Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Third Estate Sunday Review

Tuesday! Hope everyone had a great weekend. I told C.I. Saturday night, "If you do an Iraq snapshot Monday, I'll be blogging Monday." That killed the Monday snapshot. (C.I. wanted people to take time off -- though C.I. never does.) So I hope you had a great weekend. I hope you thought of ways to resist the illegal war. I hope you didn't try to be stupid.

Here's stupid:

I have a not -so- secret addiction. American Idol. My colleagues know I've watched every week, all of 19, checking out all of the theme nights --with my Motown hero Smokey Robinson, rocker Bon Jovi, country singer Martina McBride, Tony Bennett, and the two evenings which raised more than $70 million to end poverty in Africa and at home.

That's Katrina vanden Heuvel, a supposed political writer, on the day Congress caved, writing of the very important, earth shaking recollections she had of American Idol. That's called making yourself useless. I noted it in "The faux who are our foes" Thursday and listed this sort of crap as one of the foes that keeps the illegal war going. Katrina vanden Heuvel came back from her own long weekend (longer than mine, I helped at The Third Estate Sunday Review this weekend) and disappeared the post from her blog Editor's Cut. So we're making sure that when Google loses its cached version, it's still here for everyone to remember.

Okay, we've discussed this week's trash. Now let's discuss the good: The Third Estate Sunday Review:

Truest statement of the week -- this is Dalia Hashad and C.I. and I picked it. (Everyone readily agreed.)

Truest statement of the week II -- This was a long edition (we worked on some stuff for future editions) and Dona was asking if anyone had any idea for short pieces. Ava and C.I. had this. (They always have stuff. The rest of us are just like "Huh?" near the end. Ava and C.I. are tired -- and Ava will let Jim know it -- but they can carry on. I don't know how they do it.) (Dona too but she'll tell you it's all the cigarettes she's smoking.)

A Note to Our Readers -- Jim's note. I don't think I'm going to beat you buddy. But you forgot to explain "kvetch!" :D Jim used that instead of another word. That was because the session took so late and C.I. said, as the final edits were being done, "I do not have the time to notify members about objectionable words." So we watched the language this edition. I love Jim's notes, by the way.

Editorial: The Party of Stella Toddler -- I think it was Ava or C.I. who came up with Stella Toddler and the Democratic Party. Ty was really tired and Jim was doing some character (Ed?) to him. (Ed's Eunice's husband, I think.) That's from The Carol Burnett Show. And we knew we had to do an editorial on the Democratic Party but we didn't know have a handle on it or a way to make it fresh and I am pretty sure that Ava and C.I. said "Stella Toddler" and then the other said "Stella Toddler is the Democratic Party!" Dona was the first one to get what they were talking about and then Jess did. I think it works really good.

TV: Friendly faces aren't who we meet -- "What would it be like to be a pretty woman standing next to Angelie Jolie? I think I know." That was Wally's comment when Jim finished reading Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary to all of us. :D Yeah, those two are amazing. And they're going to do a sitcom probably this weekend. This took a lot out of them (and they hate it -- they always hate what they write). But this is amazing. Jess said we should get them to sleep during the editions and just use them for the TV commentaries and Ava said that a trait of their commentaries is that she and C.I. are exhausted when they write them.


Chrissy Explains It All (finally) -- Christopher Phelps explains how Bernardine Dohrn destroyed his teenage years. I wonder if she knows! (I doubt she'd care. No one should. He's a drama queen.) I really love this and Ava was joking about how they are exhausted on the TV things, but it's also true. Because this was going to be a straight forward piece, and they (Ava and C.I.) started adding humor to it around the third draft, then Wally, Cedric and me were horning in on that and pretty soon we were all trying to get a funny line going.

Still sad after all these months -- Jim loves Paul Simon. The title's from a Paul Simon song (Dad likes it but he doesn't love it) "Still Crazy After All These Years." I think Paul Simon is Jim's favorite male artist from before he was born. Jim can quote every thing Paul Simon has ever written. I'm going to start calling him "Jim Simon." :D This is a straight forward piece and this is how the Chris Phelps piece was supposed to play out and did in the first two drafts.


