Jason Leopold reported at Truthout that Karl Rove was to be indicted in a matter of days if not hours. The indictment never came down and across the net TO and Leopold appeared to have a credibility problem. It was said that they were set up, that internet journalism can’t be relied upon, that Leopold is basically a liberal blogger not to be trusted with objective journalism.
Today, over a month since the Leopold story, CNN (and all the other major corporate news services) is reporting that Fitzgerald will not be indicting Rove at all.
I have yet to find any mention of what happened to the indictment, up until now. In an article titled, Sealed vs. Sealed in which Leopold reports on a case that popped up at the same time he reported that the Rove indictment was going to come down and which is uncharacteristically labeled Sealed vs. Sealed as opposed to the pro forma US vs. Sealed, used to conceal the identity of a high profile person in a sensitive investigation.
Leopold’s article makes no claim but the implication is clear: Sealed vs. Sealed is/was the Rove indictment and a deal was cut not to move on it. Disinfo? Time will tell. To most netizens, this issue is at the heart of the citizen journalism vs. corporate journalism issue. The charge among the ‘net Left was that Leopold was set up by the Right in order to discredit his reporting, Truthout, bloggers and anyone on the net not a corporate news entity. Will yesterday’s relatively quiet Sealed vs. Sealed story be the redemption of Truthout and Leopold?
Monday, June 12, 2006
What Would The Founders Do?
Reading different texts, essays, books, magazine articles that discuss the virtuosity of the American ‘Founders’ is always an interesting and challenging psychological endeavor. The Declaration had many signers but Ben Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and Thomas Jefferson composed the five-man drafting committee. John Adams and Roger Sherman never owned slaves. The other three were either current or former slave masters. By now, those incessantly elevating the Founders to sainthood know that those they speak of with holy reverence were themselves enslavers.
I believe they overcome this contradiction in the same way that so-called progressive social groups and organizations manage to, while promoting governmental and institutional diversity and equality have little if any actual diversity within their organizations not to speak of their personal lives, a sphere over which they have complete control and thus no excuse.
But I was discussing the Founders. There is a new book out. Political libertarians and others harboring similar delusions of the grandeur of the Founders will love it. It is called What Would the Founders Do? The book is full of facts explaining the origins of much of the thought that eventually came to be the basis of law and individual rights in the United States of America. Also in the book are facts detailing the slave trading history of the Founders. Like most libertarians, and their (almost always white) ideological hangers on in both the Democratic and Republican political parties, the author, Richard Brookhiser’s mind, is impervious to the contradiction of owning a slave and the simultaneous promotion of equal rights for all men. Not to mention the glaring discrepancy over the question of women’s rights. The question! The question being, would they be allowed rights; for instance, the right to vote? There are so many points from which to examine the contradictions, hypocrisies and outright lies about what America is and who the Founders were that it is difficult to know where to start and from there in what direction to travel.
I find most urgent and interesting the dilemma of how the historical lies intersect with present day white American identity. The lie regarding the nature of America’s ‘Founding Fathers’ directly influences the actions of today’s politically progressive whites as it allows them something they apparently desperately need. An out. An acceptable prism through which to imagine themselves that is at once, popular and painless. And actually, self-congratulatory.
Instead of analyzing a culture that history teaches us has been rotten from the start, the lie allows those who need it, to imagine the Founders as radical visionaries of freedom and equality, and themselves as political descendants of the Founders. And this is in part, why you’ll often hear otherwise clear thinking self-identifying leftists wax nostalgia about the Founders. They need this lie. To tell the truth about the Founders would be to pull back the curtain on their collective version of history, it would be to tell the truth about this country and more importantly but perhaps less obvious, about themselves.
I believe they overcome this contradiction in the same way that so-called progressive social groups and organizations manage to, while promoting governmental and institutional diversity and equality have little if any actual diversity within their organizations not to speak of their personal lives, a sphere over which they have complete control and thus no excuse.
But I was discussing the Founders. There is a new book out. Political libertarians and others harboring similar delusions of the grandeur of the Founders will love it. It is called What Would the Founders Do? The book is full of facts explaining the origins of much of the thought that eventually came to be the basis of law and individual rights in the United States of America. Also in the book are facts detailing the slave trading history of the Founders. Like most libertarians, and their (almost always white) ideological hangers on in both the Democratic and Republican political parties, the author, Richard Brookhiser’s mind, is impervious to the contradiction of owning a slave and the simultaneous promotion of equal rights for all men. Not to mention the glaring discrepancy over the question of women’s rights. The question! The question being, would they be allowed rights; for instance, the right to vote? There are so many points from which to examine the contradictions, hypocrisies and outright lies about what America is and who the Founders were that it is difficult to know where to start and from there in what direction to travel.
