max.” Gatchell is the Conservation Director for the Montana Wilderness Association, a group with a proud conservation history and founded in 1957 by Ken and Florence Baldwin, and others.

Power is dangerous, a narcotic. Proximity to power changes a person, clouds the intellect and alters perceptions. (Wasn’t there some kind of trilogy about a ring or some such thing?) Max, nominally a “Democrat”, managed the conservationists as part of a larger strategy of keeping his left flanks in line and ineffective. (I wrote an op-ed published in the Billings Gazette in which I called him a “faux bonhomme,” literally a “pretended good fellow,” or “false friend.” That is the most dangerous kind of friend to have.

When Conrad Burns left office, we lost our rallying point. Jon Tester was an unknown quantity, but did make serious attempts to reach out to conservationists in his campaign. Many progressives adopted him, placing almost blind faith in his good will as a substitute for on-the-ground organizing. That’s a dangerous situation, as there are few answers inside politics. We were effective against Conrad Burns, literally immobilizing the development forces behind him because we were organized groups with common purpose. That organization stopped the political wheels.

Danger has come to fruition. Tester has set out to achieve what Burns never could – to split environmentalist forces, bring the loggers into roadless lands, and undermine the legal concept of “wilderness” that has guided us thus far. His Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is Baucus “Rocks and Ice” redux, with huge tracts of roadless lands given over to mandated logging. What wilderness it preserves is sullied by helicopter and ATV encroachment.

At the center of this controversy are two people from years past who might now be seen as “collaborators.” They are the aforementioned Gatchell of Montana Wilderness Association (not pictured), and Tom France of National Wildlife Federation’s Missoula branch.

Tom France of NWF: Collaborative participant
There are others, but these two are my focus, as they have seemingly traveled to the other side. (Gatchell’s 1996 statement of fealty to Baucus indicates that for him, at least, it was a short trip.)

George Wuerthner, among many others, is a new prominent voice for conservation in Montana, and has done serious writing on this subject. This piece, from New West, explores the different meanings of “collaboration” and “negotiation.” He gives and example of each:

Quincy Library Group in California Here local environmental activists joined with timber industry to craft a plan that called for logging up to 60,000 acres of the Plumas National Forest annually in exchange for protection of some old growth trees and small roadless areas. Like the Tester legislation, the Quincy proposal was hailed as an example of how collaboration had achieved a resolution to a long-standing stalemate.

However, other environmentalists, including the Wilderness Society, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, and Sierra Club among others did not support more logging on the Plumas NF and they railed against the Quincy Library Group proposal. Environmental members of the Quincy group soon joined the timber industry in denouncing the anti-corporate giveaway activists.

The collaborationists adopted the goals of their opposition in an attempt to move the process forward. In so doing, they split from their own ranks and joined the developers, and as the Little Lamb followed Mary, were soon attacking conservationists. This is the Tester Process that Gatchell and France have fostered in Montana.

Steens Mountain National Monument in eastern Oregon: First, ONDA remained very up front that their goal was to end grazing–and they were not afraid to tell the ranchers, the Congressman, or anyone else that if they had an opportunity to eliminate grazing, they would go for it. Indeed, one of the things they negotiated successfully in the Steen Mountain legislation was the first legislated cow-free wilderness. Since they were clear in expressing that their chief goal was to protect wilderness and eliminate grazing, no one, including the local ranchers had any misgivings about their motives.

The ranchers went into the negotiations with their eyes wide open. They knew where [Oregon Natural Desert Association] stood on matters. They did not think ONDA lied or deceived them when they continue to lobby to remove cows from public lands, not only on Steens, but also throughout Eastern Oregon.

However, ONDA’s goal of livestock removal didn’t keep them from working with the ranchers either. By negotiation ranchers got some things they wanted too. They were able to consolidate their private lands by land exchanges with the BLM. Some received permit buyouts, and left the business altogether, but with a golden parachute. With these negotiations, the ranchers had some control over where wilderness designations occurred.

