FAMAE
(noun, f. rumor, fame, renoun, ill repute, news)
What's Newest
(Hottest updates always at the blog, Nothing New Under
The Sun. Please feel free to jump in to any discussions - comments are
open to all.)
8/18 - Neoconned!
A page of graphs and tables detailing all the connections I have been able
to trace between Big Steel, Big Oil, Munitions, and other Industrial Giants
often with Defense connections - and the vast spread of "conservative"
causes and their activist branches. If you didn't already know that the
people paying the bills for AEI were the same people keeping the lights
on for Phyllis Schlafly, or that all these independent groups dedicated
to "individual property rights" against the environment and social security
and health care and education were funded by the same backers, and shared
many of the same board members, brace yourself.
5/23 - four new posters in the graphics
page, theme of the day is Orwell and the undead past. (Well the latter
is always the theme.) Note well how many sf/fantasy references are simply
part of the discourse these days: author Michael Berubé refered
to someone as Senator Palpatine, for instance, without stopping to explain
the reference, as if he were merely dipping into a quaint subculture. The
day that Lewis, Amis, and friends looked forward to, when SF would be the
accepted literature of the future - that's now.
In the Praetorium we have now a copy of the
actual "Don't Read That!" internal memo from the Pentagon, courtesy of
Col. Hackworth. It's even funnier than the summary of it was.
In that vein, we have officially moved from Dr. Strangelove to
Duck
Soup as the paradigm for our foreign policy. I heard Feith described
as "putting the FU in FUBAR," which is about right but for all of them.
The situation has really gone past the point where any farce or parody
can do justice to it. I'll be blogging on the Chalabi mess shortly, see
Marble
Arch.
5/17 - in response to a reader pointing out that it would be more practical
and efficient a way of reaching peope on a rapid basis, I have finally
started a blog. Similar to the
corner of Hyde Park in London called Marble Arch, it's a place to criticize
the PTB under their very noses while calling attention to state-sponsored
terror.
5/15 - all of it. This is a mess, it may or may not become more aesthetic/organized
as time goes by. But it's all relevant. I'm trying to make people do as
little digging as possible. More to come as I can. Always, always,
use this as jumping off, don't fear to do your own googling or library
legwork.
—Have you called your congresscritters yet? Again? Why not?
THE
LISTS
aka The Butcher's Bill, the Military Cost
Coalition
Casualty reports by day and month [period 3 is all the casualties
since the "Mission Accomplished" banner]
Names &
Faces from the publishers of Army Times
The
Wounded - they're not on anyone's list that I know of. There
are over 10,000 of them, and for many of them, their lives are forever
ruined. How would
you cope, with no eyes or no hands? Don't wave
happy Chicken Soup books around, either. Try Johnny Got His Gun
instead.
The Price Tag in Cash and Materiel-
no one knows exactly, but the Pentagon auditors are desperately trying
to figure out where the money's going. (Ans: into KBR's pockets.)
Oh, and can we please have some more, Mr. Congress?
The Liberated -
"We don't do body counts," but some people are less phlegmatic about the
number of non-American, non-Coalition persons, mostly civilians, KIA, and
have taken a stab at it.
HISTORIA
hard evidence for those trying not to repeat it
CIA Torture manual
(KUBARK) used in Central American to teach methods in the 1980s
- the
context and the contents. The methods go back to 1963.
"Torture methods taught in the 1983 manual include stripping
suspects naked and keeping them blindfolded. Interrogation rooms should
be windowless, dark and soundproof, with no toilet."
The
Taguba Report and the JA's
original rebuttal ("Karpinski is a fine officer") completed March
2004, courtesy of Army Times, who posted both in mockery of the
Pentagon's instructions not to read the report to its own employees.
"War
Is A Racket" by Major
General Smedley "Old Gimlet Eyes" Butler, USMC, decorated veteran of
the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican War, and many
other military actions on behalf of US financial interests.
The
War Prayer by Mark Twain. Good old Samuel Clemens was a founding
member of the Anti-Imperialist movement - bet you never learned that
in high school! Read the short story that was too hot to print in his own
lifetime, inspired by the Spanish-American War. They had Mr. Pulitzer,
we have Rupert Murdoch…
People I Listen To On
Something Like A Regular Basis
(or not as happens with FOX News)
Tikkun
The Likudnik/Zionist rhetoric has been allowed to coopt American discourse.
