HULK SMASHED
Oh Fuck em all!
Oh, Atrios, I feel that truth is largely irrelevant and we are destined to be relegated to the scrap heap of history.
The media is the problem: but our only solution it to tell people of the problem using . . . well, the media.
Welcome to Bedlam.
Lacking empathy is crucial for the free-marketers. If they lack empathy so much of their beliefs are explained. George Bush is like a god of the unempathetic, and for good reason.
And this is also why we have such trouble understanding the wingnuts.
This column is a couple days old, but it's well written and I think kind of on topic. One Happy Big-Box Wasteland
Oh my yes, there is indeed one force that is eating away the American soul like a cancer
It's fashionable to suggest that the White House was bent on war and nothing could have stopped them. But until the Powell speech, public opinion, editorial sentiment (as chronicled by E&P at the time) and street protests were all building against the war.
The Powell speech, and the media's swallowing of it, changed all that.
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.
By all means follow the link and read the rapturous prose that out Third Estate poured out in praise of the Powell UN speech.
Sounds like a good time to have another conference on Blogger Ethics.
--by the way, the new accordianist in Gogol Bordello is great. They've always been an incredible spectacle, but they're sounding better as a band all the time.
I think they're wrapping up their tour at The Amsterjam festival in NYC today.
Margaret Carlson is typical. Too busy on the cocktail circuit to actually study the evidence. I am wondering how these tv pundits who are being interviewed constantly, ever get a chance to actually research facts. A: They don't. They bloviate.
Did the press watch the same presentation I saw?
Maybe they did NTodd. But they listened to Rush Limbaugh afterwards.
Three cheers for Colin Powell's chest hair!
Weisman called Powell's evidence "a nearly encyclopedic catalog that reached further than many had expected." He and Clymer both recalled Adlai Stevenson's speech to the U.N. in 1962 exposing Soviet missiles in Cuba. Gordon closed his piece by asserting that "it will be difficult for skeptics to argue that Washington's case against Iraq is based on groundless suspicions and not intelligence information." Try reading that with a straight face today.
I believe Stevenson had actual photographs to present to the U.N. He didn't have to depend on crayon drawings.
I am wondering how these tv pundits who are being interviewed constantly, ever get a chance to actually research facts. A: They don't. They bloviate.
And outside of the blogs they never, ever get called on their bullshit, distortions and outright falsehoods.
"The press," as Rahm Emmanuel once said, "never eats its crow."
If Uncle Colon Powell had any conscience,
he'd find a nice sharp sword and a willing partner, and commit seppuku on the white house lawn (perferrably taking his fuckin oreo son with him)
"The press," as Rahm Emmanuel once said, "never eats its crow."
Why eat crow when there's so much tasty turkee to be had by playing ball?
he'd find a nice sharp sword and a willing partner, and commit seppuku on the white house lawn (perferrably taking his fuckin oreo son with him)
Wow. I'd watch, I think.
Wow. I'd watch, I think.
I'd try to sell tickets. Free enterprise, bitches!
he'd find a nice sharp sword and a willing partner, and commit seppuku on the white house lawn (perferrably taking his fuckin oreo son with him)
Woody, that's completely inappropriate.
We're emulating the Roman Empire so what he should do is be a good patrician and fall on his sword for shaming himself. After first slitting Mikey's throat though for good measure.
Anyone offended by that - well, fuck off you plebeians. It's the honorable thing to do.
One thought I've had. Generally speaking,most of us live pretty insulated lives in this country--roof over our heads, enough to eat, plus most of us have the perks. We're like big housecats.
There are few immediate consequences to our decisions, whether to buy a big SUV or to vote for W--- the feedback loop is broken. And when the chickens do come home to roost, it is too separate from the root causes and actors.
Why aren't we holding Powell, Carlson, BushCo accountable now? They didn't simply make "mistakes" then, they're making them now. Because so far, for most of us, it hasn't made a difference yet.
This column is a couple days old, but it's well written and I think kind of on topic. One Happy Big-Box Wasteland
Oh my yes, there is indeed one force that is eating away the American soul like a cancer
Karin
Very depressing indeed. I can remember shopping with my dad years ago at the local hardware store were all the men knew everyone and talked about their homes and what projects they were going to work .
