The Rag Blog

Into every tragically depressing world situation some light must shine if you wait long enough and the planets align just right.

That glimmer of light came yesterday from, of all places, the Death Star known by many as Washington, D.C., from deep within one of the most unfathomable quadrants of that bleakness–the chambers of the United States Senate. Even more remarkably, it sprang from what some consider a true black hole–the Republican caucus.

But light it is, and in these times we need to celebrate every photon that comes our way.

Yesterday, the Senate voted 53-45, seven votes short of the 60 needed to advance the bill, against a $50,000,000,000 “supplemental” funding measure passed earlier this week by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. What the Republicans objected to was the limp, inconsequential troop withdrawal plan supported by House and Senate Democrats–something that Groucho Marx would have much more accurately termed, “a sham of a mockery of a sham.”

The sham-of-a-mockery-of-a-withdrawal the Democrats wrote and the Republicans just could not stomach, required the president to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq by December 15, 2008–all except a few thousand for “protecting United States diplomatic facilities;” perhaps ten thousand or so for “conducting limited training, equipping, and providing logistical and intelligence support to the Iraqi security forces,” a few more thousand for “protecting United States Armed Forces and American citizens” in Iraq, including those pillars of the community from Blackwater, Inc.; and a few more thousand for “engaging in targeted counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda affiliated groups, and other terrorist organizations in Iraq.”

They actually called this a limited presence.”

This was the “withdrawal” plan the Democrats wanted in exchange for another 50 billion dollars to continue the war. To paraphrase the late Republican Senator Everett Dirksen: “Even though the dollar is rapidly going down the toilet, pretty soon it adds up to real money.”

To the Senate Republicans I send a warm “thank you” for killing a $50,000,000,000 cash infusion into this tragic, illegal war.

To the scores of peace activists around the country preparing to occupy their U.S. Senators’ local offices to press them to vote against more war funding I say, “Declare victory in this round. And then get 10 friends to pledge to occupy those offices with you in February, when the Democrats will feel compelled to bail out Bush again.”

To MoveOn.org and similar groups whose main purpose in life is toadying up to the Democratic Party, I say, “Spare us your electronic mobilizations of well-meaning citizens to bombard the airwaves and street corners with a Damn the Republicans for voting against a timetable to end the war’ message. Leave the internet lines open for more meaningful emails like Nigerian business opportunities and penis patches.”

And to anyone who thinks this too cynical or too hard on our last, best hope, the Congressional Democrats, I commend this pompous, arrogant, condescending quote, dripping with hubris from a leading Senate liberal, Carl Levin (D-MI), during yesterday’s Senate debate: “We need to do more than say to the Iraqis that our patience has run out and that they need to seize the opportunity that has been given them … Their dawdling will only end when they have no choice.”

Yes, it’s quite an opportunity we’ve given the Iraqis, Senator Levin … but then they are such an ungrateful, dawdling lot.

The term “middle class” does not mean anything. There can be no sense of cohesion among members of a group jostling to climb the social ladder. The possessors and the dispossessed can be described as antagonistic social classes. But those in between, those hooked to the dominant ideology of possession and power, have no class structure of their own. They are neither nor and are condemned to perpetual schizophrenia.

Plutocracy depends on mercenary intermediaries. The wealthy few cannot rule alone. They would be submerged by the sheer weight of numbers. So the citizen guards the slave and the freeman guards the serf. Guard and guarded necessarily lead quite similar lives, but they are separated by an ideological chasm. The slave sees his chains, knows he is chattel and dreams of being free. The freeman resents his bondage, realises he is nothing and dreams of being Caesar. The one aspires to human rights, the other to dominion.

Like a Dantean hell, power is a structure of widening concentric circles, the Outer Circle being the most infernal. The interface between the have and the have-not is a place where power is brutal and ideas are radical. But it is also the place where transfers occur. Deserving slaves are emancipated and rebellious deviants are enslaved. These passages blur the boundary so completely that it can only exist in the mind. The Outer Circle of power needs the strongest convictions to compensate its meagre material benefits.

The most important element of the power structure, the base of the pyramid, the interface with the rest of humanity, is neglected materially and must be bolstered morally as a consequence. The ideology of power needs to be as total as possible. When there is no alternative, the system is secure. And, when an alternative does seem possible, it is denied, divided, turned around and finally destroyed or integrated. Protestantism and socialism were historic alternatives. Both were the products of their times. Neither restrained power, wealth or oligarchic rule. But, as past examples, they highlight the difficulties of opposing a totalitarian organisation that is backed by unlimited means.

The power structure depends mainly on ideology to maintain its base. The control of ideas and knowledge is essential. This in turn means controlling the media that circulate words, images and concepts. Technology, however, follows its own unpredictable path and some media are more difficult to control than others. Throughout the Middle Ages, publishing had been the absolute monopoly of monastic workshops. But the arrival of the printing press and paper from China, and the invention of movable type by Gutenberg (42-line Bible, 1448) produced a new medium that was uncontrollable. It coincided with the siege (1422) and fall (1453) of Constantinople and a back surge from Byzantium carrying oriental flotsam, Greek, Hebrew and Arab books, materialism and mysticism, the crafts of state and war, astrology and al’jebr, the art of interpreting the scriptures. The printing press became a guarantee that ideas could be circulated without the consent of authority. The freedom of expression brought about by printing was behind all the major social upheavals of the following centuries, from reformation to revolution. Until the late 19th century, when rotary printing, the telegraph and the railways produced the first mass medium, the popular press.