Mailbag -- I loved this mailbag and I really loved all that Cedric, Jim and Dona contributed. Jim usually just plays moderator. If you ever wish you got more from Jim (you should), read this. Jess is also a very good bud of mine (as is Ty, Cedric and Wally) (and Betty! and Dona and Rebecca and Kat -- bud's don't just have to be guys!). I meant what I said in that about how I did blame Ralph Nader. I was stupid. But people need to get that a lot of people put that out there and somebody like me hears it and everyone's saying it so it must be true!

And from the world of music . . . -- I love this. It wasn't working and Dona and Jim were both about to kill it. We trashed the four or five drafts we had and went for a humorous approach. (Killing it would have meant the final version would have gone into the print edition but not online.)

Dennis Kucinich addresses Iraq's oil -- Ma wanted this included. She wanted to talk to Jess and C.I. first. Jess is a Green and she wanted to be sure she wasn't asking anything he was uncomfortable with and she knows C.I.'s not endorsing so she wanted to be sure C.I. was comfortable with it. They'll do anything for my mother! :D Seriously, they were happy to do it for her but they didn't have a problem with doing it. They thought it was important too.

Highlights -- this was done by Wally, Elaine, Rebecca, Cedric, Betty and me.

Here's the credits for who worke don the edition:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
and Wally of The Daily Jot

And Dallas! He hunts down links, listens to the drafts, makes suggestions and a lot more. Now here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" and that's it for me tonight:

Tuesday, May 29, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces 10 deaths, the peace movement gets mainstream media coverage (so you know something bad has happened) and we love our Canadian Dahr Jamail . . . Wait. Dahr Jamail's not Canadian! He is to Jane Perlez. All this and more.

But starting out with the violence.

Bombings?


CNN reports "at least 38" Iraqis dead in two Baghdad car bombings. CBS and AP note that the death toll from the two bombings reached forty. Reuters notes the count has risen to 41 with 109 more wounded. AP notes that the first bombing "occurred about 1 p.m. in an area filled with bus stops and shops".


Shootings?


Reuters reports two police officers were shot dead in Shirqat (three wounded).


Corpses?

Reuters reports that 21 corpses were discovered in Baquba and 4 in Suwayra.


Today the US military announced: "While conducting a combat security patrol in the southern section of the Iraqi capital, two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device detonated May 28." And they announced: "Six Task Force Lightning Soldiers were killed when explosions occurred near their vehicles while conducting operations in Diyala Province, Monday." And they announced: "Two Task Force Lightning Soldiers were killed when a helicopter went down in Diyala Province, May 28." The last two announcements are connected.


CNN reports that after "a U.S. helicopter was shot down" -- killing the two -- the six died as they rushed "to the helicopter crash site [and] were hit by exploding roadside bombs, killing six soldiers and injuring three". The ten announced deaths bring the current ICCC count to 3467 US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war and brings the month of May death toll to 116 -- and May's not over yet. With 116 announced deaths, May is the deadliest month thus far of 2006. 116 is also more than were announced dead in any single month of 2006. 116 is also more than were announced dead in any single month of 2006. You have to drop back to November and April of 2004 (137 and 135) to find months with higher totals. May 2007, not yet over, is already the third deadliest month for US service members.

