Hattie's Web

Rude pundit gets it right

Take a look at this:

"When Bush was at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School, giving his only longer than a couple of seconds speech in New Orleans, he spent more time talking about what he sees as a good education than he did telling the kids that all the trashed, destroyed buildings they have to pass everyday will be replaced, that the neighborhood, the Lower Ninth Ward, will be safe from floodwaters despite the fact that the Lower 9 is still just as vulnerable as it was August 29, 2005. No, no, let's  show he's a teachin' president: "I'll never forget, one time when I was governor of Texas, a woman looked at me and she said, 'Reading is the new civil right.' It had a profound impact on the policies that we have pursued since I've been in public office, and Laura has pursued as a lifelong reader. And that person was right."

"The man was staring at a group of black children and parents and others whose homes were fucked up piles of mold, who lost almost everything they had, and he was telling them about how cool it is to read. Well, shit, at least he didn't read them any goat stories, a sure sign, as we know, of the apocalypse.

Honestly, Bush is the most godawful man who ever lived.

This is pretty much true, alas

From a commentor on Digby:

"Can the mainstream media please drop the illusion that the republicans are strong on national defense? They have terribly weakened our nation with acceptance of corruption in all areas of our government and big business.

"The world outside of the U.S. can see what is occurring here, a complete breakdown of standards for behavior, an every man for himself attitude, an emergence of superstition, the abandonment of reason for irrational opinions, and exactly the type of internal deterioration that the nation's enemies must just love.

"For the first time I actually feel fear. I fear that the undisciplined, reckless, corrupt profit motivated, and OCD behavior is predictable by our enemies. I also fear that our enemies observed the collapse of morality and intellectual honesty occurring and perceive it as weakness.

"While there has always been corruption in business and government, at no time in our history has it been so pervasive, and accepted by the nation's leaders. Our nation is crumbling beneath the weight of wrong ideas, wrong solutions, and wrong methods of deducing the best possible actions.

"Because conservatism looks backwards for its answers, it is inadequate to the task of governing in the modern world that requires flexibility, creativity, integrity, and mutual respect. This failed philosophy seeks the delusion of hegemony, based on false arguments that lead to false assumptions about the world. One cannot expect good outcomes from poor or false information.

"Laziness has become an enormous problem, and causes those who should be responsible and held accountable to pass the buck down until the least competent becomes the responsible party. If only half of what I claim is true, we are living in porcelain crap filled country and I don't know if we can unplug it. Too much acceptance of that which is worst in us is destroying the ability to achieve that which is the best in us.
screamingmimi | 08.31.07 - 6:59 am | #

Yes, we're selling ourselves out cheap.

War is good business

The Great Iraq Swindle, from Rolling Stone:

"Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.

This is the reality of the Iraq War, as also shown in the film Salon.com sent me, "Iraq for Sale." (viewable here at You Tube)The military-industrial complex now has control over most of America's wealth. That's why we no longer provide for our own people. As the article shows our tax money, which should be going into infrastructure, education, medical care, regulation, etc. etc.  gets siphoned off to provide luxurious lives for CEOs,  old civil servants and retired military brass. As well as plain old criminal opportunists.

The party of morals, indeed

From Glenn Greenwald:

Forcing Larry Craig's resignation while embracing David Vitter

As Greenwald says, Republicans embrace morality when it does not cost them politically. They can go on with their serial marriages, mistresses, broken families. They don't have to live by the values the suckers (the base) think are so important. I agree 100% with everything Greenwald says here.

They never give up. Because they are insane.

Attack Iran!

From Glenn Greenwald:

"..."Democrat" Hiam Saban, who funds the "liberal" Pollack's work at the Brookings Institution as well as any Democratic candidates he can find, described himself thusly: "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel . . . .On the issues of security and terrorism I am a total hawk."

"The two most extremist factions when it comes to the Middle East -- Israel-centric neoconservatives and Christian evangelicals -- have long been telling the President  that stopping Iran is his  most important mission the ultimate challenge that history will use to judge his strength, character and conviction. And it is beyond question that those are the groups who continue to hold the greatest sway over the decision-making process of the Commander-in-Chief himself.

It shouldn't even be necessary to say so, but since the Israel lobby is so ready to throw around their accusations of anti-Semitism at anyone who criticizes their war-mongering, I must point out that Gleen Greenwald is Jewish. Now what I think is that Hiam Saban should put on a uniform and go fight for Israel or otherwise he should shut his pie-hole and stop trying to drag MY COUNTRY into wars. What country is he loyal to anyway? Do I have to make Israel MY top priority? I don't care about attacking Iran. I think we should let Iran alone! Grrr!

