The Rag Blog

A few days ago, we posted an article by Tom Hayden about the impact the peace movement has had on the perception of the Iraq war. Here are some membership remarks and expansions on the general theme.

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Hayden’s analysis is interesting as always, but I wonder why he doesn’t mention the obvious: the huge majority of people who were involved in the anti-war movement of the 60s, and anyone we’ve managed to significantly influence in the intervening 40 years, were not gung-ho about the current war in the first place. This is a qualitative difference from prevailing conditions when the Vietnam adventure began; heck, most folks then didn’t even realize U.S. troops were involved in actual fighting for quite a while.

Also, the intervening years have not been empty of foreign conflict; I’m not even gonna try to list them all, but the First Iraq War springs to mind, as does Grenada. And in each imperial conflict, another segment of the public sees through the government lies, all too often while standing at the fresh grave of an American boy or girl. Once you’ve seen through it; it’s not like you can go back, is it, to accepting anything they say.

It takes a couple of generations between wars, I think, for them to again appear brave, glamorous and patriotic. Time for those poppies to grow in Flanders fields, and so forth. But the empire increasingly cannot wait 15 years, 10, or even 5 between conflicts; like a junkie out of control it must have more and more warfare, expend more and more bullets and hardware and superfluous, inconvenient youth. And slowly, gradually, against the tide of poisonous propaganda, the people see through it more easily every time.

Today’s peace movement did not spring ex nilo from the earth with Cindy Sheehan’s grieta; it has been here all along.

My question is, why have we (that ongoing peace movement community) been so ill-prepared to address what we all knew was coming, theoretically at least? Or was “imperialism” just a term we tossed around back then?

Mariann Wizard

Was Marianne asking something like “why was the peace movement unprepared for the most reacen recrudescence of US imperialism?” My response, I don’t know anyone active in the peace movement who *was* unprepared. But we’re struggling with a hydra here. We stop it in one place and folks are surprised when it surfaces again in another. Ain’t propaganda and denial and apathy wonderful–they’ve made America what
it is today.

As for unprepared or surprised, 2 weeks from 9/11 we began weekly antiwar vigils here in San Antonio–true we didn’t know where the war was going to be aimed, but we knew there would be one. SA is not exactly the center of the progressive world, so I assume others were mobilizing, too. (The SA vigils came about after a meeting of over 60 people at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center.)

One of the biggest obstacles IMO to the peace movement being unified and prepared is a lack of agreement about nonviolence. Not a few progressives, including folks on this list, heck, including QUAKERS (!) are clear about absolute nonviolence. When the violence gets really bad whether in Darfur, Kosovo or, ahem, Iraq, or (insert the crisis of the week here) folks in the peace movement begin to think that maybe this time, redemptive violence might work–or at least prevent further horrible injustice. Which is understandable, because the forces behind violent “peacemaking” are still much much stronger than propronents and praticioners of effective nonviolence. And if there is no egregious violent injustice going on in many folks’ awareness, then we seem unable to marshall our capacities to create and sustain the kind of efforts that various peace team groups are promoting. What would Iraq look like if 10,000 trained and equipped Tom Fox’s were there? What would it look like if many of them were Muslim, even Iraqis? What would it have taken to mobilize or train them?

Just as we all will be looked at by any surviving humans as having failed to stop environmental degradation, we will I think, if humanity survives, be the source of amazed headshaking for the reliance on violence to solve our problems. Or not. But if not, what sort of people will the survivors be?

“The choice today is not between violence and nonviolence, it is between nonviolence and nonexistance.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Paz–Val Liveoak

You ask: “My question is, why have we (that ongoing peace movement community) been so ill-prepared to address what we all knew was coming, theoretically at least? Or was “imperialism” just a term we tossed around back then?”

We were prepared. Many have been writing in opposition to this war (and pissing off Republican nephews and brother-in-laws) since way before it began – mostly here in cyberspace. We were remarkably prescient. The early critique by the antiwar Left was ignored and ridiculed in the mainstream (Rich Oppel threw me out of his office) until it all came true.

Our analysis has been a major factor leading to very widespread anti-this war sentiment in the US at this time, but as in Vietnam, events on the ground – the “objective condition” of defeat – is the main engine driving events. Few oppose wars your country is winning.

