Just asking, but why are we still hiding the "evidence" of Saddam's WMD's? Every revelation so far has been a disappointment so I don't hold out much hope that the upcoming peek at the hidden intelligence that Powell is supposed to provide the UN Security Council will be much to write home about.

I have just finished Kevin Philips latest book Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. It is, typical for Philips, an excellent book, carefully researched and very well written. He came to prominence with his first book, The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) and all of his books have focused on aspects of the economy and its impact on politics. It sometimes seems that he has only one book that he redresses every couple of years in whatever the latest information might be. Nevertheless, he's always worth reading. A Republican who seems painfully aware of the hypocracy of the current adminsitration's economic policies, his latest book is a cautionary tale that should be read and debated by all who care about our future. He compares America at the threshold of the 21st Century to previous successful societies (Spain, Holland, and Great Britain) that went from simplicity to great commercial success and then, over the course of a century or less, gave up the active trading and manufacturing that made their wealth and retreated into making money through banking and investment - a trend that coincided with the accumulation of wealth in relatively few hands and inceasing poverty for the mass of the population. Sound familiar? Even when these countries declined totally as national powers their rich were still super rich.

So I have to ask, what possible incentive do the super rich of America have for doing anything to insure the security and general well being of the public at large, when it is a certainty that they will be ok no matter what befalls the rest of us? When it is clear that the President's economic policies are aimed at funneling ever more money to those already embarrasingly wealthy, why should we think that any of this is going to trickle down to us. Besides, the whole "trickle down" thing always sounded a lot like being pissed on to me.

The Case of "The Missing Pregnant Woman"

Sitting here cringing at the latest round of non news broadcast by CNN Headline News, a question forms that has puzzled me before - how is it that some non story, some event that while important to someone has no impact on the larger world, comes to dominate the news? As we all know, a story is only "real" if it is reported often enough to sink into the general consiousness. Otherwise it quickly falls into the memory hole and ceases to exist as fact. It was easy to understand the O.J. phenomena, even the stupidity of the live coverage of the white Bronco simply crusing along the highway. After all, O.J. was a celebrity, rich, famous, a handsome black athlete with a beautiful white wife. And then the murder, with it's savagery set agains exclusive Hollywood suburbia. Chandra Levy was harder to understand, though with the rather pointless additon of Congressman Gary Condit to the equation it could have had real legs, but simply had nowhere to go. That didn't prevent it from being on the air every hour for a year - even though there was no story there. Nothing was happening. But the TV news agencies did everything they could to make a story of something that wasn't.

And now, we have the most pointless obsession of national news in my memory. Most people would not know her name if they heard it but would intstantly recognize the phrase "the missing pregnant woman." That phrase has been repeated hourly by every national news affilliate I have watched for the last couple of weeks. It has a nightmare quality to it, much like one of Karl Rove's planted phrases that suddenly spreads to all public debate - "weapons of mass destruction" for example. It has an eerie "life of its own" feel but I know that this story did not blossom to become the hourly mantra by accident. Who, or what, put it on the front burner? And why?

The more of this low level soap opera stuff the media fills its "news" programs with, the less time is available for anything meaningful - like, say, the people's business. And isn't the question of what kinds of stories are covered and how a very real part of the people's business? Doesn't that go to the heart of why the freedom of the press, such as it is, is supposed to be so important? It isn't so we can feast on the fast food of fantasy and scandal.

I'm not sure what the most appropriate response to this is, but I would invite others to do what I find myself doing more and more often. When I hear certain numbing repeated phrases (like "the missing pregnant woman") I go for the mute button.

At least 18 rebels killed in Afghanistan firefight
So proclaims a CNN online headline. Seems like our last military outing still has plenty of ugly potential to keep us focused elsewhere than Iraq. Maybe we need to really finish what we started before starting something even less certain. Full Story

Or maybe we should reconsider the concept that carpet bombing is a way of solving complex political and social problems. It's something to keep in mind while waiting for the State of the Union speech tonight.

This one sort of boggles the mind!
A story appeared in Sunday's "The Observer" reporting something the American media has not seen fit to highlight:

"Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help - Iraq.

Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela." Complete Story Here

We're threatening them with invasion but until we make up our mind it's business as usual.

Stormin' Norman says go slow on Iraq

The Washington Post continues its policy of reporting resistance to war with Irag only in its Style section. In today;s edition of the paper, former General Norman Schwarzkopf, the Army's top dog in the last Gulf War, expresses reservations about the rush into this one. He has some especially sharp words for Donald Rumsfeld for seeming so arrogant and dismissive of other's experience and opinions. "When he makes his comments, it appears that he disregards the Army . . . He gives the perception when he's on TV that he is the guy driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him -- or else." Complete Story Here

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who is not enamored of Rumsfeld’s widely praised public persona.