Also today, the UK Defence Ministry announced: "It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a soldier serving in the 1st Battalion the Royal Anglican Regiment was killed on the morning of Monday 28 May 2007, in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan." This should bring to 150 the number of UK soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war. In addition the BBC reports that "four bodyguards from security company GardaWorld and a finance expert" -- all Britons -- were kidnapped in Baghdad today. The contractors have an unexpected cheerleader. In a snapshot earlier this month, we noted British War Cheerleader Andrew White. Deborah Haynes and Stephen Farrell (Times of London) report that White has e-mailed the paper an "urgent prayer request" stating "Four of our security guards have been kidnapped along with one other British client. They were taken from the Ministry of Finance, which is Shia controlled." "Our," Canon White? White sometimes plays the "our" card and sometimes plays the "I am here in the Green Zone to lead St George's Church . . . except when I'm at my home in England or jet setting for meetings or on a book tour or . . " Today, White writes of "our" contractors. On Sunday, Michael Smith (Times of London), who broke the news on the Downing Street Memos, reported that prime minister heir-to-be Gordon Brown has has alarmed "senior army officers" who fret that "Brown is preparing to speed up the pull-out to draw a symbolic line under the Blair era." On Sunday, Steve Fainaru and Saad al-Izzi (Washington Post) reported on the mercenaries Blackwater who "shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday" and will face no legal fall out because that's the way it's set up. Pray for them to Canon White?


In other kidnappings, CBS and AP report that 40 Iraqis were kidnapped in Samarra. Strangely, no word on whether Canon White has sent out e-mails expressing shock over this kidnapping or referring to them as "our" people.


Meanwhile, the refugee crisis in Iraq (approximately 4 million when you put together internal refugees with external refugees) receives attention from Katherine Zdepf (New York Times)reports on the realities for many female refugees -- prostitution. Zdepf zooms in on the 16-year-old daughter of Umm Hiba who now works "at a nightclub along a highway known for prostituion."



Staying with the New York Times, Jane Perlez who did some fine work on the tsunami (end of 2004, start of 2005) apparently decided today to illustrate Laura Nyro's "Money" ("I found the system and I lost the pearl"). That's the best logical explanation for "An Assault in Iraq, a Stage Hit in London" which mangles every known fact in the supposed search of a play review. Fallujah is playing London and that may be one of the few things Perlez gets 100% correct. She describes Dahr Jamail as "a freelance Canadian journalist." Is that for comic effect? Jamail grew up in Houston, Texas is a Lebenese-American who was born in the US. Jamail's reporting from Iraq is used for one of the character's lines. We don't have time to go over all of Perlez' errors. We will ask did Perlez measure US v. British sentiment with a dipstick when determining "deeper" and when was she last in the US? And we will note that she's surprised "The Guardian, a liberal daily" did not care for the play while even the Telegraph of London (conservative) did. The Guardian is the bible of Tony Blair and New Labour, buy a clue Perlez. Blair is a war monger and the Guardian of London works overtime to avoid pointing that out (just like it ignored the Downing Street Memos). She notes allegations of napalm use in Falluja "never substantiated." Napalm was used in Iraq. The US State Department and the Pentagon both admitted to it being used early on in the illegal war. The charge of napalm, remember Perlez is assigned to London, came, in England, from the Sunday Mirror, not "left-wing critics" as Perlez wants US readers to believe. Sunday Mirror political editor Paul Gilfeather wrote, on November 28, 2004, "US troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah. News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world. And last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it. Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh." Now maybe Perlez would prefer to argue that was all from the white phosphorus which, for the record, her paper didn't report in real time, denied when Democracy Now! reported it and then Scott Shane out with the big mop to yet again clean up. If Perlez was starting out at the paper, this article and all of its errors (big and small) would probably mean she'd be cleaning her desk right about now.


Turning to peace news, Iraq Veterans Against the War continued bringing the war home last weekend:

NYC Operation First Casualty a Success!

"By reenacting what we've been through in Iraq we hope to inspire more of our fellow Americans to act to end the war now," said IVAW member Adam Kokesh. Actual veterans of the conflict in Iraq played their part of American service members, dramatically interacting with non-veteran supporters playing civilians. In full uniform IVAW members performed searches, detentions, squad patrol, and crowd control operations in locations that included Central Park, Times Square, Union Square and Grand Army Plaza...
Click here to see photos of this action.
Read more of this item -->-->
Click here for more IVAW Updates

Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted, "In New York City, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War re-enacted scenes from occupied Iraq in a series of street theater actions. The veterans wore camouflage fatigues and pointed imaginary guns at a crowd of protesters playing Iraqi civilians" and that the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Friday found students and faculty booing, holding signs and protesting Andrew Card, former White House chief of staff, who got a honory degree in . . . There is audio of this but it's hard to make out due to the loud booing so let's all just assume Card was awarded an honorary doctorate in War Crimes. He certainly earned it.