David Hamilton

Mar – As usual, you are correct, and David is correct – not to mention Val, Hayden, Alan, and a whole bunch of others. We were prepared in that we understood what was going to happen, and we knew why it was going to happen.

As you say below, Viet Nam took years to even surface. No surprise that it took us (“us” in the broadest sense) and objective conditions such a long time to have an effect. I think that it is remarkable, in light of 9/11 and of the relatively few U.S. casualties in Iraq, that we have such a potent anti-Iraq-war effort so soon.

We have been working in exactly the way that David describes. My experience was that no one offered to throw me out of their office – but then I live in a very blue (and green) part of the world. In fact I know that some people were pissed off at me, but they didn’t even try to confront me – somewhat different from 40 years ago.

Your underlying question, I think, is why can’t we have a stronger effect, even sooner? Why can’t we actually prevent this crap? Two comments: First, I used the term “anti-Iraq-war” above, because that is what we have at the 70% level. Anti-imperialist-war might be the position of 35% of the electorate. But you know that that’s a huge improvement over the last go-round.

The second point is that we should take David’s suggestion concerning national, electoral politics very seriously. We really can promote our analysis, going forward. Of course, it is already being done by various individuals and groups. Without doubt we need to join forces on some broadly-agreed level.

My only concern in that regard is that we (again – we in the broadest sense) continue to offer criticism and bits of programs. At some point we have to put forth, debate, and subscribe to a comprehensive program. That is why David and I put out our PDS statement one year ago. Frankly, I don’t recall any comment, let alone debate.

What is going on? Is “program” too confining? Are we still doing our own thing? We don’t have to reannoint Lenin to say that we believe in doing this and that. We can hope that the MDS meeting scheduled for NY in February may result in some movement toward a program. In fact I do so hope. Meantime, someone(s) will have to suggest programmatic elements in order for this to happen. What is wrong with the PDS statement that David (mostly) and I authored? Yes – this is a specific question – not a plaintive complaint. What is wrong, and what is right? What can Ragstaff suggest? What can we bring to the show?

Come on, folks. Let’s talk about something substantive. The old UT police chief’s home photos were a lot of fun, but what do we want to do, what do we want to see, in the present and future?

Paul Spencer

Paul – You don’t get thrown out of people’s offices because you are too damn nice. You were never good at ridiculing people to their face. But I couldn’t help but laugh when Oppel told me of his great familiarity with Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” and then how being owned by the Cox family of billionaires had no influence on his editorial policy.

If the Left could run a campaign at the end of which “Anti-imperialist-war might be the position of 35% of the electorate”, I would be overjoyed. Sounds like Oregon thinking. More like 5% now in flyoverland.

I think our 15 point program didn’t cause much response here most likely because they’re not very controversial among Ragstaffers. In any case, I’m posting my latest version below. Hey folks, did we leave something crucial out or put in something stupid?

David Hamilton

15 Point Program for some yet existing organization that might be called
people or movement for a democratic society.

1. End militarism and support powerful international institutions for
conflict resolution.
2. End poverty via progressive taxation to support provision of all basic
services (clean water, sanitation, basic food, healthcare, affordable
housing).
3. Gender equality.
4. Racial equality.
5. Gay and lesbian equal rights, not subject to majoritarian limitations.
6. Two-year, universal public service (military, healthcare service,
infrastructure construction labor, emergency services).
7. Free public education through college, including related child-care.
8. Clean air, soil and water.
9. Development of “alternative” energy sources (solar, wind, wave,
geothermal, etc.).
10. Affordable, environmentally-sensitive public transportation.
11. Proportional representation and publicly financed elections.
12. Equal justice for all by measures to de-commodify legal services.
13. Public investment in or ownership of essential services and utilities.
(transportation, insurance, banking, power, heat).
14. Support co-ops for agricultural products from production through retail.
15. Legalize and tax all drugs. Release all marijuana prohibition prisoners.

Yes, indeed, that is what I was asking, or trying to get to; I think Val’s comments about the hydra-headedness of the beast and the disagreement within the left, for want of a better word, on when if ever violence is justified are particularly on target.