I have been reluctant to post anything today, given the very serious showdown kind of things going on. Hans Blix made his report to the U.N. and while complaining that Iraq has not been totally forthcoming he did not say that they were totally uncooperative and did request more time to complete the inspection process. At the same time Colin Powell was saying that nothing would be gained from additional time. This is very discouraging since Powell has been the only indication of sanity in the Bush administration and it now appears that he has been enlisted in the "let's push for war at any cost" camp.

In case we were wondering where everyone else is on the issue of war with Iraq, consider the ongoing impact on the financial markets. US shares have tumbled for the seventh time in eight sessions, as fears over a war with Iraq continued to haunt investors. So maybe this will all come back to bite Dubyah in the ass, although that will be little consolation to those who will suffer the immediate consequences. And as for Prez, no matter how bad his political fortunes might turn, he can still count on going home to riches, something the vast majority of Americans cannot even imagine. Here is a guy who has never had to risk anything gambling the lives of untold thousands in a game that makes little sense to anyone not on his team or not on the take. If one works for the Carlyle Group or Lockheed-Martin then the rewards, regardless the outcome, are predictable. For everyone else, it's a crapshoot.

As we approach another "war" with Iraq it might be worthwhile to revisit one of the lowest points of the last one, the "Highway of Death":

"a name the press has given to the road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq. U.S. planes immobilized the convoy by disabling vehicles at its front and rear, then bombing and straffing the resulting traffic jam for hours. More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration of the human being [pictured above] suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incindiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols. This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawl from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat." There are, in addition, strong indications that many of those killed were Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the impending seige of Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. No attempt was made by U.S. military command to distinguish between military personnel and civilians on the "highway of death." The whole intent of international law with regard to war is to prevent just this sort of indescriminate and excessive use of force."

So, given that Iraq is much weaker today after more than a decade of sanctions and weekly bombings, why exactly do we think we are compeled to attack it? What makes us the "good guys" here? What gives us the right?

In his weekly radio address to the nation yesterday, the President gave a preview of the upcoming State of the Union Address. "In 2003, we must work to strengthen our economy, improve access to affordable, high-quality health care for all our seniors, encourage compassion at home and abroad, and defend our nation against the threats of a new era," the president said.

This is an interesting set of priorites, as notable for what it includes as for what it leaves out. Let's consider these.

(1) Work to strengthen the economy. Indeed. With the stock market continuing its decline, unemployemnt rising, sales and consumer confidence down, government revenues short of even the pessimistic projections of last year, the economy looks like a major disaster in progress. But what has this administration done and what are they proposing? More tax cuts! And not even tax cuts that greatly impact the majority of us hard up citizens, but tax cuts for those who already are doing well. Even his supporters are having a hard time with this. The notion that the economy will be stimulated by eliminating the tax on stock dividends is to assume that the economic activity of tax attorneys - the only group who will get a lot of business from this break - will make a major difference to the economy as a whole. If that were true we would really be in bad shape.

(2) Improve access to affordable, high-quality health care for all our seniors. Why only "seniors"? We are the only major industrial nation that has no health care plan for its citizens generally. What about all the children who have no health care? What about the working men and women who must spend disproportionate amounts of their pay to cover doctor's and hosptial visits? And what is he really proposing for the seniors? To bribe them to accept HMOs in exchange for some prescription drug coverage - details not yet forthcoming.

(3) Next, he wants to "encourage compassion at home and abroad." I don't have a clue what that means and I'm sure no one else does either, but it is supposed to sound good - especially coming from a compassionate conservative like our boy George. I guess compassion is in the eye of the beholder but I can't see much compassion in his plan to subject the population of Iraq to substantial ariel bombardment. I never found high exploses delivered from affar to be very loving, ya know? Nor do I find most of Bush's domestic agenda to reflect any compassion for the people who are struggling to make ends meet in an economy in which the division between rich and poor is greater than it has been since the Great Depression.

(4) Finally there is his great catchall ambition to "defend our nation against the threats of a new era." These, of course, prominantly include TERRORISM, but also "outlaw regimes" (read Iraq and North Korea and who knows who else). In the case of terrorism this adminsitration has already shown itself to be incompetent, evincing a lack of focus and a ready willingness to use the 9/11 attack as an excuse to justify a whole range of policies and programs that advance the conservative agenda but do nothing to keep us safe from terrorists. The Department of Homeland Security? Oh please. Another large bureaucratic agency that will have as much positive impact on security as the Department of Education has had on learning or the Department of Housing has had on the homeless problem. As for those bad old "outlaw regimes", I would feel much better about going after them if I didn't think the posse was as crocked as those they chase. After all, it's our "law" that's doing the defining of who is an outlaw regime. Countries that don't do what we want can quickly find themselves in deep trouble. And Americans seem to think that's OK. Overthrow a troublesome foreign head of state? No problem. Kidnap them and bring them here to stand trial under laws that don't apply? Sure. No wonder other countries are afraid of us. And Bush just wants to give us all more of the same.

