Tannishblog

When I was growing up, America was great. That’s what I was told in school, from my elders. We were the most powerful nation on earth. In my early years America was still glowing from the after affects of a victory in Europe, from the can-do spirit and the anything goes mindset of the sixties.

My, how things change: I grew up believing America had the best health care in the world. Today France has that. I learned America made the best TV’s and stuff. Now, microelectronic devices are made in Asia. In my youth, I was certain that America had the best and brightest scientific minds. Now, Medical advances are made in Europe and elsewhere, Software engineering – a field Americans pioneered – is advancing in India faster than in America.

A quote from today’s Washington Post:

Technology development happens in India. Technology consumption happens in the U.S

That’s right: the thing we have become best at as a nation is consumption. If human global society were an organism, America would serve the function of the gastro-intestinal system. From gaping maw to anal orifice, we have it all, designed for the purpose of ingesting the world’s goods and resources, and squirting out waste products.

Recently a long-standing trend to come to America to seek riches is reversing. The best-and-brightest are leaving our shores to follow the money outward back to the once depressed and now burgeoning economies of Asia and the Middle East. Europeans were the first to stop looking to America for advancement, and now the rest of the world is following suit.

Our nation is in decline. We’ve reached our peak last century in our fight against fascism, and now all we have become is a fading memory, like the proverbial old-timer boring the young ones with tales of his glory days. America’s glory days are over.

Unless and until we as a nation realize this, and take action to correct this situation, we may soon become the next Etruscan Empire. Remember them?

Frank Ahrens of the Washington Post asks an interesting question: Why do we blog? His article illustrates how blogging has hat a plateau recently, and he wonders if the blogosphere is done for. He fails to see that blogging is a nitch market at best - not everyone likes to think for themselves - and perhaps it is finding its watermark.

Nonetheless, he asks a question and invited replies:

But Web Watch does not blog (yet), so we can only guess at the motivating factors.

We’d like you to tell us why you blog. If you’re reading this online, clicking on the byline will let you send an e-mail. Or if you’re reading in the paper, e-mail a note to ahrensf@washpost.com . Web Watch will publish the most insightful answers. Enlighten us.

I took up his challenge. below is my reply:

Hi, Frank.

Blogging is cathartic: to reach out into the unknowable and find like minded souls. This is important in political debate, less so perhaps for personal documentary. To hear from strangers is a joy, regardless of agreement.

Blogging is engaged democracy. It creates an end-run around power publication, in that the people with the most power control what is heard. This is seen more and more in China, but is also relevant in the US. To give the populace the voice of self publication and the tools like google to disseminate and distribute the unedited voice of the people is the current paramount of democracy in action.

Finally, blogging is a return to thinking. For several generations we parked ourselves in front of a TV and turned off our minds. Blogging is a rebound from that: one cannot write without thought; one cannot read without encountering the thoughts of others. Bloggers know that to learn is sometimes preferable to being entertained. It scratches a mental itch TV can’t reach. We’re still in front of a tube, but we’re controlling the transmission.

Tannish

Feel free to send him a line, I’d like to see his follow-up article.

It seems like American efforts in Iraq are finally coming to fruition. There’s a movement within the country toward solidarity. After all the bloodshed, Iraqis are coalescing into a unified force aimed at taking control of their nation, as our ministers of propaganda have always said was America’s goal after ousting Saddam. Below, I paste this week’s Iraq Dispatch from Dahr Jamail in its entirety. If you aren’t on his email list, you should be.