Meanwhile Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale has won another strong review for Key's story of serving Iraq and what led him to realize the war was illegal, self-check out and move his family to Candad. Ying Lee (Berkeley Daily Planet) who notes the difference between earlier wars and this one (as well as his own experience growing up in Shanghai during the Japanese occupationg): "Now we have the details, a book, a deserter's story as told to a Canadian journalist and writer. It is a simple story told simply: of how our soldiers in Iraq (and Afghanistan I would suppose) are trained, what they do as an occupying army, and how war affects them."



There is a growing movement of war resistance within the US military that includes Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.




Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.



Now for the topic that everyone's talking about in the press, Cindy Sheehan has stepped away. (This is also the thing that is the biggest topic in e-mails from members. I am pressed for time but I will try to note all subjects Martha and Shirley told me were in the e-mails. Also note, some of this was covered yesterday.) In an article that's gotten more attention from the mainstream media than any she's written before, Sheehan observes that "when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of 'right or left,' but 'right and wrong.' . . . The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tired every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives."


More about American Idol than about the dying? Couldn't be, right? Except of course Katrina vanden Heuvel -- who does not edit & publish Teen Beat nor TV Guide but who does edit & publish The Nation -- spent last week -- in her position as the woman who runs the largest circulated political weekly -- gushing over American Idol. If you check in at her blog Editor's Cut, you won't find it. Did Ruth get it wrong? Did Mike dream it up? No.


Apparently even the Peace Resister is capable of some shame or at least wanting to rewrite history. The post, which originally appeared at her Editors Cut no longer shows up. However, it ran May 24, 2007 -- the day, as Mike pointed out, when most of the left were up in arms over Congress caving on Iraq. On that day, the most important thing to Katrina vanden Heuvel, alleged editor and publisher of a political weekly, was to gush: "I have a not-so-secret addiction. American Idol. My colleagues know I've watched every week, all of 19, checking out all of the theme nights . .." Trina addressed how strange it was for the non-60s teen Katrina to cite Smokey Robinson (well, he was a womanizer) and ignore Diana Ross but we all know that, under vanden Heuvel, The Nation loves to ignore women. Regarding that embarassing post, Trina wrote: "Knock-knock, is there a grown up home? Judging by her post, no there's not. Just a little girl trying to look cool and failed because as the Washington Post noted yesterday, American Idol had six million less viewers than the year before. Woops! It's as though she bought a pair of blue jeans to fit in only to find out that she bought the wrong brand! Maybe next time she can just try acting her age."


While Laura Flanders used space and time that Thursday to urge people in the US to call their Reps and Senators and demand that they not cave, Katrina vanden Heuvel winded down her (now vanished but click here for Google) ode to American Idol with: "I'm pushing this, I know. But, hell, the Idol season is over -- so why not?" Why not? Why not? Because you're not a TV critic. Because you're not 15. Because you're a grown woman who supposedly edits and publishes a politically weekly. Because it is painful to watch you embarrass yourself. Because "Idol Chatter" is beneath the publisher of The Nation, whomever occupies that position. Because Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive, spent the same day writing about the cave, not some crappy TV reality show. And because -- though no one would know it to read most issues of The Nation -- and illegal war is dragging on.

Cindy Sheehan notes: "This is my resignation letter as the 'face' of the American anti-war movement." Sheehan notes the very real attacks on her and notes that has included some at Democratic Underground. Nikki Stone 1 (Democratic Underground) has written "I support Cindy Sheehan" and the bulk commenting on this thread are in strong agreement. Attacks came from all sorts of supposed friends (Skinner, lead administrator at DU, has a statement up). But let's get real about the attacks. "You have Cindy Sheehan running around, a symbol of the peace movement. A symbol of what? Who is she? Who nominated her to be the spokesperson? She did one brave thing. I'm all for what Cindy Sheehan did last August. But people say, 'She sacrificed so much.' She didn't sacrifice anything." That lovely statement was made (or snorted) by the pig Scott Ritter when speaking to Colorado Springs Indy (an alternative weekly) in 2006. From his stye, he snorted that and he snorted a lot more. For some reason, Ritter is built up as a hero by some 'left' types.