And yes, I do appreciate that many ongoing peace organizations, and individuals, have been actively opposing the present hostilities since before 9/11, but as Paul perceives, it is that larger unpreparedness of those of us who were busy fighting other tentacles and didn’t really see this particular one coming which concerns me.

I was living on my Mom’s farm near Parker, TX on 9/11, forty miles off the interstate, in a cel phone “dead zone”, halfway between Waco and Ft. Worth. I would hate to tell you how long it was before I even heard what had happened in New York! Beginning the next day, I had one of about four vehicles in two counties that was not flying a US flag, and for the duration of my residence in Johnson County, I resisted the efforts of well-meaning individuals to provide me with automobile flags or flag decals. My minister, a young woman still in seminary and serving two aging, rural congregations — one of them made up of mostly of military retirees — opposed war herself but had no analysis of its origins and feared upsetting the delicate balance of her ministry by too-vocal activism; my proposal that we toll the Rio Vista church bell for every US death reported in Afghanistan — a proposal which came from, and was endorsed by, a national coalition of churches — failed for lack of a second, the person who had told me she would second it finding herself unable to do so when the time came. An Indian family who operated a convenience store in Cleburne relocated to the Metroplex after the father was threatened. Everybody was outraged about that, the convenience store being quite convenient, but everybody also assumed that the man would continue to be threatened if he stuck around. Despite constant vocal and visible protestations of patriotism, a planned rally on the courthouse square one year after 9/11 drew just half a dozen fat women in red, white, and blue outfits.

Johnson and Hill counties are rural and poor, and people there knew from the beginning whose boys would be getting killed in any war. But the weight of a fairly homogenous population and the pressure of social conformity are strongest in such places, and many of those who “dare to be different” are caught up in methamphetamine manufacture and use, or pitting their dogs against each other in clandestine meetings.

Program. Yes indeedy, it is program that we need, to counteract the propaganda machine! Actually there was some discussion of the program you & David posted a while back, I know I mentioned ending the drug war and was seconded on that by Janet G., and I think there were a couple of other suggestions, but in general it was pretty comprehensive and made sense. You might want to go back on the website and look at the (little) discussion there was, and let us see it again; I think it might be worthwhile presenting to the Last Sunday group here.

Speaking of which, that’s another thing that makes me scratch my head over who the heck “the broader we” is and our relative “preparedness” — 600 to 1200 (estimates vary) white people in a room all together gave both Sage White and me pretty serious rashes, I believe!! I know we weren’t the only ones who were disturbed by that, and that the conveners are working to remedy the situation; hopefully Rag folk who are interested in this group are also talking to friends, neighbors and co-workers of color and asking them to come to the meeting this month on FRIDAY the 29th.

– Mariann Wizard

I guess that it must be geographic, judging from Mariann’s and David’s pessimism about the numbers of anti-imperialists in this country. It certainly looks different from my perspective. My point was actually to second David’s remarks concerning the historical juncture at which we find ourselves, starting from the fact (in my opinion) that we have more recognition of the problem this time around than in our previous adventures.

Your 9/11 story is emblematic of the situation at that time, but the percentages are Texan. In the Northwest the percentages were different – maybe 20% opposed to war in Afghanistan – but opposition grew quickly as Iraq became the focus. From what I heard and was told, I think that this same scenario was playing widely, outside of the South and the Rocky Mountain states. The Midwest was barely supportive of the war.

All of this was happening at a very grassroots level. As you and Val.recall, the organized anti-war groups were not very ostentatious and certainly enjoyed no MSM sponsorship. I fretted about that for awhile, until I realized that people were actually talking about the situation and publicizing their opinions in Letters to the Editor and such. As you and David have also stated in past posts, the internet became the main engine for this “movement” – especially after it discovered its potential during the 2004 election.

So – not, I hope, to be overly redundant, but the analysis is out there in most parts of this country. Most people – including us benighted Amerikans – are either consciously or objectively anti-imperialist. We lack a concrete plan for solving the problem that is imperialism. It is time to develop and promote such a plan. The good news is that we (we in the narrow sense of the few Ragamuffins who are maintaining this thread) seem to be in agreement that program is the next step.