Wuerthner: Carrying on the Baldwin legacy

That is negotiation, with each side sticking to principles, but understanding that they must find middle ground. In the end, ranchers and ONDA walked away from the process, neither side having lost or gained everything, but having achieved primary goals. More important, their principles were not compromised and dignity was intact.

Sen Jon Tester has done what Conrad Burns could not do – he has divided the Montana environmental community, and has set the stage for to degradation of large tracts of Montana’s roadless lands. This is why I have consistently and stridently maintained over the years that we face far more danger form Democrats in office than Republicans.

Join AWR, donate, attend a concert, have some fun

I miss you Conrad. Your replacement is far, far more dangerous than you ever dreamed to be. (In wartime, don’t they shoot collaborators?)

Anyway, as old fighters fall by the road, new ones take their place. The battle goes on. At this time the fighters for wilderness are many, and my favorite group is called “Alliance for the Wild Rockies.” To this date, they have fought for their cause, stand ready to negotiate, and have never collaborated.

Obama blues

Glenn Greenwald has written persuasively that the Office of the President is a powerful force in affecting bills that are being debated on Capitol Hill. I have seen the same thing, witness health care: The president was helpless, sat on his hands, as progressive ideas such as Medicare opt-in, Public Option were being discussed. (In fact, he had bargained away a public option before the process even started, but that is off-topic.)

When all that was left was a bad bill, when Public Option was gone, when cost controls were gone, when AHIP and PhRMA had everything they wanted, the president flexed his muscles, threatened, cajoled, bribed …anything and everything to get his bad bill passed.

Obama's search for a family dog finally ended

To those liberals and progressives who are still waiting for his little light to shine from under that bushel basket, please. Accept reality. He’s powerful, he’s interested, but he’s a Blue Dog – a Conservadem. We’ve got ourselves another Clinton.

From Greenwald:

Here’s Politico today on last night’s victory of Blue Dog Democratic incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson in Utah over his liberal primary challenger:

He was the beneficiary of late support from Organizing for America, President Barack Obama’s grassroots organization, which used e-mails, text messages, and campaign mailers to urge Democrats pull the lever for the incumbent.

Progressive Claudia Wright falls to an Obama-backed Blue Dog in Utah

Similar to what they did for Blanche Lincoln, the Obama White House unleashed its OFA Army to help protect a Blue Dog incumbent against a progressive challenger. Being able to do that, or not do it, or doing it in the other direction (i.e., to support the primary challenger) sounds to me like some pretty substantial leverage to use over members of Congress.

We are seeing it here in Colorado, where Obama is doing everything he can to support the campaign of Conservadem corporatist Michael Bennet over Andrew Romanoff.

A crudely crafted sign to progressives put up by Emanuel

And this is not new, nor recent. It started on November 8, 2008, with the appointment of conservative Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff. From there we got appointment of Conservadems to fill vacant senate seats (with the exception of Illinois’ Roland Burris, appointed as a slap in the face of Obama by Rod” Blagojevich. Conservadem Tammy Duckworth was slated to take that seat. Burris has been squeezed out now by this supposedly weak and ineffective president.)

Progressives need not apply for work in this administration. That’s all.

Why the frankness, part dieux

Down below I wondered why the frankness about the abundance of natural resources in Afghanistan. As a matter of propriety, we are never told about real objectives of war. (And often we learn later that within power centers there are a myriad of objectives, and even confusion about them. There is just one consistency: They lie, they lie, they lie.)

Jacques Ellul

So I reviewed my text on modern public relations techniques to see if there is a role for truth in propaganda. I vaguely remembered that Goebbels preferred that public pronouncements be true, and that if the truth was not useful, that there simply be silence. That technique is widely used today. Here’s a brief compilation of Ellul’s discussion of the role of truth in propaganda:

The idea that propaganda consists of lies (which makes it harmless and even a little ridiculous in the eyes of the public) is still maintained by some specialists … but it is certainly not so. For a long time propagandists have recognized that lying must be avoided. “In propaganda, truth pays off” – the formula has been increasingly accepted.