February 24, 2006
Who Benefits?
The most important question to ask regarding the bombings of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on the 22nd is: who benefits? Prior to asking this question, let us note the timing of the bombing.
The last weeks in Iraq have been a PR disaster for the occupiers. First, the negative publicity of the video of British soldiers beating and abusing young Iraqis has generated a backlash for British occupation forces they’ve yet to face in Iraq. Indicative of this, Abdul Jabbar Waheed, the head of the Misan provincial council in southern Iraq, announced his councils’ decision to lift the immunity British forces have enjoyed, so that the soldiers who beat the young Iraqis can be tried in Iraqi courts. Former U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer had issued an order granting all occupation soldiers and western contractors immunity to Iraqi law when he was head of the CPA…but this province has now decided to lift that so the British soldiers can be investigated and tried under Iraqi law.
This deeply meaningful event, if replicated around Iraq, will generate a huge rift between the occupiers and local governments. A rift which, of course, the puppet government in Baghdad will be unable to mend.
The other huge event which drew Iraqis into greater solidarity with one another was more photos and video aired depicting atrocities within Abu Ghraib at the hands of U.S. occupation forces. The inherent desecration of Islam and shaming of the Iraqi people shown in these images enrages all Iraqis.
In a recent press conference, the aforementioned Waheed urged the Brits to allow members of the provincial committee to visit a local jail to check on detainees; perhaps Waheed is alarmed as to what their condition may be after seeing more photos and videos from Abu Ghraib.
Waheed also warned British forces that if they didn’t not comply with the demands of the council, all British political, security and reconstruction initiatives will be boycotted.
Basra province has already taken similar steps, and similar machinations are occurring in Kerbala. Basra and Misan provinces, for example, refused to raise the cost of petrol when the puppet government in Baghdad, following orders from the IMF, decided to recently raise the cost of Iraqi petrol at the pumps several times last December.
The horrific attack which destroyed much of the Golden Mosque generated sectarian outrage which led to attacks on over 50 Sunni mosques. Many Sunni mosques in Baghdad were shot, burnt, or taken over. Three Imans were killed, along with scores of others in widespread violence.
This is what was shown by western corporate media. As quickly as these horrible events began, they were called to an end and replaced by acts of solidarity between Sunni and Shia across Iraq.
This, however, was not shown by western corporate media.
The Sunnis where the first to go to demonstrations of solidarity with Shia in Samarra, as well as to condemn the mosque bombings. Demonstrations of solidarity between Sunni and Shia went off over all of Iraq: in Basra, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, Kut, and Salah al-Din. Thousands of Shia marched shouting anti-American slogans through Sadr City, the huge Shia slum area of Baghdad, which is home to nearly half the population of the capital city. Meanwhile, in the primarily Shia city of Kut, south of Baghdad, thousands marched while shouting slogans against America and Israel and burning U.S. and Israeli flags.
Baghdad had huge demonstrations of solidarity, following announcements by several Shia religious leaders not to attack Sunni mosques. Attacks stopped after these announcements, coupled with those from Sadr, which I’ll discuss shortly.
Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, shortly after the Golden Mosque was attacked, called for “easing things down and not attacking any Sunni mosques and shrines,” as Sunni religious authorities called for a truce and invited everyone to block the way of those trying to generate a sectarian war.
Sistani’s office issued this statement: “We call upon believers to express their protest … through peaceful means. The extent of their sorrow and shock should not drag them into taking actions that serve the enemies who have been working to lead Iraq into sectarian strife.”
Shiite religious authority Ayatollah Hussein Ismail al-Sadr warned of the emergence of a sectarian strife “that terrorists want to ignite between the Iraqis” by the bombings and said, “The Iraqi Shiite authority strenuously denied that Sunnis could have done this work.”
He also said, “Of course it is not Sunnis who did this work; it is the terrorists who are the enemies of the Shiites and Sunni, Muslims and non Muslims. They are the enemies of all religions; terrorism does not have a religion.”
He warned against touching any Sunni Mosque, saying, “our Sunni brothers’ mosques must be protected and we must all stand against terrorism and sabotage.” He added: ‘The two shrines are located in the Samarra region, which [is] predominantly Sunni. They have been protecting, using and guarding the mosques for years, it is not them but terrorism that targeted the mosques…”
He ruled out the possibility of a civil war while telling a reporter, “I don’t believe there will a civil or religious war in Iraq; thank God that our Sunni and Shiite references are urging everyone to not respond to these terrorist and sabotage acts. We are aware of their attempts as are our people; Sistani had issued many statements [regarding this issue] just as we did.”
The other, and more prominent Sadr, Muqtada Al-Sadr, who has already lead two uprisings against occupation forces, held Takfiris [those who regard other Muslims as infidels], Ba’thists, and especially the foreign occupation responsible for the bombing attack on the Golden Mosque in
Sadr, who suspended his visit to Lebanon and cancelled his meeting with the president there, promptly returned to Iraq in order to call on the Iraqi parliament to vote on the request for the departure of the occupation forces from Iraq.
“It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine of Imam Al-Hadi, God’s peace be upon him, but rather the occupation [forces] and Ba’athists…God damn them. We should not attack Sunni mosques. I ordered Al-Mahdi Army to protect the Shi’i and Sunni shrines.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, urged Iraqi Shia not to seek revenge against Sunni Muslims, saying there were definite plots “to force the Shia to attack the mosques and other properties respected by the Sunni. Any measure to contribute to that direction is helping the enemies of Islam and is forbidden by sharia.” Instead, he blamed the intelligence services of the U.S. and Israel for being behind the bombs at the Golden Mosque.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that those who committed the attack on the Golden Mosque “have only one motive: to create a violent sedition between the Sunnis and the Shiites in order to derail the Iraqi rising democracy from its path.”
Well said Mr. Blair, particularly when we keep in mind the fact that less than a year ago in Basra, two undercover British SAS soldiers were detained by Iraqi security forces whilst traveling in a car full of bombs and remote detonators.
Jailed and accused by Muqtada al-Sadr and others of attempting to generate sectarian conflict by planting bombs in mosques, they were broken out of the Iraqi jail by the British military before they could be tried.