David repeats our (mostly his) draft program in an earlier posting this evening. What’s the word, folks? Planning or just complaining?

Paul Spencer

Paul — sorry — I was not clear in my earlier post — the poor rural Texans I was living among on 9/11 and for two years in either direction are probably just about as “anti-imperialistic” as the average Oregonian east of the mountains, but they don’t know the word, are real skeptical of anyone’s theories, and aren’t about to upset the already precarious applecart of survival without a damn good-looking alternative.

It’s the same thinking that keeps abused women with their no-good, low-down husbands, “for the sake of the children.” “Politician” is generally viewed as a suspect profession, but everybody knows “you can’t fight city hall.”

Something to keep in mind when crafting our program, I think, is that we should try to offer a vision of something better, in concrete, conceivable ways. What will be the immediate effects of each plank if implemented? How will people’s lives improve? How will they maybe not improve over the short term but then improve a lot? It can’t be about abstractions of what is morally correct, although it should incorporate an ethical perspective; it has to offer a thinkably better future.

Mariann Wizard

Our thanks to Charlie Loving.

Joni Mitchell’s New Gallery Exhibit: ‘Art, Revolution and Torture’
Posted by Jon Ponder | Dec. 11, 2006, 7:40 pm

Joni Mitchell retired from the music industry a few years ago and returned to her first love, painting. She has exhibited her work here in Los Angeles but usually with very little fanfare.

I found out about her latest show, “Green Flag Song,” in an unexpected place: the Opinion section of the Sunday Los Angeles Times.

Mitchell believed the photographs were infused with political undertones that somehow felt urgent.

Read everything about the exhibit here.

It has nothing to do with their sexual orientation. It has everything to do with the hypocrisy of their words against gay marriage and abortion. They are as fake as the veneer that coats their alters. And screw every last one of them.

Another Evangelical Preacher Is Forced Out of the Closet
Posted by Jon Ponder | Dec. 11, 2006, 7:06 pm

Paul Barnes of Grace Chapel, a 2,100-member church in the Denver suburbs, resigned last week and came out to his congregation in a 32-minute videotaped message that was played during services yesterday

Read all of it here.

A member of the Durham Police Department Selective Enforcement Team escorts a child to use the bathroom after serving a search warrant at a suspected drug house. Working closely with the police department’s Gang Units, SET is responsible for making high-risk entries into dwellings to serve search warrants. Gang Unit Two made two controlled buys, or drug purchases, from the home with the help of an informant, giving them probable cause for a search warrant.

h/t Agitator

History will not treat us kindly
By Tim Andersen

12/11/06 “Information Clearing House” — — Most Americans are hiding. We are like the good Germans of 1933 who knew an authoritarian regime was consolidating its power, but thought we could avoid personal consequences if we kept quiet. We remained silent as enemies of the State were rounded up, and everyones’ liberties curtailed. It did not happen all at once. It was a process of conditioning.

The TSA cops at US airports were initially intended to create the perception of eminent threat: America under attack by evildoers! That perception has largely given way to weary travelers offended by the intrusive and slow inspections. I don’t fly that often, but last weekend at the airport it was clear TSA had adopted a new tact. Now they are the authoritarians. While we were trapped in the winding queue they yelled at us to listen up and follow their precise instructions. All liquids and gels (toothpaste!) must be in quantities of 3.4 ounces, or less, grouped together in a single, clear one liter bag. The yelling cop invited us to show our displeasure to any passenger who did not follow instructions, and held up the line. As I was inspected, the TSA cop took my shaving cream from the bag. The tube read 3.6 oz. She asked me what the maximum allowable size was. I told her that’s the only size it came in. She said she would allow it through this time only.

[snip]

History will not treat us kindly. We will be remembered as the Americans who insulated themselves from reality and remained self-absorbed, concerned with their own personal comfort and privilege while our government wrecked havoc on the world and destroyed our own culture. It will not be difficult for future generations to understand what happened and the sequence of events. The evidence is abundantly clear. The only question will be why Americans didn’t rise up and save themselves.

Read it all here.

This poll result provides scant evidence that the anti-war movement is having an effect beyond its own navel-gazing, as Tom Hayden suggested in a recent article. This should serve as a further incentive for us to continue our efforts to end war, starting with the debacle in Iraq.