Apparently heroic is having the mainstream media report that you, over 40 years old, were twice arrested for trying to arrange meet ups with underage girls? That is the reality of the Scott Ritter (and when CNN offered him the opportunity to explain the first arrest, he refused to do so). Here's another reality of Scott Ritter: Katrina vanden Heuvel keeps publishing him. In the magazine and via Nation Books, she publishes Ritter who does not move books. Now you may, as some wrongly do, assume Ritter is a lefty. Until 2004, Ritter admits he voted Republican every time -- which he will no doubt return to doing in 2008 but how 'nice' of The Nation to give a twice busted Republican an outlet.

Now here's how polite society worked once upon a time, when someone was reported to have been twice busted for pedophilia, that was really it for them. They didn't get write ups, they didn't pen op-eds. They weren't invited on programs to chat. But for some reason, Pig Ritter is seen as a voice the 'left' needs to adopt. Scott Ritter was allowed to repeatedly attack Cindy Sheehan on his joint-tour in 2006 (The Sky is Falling Tour -- DVD set retails for $19.99 unless you're going for the NC-17 version) and everyone looked the other way and most of the press (big and small) just chuckled. That's why he felt brave enough to issue the nonsense in an interview proper (and one that didn't require him to be handcuffed -- how novel that must have been for him).

The peace movement needs to be inclusive, no question, but that doesn't translate as: "Because we have the Peace Mom, we need to have the Pedophile Man." That's not inclusion, that's stupidity on ever level (including legal liabilities should anything happen to an underage female). We washed our hands of him a long time ago in this community. He is "pig" when noted here for any reason. His name is being mentioned here (for the first time since he went public in attacking Sheehan) only because there are some who seem unable to believe it could be true. Well it is. And it's equally true that you need to ask your outlets why they have repeatedly featured a man who will not explain his criminal busts and allows to stand the mainstream media's reporting that they were for attempting to hook up with young (underage) girls online. It is amazing that the same independent media that wants to scream 'crackpot' and 'crazy' to make sure they are not associated with certain groups is perfectly happy to break bread with a pedophile. Repeatedly.

The Nation managed to cover Sheehan (in print) once -- a (bad) cover story including Cindy Sheehan in the summer of 2005 yet, somehow, The Progressive was able to feature Cindy Sheehan's writing this year (April 2007 issue). And while Katrina vanden Heuvel wants to jaw bone today about "imagining" possibilities -- quick, get thee to the new age retreat! -- it's Matthew Rothschild who yet again has to play grown up and note Sheehan's announcement: "We all owe Cindy Sheehan a huge debt of gratitude for all that she has contributed. I wish her happiness and comfort and relaxation and love and laughter in her days ahead. And I look forward to joining hands with her again somewhere down the road."

Today on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman noted, "And we have Cindy Sheehan, in this Memorial Day letter, saying she's going home and that, well, she expected the attack from the Republicans. It was the Democrats that hurt her the most as she criticized them." Norman Solomon noted, "Well, she's undergone and shouldered, of course, a huge burden on so many levels of human existance". Solomon was on to discuss War Made Easy, not the book, the documentary which Sean Penn narrates and is available on DVD. Like the book (this isn't a PowerPoint presentation passing as a documentary -- this is an actual documentary) it is based upon, War Made Easy traces the ways war is sold, the way propaganda is used and the willingness of big media to 'enlist'.











iraq

joshua key

matthew rothschild

iraq veterans against the war

amy goodman

democracy now

norman solomon

the washington post

cindy sheehan

the new york times

ruths report

trinas kitchen

mikey likes it

katrina vanden heuvel

the world today just nuts
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