If being anti-Occupation is being anti-Jewish, why are Israeli military
personnel like Gil Nama'ati and the 27 air force pilots refusing to take
part in or support or even stand idly by their government's policy? Why
are rabbis in Israel, North Africa as well as the US condemning "targetted"
killings that take out scads of bystanders? And the "anti-Semitic" enthymeme
is absurd in the Middle-east, because Arabs are Semites. Hebrew
is a Semitic language. So is Arabic. Both peoples claim traditional
descent from Abraham - just read your Bibles. And they've been intermarrying
for millennia, despite the authorities, leading to such things as an Israeli
soldier's father being kicked out last year from his home for being a Palestinian.
(I believe the public scandal made them reverse this.) Even they can't
tell themselves apart, which is why there was a move to make Palestinians
wear red stripes on their clothing, last year. —Yeah. I know. And I
could have been Gil Nama'ati, born on a kibbutz, to a parent who Believed
wholeheartedly - would I have been as clearsighted and had the same courage?
I hope so, but I don't know. I just don't know, and that kept me silent
for a long time: there but for grace go I &c. But ever since I heard
about him, I knew I was going to have to start speaking out.
ACTA
DIURNA
the official press, by no means complete, just a skim
of the US/UK news organs
(for individual articles, please report dead links via
the dead link form so they can be replaced by archived copies)
To log into the NYT, if you are not registered and don't
wish to be for privacy reasons (although it is free), use arxreader
and capitoline for username and password.
To log into the WaPo, use arx@none.com and capitoline.
(and logout when you're done.)
Army Times the unofficial
newspaper of the military. Some articles subscribers only. Check out the
Polls section particularly.
Stars & Stripes
the official newspaper of the US army, but still more than a political
cheerleader - as it was back in the day when Bill
Mauldin drew for it despite George Patton's wrath.
Washington Post
- the liberal rag, which happens right now to be full of generals
saying anonymously what I've been saying all along. (Why do you think I
posted Sun Tzu on long-drawn-out invasions last year, or Tolkien on the
shortness of collective memory in re how fast we would forget WWII?)
Washington Times
- the Moonie PC* rag, tried to ignore the scandals for weeks, then rationalized
them, now is making a Jenkins' Ear of Nicholas Berg - after condemning
the Reading of the Names as "partisan politics."
NY Times - part of the
SCLM (So-Called "Liberal Media"), finally waking up to being had. But what
do you expect from people who said back in the Iran/Iraq war that of course
we were helping Hussein and official deniablity was obviously a fraud -
but it was still the right policy? Nick Kristof, however, always
rocks. And Paul Krugman is not a stupid guy either.
the BBC - in a paradoxical
position, being a government news agency, sometimes it comes across that
sports is more important than anything else. OTOH anyone reading this who
still thinks that the USA is the only country with an immigrant experience
must be on Oxycontin.
the Guardian - according
to some freepers, a anti american [sic] rag that cannot be trusted
FOX News, the fair and
balanced network that has done so much to glorify police brutality for
the past decade
Ha'aretz - do American
defenders of the Zionist zealots ever read the Israeli press? (Ans:
no, and they don't know who Shimon
Peres is, either.) Not everyone in Israel approves of the madness
that is beggaring their country, even those who face the threat of bombs
themselves on a daily basis.
*PC - the real definition of "politically correct" is
(self-evidently!) whatever view is endorsed by the current ruling party
at the moment. It's actually an old Bolshevik joke - dark self-directed
humour, as used in this country, before being coopted by the historically
illiterate. An example of political correctness in
action is Haig's statement when challenged on his unacknowledged contradiction
of a previous statement: that statement is no longer operable. Or, "We
have always been at war with Eastasia." Or, "what do you mean, we sold
anthrax to Saddam Hussein? Iraq has always been our enemy…"
CYNICS
Dangerous
Places - why you should not conduct business ventures in war zones,
with specifics. Blackly funny - this is where I first heard about Osama
bin Laden and why he was a danger to us, months before September
of 2001.