How did the change happen so fast? Within one generation it's all gone.
Wow.
All I have to say.
Fuck you, Colin.
fuckin oreo son
The oreo part, of course, being completely irrelevant..........
Don't be daft. Only the little people pay for their transgressions. It builds their character.
Our betters make "mistakes" and then they get to "move on".
Oh yeah, Hey Colin, Boo Fucking Hoo. You had your chance to stand up for what was right and you blew it. Suck on it.
The oreo part, of course, being completely irrelevant.....
But, but... what is seppuku without cookies?
Wow! That was a strange experience!
I just loaded the front page, and there was only this thread, with no comments. I read both links, and there were somehow still no comments. I gleefully posted Frist! and then replied to myself, which became the second comment, at which point I sensed there was something wrong. Everybody else had disappeared, and I was in my own private Eschaton. It was like that Twilight Zone episode about the guy in the sensory seprivation chamber.
Now everybody's comments are back, and mine are gone. That's definitely the weirdest Haloscan behavior I have yet seen. Did anybody else have the same experience?
Oreo is a supreme insult in some circles. (and if the appelation did not fit, it would not be so cutting)
I don't really perceive this as being racist btw, Racism is the putting down of someone because of their race. In this case it is complimentary to one race while not disparaging another. Just sayin.
Another link, because I am trying to catch up with a week's worth of news this morning. Did anyone notice this?
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - The second-highest diplomat at the United States Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed on the case said Wednesday.
From the NY Times
So, at this point do the "journalists and reporters" start rewriting their previous views? Most people don't have an attention span more than five minutes long anyway.
Karin somebody from Bear called me the other day. I thanked them nicely and told them I had a job already.
So see it works if you work it.
Thanks.
When history came calling Colin Powell flushed his reputation and his doctine down the toilet. He was the one figure that could have stopped this war, had he chose to resign rather than shill for the Bushistas. Instead he chose to lie to the U.N. History will not remember him kindly.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - The second-highest diplomat at the United States Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed on the case said Wednesday.
that's what makes me crazy about the attacks on sheehan for her 'anti-israeli, anti-semitic' comments -- when she's only stating the fucking obvious.
When history came calling Colin Powell flushed his reputation and his doctine down the toilet. He was the one figure that could have stopped this war, had he chose to resign rather than shill for the Bushistas. Instead he chose to lie to the U.N. History will not remember him kindly.
Another Bruce
You know, I kept waiting for Powell to resign. And waiting. And waiting.
The fact that he didn't misled a lot of people (including Mary McGrory who certainly should have known better) into believing that if he felt the war was appropriate, then it was.
Karin somebody from Bear called me the other day. I thanked them nicely and told them I had a job already.
So see it works if you work it.
Thanks.
I did email them that you had another job offer, but I guess the resume had gotten passed around by that point. It's nice to know I still have a little pull there!
So I stopped paying attention for like five minutes and now it is acknowledged that w lied us into war. No outrage. No mea culpas, except from Powell's aide. Fuck that. I want heads to fucking roll.
I wonder if our trolls will just go right on believing what the 700 Club and the Bible tells them to believe like that woman interviewed in the Digby piece.
I didn't realize (or had forgotten?)until reading that article how much in thrall the media was with the march to war.
Not a single question raised?
The complicity of the media in this war and the killing is what keeps them writing articles that say, "yeah it's a mess, but we have to finish the job."
They said that about Vietnam too.
Didn't it turn out that one of the chemical labs on wheels that Powell pointed to in that speech turned out to be a firetruck? All that H2o and Co2 - oh the humanity!
that's what makes me crazy about the attacks on sheehan for her 'anti-israeli, anti-semitic' comments -- when she's only stating the fucking obvious.
Well, that's a classic gambit of the powerful within democracies isn't it. Conflate the rulers with the ruled, so that to criticize them is to criticize an entire people which opens you to charges of being against the people or just plain racist.
Attack USA neocons and you're anti-American. Attack Israeli Likudniks and you're anti-semitic.