Mass media give a level of control unequalled since the times before Gutenberg. When millions read, hear (radio) and see (TV) the same thing at the same time, the effect can be compared to that of church rituals in medieval Europe. The mere communion of so many gives credence to the ideology being propagated. The 20th century saw the multiplicity of opinions competing for attention on a fairly level playing field that was the result of the printing press, replaced by a top down totalitarian mass culture, with central offices pontificating for readers, listeners and viewers in ever greater numbers. But, when personal computers plugged in to the telephone network creating the World Wide Web, centralised media suddenly seemed meaningless. This coincided with the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the end of the USSR. And the resulting culture shock is as intense as that produced by printing five hundred years ago. Except that the “Gutenberg Galaxy” only concerned Christianity, whereas the Internet galaxy is global.

The church re-formers of the 16th century were fundamentalists. They preached a return to the teachings of the Gospels and the Old Testament, to the instructions of Paul and Augustine. They abhorred the pomp of ecclesiastic dignitaries, the superstitious worship of saintly relics and the selling of indulgences. Muslim radicals to-day sound much the same as Zwingli, Luther and Calvin would have sounded to their contemporaries. And what of the “Protestant Rome” in Geneva protected by mountains and hordes of fierce Swiss halberdiers, or the short lived “New Jerusalem” in Münster, or the insurgency in Flanders? These events were perceived by the Catholic power structure to be threatening its values and existence. And the backlash was horrific. Islam is going through the throes of re-formation surfing on the web medium, and its tribulations can be compared to those of the Christian Reformation carried by the print medium. In both cases, it is the Outer Circle voicing its doubts as to the First Circle’s moral right to hold power and wealth. But this can only happen at historic moments, when a new medium makes expression possible.

We, who have received a European cultural heritage, have gone beyond religious reform, though the passage was a continual blood bath. And, with even more bloodshed, we have constructed secular nation states. These two transformations were the consequences of printing and mass media. The first movement was fuelled by freedom of expression. The technologies of printing and of paper making were simple enough to be set up anywhere and everywhere in an anarchic manner. This movement went on to social reform, as the more radical Protestant churches and budding proletarian organisations often intermingled (1). The printing press had given a means of expression to the Outer Circle of power. Mass media replaced this mosaic of convictions with centralised modes of expression. Thoughts, beliefs and ideas were no longer exchanged, they were received. The voice of the elite who knows repeated endlessly, by press, radio and TV. Giving a total control that invites and supports tyranny. But this splendid propaganda machine is now on the verge of redundancy.

The Outer Circle’s questioning comes from its intermediary situation. Does it identify itself with the dispossessed on the basis of a common humanity? Or does it identify itself with the First Circle on the basis of a possible social climb (if not I, my children or my grandchildren). This positioning depends on the level of ideological control and its material credibility (hence the symbolic importance of economic growth). But, more importantly, it depends on the actual perception of a human identity with the dispossessed. For the Outer Circles of the Western World, the dispossessed are in other countries, on other continents, while the relatively few local ones are kept off the streets and out of mind, by robust policing and harsh sentencing. This makes identification difficult. As was the case with slaves brought to America from Africa, the otherness is extreme enough to seem unbridgeable. How can a car driving, card toting, electricity dependent, overfed Westerner imagine that his aspirations are shared by forlorn creatures whose only possessions are a loin-cloth and a hoe? “Are they really human?” he asks himself, as they gibber away in uncouth tongues, whose conceptual poverty mirrors the material deprivation of their users.

The once blurred boundaries between the Outer Circles of the Western World and the dispossessed have become national frontiers, with border patrols, concrete walls and razor wire. The once meritorious lawful passage has become a surreptitious criminal activity. Those who pass the boundary are illegal and must live in the crannies of society. They become invisible. Unseen and unknown, here in the darkest shadows, over there in vast sunlit throngs, the dispossessed seem ever more menacing. And, as fear gains on empathy, the violent path seems to beckon with a martial gesture. And, no doubt, that is the way it must be, having always been so. In times of doubt, power must divest itself of all its fancy trappings to expose the naked reality of dominion. These brutal demonstrations attract and repulse. But their essential function is to show that there is no alternative to power, other than greater power. (2)

For the time being, we have a media struggle for the minds of the Outer Circle, between the prime-time talk-show and the bloggersphere, on air or on line. In some post colonial nations, where mass media have not been fully developed, the First Circles of power already seem to have their backs to the wall. Being unable to identify with the dispossessed, the Outer Circles of the Western World could perhaps identify with the Outer Circles of the post-colonial nations, who are urging for religious and social reforms. The tools of expression are on hand, the web medium and universal English, but this identification entails turning against the First Circle and contesting its legitimacy. At present, this seems an unlikely eventuality. If, however, the unpopular and costly wars in the East are coupled to a contracting economy, a global link-up may take place. Unless war, recession and growing discontent manage to turn fear into hate. In that case, the counter-reformation of the 21st century may just be warming up.

Kenneth Couesbouc can be reached at kencouesbouc@yahoo.fr.

NOTES

(1) See the Anabaptists and the Baptists, the Quakers, the Presbyterians, etc. In Catholic and Orthodox countries, social movements had no such church support and were generally anticlerical and less consensual.

11/17/07 “Lew Rockwell” — — In response to Ron Paul’s phenomenal fundraising successes and his widespread, national popularity, the neocon establishment has commenced a smear campaign. One such smear artist is John C. Fortier, a “research fellow” at what Lew Rockwell has called the Supreme Soviet of Neoconservatism – the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Writing on the AEI website, Fortier complained that Congressman Paul “sometimes displays a sinister conspiratorial aspect, implying that those who disagree with him are the vanguard of dictatorial government.” The Congressman and his supporters, says Fortier, think they “are there to stop such a dictatorship.”