Jane's Information Group
- created by the guy who realized that airplanes were going to make a difference
back when the militaries of the world were still laughing at them, the
world's leading defense analysis collective.
The Memory Hole the
internet used against Orwellian revisionism by Big Brother
Veterans Against the Iraq War
- particularly check out Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski's account of her disillusionment,
as a former conservative Pentagon intelligence officer watched all evidence
and prudence be swept away in a tide of ideology and enthusiasm.
Soldiers For The Truth - Col.
David Hackworth was responsible for getting the photos to CBS - after Bill
O'Reilly refused them. More Karen Kwiatowski exposés of the Pentagon
rot here.
Stan
Goff, former Special Forces, now leftie peacenik dedicated to debunking
the ethos of violent masculinity
—and the greatest of us all,
Sy Hersh,
the legendary investigative reporter who broke My Lai despite Colin Powell's
best efforts, writing in the New Yorker over the past few years, and being
called tanamount to a terrorist by no less than Richard Perle.
SATIRISTS
The Onion, impartial
mockers of earthly folly.
· Special report - the
Onion predicts history with more accuracy than any other living haruspex!
Meanwhile Aristophanes gives us more things that are "never out of
date" - sex, war, crude humor and scathing political mockery in Lysistrata,
a response to his own countrymen's descent into madness and self-destructive
aggression.
PULPITS
& AUTONOMOUS COLLECTIVES
aka Blogistan, aka the free press, the quickpress
Angels of Our
Better Nature, by Arkhangel, currently serving in the US military,
and recently in Iraq.
tacitus, a collective headed
by another US serviceman with an opposing stance, which used to be identical
with the Establishment, but fractures are becoming visible in realtime
ginmar,
a fellow fanficcer in the field in Iraq right now, who broke the news that
the fighting was fierce when the SCLM was saying All's Quiet On The Eastern
Front. Why is her email and email of other soldiers being taken away, while
KBR gets luxury and free access? Official answer is fear of viruses. The
truth is a virus now?
Democratic Veteran
Jo Fish, USN, working on grinding down the bastards.
Orcinus, a real
live legitimate journalist, not an amateur like the rest of us - he also
covers the coverage.
Whiskey Bar, Billmon's crew,
who scooped the Joe Ryan/Steve Stephanowicz/CACI story days before
the official press. Right now our host is covering the conference in Jordan
- he's a real journalist too.
Slacktivist
Fred proving that not all Christians are bigots (his Left Behind analysis
is hilariously spot-on, drinks warning)
DailyKos, collective
maintained by someone who knows firsthand what American interventionism
looks like and got trashed for telling the truth about what mercenaries
- er, contractors - get up to under US supervision.
Eschaton, Atrios'
collective, where lots of debunking the news goes on. Also, focus on episcopal
hypocrisy.
Respectful of
Otters, by Rivka (she's a she, for those confused by us women who
"write like men")
GreyLadyBast
is trying to wake up the fandom with her journal. Don't be a janitor on
the Death Star!
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RAPID RESPONSES
"contractor" - Newspeak for "mercenary"
"collateral damage" - Newspeak for "civilian casualties"
From Fallujah To Abu Ghreib:
America embraces the Doctrine
of "Preemptive Retaliation"
Eric Shinseki for Secretary of Defense (as the
only one in the Pentagon who saw it coming and dared say so and got fired
for it, he's the obvious choice now.)
Bush/Cheney '04 - Don't Change Horses Mid Apocalypse!
(from Whiskey Bar)
de Toqueville was right - our racism would be our downfall.
We have met the Enemy and he is us.
-Pogo.
Remember the Maine--?
"wetwork" - Newspeak for "state-sponsored killings"
SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER
before it's too late
(be it the power of the government or of the masses)
"Agitprop on the Cheap," & "Morality in Black & White" - cartoons,
editorial images, LJ icons, printable PDF posters, web graphics:
download,
print, post, pass them around.
(just please don't hotlink, the toll on my bandwidth is going to be
high enough as it is - hotlinking is when you set the image in a page so
it automatically opens up and it's coming from my site. Put them on your
own site if you want to display them, thanks.) |
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