Vladimar Lenin, public relations specialist

Lenin proclaimed it. And alongside Hitler’s statement on lying* one must place Goebbels’s insistence that facts to be disseminated must by accurate.

Josef Goebbels, early PR man

How can we explain this contradiction? Ellul says that lies can discredit propaganda, and that “the truth that pays off is in the realm of facts.” Lies pay off as well, but if exposed can be damaging. The essential features of modern public relations are are in the realm of intentions and interpretations.

So we have been told the truth about the existence of vast mineral resources in Afghanistan, resources that the military-industrial complex has likely known of for decades. We could have been told that in the 1980’s, but we weren’t officially there in the 1980’s until Sly Stallone told us about it in Rambo III,. Bush could have told us in 2001, but at that time the American public was so angry that he could have invaded Denmark and it would have succeeded.

John Rambo was our news source for the 1980's war in Afghanistan

A decision was made to share the information with us. The information has been set free, and the press has dutifully reported it and then discarded it. But it has entered the public consciousness.

So the question to ask is this: What interpretation do we give it, and what are the intentions of those who allowed the information to be set free?

¶Everything we do, we do it for them¶

The interpretation is easy: Various media elements have emphasized that these minerals will be a boon for the Afghan people. As resource colonies go, that’s not true. But it feels good to say it.

Intentions? I can only guess, as there is so much that is kept secret from us, but I posit that the information will be used in the future to help the government maintain the fiction that we are there for lofty motives – to help them develop their minerals.

Now Panamanians, Grenadans, Libyans, Palestinians, Vietnamese, Kosovans, Iraqis and residents of Diego Garcia might be screaming at the top of their lungs to the Afghans … Please! Please! Don’t let them “help” you! But the opinions of these people do not matter. The whole of this interesting release of information is intended for domestic consumption.
__________
*The larger the lie, the more believable it is

Gabriel Furshong gets it

Clipped from a longer entry by Mathew Koehler over at 4&20: Identical entries from three different sources, all posted within one hour of each other. The third is from a most interesting source:

Billings Gazette: Tester puts logging back in forest bill:
Zahnie Bunyan said:

What public land managers and public land advocates have failed to understand for so many years is that public land is about partnership. Senator Tester gets it. He doesn’t take the myopic view that our forests are just about wilderness, or timber harvest, or recreation. He is working hard to reward partnerships that take a more integrated view of the forest – a forest where you can get a paycheck, ride your snowmobile, and hunt world class elk across vast tracks of roadless land. (June 18, 2010, 12:14 pm)

From John Adams Lowdown, Tester unveils new draft of forest jobs bill:

Anonymous said:

What public land managers and public land advocates have failed to understand for so many years is that public land is about partnership. Senator Tester gets it. He doesn’t take the myopic view that our forests are just about wilderness, or timber harvest, or recreation. He is working hard to reward partnerships that take a more integrated view of the forest – a forest where you can get a paycheck, ride your snowmobile, and hunt world class elk across vast tracks of roadless land. (June 18, 2010 12:17 PM)

From the Missoulian: Tester proposes changes to Montana wilderness, logging bill:

Gabriel Furshong, MWA Forest Jobs and Recreation Act Campaign Director

gfurshong said:

What public land managers and public land advocates have failed to understand for so many years is that public land is about partnership. Senator Tester gets it. He doesn’t take the myopic view that our forests are just about wilderness, or timber harvest, or recreation. He is working hard to reward partnerships that take a more integrated view of the forest – a forest where you can get a paycheck, ride your snowmobile, and hunt world class elk across vast tracks of roadless land. (June 18, 2010, 1:12 pm)

The phrase “Senator Tester gets it” is a little troubling. It has that insipid, hollow PR ring about it, like a paid staffer brainstormed with others to come up with a three or four word phrase that encapsulates the essence of their campaign. Expect to see it elsewhere.