Fortier is especially incensed at the fact that Congressman Paul asked him many hard questions, and opposed some of his recommendations, when he was executive director of something called the “Continuity in Government Commission.” In particular, the congressman was suspicious of the neocon commissioner’s recommendation that the president appoint members of Congress in the aftermath of some kind of “emergency” that incapacitates Congress. (Leaving the definition of “emergency” up to Washington, D.C. politicians is always dangerous to liberty, as anyone with any concern about constitutional government would know.)

Well, the work of Fortier’s Continuity in Government Commission is now finished, and the results of its efforts are seen in something called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20/51, also known as the “National Continuity Policy.” This is another one of those presidential “directives” that was sneaked in under the media’s radar screen that does indeed grant the president dictatorial powers. Judge Andrew Napolitano describes the meaning of this “directive” in his brilliant new book, A Nation of Sheep (pp. 74–76).

The White House published the directive on its website after it was already signed by the president. Most Americans who have actually read and studied the directive, writes Napolitano, “are terrified by its implications.” They are terrified because presidential “directives” as such can be issued without any oversight by any other branch of government. The “National Continuity Policy” directive “concentrates power into the office of the president to coordinate any and all government and business activities” in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” writes the judge.

The problem this creates for the American public is that “the pliable language in the directive creates the ability for a vast scope of executive authority without the checks and balances of the other branches of government,” writes Napolitano. It creates dictatorial powers, in other words.

“Catastrophic emergency” is defined so broadly that it could include an economic downturn, an environmental catastrophe, large-scale protests against the Iraq war, a power blackout, a bridge collapse such as the one on the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis last summer, a tsunami, a volcanic eruption such as Mount Saint Helen’s, and, says Napolitano, possibly even if “a plague of fire ants invades Crawford, Texas.”

The president gets to decide what constitutes a “catastrophe” that allows him to enforce his own directive and assume dictatorial powers over the government and the economy. If the president does declare such an emergency, writes Napolitano, “he can take over all government functions including the Congress and the federal courts and direct all private sector activities.” Moreover, “the emergency exists until the president decides it is over.” The question is not, why was Ron Paul suspicious of the government “commission” that dreamed up this dictatorial nightmare, but why wasn’t every other member of Congress?

It gets even worse. The Bush administration, thanks to the work of John C. Fortier’s Continuity in Government Commission, was emboldened to simply ignore the federal National Emergencies Act, passed in 1976, that was intended to prevent a perpetual state of national emergency “and formalize Congressional checks and balances on presidential emergency powers.” They just thumbed their collective noses, figuratively speaking, at the Congress and the American public, and broke the law – again. But then, the president’s lawyers have argued for years that anything he does is legal and constitutional. The Constitution doesn’t say this, mind you; Republican Party hacks with law degrees do.

All of this is why, of all the former Trotskyites and other assorted neocons who hang their hats at AEI, it was John C. Fortier who took the lead to smear Ron Paul on the Institute’s website. It was Ron Paul, almost alone among members of Congress, who understood the potential devastating dangers to American liberty that might come from a commission such as the one that was directed by Fortier.

The “National Continuity Policy” was put in place in secret, without the knowledge of even very many members of Congress. Fortier must be in a state of panic. He understands that, because of his exponentially-growing popularity, Ron Paul has the ability to expose this atrocious attack on American liberty to the entire nation, which may come to understand that AEI – the Supreme Soviet of Neoconservatism – is best thought of as the American Dictatorship Institute.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, (Three Rivers Press/Random House). His latest book is Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe (Crown Forum/Random House).

11/17/07 “ICH” — – Introduction. There are two mutually exclusive means of livelihood. One is to work and earn from production and exchange. This has been called the “economic means.” The second is to seize the labor product of others through force and violence. This has been called the “political means.” Sociologist Franz Oppenheimer defined the State as the Organization of the Political Means. It is the systemization of the predatory process within a given territory.

· “There are two distinct classes of men… those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon taxes.” ~ Thomas Paine

· “The State enjoys a monopoly not only on the lawful use of violence, but on the power to define the extent of its authority.” ~ Butler Shaffer, 17 March 2006

· “You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it.” ~ Isabel Paterson, New York Herald Tribune

“Thought Crimes,” HR 1955 Passed With 404 Votes.

Submit, Ye Citizens, Silently to State Murder.

.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955, titled the
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.
The full text is available at www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=110-1955. It was passed with 404 votes in favor.

A close reading within an historical context – keeping especially in mind the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and Presidential Executive Orders, pursuant to which the government has engaged in massive surveillance of its own citizens, as well as detentions, extraordinary renditions, assassinations, and torture – leads me to the following conclusions:

· This is a “Thought Crime” bill of the type so often discussed in an Orwellian context.

· It specifically targets the civilian population of the United States.

· It defines “Violent Radicalization” as promoting any belief system that the government considers to be extremist.

· “Homegrown Terrorism” and “Violent Radicalization” are defined as thought crimes.

· Since the bill does not provide a specific definition of extremist belief system, it will be whatever the government at any given time deems it to be.

A few extracts of the Bill are presented below to show you its tone or “flavor.”

“(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system… to advance political, religious, or social change.”

SECTION 899B. FINDINGS.

“(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

“(6) The potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily prevented through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and requires the incorporation of State and local solutions.”

Section 899D of the bill establishes a Center for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. This will be an institution affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security. It will study and determine how to detain thought criminals.

THIS LEGISLATION ENDS THE POSSIBILITY OF A CULTURE OF REASON.