I saw Michael Moore's film, "Sicko," last night. It's very well done. He does lay it on a bit thick about the wonders of medical care anywhere but in the U.S.,  but this is polemic, a corrective to the nonsense we hear about how our system is the best in the world. It's not the best, just the most expensive!

WAO KELE O PUNA

On a much brighter note:

Article from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on the ceremony celebrating the acquisition of the Wao Kele O Puna, the Puna Upland Forest, by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

I was lucky enough to attend, and here are the photos I took (click on photos for enlargement):

U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye

State Representative Clift Tsuji and Puna activist   Renee Siracusa

Former Hawaii Councilwoman Julie Jacobson and Councilman Bob Jacobson

Dignitaries, left to right: Councilwoman Emily Naole, Big Island Mayor Harry Kim, ?, U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie, Sen. Inouye, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle.

Dedication ceremony.

Darfur genocide

Here is Nicholas Kristoff's editorial about the genocide in Darfur. Mia Farrow has written another plea in the Huffington Post about this  slaughter of Black Africans in Darfur. This is a real genocide in that it is state sanctioned and systematic and has the goal of eliminating a whole people, wiping them off the face of the earth.

I have just re-read the important book, Ordinary Men, by Christoper Browning, which recounts the activities of a small militia that killed tens of thousands of Jews in Poland.Their job was to rid a certain area of Jews, and they carried out their duty as ordered. What is most striking to me is the "slippery slope" aspect of all this: that the men at first were disgusted by the killing, but they became accustomed to it after a while, and eventually it was all in a day's work. This enabled them to go on killing for long enough to eliminate the target population over a period of about two years. This seems to be what's happening in Darfur. People can't get out, so they wait and hope, and then one day the Janjaweed comes.

In the case of the Holocaust, we can say, well, we did not know, besides which our country was fighting to stop the Germans. In the case of Darfur, we have no excuse. I am contacting my congresspeople and giving money, which is more than doing nothing. But that the rich countries are standing by and letting this happen is a disgrace.

Update: I have written all my representatives in Washington.Here is Oxfam's rundown on the situation. Aid workers are being attacked and driven away so that the killing can proceed without witnesses. I am debating who to send money to at this point.

Nostalgia isn't What it Used to be

That is the title of Simone Signoret's autobiography. This great French actor is known mostly today for her amazing performance with Lawrence Harvey in the 1959 English film, "Room at the Top," for which she received an oscar. (And for her husband Yves Montand's affair with Marilyn Monroe, of which she said something like, "If you throw a hunk of meat at a carnivore he will eat it.")

Signoret exuded Gallic sensuality! She became crusty in old age. Her smoking and drinking told on her health and looks, but she never backed down and remained a public figure and performer to the end of her life. 

She is buried in Pere Lachaise
cemetery in Paris next to  her husband, Montand.

Take a look around the internet for more information about the fascinating Signoret and her equally fascinating life partner, Montand.

Pre-boomer nostalgia

A tremendous amount of nonsense is being written of late about the 50's,which were supposedly so wonderful. I was there and they were not. So this is what I have to say:

Back to the 50’s! where discrimination against women and minorities was a given. When there were even more poor people percentagewise than there are today. When the threat of nuclear war hung over everyone. Oh, and the wonderful sexual repression. Girls being sent off to “homes” to have their illegitimate babies or pooling money with their girlfriends to find a safe abortionist. I miss that!
Maybe there was less crap around in the way of cheap stuff and lousy popular culture, but what there was was really, really bad in a good old fashioned way. Try humming along to the song stylings of (say) Theresa Brewer! Read a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book. Listen to a haw haw radio comedy or watch a romantic film of a level of sophistication that no one could descend to today. Fit entertainment for a people whose cultural and educational level was as low as it was then. And those cars! My favorite was the 1959 Chevy gas-guzzler with the rear-end invitation.
Ah, those were the days, my friend. Oh, yes, and everyone smoked! And there were none of those repressive seat belts. You could snuggle right up to your honey in the roomy front seat while he drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other one around you. Car accidents were the real thing in those days!
It was a great time for snarky young folks like me, lovers of Mad Magazine and Bob and Ray. What can I make fun of now? There is no comparison.
Oh, I’m getting all nostalgic. I think I’ll stop here.