So let’s say I have a man chained up in my basement. Had him there for many months. Then, one day I come down to the basement to give him his daily gruel ration, and out of nowhere, he comes at me with a broken bottle. Do I have a right to defend myself?

Of course I do, I’m a human being, and I always have a right to defend myself.

But, at the same time, I shouldn’t be fucking imprisoning people against their will in my basement dungeon.

I’ve seen a lot written already about Israel’s invasion of Gaza, nearly all of it from the pro-Israeli point of view. Many supporters are immediately aggressive, declaring Israel’s “right to defend itself”, and demanding that you put yourself in the shoes of an Israeli who is being attacked by Hamas rockets. What’s astounding is that those same people seem utterly incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of a Palestinian who’s lived his whole life under Israeli occupation, has spent the year starving under Israeli’s harsh economic sanctions, and is currently cowering from Israeli bombs. This isn’t even about right and wrong, or picking sides; if you want to actually understand the situation, you should strive to see it from all points of view.

And that’s where my previous not-particularly-good analogy comes up. Most news reports I’ve seen about the Israeli invasion would skip the whole “man keeping other man chained and imprisoned” part of my story and jump straight to the “disheveled maniac surprises and attacks homeowner” part. Which I think you’d agree, leaves out a bit of relevant background.

Of course, Hamas and other Palestinian militants are not white knights, and Israel is not the bogeyman. There’s enough blood between them to give everyone’s hands a good coat. And in everyone’s defense, the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians want a peacefully-negotiated two-state solution to their long years of strife. But in the end, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is clearly, clearly wrong to anyone who cares to look into it. For years, people have been calling Gaza “the world’s largest outdoor prison”. Columnist Eric Margolis now calls the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel “a prison riot, writ large”. No, it’s not “right” to shoot at innocent civilians. But what would you do? If you were the man in my basement, what would you be willing to do to get free?

I also have to point out some of the cynical politics going on here. I believe that Israel launched this attack now because they felt that they had to do so before their supporter George W. Bush left office (although I have yet to see any evidence that Barack Obama will be anything less of a backer than American leaders past). I also believe that part of the timing of this attack is due to upcoming elections within Israel; the current leadership wants to look strong to the voters, and wash the taste of their horriffic and humiliating 2006 war with Hezbollah from everyone’s palates.

And finally, I have to point out that the US blocked a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire between the Israelis and Palestinians during this new war. And the US gives about $3 billion a year to Israel. And Israel uses large chunks of that money to buy weapons from the US. Which it then uses to continue the occupation of Palestine.

Why do they hate us again?

Apparently right-wing blog-o-nut Michelle Malkin is trying to spin her own “war on [holiday]” franchise (given the massive success of the Fox Corps’ “war on Xmas”), trying to stir up her masses about the way that liberal elites want to make everyone feel guilty for the things they love. I bring you the War on Thanksgiving! It’s tiresome stuff, cherry-picking Thanksgiving news items that conservative folks will choose to see as ridiculous examples of PC run amok.

To be fair, there is much more cultural conflict regarding Thanksgiving than there is for Christmas. The “war on Christmas” stuff was always bullshit, manufactured indignation that department store chains would say “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas”, as though people actually celebrated several different holidays during this time period (the bastards!). But Thanksgiving does raise the specter of several centuries of horrible/duplicitious/genocidal relations between white settlers and Native Americans. And as most modern Americans behave as though Native Americans have ceased to exist, bringing up the ghastly actions that led to the state of our current nation, can seem like nothing but an exercise in pointless guilt tripping.

But let me know re-re-repost my traditional Thanksgiving history info (based upon this article from Lip Magazine). Apparently I’ve been warring on Thanksgiving for some years now.

1621- “The First Thanksgiving”
November 1777- The Continental Congress declares a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for an American military victory over a powerful British general.
July 1861- Confederate Congress declares a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for their victory over the Union in the First Battle of Bull Run
April 1862- President Lincoln declares day of Thanksgiving to thank God for the Union victory over the Confederacy at Shiloh
September 1862- Confederate Congress declares a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for their victory over the Union in the Second Battle of Bull Run
August 1863- President Lincoln declares day of Thanksgiving to thank God for the Union victory over the Confederacy at Gettysburg
December 1865- President Johnson establishes a national Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate the Union victory in the Civil War
October 1931- President Hoover becomes the first president to actually make a rhetorical connection between the national holiday of Thanksgiving and the pilgrims

In other words, Thanksgiving was first the “thanks, Indians, for helping us colonists survive in your harsh New World” feast. Then, for around 240 years, Thanksgiving was a string of unrelated “thank you, God, for letting us slaughter the people who disagreed with us” days. Then for another 60+ years, it was the “thanks, God, for letting the North beat the South in the Civil War” holiday. And now, for the past 70, it’s been the Indian & Pilgrim thing again. Well, the Pilgrim thing coupled with pleasant/unpleasant family reunions and the baking of turkeys, pies and casseroles.