It is an attempt at legislative lobotomy of conscience. It aims to eviscerate ethical sensibilities of an entire culture.

Having usurped the power of war and peace, life and death, the Corporatocracy now bludgeons even the thought of speaking for conscience. This is State murder of the mind.

It is just too awesomely obscene for words. It exceeds not only the scope of my vocabulary, but my imagination as well.

The minions and hired agents of politicians are free to murder, rape and pillage on government hire using our money, but to imagine alternatives to them and the degraded, psychopathic political “leaders” who design and perpetrate these atrocities is legislated as a thought crime!

This is the legislated, politically promulgated end of man as a thinking, self-directed being. Surely this must be the outer limit of “positive law,” that is, statutory laws passed by “Lawmakers.”

It further entrenches the Power Elite as separate from and above their “subjects.” It clearly demonstrates the paranoid delusions of the Establishment, pursuant to which it legislates a massive defense mechanism to protect itself from the populace that it subjugates.

I use these terms deliberately, because the so-called freedom of the vote has turned out to be a big con game. It is only the “freedom” to choose one set of thieves over the other. The blue suits or the red suits… all of them manufactured suits of the corporations.

Following in the train of this legislation will doubtless be internal travel documents, body tracking by subcutaneous RFID chips, neighborhood snoops and spies, rewards granted for turning in politically incorrect thought criminals, mass civilian detention centers – in short, the whole totalitarian control mechanism that we associate with the SS, KGB and other code words of criminal regimes. There will be “re-programming / rehabilitation” centers to correct errant free thinkers.

The infrastructure for this – especially mental conditioning – is essentially already in place. We have become accustomed to birth certificate (the government’s initial warehouse receipt), driving license, social security number, business and professional licensing, the Corporate Warfare State control of media, and recently announced, Google’s navigation to your house by keying telephone number into the web. Take note that the Department of Homeland Security already has more than 750,000 persons on its watch list.

For a glimpse of past as prologue, read Solzhenitsyn.

Who Will Be Thought Police and Under What Standards?

Who will define radical thought, and by what standards? For example, how about the reported millions who believe that 911 was an inside job, citing a mass of evidence from eye witnesses, physicists, engineers, and recorded statements such as “We pulled it,” essentially a confession by the building’s owner of the planned demolition of Building 7?

Will the writings of John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and The Secret History of the American Empire be thought crimes? Will this very essay be a thought crime?

What about Operation Northwoods, pursuant to which the Joint Chiefs of the United States planned for innocent people to be shot on American streets, for boats carrying passengers to be sunk on the high seas, for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched within the country, and for other depraved acts conceived in the minds of government-hired psychopaths? Previously top secret documents about this were released on 18 November 1997 and can be researched at www.wikipedia.org. Evidently, members of the Establishment will be permitted to engage in thought crime.

Soon enough, we will all be killing each other, and the statement of Mohandas Gandhi will be borne out: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Will thinking about cleansing the national soul of our atrocities – of Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, the advanced plans underway to nuke Iran, the crimes of Blackwater murders, the government’s domestic coercion and violence – be “Thought Crimes?”

Will it be thought crime to conceive of a domestic Truth and Reconciliation Commission pursuant to which high government officials are brought to book for crimes against humanity?

Will it be “radicalization” to think of alternatives to a government of, by, and for the Corporatocracy, which accumulates its vast wealth through the blood money of endless war?

What about imagination-consideration of a non-coercive society of free individuals acting in voluntary cooperation, what is commonly referred to as anarchy?

Would Thomas Jefferson be liable for saying, “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it …”

Will it be radical to conceive of preventing the Cheney-Bush cabal from launching WWIII and the incineration of earth through a false flag operation against Iran?

Would the likes of Mohandas Gandhi be jailed for saying, as he did, “Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless and corrupt.”

11/17/07 “ICH” — — The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it.

CBS’s Investigative Unit wanted to do a report on the number of suicides in the military and “submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense”. After 4 months they received a document which showed–that between 1995 and 2007–there were 2,200 suicides among “active duty” soldiers.

Baloney.

The Pentagon was covering up the real magnitude of the “suicide epidemic”. Following an exhaustive investigation of veterans’ suicide data collected from 45 states; CBS discovered that in 2005 alone “THERE WERE AT LEAST 6,256 AMONG THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES. THAT’S 120 EACH AND EVERY WEEK IN JUST ONE YEAR.”

That is not a typo. Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that “multiple-tours of duty” in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial.

If we add the 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the “official” 3,865 reported combat casualties; we get a sum of 10,121. Even a low-ball estimate of similar 2004 and 2006 suicide figures, would mean that the total number of US casualties from the Iraq war now exceed 15,000.

That’s right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that–as yet–has no legal or moral justification.

CBS interviewed Dr. Ira Katz, the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs. Katz attempted to minimize the surge in veteran suicides saying, “There is no epidemic of suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem.”

Maybe Katz right. Maybe there is no epidemic. Maybe it’s perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it’s normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it’s normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm’s-way for their country.

It’s not normal; it’s is a pandemic—an outbreak of despair which is the natural corollary of living in constant fear; of seeing one’s friends being dismembered by roadside bombs or children being blasted to bits at military checkpoints or finding battered bodies dumped on the side of a riverbed like a bag of garbage.

The rash of suicides is the logical upshot of Bush’s war. Returning soldiers are traumatized by their experience and now they are killing themselves in droves. Maybe we should have thought about that before we invaded.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) — It may have been 28 years since the last Eagles studio album — yes, “The Long Run” came out in 1979 — but, in terms of sales, it’s as if the famed band has never left.