I sure was hoping for something better in the 21st Century.

Colin Powell is in Europe trying to drum up support for our anti Iraq charade and facing an increasing reluctance of traditional allies to follow the U.S. lead in what increasingly seems to be an irrational enterprise."Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction," he told world and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos. But what is the excuse for action? We aren't hot to confront North Korea, a country that does have nuclear weapons, but are under increasing pressure to confront Iraq, a country that is far from having such weapons but "might, some day." The logic of this escapes me. It seems to escape the French and Germans as well.

The Sunday morning Washington Post lead editorial takes the position that Hans Blix needs to toughen up his language on Iraq's level of compliance with the UN's resolution calling for disarmament. In other words, the Post is back to begging the question and assuming that Saddam has weopons of mass destruction that he is hiding. However, a front page article quotes Iraqi officials as asking how it would be possible to satisfy the U.S. if its mind is already made up. What would Iraq have to do? The Bush administration cannot answer that question. If nothing is found that proves the weopens are being hidden. If anything (empty artillary shells for instance) is found that is proof, but it isn't clear of what. This kind of Catch-22 situation was observed and described a half century ago by Gregory Bateson who named it the "double bind". It was, he thougt, a major contributing factor to schizophrenia. In other words, when people find themselves in situations where they have to act but any act results in punishment, it makes them crazy. Bush has already characterized Saddam Hussien as crazy, so naturally it makes sense to subject him to this kind of pressure and offer no way out.

Headlines in yesterday's paper proclaimed that Bush's State of the Union speech would focus on Irag. Isn't that something? Our president sees the state of our union as being determined by a country half way around the world that he probably knows almost nothing about. Unemployment? Declining stock market? Rising crime rate? Balance of trade problems? Increasing inequality? Racism? Sexism? None of these really register on his "bold" and "muscular" radar. No, he wants to wage war. Or, more precisely, he wants to order others to wage war. The reasons are many and none are very good. All we can do is protest as best we can. The public is really not in favor of this nonsense but it doesn't seem to make any difference to this administration. They seem to believe their own propoganda and that means they are dangerously out of touch with reality.

I live only a few blocks from the White House. Osama and his boys are still out there somewhere. I don't feel very well served by my government at the moment. At a time when they should be focusing on the security of Americans at home they are instead focused on striking out abroad - doing exactly the kind of heavy handed bullying that caused the tragic events of 9/11. The CIA has declared that Saddam Hussein is not likely to use any weapons of mass destruction unless he is pressed. So, of course W thinks ("thinks" is perhaps too strong a word) that he should do is press Saddam.

I'm old and tired. I've been watching politics for more than half a century and I don't think I've ever experienced an administration that was so singularly nasty, narrow minded, vicious, hypocritical, greedy, secretive, uncaring, and outright criminal. Of course, George W. Bush is part of a multigenerational criminal conspiracy. From Grandfather Prescott Bush who was prosecuted by the government for doing business with the Nazis while we were at war with them, through George Herbert Walker Bush, former President and currently a consultant for the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm specializing in arms that stands to make a fortune from the war on Irag, to all of W's sibs and uncles who have been involved in shady savings and loan deals, insider trading and even petty avoidance of paying custom duties (Jeb's spoiled spouse). Isn't it amazing that we spent years of time and millions of dollars investigating "Whitewater" and couldn't come up with anything actionable and yet the Bush family, year after year, has ripped off the public and everyone looks the other way.

I think the time has come to stop this polite avoidance. The Bush family are criminals.This is no exaggeration. They have always been blatant about their self serving behavior. Our President needs Iraq as a distraction from his busy effort to gut environmental legislation, cut back on social services, transfer billions to his very wealthy friends, and generally turn back the clock on decades of social progress. We cannot go along with the pretense that Iraq is a "clear and present danger" to the United States. It is a sad, defeated and half starved country which we have bombed weekly for eleven years. We are the strongest country in the world. What is all this crying about how threatening Iraq is? We are the ones who have been invading their air space, dropping bombs on their people, and imposing economic sanctions that prevent the country from any semblance of normal life. Sure, Saddam is an ugly dictator, but does hating him justify killing ordinary Iraqi citizens who are only guilty of being oppressed by their own government? Does it make sense that we would oppress them also?

I believe that regime change, so near and dear to the heart of our President, should be America's top priority, but I believe it should begin at home. I agree with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark that George W. Bush should be impeached. His performance as President has been dangerous to Americans and to all citizens of the world. Let's get rid of this guy.