_______________________________________________
(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail. All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr’s Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the http://DahrJamailIraq.com website. Website by photographer Jeff Pflueger’s Photography Media http://jeffpflueger.com . Any other use of images, photography, photos and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr’s dispatches via email.

This is the natural response to American and British empirical arrogance. If the table were turned would you respond any differently than the Iraqi people? Just think how our nation came together after the twin tower fell? What Iraqi has experienced is of a magnitude greater that what we’ve known. I for one, and proud to say I’m ashamed at my country’s actions abroad. We deserve whatever we get as a result of this illegal war.

This comes to me from Carolyn Kaye as distributed by Democracy for Illinois:

Friends and neighbors, meet Granny Bee. She’s just wondering…. Here’s just a taste of her homespun wisdom. Let’s elect this lady!

I’m enjoying the unfolding story about the Port Management fubar. This is great entertainment: a behind-closed-door deal made public and met with outrage; a proud, defiant stance by Der Leader; a embarrassed admonition that the president was (gasp) uninformed along side a few weak pointers on how the opposition is blowing this all out of proportion.

Who scripts this stuff?

While I have no doubt the Dubai Ports World runs some of the most efficient systems in the world, I cannot laugh at the underlying hypocrisy in this farce. First, the administration has been blanketing the term “terrorist” over the Middle East to justify an illegal police action for the past four years. As a result, Americans are starting to look askance at their brown neighbors on Main Street., whom they previously ignored. Now, we have the same mentality bouncing back and our (for lack of a better term) leaders are intimating their detractors are racists.

You can’t have it both ways, guys. Either all foreign Muslims are in cahoots with the Christian devil, or they are not. Just because the bush family enjoys a long and fruitful history with Saudi princes, going way back to the Second World War, doesn’t justify this exception to the blanket characterization posited by George’s World, inc.

Now, we have to think (and Americans HATE THAT): Not all Muslims are radical extremist anti-American suicide splatter paint artists – the Saudis are our friends. It’s too much. Do all Saudis wear white like their princes? How can we tell them apart? And – most important – what does this have to do with Kate on “Lost?” Americans have no time for this dubious distinction. We’re too busy shuffling from house to car to work to car to the table to the TV, then to bed. Who cares as long as we have gas for the guzzler, juice for the appliances, and somewhere to stash the kids during the day?

Meanwhile, just outside Joe Sixpack’s reality is a place called Earth where the denizens are busy sniping at one another with words, ideologies and/or bullets – whatever is a hand. While this affords some entertaining moments, the whole place is unstable and could implode momentarily. Who’s to blame for an uncaring public consumed by money worries, for an uncaring government drunk on power, and for a few shrewd foreigners angling to take the behemoth down piecemeal?

Could Hollywood write a better angle than this?

Two stories come to me today about people from my gridlocked corner of Chicago suburbia. The first illustrates how adventurous driving the local expressways can be, as a fellow Skokie resident becomes airborne in her auto and slams into someone’s house. The second story took place in the mall three blocks from my house: A sad story. The sentencing in this senseless crime fits the deed.

I could expand upon a Buddhism inspired rant about the consequences of our actions, or about how we let our minds control us instead of the preferred method of us controlling our minds. I could, but most people I know don’t like me when I do that…In anyone’s philosophical bent, I think all can agree that we become the choices that we make. It’s a chicken-or-egg question: Does the foolish person become the deed, or does the foolish deed create the person?

There’s never a dull moment in the third largest metropolis within the world’s brashest democratic republic.

On the topic of the brouhaha over the sale of US port management to Dubai Ports World, whether the company is good for the nation or not is less an issue to me than the underhanded and secretive way the administration goes about their business. Something this vital to American interests should be openly discussed by all interested parties. As was the case with Iraqi restructuring and the ensuing no-bid contracts, this deal too was done under the proverbial table. That’s the issue with the protest, as I see it.

CNN writes about the pressure to kill the deal, here. To quote Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security Secretary:

“I think the anxiety and the concern [over the deal] that has been expressed by congressmen and senators and elsewhere is legitimate. The bottom line is I think we need a little bit more transparency here.”

Indeed. This crowd, busy running our nation into the ground, has watched too many westerns and old spy movies. The cloak-and-dagger deal making may bee good fun for the kids, but is disastrous for political policy. Has every room in the white house been turned into a speakeasy?

Even GOP governors oppose the deal. State lawmakers know, after Katrina, just whom would have to clean up any mess resulting from security breeches on their turf. Bushovik Amerika doesn’t own up to their mistakes; that buck stops elsewhere these days.