The group’s new CD, the double-disc set “Long Road Out of Eden,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album charts with more than 700,000 copies sold in its first week. This –despite its being available only at Wal-Mart.

That relationship with America’s biggest merchant has also raised eyebrows. Wal-Mart’s reputation does not seem to dovetail with the interests of the Eagles, particularly the band’s Don Henley, an outspoken environmentalist.

In a rare interview, Henley addressed those concerns, along with the idea of patriotism, the changing music business, and why “Long Road” may be the group’s last album. Watch the Eagles perform “How Long” »

CNN’s Denise Quan spoke to Henley at the Country Music Association awards last week, and said that Henley was a “true Southern gentleman,” ending the interview by sending the crew on its way with plates of mashed potatoes, corn and biscuits.

CNN: Don Henley, congratulations on the first-week sales of this album. I think it exceeded everyone’s expectations.

DON HENLEY: More than 700,000 in this country. And I’m told it has sold 3 million worldwide. So we’re delighted.

CNN: Somewhere, Kanye West is quaking in his boots, I would imagine.

HENLEY: I doubt it. (Laughs)

CNN: You made us wait 28 years for this new CD.

HENLEY: Yeah. Well, we don’t like to rush into things.

CNN: I was surprised when it was announced you had gone with a Wal-Mart deal exclusively. Why did you do that?

HENLEY: Our deal with the major label expired several years ago, and we just decided we wanted to try something new. … Everybody’s been calling for a new paradigm in the record industry. Some people have gone to the Internet and haven’t had a lot of success with that.

Some people have decided to go with the indie labels, who are mostly distributed by the major labels. Some people have signed with major coffee companies with varying degrees of success.

So Wal-Mart came to us, and they made us a really good offer. And they told us about their green initiative, and how they’re trying to make their company more ecologically responsible. And we were impressed by their programs in that regard, and what they’re trying to do. And a lot of our fans are customers of Wal-Mart, so we thought it was a good fit.

CNN: There are two discs in “Long Road Out of Eden.” One disc is full of romantic ballads with those harmonies the Eagles are known for, and the other disc is full of satirical, witty, kind of biting —

HENLEY: (Interrupts) Thank you. Thank you for not using the word “cynical.” (Laugh) Which has become a real cliche.

Protest songs are an old tradition that seems to be coming back now. People writing about government has been going on since the Middle Ages. … But to hear some journalists tell it, this is like it’s never been done before, and it’s outrageous!

If people don’t agree with us, they can hit the skip button. We are ticked off about some things, but we also do some of it with humor. People seem to miss our humor. A lot. It seems to go (brushes side of his head with his hand).

CNN: The Eagles have long been associated with the country sound — only you brought the rock element to it when you first appeared on the scene.

HENLEY: Yeah, yeah.

CNN: But your politics are different than a lot of people in Nashville, who are more conservative than I would say you are.

HENLEY: Yeah. Well, Nashville is changing. Nashville is not nearly as conservative as it used to be.

CNN: People just don’t talk about it, perhaps.

HENLEY: It’s just like you don’t talk about religion and politics. This country was founded on rebellion. We believe that we are patriotic. We believe that everyone has the right to speak out. In fact, we believe that it’s unpatriotic not to speak out.

Lord knows, we’ve been criticized enough during our career. When we were younger, (adopts Bugs Bunny voice) it hurt our widdle feewings. But now we have no feelings! We had them removed. Surgically. This is probably the last Eagles album that we’ll ever make. So we decided to just say whatever we felt like saying. And let the chips fall where they may.

CNN: But doesn’t the success of this album spur you to make more music? Obviously, people want to hear it.

HENLEY: I can’t sit here and tell you for certain that there will never be another Eagles album, but we got 20 songs on this album. You know, we got a lot of things off our chest, so to speak.

I don’t know if everybody’s going to want to do another one. If we do a world tour, that’ll take at least two years. We’re all pushing 60. Well, some of us are 60. …

Anyway, we’ll see. But we all have some solo plans still. I still have a contract with a major label for a couple of solo albums. I think parenting is one of the highest things on our agenda right now. We all have young children. So making another album is not our first priority right now.

CNN: It seems like you’ve mellowed quite a bit. Is it fatherhood that’s changed you, or perhaps just turning 60?

HENLEY: I think we’ve all mellowed in this group. I think having children was really good for all of us. And you supposedly get mellower with age. However, as some of the songs will indicate, we’re not too mellow. (Pauses)

CNN: What are you thinking?

HENLEY: I hate that word “mellow,” actually. We’ve been saddled with that word since the very beginning of our career, you know. It has something to do with Southern California. I wish they would find a new word. We’re either “mellow” or we’re “cynical.” They can’t make up their minds. It’s sort of a contradiction.

CNN: But I think you’ve been sort of a contradiction. Certainly an enigma to a lot of people.

HENLEY: Well, good! (Laughs) Yeah, well, this band is a contradiction. This album is. But life is a contradiction, isn’t it? There are good things, and there are bad things going on in the world simultaneously. There’s love and hate. There’s war and peace. There are all kinds of things happening at the same time. And so that’s reflected on this album, I think.

CNN: So how are you guys all getting along these days?

HENLEY: The same. (Laughs)

CNN: For better or worse?

HENLEY: All that stuff has been exaggerated. You ask any band if they get along all the time, and they will tell you, “Of course not.” But we get along, I’d say, as well as any band does.

There’s something we’ve created called the Eagles that’s more important than any one of us individually. And we serve that. You know, we call it “The Mothership.” We can all do this, that and the other, but we always come back to the Mothership. It’s something that we all built together.