Poll: Iraq Going Badly And Getting Worse
Majority In CBS News Survey Doubt U.S. Can Win; 62% Call War ‘A Mistake’
NEW YORK, Dec. 11, 2006 (CBS/AP)

Opposition to the war is now taking on historic proportions, with 62 percent saying it was “a mistake” to send U.S. troops to Iraq — slightly more than told a Gallup Poll in 1973 that it was a mistake to send U.S. forces to Vietnam.

(CBS) Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and getting worse, and think it’s time for the U.S. either to change its strategy or start getting out, according to a CBS News poll.

Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether. Only 4 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting as it is doing now.

Just 21 percent approve of President Bush’s handling of the war, the lowest number he’s ever received, and an 8-point drop from just a month ago. Most of that drop has been among Republicans and conservatives. Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling Iraq.

Opposition to the war is now taking on historic proportions, with 62 percent saying it was “a mistake” to send U.S. troops to Iraq — slightly more than told a Gallup Poll in 1973 that it was a mistake to send U.S. forces to Vietnam.

Read it here.

It is likely that in 2008 both major political parties will nominate a candidate for President who voted for invading Iraq and has never renounced that vote, voted for the Patriot Act’s infringements on civil liberties and doesn’t support its retraction, supports the concepts of the “war on terror” and preemptive US unilateralism, supports any and all Israeli attacks on their Arab neighbors, and supports military budgets approaching a trillion a year. Both will be against signing and strengthening the Kyoto Treaty, serious ethics reform, publicly funded elections, gay marriage and universal healthcare – to name only a few of their probable commonalities.

These nominations will take place in a political climate where it is also very likely that the electorate, educated by debacles in Iraq and Washington, will continue what they did in 2006 – moving left, especially the younger voters. Hence, there are going to be a record number of potential voters in 2008 whose political principles and goals directly conflict with the policies of both major parties’ candidates. Their opposition will derive primarily from left and libertarian critiques. This group seeking alternatives will be younger than those who find political satisfaction among Republicrats. They will also reject many cultural conventions of their elders such as bans on gay marriage and marijuana prohibition. The Democrats may nominate a woman and/or an Afro-American and some on the left who will argue that is reason enough to support them. Such reasoning will eventually lead the proponent to be completely taken for granted and their politics ignored by a future Democratic administration still operating entirely within established perimeters. A rerun of “Anybody but Bush’s chosen replacement” will have little resonance among these people. There will be many millions of them.

Presidential elections are the most corrupted level of US politics. On this highest level of power, the influence of corporate money on politics prevails most powerfully. However, it is the only national electoral stage provided, the official attraction to which all attention is directed. No other stage is so conducive to the discussion of basic principles and global issues. No other venue provides such a potential audience. For leftists, it’s like the lottery in that the odds are bad, but worse if you don’t play. But, Dean and MoveOn have demonstrated that the stranglehold of big corporate money may be mitigated by cleaver organization of large constituencies in cyberspace. Since the anti-Iraq War movement was largely organized on line, why not an antiwar presidential campaign against two members of the ruling elite and their narrowly focused pseudo-debates?

In order to have progressive alternative positions as part of the debate at all, the antiwar Left must have its own candidates, even if those candidates, if at all successful, might damage the chances of the Democratic Party nominees for the same offices. Unless the Democratic Party nominates an explicitly and forcefully antiwar candidate, which is unlikely, the potential impact of an antiwar Left candidate on the Democrats would be a very secondary consideration. Most importantly, having a distinct antiwar Left candidate is the only way that growing millions of Americans can have their viewpoints represented and feel that they have any stake in the process or in politics at all. It would be the ultimate objective of such a campaign to raise the Left from its current relative obscurity in this country to being an influential voice in the public dialogue. To do so, the antiwar Left needs an independent presidential campaign with completely distinct politics and articulate and attractive candidates capable of attracting millions of votes.