While BushCo says the UAE are our Friends in Terror, I’m reminded of Jack Abramoff who raised a few thousands for Bush and was once feted and feasted, who now GWB can’t seem to remember…

While we’re nervous over the possibility of a UAE state-owned corporation managing America’s busiest ports, they do this by purchasing the existing port authority, a British company. What ever happened to an American company overseeing American ports? Surely no one would object to that?

The cost of war comes through in a multitude of ways. New Orleans should know this now, and will be reminded every day for years. Remember No Child Left Behind? It seems the escalation cost of depopulating Iraq has left our schools unfunded on a government mandate brought to you by George Warmonger Bush himself. Even our infrastructure is suffering. As example, I ask if any of my dear readers have driven in a large metropolis lately. How are the roads?

In the Northeast, the power grid is so bad that last weekend’s storm blacked out power for a quarter million people (sic). I remember the last time power outages occurred in the same region. During the seventies, the Carter years, hot summers caused a drain on the grid from excessive use of air conditioners. Then, people hollered at the government to help restore the aging grid. They did just that, although it took a couple years. But there war no trillion-dollar war going on in those days; the Federal government, despite a recession, had the money to help out its citizens.

The Medicaid debacle also is a sign of the costliness of the war. While trillions of dollars are funneled into a black hole of expendable munitions and corrupt restructuring within the war zone, the elderly and the soon-to-be elderly are loosing benefits they have counted on all during their working careers. To have to suffer eleventh-hour restructuring of a plan they have literally been banking on, one that they would have been able to compensate for had they known of the risks, is unconscionable.

Who pays for war: Everyone who dies by war along with their families and friends pays? Everyone injured by war and their families and friends. Every soldier on any side of the conflict, who, through skill and fortune, manage their way home, pays for war in the way their lives and outlooks irrevocably change. Nations pay for war, both the entities and the people who comprise the nations, both the decision makers and the innocents, pay for war through taxation and national debt. People pay for war, in their heartsickness, despair and shame.

People pay a price in their powerlessness to stop war once it has begun; for once leaders take a violent stance against a nation, backing down and admitting to their mistakes is unmentionable. For a politician to admit wrong is career suicide; and no politician in recent memory would give up the power and the perks of their chosen career. Once the mistake is made, therefore, all of America must go along. Nothing short of civil war can stop this foolishness.

The cost of war is too high. In the staggering price tag of high tech warfare, in the incalculable cost of ruined lives, in the thousand tiny needs left untended, war bankrupts the spirit of people, of families and of whole nations. No one can afford this disease any longer.

War Must End!

It is my firm belief that people have an innate understanding of right and wrong. “Listen to your heart” is an apt metaphor for this. We all know - if we listen to our hearts - when we act in ways that cause hardship to others. We don’t need laws to tell us this, we just know. Yet somehow we learn to drown out that tiny voice.

I also believe that no event can exist in a vacuum. Causes like the war in Iraq cannot just happen without other pre-existing conditions being met. Choices made lead to other choices that lead to war. At each juncture, a wise person can avoid confrontation by listening to his or her small voice and choosing the path that leads to less hardship. The continued failure to do so leads to conflict and war.

Likewise I firmly believe in comeuppance. Some would call it Karma, or “you shall reap what you sow.” If we refuses to listen to our hearts, the bad things perpetrated upon others will come back to us.

We all know the Golden Rule: Do unto others what you would have done unto yourself. I’ve always preferred this rephrased, as I think it most accurate: Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto yourself. To refrain from rash actions fueled by heated emotions is a paramount virtue.

To put these concepts together, we start to understand a basic ethic of wholesome behavior toward one another: don’t shit in your neighbor’s yard. Crude, yes, but apt in its simplicity. Too bad our nation doesn’t adhere to ethics.

If our military never took preemptive action, we wouldn’t have to hear the lies of our president. If our president had no reason to lie, he would be more able to convince others on unrelated policy changes. If our president were above board in his methods, we wouldn’t have such partisan strife today. Less partisan politics would allow our lawmakers to focus on their jobs.

Without Iraq, there would be money for Medicare, Katrina relief, and the education reform Mr. Bush started, but cannot complete. Without Iraq, perhaps his tax cuts would make better sense to the struggling, dwindling middle class. Without our needless war, we would engender the hatred of whole peoples around the world. Without the war we wouldn’t have tortured prisoners, bombed whole cities to dust, and maimed and killed countless humans.

One bad decision opens the door to more of the same. Likewise, one good decision can reverse or minimize the damage. A wise person could see this. Too bad we don’t know any in Washington.

If Harry Whittingham dies from injuries related to his accident can Dick Cheney be tried for involuntary manslaughter?

No.

But if the same man were shot in the same way by any other person, the answer would be yes. Expecially if that person was of another ethnic catagory. Or of another economic catagory, political affiliation, social strata…

The divide between the worlds of the “haves” and the “have-nots” just got a little clearer.