And all this stuff about fighting in the band, and brawling, and fistfights and all that stuff has been grossly exaggerated. When it gets reprinted, and our publicist says, “Well, where’d you get that information,” they invariably say, “I read it on the Internet” — as if the Internet were some source of truth! The Internet is no more accurate than the New York Post, you know.

AUSTIN — The Texas Department of Transportation, working to fend off a funding shortfall from the federal government, intends to cut hundreds of millions of dollars budgeted for everything from consulting engineers to right-of-way purchases.

The plan wouldn’t affect existing road projects, and it’s “difficult to say” what future projects would be delayed as a result, agency spokesman Randall Dillard said Friday.

Projections show that if existing plans for awarding contracts and expenditures were to go forward, the department would have at least a $1.8 billion deficit by 2012 and at least $3.6 billion by 2015, agency deputy executive director Steve Simmons said in remarks prepared for Thursday’s commission meeting.

“We in the transportation world cannot wait until then to address the problem,” Simmons said in the remarks.

The move comes as TXDOT staff is poised to recommend to the Texas Transportation Commission a separate $1 billion cut this fiscal year for new roads and expansion projects. Officials say funds aren’t keeping pace with needs and must be focused on key areas like maintenance.

The chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee said a call from a reporter was the first he’d heard of the agency’s move.

“I’m kind of surprised they didn’t talk to us about that,” said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa.

“It’s almost to the point you wonder if the agency hasn’t got so big, they’re another branch of government we’re not aware of,” said Chisum, who previously has taken issue with such agency decisions as its projected expenditure of $7 million to $9 million to promote the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor plan and toll roads.

That Keep Texas Moving campaign, while not cited by Simmons in his prepared remarks, could be cut along with other agency programs, Dillard said.

“Everything’s on the table,” he said.

Dillard said agency officials had sought to stir a public discussion on the funding issue and had called some lawmakers Thursday.

The chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee was aware of the agency’s position on cuts and is supportive in light of the funding situation, said Steven Polunsky, committee director.

Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, is “in complete agreement about prioritizing maintenance. He believes there is no project in the state of Texas that is worth risking a Minneapolis bridge incident,” Polunsky said.

The agency has an $8.3 billion budget this fiscal year, including $3.3 billion in federal money. Texas is getting less federal transportation money than previously expected, Simmons said. Another funding source that transportation officials had turned to was affected when lawmakers this year sought to rein in state partnerships with private entities on toll roads.

Carona worked for $5 billion in additional authority for road bonds approved Nov. 6 by voters, and he has talked up the need to raise the state’s gasoline tax and for a constitutional amendment to prohibit highway funds from being diverted to other sources.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The accidental airing of a closed OPEC session Friday provided a surprise glimpse into a sensitive debate over the weakening U.S. dollar, with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister warning that even talking publicly about the currency’s decline could further hurt its value.

The high-profile blunder ahead of a rare OPEC summit revealed the debate as Iran attempted to convince other member countries to express concern over dollar depreciation in the meeting’s final declaration.

Oil is priced in dollars on the world market, and its depreciation has concerned oil producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and has eroded the value of their dollar reserves. Cartel officials have resisted pressure to increase oil production to ease prices.

“The reality is that we have this problem. I think we should draft the declaration to reflect our concerns,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said during a pre-summit meeting here with fellow ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

But Saud al-Faisal, foreign minister of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, came out against the proposal with unusually frank comments.

Federal immigration agents were searching a house in Ohio last month when they found a young Honduran woman nursing her baby.

The woman, Saída Umanzor, is an illegal immigrant and was taken to jail to await deportation. Her 9-month-old daughter, Brittney Bejarano, who was born in the United States and is a citizen, was put in the care of social workers.

The decision to separate a mother from her breast-feeding child drew strong denunciations from Hispanic and women’s health groups. Last week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rushed to issue new guidelines on the detention of nursing mothers, allowing them to be released unless they pose a national security risk.

The case exposes a recurring quandary for immigration authorities as an increasing number of American-born children of illegal immigrants become caught up in deportation operations. With the Bush administration stepping up enforcement, the immigration agency has been left scrambling to devise procedures to deal with children who, by law, do not fall under its jurisdiction because they are citizens.

“We are faced with these sorts of situations frequently, where a large number of individuals come illegally or overstay and have children in the United States,” said Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the agency. “Unfortunately, the parents are putting their children in these difficult situations.”

Yesterday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released new written guidelines for agents, establishing how they should treat single parents, pregnant women, nursing mothers and other immigrants with special child or family care responsibilities who are arrested in raids.

The guidelines, which codify practices in use for several months and apply mainly to larger raids, instruct agents to coordinate with federal and local health service agencies to screen immigrants who are arrested to determine if they are caring for young children or other dependents who may be at risk. The agents must consider recommendations from social workers who interview detained immigrants about whether they should be released to their families while awaiting deportation.

The new guidelines were a response to intense criticism from officials in Massachusetts about one raid, at a backpack factory in New Bedford in March. They do not specifically address the American citizen children affected by raids, whose numbers have only become clear in recent months.

About two-thirds of the children of the illegal immigrants detained in immigration raids in the past year were born in the United States, according to a study by the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute, groups that have pushed for gentler deportation policies for immigrant families.

Based on that finding, at least 13,000 American children have seen one or both parents deported in the past two years after round-ups in factories and neighborhoods. The figures are expected to grow. Over all, about 3.1 million American children have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant, according to a widely accepted estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.