It will be argued that we must accept the good although it is not perfect and support Democrats. I disagree for many reasons. First, they are not the good. They are the less exploitive, the more flexible representatives of the capitalist class. Additionally, the current political system is seriously corrupted by the legalized bribery of campaign contributions. The Democrats may be less slavish than Republicans in their devotion to the mythology of the market and its principal beneficiaries. And they may have more palatable corrupters paying their bills. But they are very largely corrupted nonetheless. A perfect example is Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California whose husband is a war profiteer and who would support any Israeli abuse of Palestinians without batting an eye. No product of a system dominated by corporate money can be expected to take anti-corporate positions.

Crucially, a Left candidate must have policies that are fundamentally and profoundly different from ANY Democrat. Name the Democrat who favors ending the “War on Drugs” now and releasing all marijuana prisoners. Name the Democrat who favors US demilitarization, including the withdrawal from the hundreds of military bases the US maintains around the world and deeply slashing the military budget. What Democrat is willing to do what all European politicians implicitly do, renounce war as a means of conflict resolution between nations? What Democrat supports a single payer, government run universal healthcare system? What Democrat would stand up to Israel (now that Cynthia McKinney is gone)? What Democrat supports comprehensively progressive taxation? What Democrat opposes privatization in principle and supports public investment if not ownership of essential commodities like water, electricity, heating oil and transportation? In short, what Democrat can be relied upon to support libertarian socialism in even in its mildest form? The answer couldn’t be more clear. None. If it is left to Democrats, none of these positions and many others will ever be part of the public dialogue. Attempts to introduce such positions within the Democratic Party will be futile because they contradict the interests of those who control the party with their money, in a system where you need hundreds of millions in financing to be considered serious.

Unless the capitalist hegemony in public discourse is broken, the US will remain the only developed country in the world where there is no organized socialist voice in the public policy forum.

. The role of a Left presidential candidate would be to put forth progressive politics that reflect the views of a major constituency that now lacks representation. Whereas it would be unrealistic to immediately aspire to winning. The initial goals of the campaign must be to articulate these unrepresented positions and to establish an on-going political organization to espouse them in the future. To merely articulate a position in relative isolation without seriously seeking a strong candidate, ballot access and votes will not attract attention. To be taken seriously, the antiwar Left must be prepared to make this alternative a reality with money, organization and a formidable candidate. Like Nader, that candidate should have an existing national profile. Unlike Nader, that candidate should be primarily committed to establishing a permanent organizational voice for the Left.

. The Left crucially needs to define itself outside the boundaries of contemporary American capitalist political conventions. Then it needs the fortitude of its convictions and a long-term perspective to follow through on a difficult and in some ways divisive process.

The 2008 election has the potential to be a propitious moment for the Left in the US. Basically, the contradictions in the objective conditions are manifesting very rapidly on the ground and this process will be reflected in the public consciousness. It is time for the Left to attack the ideological underpinnings that have led to the unfolding debacle in the Middle East.

The primary political variables remain who the D’s nominate and the state of the Iraq war. Many Republicans are desperate not to have Iraq be the issue again in 2008 while Machiavellian Democrats might love that prospect, given how well they did running on it in 2006. But George Bush is a stubborn fool who can be counted on to continue to fuck up. I envision a move to impeach him led by desperate Republicans. Events are taking place at an accelerating pace. If the Democrats go for DLC types (Hillary) and the Republicans nominate someone like McCain who wants to escalate, the Left should offer an alternative. Everything would change if, forced by an ever unfolding crisis, the D’s put up an antiwar ticket, a long shot, or if the Bush regime finds a way out of the Iraq War that preserves some shred of their dignity, a near impossibility. Retreat from Iraq merely requires the US telling its puppets to order it. But that requires them to relinquish what limited control they think they still have and suffer enormous humiliation and retribution. Doing the right thing would require Bush to relinquish any claim to a positive legacy. Not likely. The confluence of these factors indicate that 2008 will be a year ripe with potential for an historic Left campaign to expand its horizons by participation in the US presidential race.

David Hamilton

Ragblog exclusive correspondent Paul Crassnerd sent us this dispatch from what he says is “the mountains in the soon-to-be state of Independent Kurdistan”:

The other day (Dec 3rd or 4th or so) when I saw Bush gladhanding Al-Hakim after dissing Nouri Maliki, and after the anti-Maliki “leak” by Cheney’s chief “security” slut Stephen Hadley, I strongly suspected Mr. Maliki was on the way out as Iraqi PM, and Mr. al-Hakim on the way in. So I called Hunter (still in hiding in Wales, where the future is so easy to see it’s scary), and he confirmed that that indeed would take place. “A done deal,” said Hunter.

