perfidy

Last night I watched Chris Matthews' Hardball; the subject of the show (and this week) is essentially "What is really going on in Iraq?". The show went "live" some of the time to Bob Arnot, who gave a summary, and also went "semi-live" (which is when they pretend to be doing something live when it really isn't) for a walking tour of an Iraqi market, and interactions with the sellers.

Why is it so hard to figure out what the truth is in Iraq?

On one hand, we have the Administration telling us that everything is pretty much great, the plan is solid, the people are happy, and that the miscellaneous deaths and violence that we're seeing are a natural result of the process. Conservative pundits across the web look for every piece of evidence they can find to support this position. There is a constant focus, from those who support the Administration on the good we are doing.

On the other hand, certain parts of the press are painting a more dire picture. The international press, in particular, is pretty rough on the occupation and paints the situation as being somewhat ouf of hand. Negative press also tends to focus on the endgame; how, exactly, do the cells of terrorists and insurgents get eliminated? Is there a constant resupply of these people? The constant focus of the "counter-Administration" people is the endgame; they ignore the very real good that is happening.

So how are we to parse all of this? There exists at the moment two polarized spheres, their centers of gravity fixed on their essential positions, unable to move from them. Journalism and truth itself has been sacrificed to maintain these positions.

The Right reframes all criticism of the war as unpatriotic. The Left reframes support of the war as partisan.

Where are the neutral voices? Why, at this critical juncture in history, are there so few widely known, reputable sources of truth? Why has the truth gap become so vast?

When the truth gap opens, we look down into it...it is the abyss. If we cannot repair this and begin to agree on truth again, from first principles, we will never find a rational path forward.

A Baghdad council member appointed by the US was killed by US forces. See the Washington Post article. You're not going to win hearts and minds when you kill your appointed council members, even by accident.

So some of the illegal immigrants who were busted last week working for a contracter who cleans Wal-Marts are suing Wal-Mart for discrimination.

Let's review. Illegal immigrants who were caught working illegally are suing a company that did not employ them charging that said company discriminated against them and therefore violated the civil rights, that they, illegal immigrants, allegedly have in this case.

Can they even do that? Or is Attorney Gilbert Garcia merely cackling over a very small pile of sweaty ones and fives?

My head hurts from banging it against my desk repeatedly.

Today's required reading is this measured gutting of Kim du Toit's famous essay on how women are a curse. Really, go read. It's exactly as fair as the piece deserves.

Thanks to the lovely and clean-smelling Ted Barlow of Crooked Timber for the link, and check out as an added bonus "Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics," an essay in the same post from another member of CT.

Talk of a draft grows despite denials by White House.

If we reframe the Iraq situation and have the possibility of a draft, what happens to American support for this war? It disappears.

It's one thing to have a son drafted into the Army to defend the nation. It's another thing when it's a war in another country, for obscure reasons, started with less than half truths...

Our generations may yet understand Viet Nam, in fear...

Tacitus gives his current opinion on Iraq, and mentions the draft, as a terrible but possibly necessary choice.

Via Daily KOS, this chilling comment from Paul Wolfowitz:

Q: Hi, Mr. Wolfowitz. My name is Ruthy Coffman. I think I speak for many of us here when I say that your policies are deplorable. They're responsible for the deaths of innocents and the disintegration of American civil liberties. [Applause]

We are tired, Secretary Wolfowitz, of being feared and hated by the world. We are tired of watching Americans and Iraqis die, and international institutions cry out in anger against us. We are simply tired of your policies. We hate them, and we will never stop opposing them. We will never tire or falter in our search for justice. And in the name of this ideal and the ideal of freedom, we assembled a message for you that was taken away from us and that message says that the killing of innocents is not the solution, but rather the problem. Thank you. [Applause and jeers]

Wolfowitz: I have to infer from that that you would be happier if Saddam Hussein were still in power. [Applause]

***snip***

Q: I'd just like to say that people like Ruthy and myself have always opposed Saddam Hussein, especially when Saddam Hussein was being funded by the United States throughout the '80s. And -- [Applause] And after the killings of the Kurds when the United States increased aid to Iraq. We were there opposing him as well. People like us were there. We are for democracy. And I have a question.

What do you plan to do when Bush is defeated in 2004 and you will no longer have the power to push forward the project for New American Century's policy of American military and economic dominance over the people of the world? [Applause]

Wolfowitz: I don't know if it was just Freudian or you intended to say it that way, but you said you opposed Saddam Hussein especially when the United States supported him.

It seems to me that the north star of your comment is that you dislike this country and its policies. [Applause]

And it seems to me a time to have supported the United States and to push the United States harder was in 1991 when Saddam Hussein was slaughtering those innocents so viciously.

So opposing policies is Unamerican. It's good to know that. Especially when we're being told that by one of the most powerful men in the current Administration.

By way of Norbizness, we find this most excellent site, the Church Sign Generator. I had some fun with this, and here is one example:

The page also thoughtfully includes links to other generator pages. My father would like the ACME Licence Plate generator:

There is also a link to a list of generator pages, all guaranteed to lower your productivity.

From the weird department...when there's nothing better to do...