Under the 14th Amendment, any child born in the United States is a citizen and cannot be deported. But with very rare exceptions, immigration law does not allow United States citizen children to confer legal status on parents who are illegal immigrants, until the children are 18 years old. While the federal government does not keep statistics on the children of deportees, immigration lawyers said that most immigrants who are deported take their children with them, even if the children are American citizens.

“Children have no rights to keep family members here because they are citizens,” said Jacqueline Bhabha, a lecturer at Harvard Law School who specializes in citizenship law. When parents face deportation, she said, the law “penalizes United States citizen children by forcing them to choose between their family and their country.”

The Troops Out Now Coalition, a national antiwar organization, released the following statement in response to the Annapolis meting planned for November 27:

On November 8, 1967 the NY Times recounted a Yale Daily News report that five fraternities had been accused of “sadistic and obscene” initiations. The paper said that Delta Kappa Epsilon had used a “hot branding iron” on the backs of new members and quoted a former Delta president, Georg Bush, then a senior, that the resulting wound was “only a cigarette burn.”

This was not Bush’s first bout with sadism. According to an article by Nicholas D. Kristof in Midland Life, “‘We are terrible to animals,’ recalled [Bush childhood pal Terry] Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush borne turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. `Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,’ Throckmorton said. `Or we’d put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'”

Psychologists don’t think young men blowing up animals is such a good sign, as this report from Science News notes:

“Psychologist Paul J. Frick of the University of New Orleans recalls a boy who was recently referred to the mental health clinic where Frick works. The 10-year-old had trapped a cat and killed it by slowly slicing it with a knife. The youngster calmly explained to Frick that he wanted to see how much he could cut the animal before it died. ‘He wasn’t upset by the incident at all,” Frick says. “He was a bit annoyed about being brought to me, though.’

THE GATE, TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION (Arizona).

Indigenous delegates to the border on Tohono O’odham Nation land were outraged by the federal agents, hovering customs helicopter, profiteering contractors, federal spy tower, federal “cage” detention center and watching the arrest of a group of Indigenous Peoples, mostly women and children, by the US Border Patrol on an Indian Nation.

“We saw it all firsthand in America,” said Bill Means, Lakota and cofounder of the International Indian Treaty Council on Nov. 8, when an Indigenous delegation went to the US/Mexico border here, south of Sells, to document human rights abuses for a report to the United Nations.

“Now we are going to take this wall down,” Means said, after viewing the construction of a border vehicle barrier by contractors and National Guard on Tohono O’odham land.

Speaking a few hours later to the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas II in San Xavier, Means called for solidarity of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world to halt the arrests of Indigenous Peoples who are walking north in search of a better life, and solidarity to bring down the US/Mexico border wall.

“One inch of intrusion into our land is not acceptable!” Mohawk Mark Maracle told the Border Summit. “I became very angry when I saw those guys rounding up our people.

“It is a violation of our Great Law to witness what we did today and do nothing about it.”

The delegation included Mohawks, Oneida, Navajo, Acoma Pueblo, Hopi and O’odham.

Near the border, at the scene of the arrests of a group of Indigenous Peoples, Mohawks stood before US Border Patrol agents and held their fists high in solidarity, as the Border Patrol packed nearly a dozen Indigenous Peoples into one vehicle.

The delegation also viewed the federal spy tower next to Homeland Security’s migrant detention center known as “the cage” on the Tohono O’odham Nation. The first stop, however, was the abomination of the new vehicle barrier wall being constructed on O’odham land.

Kahentinetha Horn of the Mohawk Women Title Holders said she saw the callousness of the Tohono O’odham district official standing before them and speaking in favor of the border barrier.

“This is completely illegal,” Kahentinetha said, adding that it violates human rights legislation. Kahentinetha was outraged at the arrests of the group of Indigenous Peoples, who appeared to be Mayans from Oaxaca, Chiapas or Guatemala.

“We stood in front of the Border Patrol, we started yelling at them,” Kahentinetha told the Indigenous Border Summit. She described how the Mohawks stood with fists held high in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples being arrested earlier in the day.

“We were passing some of our strength on to them to fight.”

The Indigenous delegation documenting the abuses planned to intervene in the arrests, but the Border Patrol crowded the group into a vehicle and left quickly.

“I came away feeling very frustrated and very discouraged,” Kahentinetha said.

Mohawk warrior Rarahkwisere, among those heartbroken to see the arrest of fellow Indigenous Peoples on Indian land, said these brothers and sisters of the people were not drug runners or criminals, these were women and children walking in search of a better life.

Jay Johnson Castro of Del Rio Texas, leading protests against the imprisonment of migrant children at Hutto prison in Texas and the border wall in Texas, was in the delegation.

“I hear ‘sovereign nation,’ but I didn’t see a sovereign nation.”

Castro said the buildings near the border on the Tohono O’odham Nation are labeled with signs, “Homeland Security and Tohono O’odham Nation, like they are in partnership.”

Maracle said the same atrocities that the United States government is now accusing migrants of doing, is what the invaders did when they arrived on Turtle Island: rape, robbery and murder.

“If you don’t stop and grab hold of your destiny, there is not going to be one for your children.” Maracle said all the nations need to come together and stop what is happening here. “I know from past experience with the Mohawk Warrior Society where our power lies, it is with the people. The power is in the people, don’t ever forget that.”

Chris George, Oneida from Canada, said, “When the Border Patrol came up, they thought we were the enemy,” relaying how the Border Patrol asked the summit delegation who authorized this delegation to be at the border.

“No one authorizes us to do anything. It was the Creator who took us there.

“They were packing, we were packing, too, with a good mind and a good heart.”