If you question the wisdom or the morality of US foreign policy, you're dishonoring the memory of civilians killed on 9/11. If you think Sharon's a fat bastard, you obviously want all Jews to drown in the Mediterranean.
See? Neat trick.
the media may have been let off the hook but, infinitely much worse, imho, is bush and cheney being let off the hook... (i watched a chunk of the program this morning on cnni here in buenos aires...) they tiptoe all around executive accountability but never really nail it... the media may have been behaving like the lapdogs they are but let's stick accountability where it REALLY belongs, shall we...?
http://takeitpersonally.blogspot...unday-
dead.html
the balsa wood 'drone of death' with the weedeater engine is what sold me.
This is CNN's mea culpa.
After this Sunday night's broadcast and if Monday's deadline for IRaq constitution gets postponed one more time, next week it will all be negative press for Bush and another 4 or 5 points down in the polls.
Then THEN Special prospecutor Fitz
puts them in the wringer after Labor Day.
the balsa wood 'drone of death' with the weedeater engine is what sold me.
I was plagued by nightmare visions of our sky turned black with swarms of them, all carrying deadly WMDs, uh, of some sort.
I got in a flame war at kos for calling Powell "the house nigger." Paraphrasing what Belafonte had already said.
I know it's nasty and all but it seemed to me Powell was stepfetchin' it for the evil caretakers at the WH and he deserved no better appelation.
Powell's reputation was impecable at that time and any call he made would have been respected by most. He chose to add to the long list of lies that led to war. No term can be too derogatory for that!
So Colin can now tour the country doing leadership seminars at tens of thousand per shot, taking his net worth inevitably into the eight figures while sort of pretending the war isnt his war.
Iraq is his war. The Bush presidency is his doing. Without Colin at his side the whole way Bush loses.
I suppose he may have been opposed to the Iraq invasion but it matters not one bit. He did his duty, he followed his orders, he was the good soldier, he sold the war. He did it for himself, and his family name and bank account.
Remember Powell was covering up for My Lai 30 years earlier. He reputation? feh!
I was certain we would 'find' WMD's in Iraq because of course they were supposed to be planted. Everything seemed to be going according to plan after the invasion. The UN inspectors were locked out, Bush appointed his own loyal GOP lackey with little experience in any related field to run the investigation.
And then suddenly David Kay was finished with his investigation and resigned taking with him any hope that WMD's could still be used as a possible rationale for the war. Not only did he say they would not be found but that they weren't there in the first place. He is the only one who's ever given the administration news like that and wasn't smeared, attacked, and retaliated against in any way. Not even later when Cheney or Rumsfeld would try to imply that it was still POSSIBLE weapons could be found...Kay would be on the same news show the next night insisting that they wouldn't.
I think their fatal error was in misjudging the character of David Kay. Had he been willing to play along Bush would still have his rationale for war in tact. That's my tinfoil hat theory anyway.
Remember Powell was covering up for My Lai 30 years earlier. His reputation? feh!
spinoza
I agree with you, but this (My Lai) was under-reported by the fawning press and so his rep was impecable with the majority of Americans. If he had stood up against the war many would have followed.
And please don't get too mad at me for posting my paraphrase of Belafonte's "House Slave," comment. I shared this with my friends who were sympathetic to my meaning but disagreed with how I said it.
Just thought I'd unburden myself this bit of callousness by admitting to it.
Remember Powell was covering up for My Lai 30 years earlier. He reputation? feh!
spinoza | Email | 08.20.05 - 12:09 pm
that's the thing that should never be forgotten: he's always been corrupt, always willing to sell our principle for expediency, never able to actually stand up (it wouldn't be prudent)...
i have in which he has been held...
colon never met a deal he wouldn't make, a point of honor he wouldn't pollute...
uncle tom? house nigger? too polite by half...
It' takes your breath away. Were they watching the same presentation after which I turned to my husband and said, "Is that it? He has nothing." I read and watched the news afterward in disbelief. The rest of the world were not fooled. If Powell had any honor, he would have resigned before giving that miserable speech.
?i have in which he has been held...?
i have (NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE APPARENT HIG REGARD) in which...
just sayin...
Iraq is his war. The Bush presidency is his doing. Without Colin at his side the whole way Bush loses.