So the police went in, guns ready, commando-style, and took down...a high school. Awesome!

A few thoughts spring to mind.

It's hard to second guess police in a situation like this...but the fact that they found nothing in their raid is pretty telling...sounds like an over-reaction to me.

Sometimes you can suspect that, well, the school is full of drugs, and when you actually send the men with guns in, you find nothing. But, the dogs smelled something on some of the kids. At least they had that! I am sure the kids had a drug program of some kind. Maybe they were cultivating.

Plus kids get to see what guns look like close-up, and from different angles, like pointing right at you! Cool! It's a learning experience for them.

I am pretty sure these kids are going to realize that we are doing the right thing. If a few of them get killed by mistake, at some point, we really have to think of the greater good.

Don't we?

I wonder if the Patriot Act was helpful in opening up the lockers of those nasty kids.

Yes, yes....there really was a drug problem in this school. I know that. I'm just not sure I'd be all that happy to be a parent of a kid being sent to this particular school, at this time.

Dan Drezner's Brother is a pretty rich guy (investment banker). He wrote there on how most people pay nothing in taxes, except for rich people, and how the heck can we expect rich people to do anything more?

The giant holes in this argument are easy to spot.

Social security is a tax on the poor and middle class ONLY, to the tune of 15.8% of income. Sales tax is usually another 5% or more.

So our "zero tax payer" pays, in fact, around 20% tax right out of the starting gate, even if he's not paying anything in federal income tax because his income is low. He's also paying property taxes, "license fees" (taxes in disguise), and a myriad of other little taxes that really add up.

We need to stop pretending that the social security deductions are any different from our normal taxes. They're not. They're used in the general fund. If we just think of the whole thing (fed, state, SS, etc) as the tax burden, suddenly it doesn't seem like such a great deal to be poor any more. So if we're just going to push them into the general fund, we might as well make it the "flat rate tax" that conservatives have always pushed for so vigorously. Here's your chance! Prove it's what you really want.

You know, the "lucky duckies".

Remember: Take the taxation rate on person X who isn't crazy rich, add 16%, and you know what they're really paying in taxes. Better yet, add another 5% for state taxes, and another two or three for the various "licenses" we need to have. Pretty soon you're talking real money.

According to the Washington Post, the White House has decided that it will no longer respond to questions about government finances from members of Congress who aren't Republicans. Of course, what they say is that they'll only respond to committee chairs, but since all the chairs are Republican, it's the same thing, right?

Last time I checked, the chairs of committees didn't carry any more legal authority into Congress (voting support) than any other member of Congress. This whole committee business is something that has to change. When you have half the Senate controlled by one party and half by the other, the chairmanships ought to be split equally.

Why does this Administration fight releasing information at every turn? Why are Cheney's conversations about energy still secret? Are there truly so many necessary secrets?

There aren't. Just as we've seen the Patriot Act being abused to prosecute crimes unrelated to terrorism, we're now seeing executive powers abused. These people aren't interested in what's right. They're interested in what they're legally able to get away with. And truly, that is why they emphasize the rule of law at every opportunity. You see, what they're doing is legal.

It's extremely useful to place all this in context. We had a tempest in a teapot last week, with RepubliFoxNews shouting to all who would listen (in other words, the people that already agree with them) that the democrats were "politicizing the intelligence process". This was continuously repeated all around the blogosphere as well. Doesn't it make sense to go to the memo itself, read it ourselves, and judge?

Look at the opener on that story: "Following is the text of a memo written by a Democrat on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that suggests how to make the greatest gain off of intelligence data leading to the war against Iraq. The memo was obtained by Fox News".

Talk about leading the reader around by the nose. Don't bother reading it, they're telling you. We've already done that for you!

This memo is a tactical one. It's trying to figure out how to get an investigation of intelligence matter started, because they're being stonewalled in every other way. And, as I pointed out earlier, the White House is becoming substantially less cooperative vis-a-vis elected representatives. These committees are fundamentally political entities. If they weren't, the chairmen would listen to requests made by all committee members, rather than only those made by his party.

All in all this points to the following: The White House views our elected representatives as nothing more than speed bumps on the road to "getting it done", whatever it is. We sure as hell can't count on anything they've said so far to understand what they're doing.

It's just another pile of steaming crap, fresh out of the GOP's "The Earth is Flat" Playbook. Yeah -- the earth is being flattened. And by the time they're through with it, it'll be scorched too. But it won't matter to Bush and Corporation -- they'll be safe in their gated communities, paying less in taxes than the workers whose jobs they are vigorously sending overseas, in the name of "productivity", or shareholder value, or whatever BS line they're delivering this week.

Get this straight: Increasing shareholder value only helps if you're a shareholder. With the massive decline in the economy overall, I suspect that the average citizen in this country will be returning to historical investment positions. Most of the time that means he really won't have any. And that's just fine with the ruling majority, who'll continue to suck the lifeblood out of that guy's family and finances with regressive taxes needed to give the very richest among us a massive tax cut, use his money to pay for a war he doesn't give a shit about, and hand the bill to his children, while shielding their own children by eliminating the estate tax.

I love a good conspiracy theory.