So I reported what Hunter [Thompson] said had actually occured as the CheneyBush-Maliki meeting progressed: frat boy Bushtwig calling Maliki a pendejo, and suggesting in Spanish that Maliki was “already gone” and that al-Hakim would soon be the CheneyBush’s new puppet, or “fool by the whirlpool,” to borrow a phrase from Bob Dylan.

That story, with photos of the meeting and CheneyBush’s quotes, was posted a day or so later (Dec 5) on the Rag blog.

Today, Dec 11th, an AP story carried on the front page of the Austin paper, and likely elsewhere as well, suggests that the Ragblog was just about a full week ahead of events when the pendejo story was posted.

Today’s AP story (Page A1, Austin American-Statesman) says “Major partners in Iraq’s governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved.”

“The new alliance would be led by senior Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who met with President Bush last week,” says the AP story. No jive, folks. Google it.

You want news from the future? Look ahead. Ask Paul Crassnerd. Read the Ragblog daily.

I await my Pulitzer. OUR Pulitzer, I should say.

Hunter says we should accept the cash part only in Euros, yuan, or yen. Not dollars.

Economic Apartheid Kills
Published on Monday, December 11, 2006.
By Joel S. Hirschhorn – BLN Contributing Writer

To be successful in overturning our elitist plutocratic system we should add economic apartheid to our semantic arsenal. Better than economic inequality, economic injustice and class warfare, because apartheid is loaded with richly deserved negative emotions. Sadly, in South Africa, economic apartheid has taken over from racial apartheid.

How ironic that the Bush administration successfully talked up the global threat from terrorism while it pursued domestic and foreign policies promoting economic apartheid, a far greater and more pervasive threat to national and global stability.

The human race on planet Earth, taken as an aggregate mass abstraction, may be getting richer. But a new report from the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University shows that wealth creation is remarkably – one might say criminally – unequal. Follow this hierarchy at the top of the wealth pyramid: The richest 1 percent of adults alone owned 40 percent of global assets in the year 2000; the richest 2 percent owned more than half of global household wealth; and the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. That leaves very little for the remaining 90 percent of the global population. Could it be any worse? Yes, the rich are still getting richer, more millionaires are becoming billionaires.

As to the world’s lower class: the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1 percent of global wealth, defined as net worth: the value of physical and financial assets less debts. Over a billion poor people subsist on less than one dollar a day. Every day, according to UNICEF, 30,000 children die due to poverty – that’s over 10 million children killed by poverty every year! Global economic apartheid is killing people.

Read the rest here.

Safe to say that the first domino has just fallen. If you haven’t yet watched Robert Newman’s History of Oil, perhaps now would be a good time.

Majlis agrees to replacement of US dollar with euro: MP
Tehran, Dec 9, IRNA

Iran-Majlis-Euro

The Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) is agreable to replacing the US dollar with the euro in Iranian foreign transactions, said a member of the Majlis Planning and Budget Commission, Morteza Tamaddon, on Saturday.

Speaking to IRNA, the MP said the move is part of Iran’s general policy towards the West as dependence on the US currency would have negative consequences for Iran in the long-term.

Reducing Iran’s dependence on the US dollar would eventually make the country less vulnerable to the dollar, argued the MP.

Referring to the move as a “positive approach,” Tamaddon said Iran’s decision to replace the US dollar with the euro was not politically motivated.

“It has nothing to do with political issues. Even European countries have concluded that they should replace the US dollar with a stronger currency,” said the MP.

He said that although some problems could arise as a result of the shift to the euro, Tehran would enjoy monetary flexibility in its international transactions.

In case the West pulls through with its planned economic sanctions on Iran, Tamaddon said the country would still have access to its monetary accounts based on the euro.

Iran’s minister of finance announced last week that the government had decided to replace the US dollar with the euro in its international transactions.

He said that the move was in response to the Bush administration’s hostile policies towards Iran.

Read it here.