I find most urgent and interesting the dilemma of how the historical lies intersect with present day white American identity. The lie regarding the nature of America’s ‘Founding Fathers’ directly influences the actions of today’s politically progressive whites as it allows them something they apparently desperately need. An out. An acceptable prism through which to imagine themselves that is at once, popular and painless. And actually, self-congratulatory.
Instead of analyzing a culture that history teaches us has been rotten from the start, the lie allows those who need it, to imagine the Founders as radical visionaries of freedom and equality, and themselves as political descendants of the Founders. And this is in part, why you’ll often hear otherwise clear thinking self-identifying leftists wax nostalgia about the Founders. They need this lie. To tell the truth about the Founders would be to pull back the curtain on their collective version of history, it would be to tell the truth about this country and more importantly but perhaps less obvious, about themselves.
Globalization Showdown: Big Business vs. Everybody Else
IBM Chief Executive Officer, Palmisano, lays down the gauntlet declaring to big business that if they don’t step up their globalization game the result for them will be countries that elect political leaders that will, in his words,
Impose...labor regulations or try to constrain free trade
Strange, since IBM and other multinationals always claim that their operations are legal, fair and equitable. Why would people around the world elect political leaders to oppose IBM and other self-described benevolent corporate entities? Francesco Guerrera of the Financial Times suggests an answer, saying,
Multinational companies need to abandon their almost colonial approach to operations outside their home country.
The answer? According to the IBM CEO, the solution is to continue and increase the elimination of US jobs, relocating them to other countries, thereby eliminating the colonial model of only having the factories overseas without sending higher paying research, development and planning positions. Basically, the answer to the problem of the worldwide anti-globalization effort is to make globalization more attractive, not by allowing more national economic autonomy but by shifting marketing, software development and research positions from the home country and to the satellite operation.
The FT acknowledges that the plan will mean the increased elimination of US jobs in saying the plan,
Could upset anti-globalization campaigners who see offshoring as a threat to US jobs.
IBM chief executive Palmisano’s response is the usual denial,
These decisions are not…a matter of…shifting work to low-wage regions.
It’s about ending the colonial model. It’s about fairness. That’s what the multinationals want. Although for some reason up until now they’ve been having the toughest of times breaking out of the colonial model. But that is all coming to an end with this new initiative.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
NYTimes Reports Gitmo Hostages 'Treated With Respect'
The New York Times is reporting that the hostages at Guantanamo Bay are being treated
Two Saudi nationals and a Yemen national hanged themselves according to the US military. The suicides were supposedly coordinated to put trigger further condemnation of the Gitmo hostage center. I find this claim specious. While it is possible that the hostages hung themselves I find it more likely that the US military killed them. This is based on reports of US military slaughters in Haditha, Fallujah and Baghdad. All verified to have happened.
The Times also reports the defense of the US military of its actions,
While the Times also quoted George Bush and several high level military personnel at Gitmo, in their fair and balanced report, there was no testimony from any Gitmo hostage.
Read the NYTimes article here.
500 Dead in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the AP reports that over the past 3 weeks 500 have been killed. And as we know, whenever an American is killed that alone warrants its own article, I will assume that the 500 killed were Afghanis, none of whom were mentioned by name in the AP article. Of the 500 reported killed, only 44 so-called militants deaths are explained. The explanation being that the militants
Oh well. Apparently we’ve killed 500 of their guys in the past 3 weeks. Again, no report from their side. But no lack of grand pronouncements from high ranking officials on the side of justice.
Way to go Associated Press. Way to go Canadian death squads.
with the utmost respectnow that they are dead.
Two Saudi nationals and a Yemen national hanged themselves according to the US military. The suicides were supposedly coordinated to put trigger further condemnation of the Gitmo hostage center. I find this claim specious. While it is possible that the hostages hung themselves I find it more likely that the US military killed them. This is based on reports of US military slaughters in Haditha, Fallujah and Baghdad. All verified to have happened.
The Times also reports the defense of the US military of its actions,
They have expressed a commitment to kill Americans and our friends if releasedThis is used as the justification for not releasing the hostages. There is no mention as to whether the kidnapped men expressing these views had the same to say before they were taken hostage and tortured.
While the Times also quoted George Bush and several high level military personnel at Gitmo, in their fair and balanced report, there was no testimony from any Gitmo hostage.
Read the NYTimes article here.
500 Dead in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the AP reports that over the past 3 weeks 500 have been killed. And as we know, whenever an American is killed that alone warrants its own article, I will assume that the 500 killed were Afghanis, none of whom were mentioned by name in the AP article. Of the 500 reported killed, only 44 so-called militants deaths are explained. The explanation being that the militants
died in a battle with Afghan and Canadian troops.What is the difference between a militant and a troop? Am I allowed to ask that?
Oh well. Apparently we’ve killed 500 of their guys in the past 3 weeks. Again, no report from their side. But no lack of grand pronouncements from high ranking officials on the side of justice.
We will not be deterred from our mission to….Yadda..yadda..yadda..
Way to go Associated Press. Way to go Canadian death squads.