(Other phrases considered and rejected: “I’m lovin’ it”, “But wait! There’s more!,” “It’s all about you,” and “Where’s the beef?” They briefly considered “Keep it wild,” but decided it was trite, and even counter-message.)

The suffocating pillow of gradualism

Civil libertarians (should that not be all of us?), Democrats and democrats, patriots and citizens of all stripes were rightly enraged that the Bush Administration used its sharp elbows to usurp power and encroach on personal liberty. It made up a new power- to kidnap a foreign citizen, take him anywhere in the world, torture him, and be accountable to no one. (It was done routinely before, but never openly acknowledged. The real usurpation there was to create acceptance of totalitarian behavior by the American public.)

That’s some pretty bad behavior, and there was pushback. In 2004,Bush probably lost the election, but another of his innovations, the paperless and unauditable voting machine, handed him the win. (Oddly, Democrats never offered up resistance to the machines, and the reason is likely that both parties want the power to alter election outcomes at will. The recent Arkansas senatorial primary is … suspicious.)

In 2008, in an oddly clean election, there was overwhelming push back, and Barack Obama assumed office. A new day in America, blah blah blah. And here is the problem with our one-financier-two-parties system: when Bush got out of hand, the partisans of the Democratic Party were enraged. Now that Obama is president, and has invented for himself the right to assassinate an American citizen without trial, without evidence, much less proof of guilt, and you hear …. [chirp].

This is the worst aspect of the Democratic Party – their indifference to the behavior of Democratic presidents. Once a Democrat assumes power, they fall asleep. The president from their party has to be vetted by the same power centers as the other party. He has to pass muster in the corporate media. He has to be glamorous and well-spoken. He has to speak vaguely and carry a small stick.

In other words, as Alexander Cockburn said about Obama long before he was elected, whatever bomb was ticking between his ears had long since been defused. He presented no threat to power.

What we have as a result of this indifference is not a mean old Republican Party and a somewhat good Democratic Party. It is quite the opposite. The Democrats present far more danger to our former Republic. They can get away with things the Republicans cannot. HICPA*, the Health Care Reform Bill, is a Christmas tree for the insurance industry, reinforcing their power over us and profits for them in perpetuity. Could the Republicans have passed such an outrageous insult to intelligence? No way.

I often say that “Democrats are the problem,” but seldom take the time to explain the concept. It is this: We need organized opposition to concentrated power in this country. Democrats assume that mantle, and then do nothing with it. In fact, as with Obama pronouncing the death sentence on American citizens, they often run further and faster than Republicans can.

I am often countered with the notion of “gradualism,” which Martin Luther King called a “tranquilizing drug.” Were it just that, it might be bearable. But it is worse than just a tranquilizer. It is an illusion. There is no gradual progress with Democrats. Concentrated power advances with them in office. It is the opposite of gradualism. It is erosion.

So to those who say that third parties are futile, that we get most of what we want from Democrats, I say nonsense! We do not get less than what we want, we get none of what we want, most of what THEY want, and we are gelded in the process.

I am not a Democrat. I am not a “progressive” if Democrats have usurped that name. I am not a “libertarian,” though I like their independent spirit. I am a NOT. I am waiting for NOT to be a viable alternative. I support all NOT candidates who fight Democrats and Republicans to get on ballots.

But more than that, I support movement politics. The ballot box is a nice illusion, but once elected, if an office holder lacks a support base, nothing happens.

It all starts on the streets and in the neighborhoods. Democrats exist to stop movement politics, to absorb movements and suffocate them with the pillow of gradualism. Democrats are the problem.

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*HICPA = Health Insurance Company Protection Act