Jorma
Yep! That outlines my frustration with Powell nicely.
I remember being amazed at the time, when the press accepted Powell holding up a test-tube full of talcum powder as irrefutable proof that Saddam had large stores of weaponized anthrax.
I came to my senses as soon as I realized who owned the press.
Does anyone remember that parody that was going around (I think it was a Flash animation) that showed Colin Powell at the UN using sock puppets to prove his case? Man, that was hilarious.
The other disheartening thing (I guess I should sa another) was the apologists' "good soldier" defence. loyally following his commander's orders, damn the imaginary torpedos, full speed ahead.
Except he wasn't a soldier. He was the freaking Secretary Of State!
And a total putz.
Heck, man! Most conservatives I have to smell reek of alcohol (unless they sober up and find Jeezus through a 12-Step NonThought Program). They dig GWBush's DT-based Presidency (actually Bush is on anti-Panic Disorder drugs, but they can still identify with him).
Others are just sociopaths; they can sleep quite well without ambien...
Re: "oreo son"
I don't really perceive this as being racist btw
Me either. I took it as just another remarkably effective crazy-assed Okie parody...
Except he wasn't a soldier. He was the freaking Secretary Of State!
Amen. If he had any integrity at all, he would do what any decent minister in a Western democracy does - he would have resigned, like Foreign Secretary Robin Cook did in the UK. God rest his soul.
They can't have empathy because they are sociopaths.
Sociopaths don't possess consciences; hence, they cannot feel empathy.
They sleep well because they don't give a damn about anyone but themselves.
he would have resigned, like Foreign Secretary Robin Cook did in the UK. God rest his soul.
course he probably would have ended up the same way.
a nod is as good as a wink, to a blind horse.
Powell tried to cover up for My Lai.
Says it all!
Powell and the media--all a bunch of sackless, cowardly......
I was going to say "c*nts" but that would be an insult to c*nts everywhere.
Traitors is about the best word for them all. Selling out the best interests of our Nation as a whole for $$ and for access.
Ol' Shifty, just like the c*nt that is his mother, Barbara, will most certainly rot someplace for eternity for this.
I got in a flame war at kos for calling Powell "the house nigger." Paraphrasing what Belafonte had already said.
Powell, KindaSleazy, Keyes, Blackwell, Watts.....
Proves that douchebags come in all colors.
I wonder if our trolls will just go right on believing what the 700 Club and the Bible tells them to believe like that woman interviewed in the Digby piece.
Email addy for gravatar only
Sure they will!
Their heads are wedged so far up their asses that their brains are starved for oxygen.
A pattern of grandiosity, excessive need for admiration, entitlement, and lack of empathy are the chief components in the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. These behaviors begin in early adulthood. A narcissistic individual is unable to trust others but replies on others to be a mirror which reflects back to him his unrealistic perception of his accomplishments, brilliance, talent, and beauty. A narcissistic individual has a fragile sense of self. To strengthen his sense of self he depends on other's admiration and constant attention. He expects other's to covet his possessions and he is constantly seeking compliments. Thus the narcissist develops numerous, shallow relationships to extract tributes from others.
Because a narcissistic individual has a shifting morality--always ready to shift values to gain favor--any interaction with a narcissist is difficult. Narcissists are self-absorbed and have no interest in anyone other than themselves. Their tendency is to form friendships or romantic relationships with only those that can enhance their self-esteem or advance their purposes.
etc, etc
keyword: lack of empathy
Something that can make my head hurt is to start comparing the press' treatment of the Clintons and their treatment now of chimpie and his crew. I remember vividly how aghast they were(and a certain Mass gay Congressman) at Clinton using his Constitution previlege to pardon, dare I say it, even now, someone who needed a pardon. Remember how they trashed the White House? The head of the California Democratic Party shit all over Clinton, in the pages of the LA Times, over the pardons. The California Democratic Party will never get one god damn penny from me, so long as that son of a bitch is head. Contrast all of that to now. 1800 Americans are dead, for the most bogus and bullshit of reasons and what do we get from our wonderfull, constitutional protected press? A collective "Now watch this swing."