“All of the Indigenous Peoples need to come together. Don’t let the United States government tell you who you are. We know who we are. We are Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse.”

Lenny Foster, Dine’ (Navajo) and advocate for Native ceremonial rights for inmates, said what he witnessed at the border was “brutal, vicious and evil.”

Foster said Dine’ know that all human beings all have five fingers, but what he witnessed within the district official and federal agents was no internal recognition of being five-fingered people.

“They were robots.”

Referring to the Tohono O’odham district official who led the tour, Foster said she was defending the policies of genocide.

Foster asked who is setting these policies in the United States. “Who is running the government? It is the white man, it surely isn’t the people of color.”

Describing how the Indigenous Peoples were arrested and rushed into a small vehicle, Foster said, “It reminded me of Gallup, N.M., and how they round up our people, stack them up like stacks of wood.”

Foster was at this same place, a dirt path leading to Mexico known as The Gate, years ago when the American Indian Movement protested the violation of human rights here. Foster pointed out that during this day, he viewed the heavy buildup of police and agents. There were police from the BIA, Tohono O’odham Nation, along with US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs agents. The National Guard were also there, working with the contractor constructing the border vehicle barrier, while a white customs’ helicopter hovered overhead.

At the same time, on the Mexico side, two men sat under a tree.

An attorney for the O’odham in Mexico was prevented from crossing into the United States on Tohono O’odham land by the US Border Patrol, even though he held a letter from Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris requesting him to come and meet with him today. In the letter, Chairman Norris stated that the attorney could enter the Nation for the meeting by way of The Gate here.

However, the Border Patrol officer at the scene refused to allow the attorney to enter, even with a letter from the chairman. Over-ruling Chairman Norris on Tohono O’odham land, the US Border Patrol agent said the attorney must have a US visa to enter, and not just a letter from Chairman Norris. The attorney waited there, with a Tarahumara accompanying him who held a US visa.

Foster pointed out that the Mexican federales or police, who arrived on the other side, could do anything with the two people left there. “They could even be torturing them now.”

Means also pointed out that the delegation was “tailed” or followed from the tribal capitol of Sells. Means also said that the Berlin Wall had come down, but now there are other walls to divide the people, including the wall between Israel and Palestine.

At the border wall construction at The Gate, Means said one of the workers told them, “The Israelis are helping us put up the fence.”

At the US/Mexico border, border wall contractor Boeing has hired a subcontractor Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor, who participated in constructing security at the Apartheid Wall in Palestine.

Speaking of what is happening in the United States now, Means said the “gated communities” of the United States have now expanded into a “gated country.” It is a country where the government welcomes the rich. The Indigenous Border Summit witnessed what the United States does to Indigenous Peoples.

Means quoted Black Hawk of the Sac and Fox Nation: “Why is it you Americans always take with a gun what you could have with love. We experienced America today.”

Supporters of former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales have created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses, which are mounting in the face of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales committed perjury or improperly tampered with a congressional witness.

The establishment of a legal defense fund for the nation’s former chief law enforcement officer underscores the potential peril confronting Gonzales, who is one of a handful of attorneys general to face potential criminal charges for actions taken in office.

David G. Leitch, a Gonzales friend and general counsel at the Ford Motor Co., wrote in an e-mail solicitation to potential contributors last month that Gonzales is “innocent of any wrongdoing” but does not have the means to pay for his legal defense after a career spent mostly in public service.

“In the hyper-politicized atmosphere that has descended on Washington, an innocent man cannot simply trust that the truth will out,” Leitch wrote. “He must engage highly competent legal counsel to represent him. That costs money, money that Al Gonzales doesn’t have.”

Leitch also wrote that Gonzales’s attorney, George J. Terwilliger III of White & Case in Washington, “has substantially reduced his fees to represent Al Gonzales, but the costs will likely be high nonetheless.” A contribution form asking for donations to the Alberto R. Gonzales Legal Expense Trust suggests amounts from $500 to $5,000.

The Justice Department’s investigation of Gonzales is likely to be completed in the next several months, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation’s progress. The inspector general is looking at whether Gonzales misled Congress in sworn testimony and improperly sought to influence testimony of an aide, Monica M. Goodling, about last year’s firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

The inspector general’s office cannot bring criminal charges, but it can hand over evidence to prosecutors with a recommendation for further investigation and possible charges, officials have said. The results are likely to present a thorny issue for Gonzales’s successor, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, who was narrowly confirmed by the Senate last week and took his formal oath of office yesterday.

During Mukasey’s ceremony in the Justice Department’s Great Hall, President Bush vigorously defended Gonzales, his longtime aide and friend. “Al Gonzales worked tirelessly to make this country safer and to ensure that all Americans received equal justice before the law,” Bush said. “Over many years, I have witnessed his integrity, his decency and his deep dedication to the cause of justice.”

The contribution form distributed by Leitch asks that donations be sent to a post office box in Alexandria. Leitch said in an e-mail yesterday that the “fund was formed by friends and colleagues of Judge Gonzales to help him defray the cost of legal representation in his continuing cooperation with various inquiries concerning matters that occurred during his tenure as attorney general.” He declined to provide details about the trust, such as whether Gonzales played a role or how much money has been donated so far.

Terwilliger, who served as deputy attorney general during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, did not respond to telephone messages at his office yesterday.

Legal defense funds are common in Washington, but not for attorneys general. Reagan-era attorney general Edwin Meese III faced legal expenses after being accused of ethics violations in his financial dealings but did not open a defense fund, according to news accounts. Meese was not indicted, and the government reimbursed his legal costs.