Ole Raygun like to blather on about how America is the bright shining city on the hill. More like the stinking, festering, land fill.
President: Ol' Shifty
Vice President: Dick "Clinically" Insane
Secretary of State: C.P. Fuckinc*nt
Media: Chicken Ranch Whores
Traitors, every one of them.
Powell was always a repukelican media invention - creating gravitous where none ever existed. the description of Powell as a house n'ger was always the true and accurate depiction of him. It was not in the least surprising that the media jumped over the moon in praise of him when he threw his reputation (created by the same media) in support of the bushcriminal regime.
"F" Powell, "F" US corporate media - may they burn in hell's damnation for all eternity.
+
What's so weird to me is, I laughed at Colin Powell's presentation to the UN. I watched the whole thing that morning, and I thought it was terrible. Just not at all convincing. I couldn't understand why everyone else was so impressed.
Well, in the words of Judy, "I WAS PROVED FUCKING RIGHT."
And yet, not one news channel has offered me the job of pundit.
Lisa: Well, in the words of Judy, "I WAS PROVED FUCKING RIGHT." And yet, not one news channel has offered me the job of pundit.
But being "right" is not a pundit criteria. If they had even one of the bright bulbs from the left blogosphere on, it would make the other look even more ridiculous, and that's not something they can have.
On Carlson - did she even know what Colin's position was? Well, guess saying, "whatever Colin wants, I want" is easier than saying "I was all for invading a Iraq based on a pack of lies."
I believe Stevenson had actual photographs to present to the U.N. He didn't have to depend on crayon drawings.
Lime Rickey
This might be apocryphal, but after Stevenson made his oral presenatation to DeGaulle, he offered to show him the intel photos. DeGaulle supposedly said something like, "Never mind, the word of the American President is good enough for me."
Not any more :-(
The media whores are 75% of the problem.
They're enthusiastically aiding and abetting the other 25% of the problem: the fascists that are trying to destroy our country.
I know I'm WAY late to the party, but a forum sometimes is just too important to pass up even though no one else is here.
Anyway, regarding each and every newspaper that supported Powell's bullshit (in his own words at the time) speech: we should ram those words up their asses, beginning right now.
San Fran paper--Up Your Ass
San Jose paper--Up Your Ass
Richard Cohen--Up Your Ass--AND Go to fight in Iraq, chickenhawk.
etc. and et al.
Don't trust the fucking government, especially when it's trying to send your butt off to war.
I'm wracking my brains to try to remember just where it was (and I guess, more importantly, when it was) that Colin was talking about everyone in the Administration taking Ambien. All of it makes so much sense now...
Where was he?
When history came calling Colin Powell flushed his reputation and his doctine down the toilet. He was the one figure that could have stopped this war, had he chose to resign rather than shill for the Bushistas...
Another Bruce
Or maybe not. Maybe Powell knew the details of how they they would destroy him, the way they destroy everyone, from four-star generals to Dan Rather to moms of dead soldiers. And the alternative of living to run for president as the honorable statesman didn't measure up to whatever hell of getting sliced and diced the Bushies had in store for him, if he defected.
Doesn't matter. He's still relegated to the shit pile of history, as a coward.
Reading the E&P piece, I''m sure any muckraking writer who could sit down with any of these jingoistic moron "journalists" would certainly get the phrase "20-20 hindsight" thrown at them by all of 'em. What bullshit. Their pieces of the period, in retrospect, read like they're cheerleaders with pom-poms.
But more importantly, all of these guys, in publishing their endorsements of Bush, STARTED FROM THE PREMISE THAT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT DECLARES "PROOF"... THAT'S IT.
The operative default mode of the media is that the government always tells the truth. No need to verify! Exactly when did this become the norm, in "journalism"?
There's your problem, right there. THAT is nothing short of lethal, in our form of government.
A lot of us changed our minds when Colin Powell testified before the UN. I was leery, but ultimately, he was the only one I trusted, and when he put his name out there, I supported the efforts. (for 15 minutes). Powell's reputation is severely damaged permanently, and I've learned that one cannot trust anyone in government. As much as he continues to try to redeem himself, I and many, many more will never forgive Powell, or ourselves for those horrendous mistakes.
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