On top of that, a post on the Hullabaloo blog by “poputonian” from a few years back argued the 1621 “first Thanksgiving” in New England was preceded by a group of Spanish settlers who had a feast to thank god near what today is El Paso, Texas, in the year 1598. The event seems completely unconnected to the Puritans’ Thanksgiving, or to the known evolution of the holiday myth, but it seems worth mentioning just the same. If poputonian is right, then the “first Thanksgiving” may have been a Spanish affair several decades before the one that we have come to know.

So I guess I have several points here:

- “tradition” is not tradition (although it’s pretty easy to rile people up if you pretend that “tradition” is being challenged).
- holidays are not static traditions that are handed down over the centuries, they evolve and are sometimes intentionally shaped by people with goals and agendas.
- people tend to “give thanks” in celebrations like this due to a combination of survival, religion, and victory.
- the American “creation myth” of Thanksgiving has happy proto-Americans at peace with their Indian neighbors is pretty galling, what with the bigotry and genocide, and ongoing invisibility of Indians today.

LMB Radio 11-13-08

- I’ll try to do this show weekly– unless I have nothing worth saying
- I talk about Prop 8 and try to comprehend the anti-gay mindset
- Obama = Clinton II?
- Joe Scarborough is a dickhead (but you already knew that, or are thinking “Joe who?”)
- song by P.O.S.

A number of conservative bloggers and RNC operatives have started a new website to figure out how to rebuild the Republican party after it’s decisive defeat in the 08 election. The site is, not surprisingly, RebuildTheParty.com. The most excellent part of the site is Ideas.RebuildTheParty.com. On this page, anyone who registers with the site can propose solutions, or vote on solutions submitted by other users.

So far, some of my favorite suggestions include:

- Give all Red Blooded Americans a pair of Truck Nuts for their F150’s!
- scratch backwards B into own face
- be more gay
- eat shit and die

The best part is that anybody can propose “solutions” and post them on this site.

I think you know what to do.

I’m going to go ahead and call the election for Obama at 11:37am PST.

Eh, who cares if I’m wrong, I’m just a blogger.

I actually recorded a short podcast this morning, but it was so scattershot and disorganized that I decided not to waste you guys’ time by uploading it and encouraging you to listen. I’ll put together something better post-election.

Speaking of the election, I’d say that Californians should get out there and vote against Prop 8. That’s the one that says that gay people aren’t really human, and therefore don’t deserve the right to get married that real humans do. That’s not actually written anywhere in the text of the bill, but that’s the ugly, unspoken core of it. If you’re against the dehumanization of your fellow man, this is a bill you want fucking killed. And sadly, the polls say that this one will be very close, thanks to the dark forces of Jesus.

As for the rest of it, y’all know that things are going to be grim in the future, no matter which guy is elected president. You can’t expect to be saved by the government, corporate America, the media, technology, “hope” or “change”. All we’ve really got is each other, and we’re a mixed bag at best. Many of us are going to have to lean on each other hard just to get through the coming months and years, so let’s do our best to take care of each other.

LMB Radio 10-19-08

I’m actually going to try to do a short show every week now. We’ll see how that goes. My track record these past few years have been… not good.

Mostly me talking about Campaign 2008 and American electoral politics in general. It’s one big culture war, basically. Also, one song by the new Zack de le Rocha project, “One Day as a Lion”.

I have this great idea for an anti-McCain “ad”, but I have no time and no video editting equipment to make it. If anyone’s interested, drop me a line and I’ll spill.

I do love the Bush economic bailout plan. “We’re gonna take $700 billion and give it to this guy. He’s real smart. He’ll fix it.”

That is really, really, really not a plan. A plan has a “and then we’re gonna to this” and a “and next we’ll do this”, and sometimes a “and if that part doesn’t work, then we’ll do this other thing instead.” A plan involves planning, with beginnings and middles and ends. “We’re gonna give this guy $700 billion” is missing quite a few steps.

Well, okay, the Bush plan does have a Step 2: “then the smart guy will buy a bunch of the bad companies.” Funny story there, though. That Smart Guy? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson? He used to run Goldman Sachs. Y’know, one of those big investment banks that’s about to tumble through the floorboards. He’s the guy who’s supposed to save us.

So yeah, we’re all pretty fucked.

A friend of mine pointed out this Bush quote to me yesterday:

I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.

Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly

No, the market is working exactly as it should. “Free enterprise” doesn’t mean “things always go great”. Under free market capitalism, sometimes the economy tanks. Which is brutal, but we don’t even live under capitalism in this country. We live in some sort of crazy, rigged, old boys’ plutocracy, where the hyper-rich are guaranteed diamond-studded bandaids for their tiniest papercuts, the middle class are dangling over their threadbare safety net, and the poor can fuck off and die.

So predictable yet so outrageous. Cops in St. Paul have raided the convergence space for anti-RNC protesters, with some bullshit warrant about “incendiary devices”. Last I’ve heard, over a hundred people had been detained, were being photographed and having their possessions searched. No arrests as far as I know. Updates here, I’ll post new news as I get it.

I will never ever, if I live to be 350, understand religious people. I just won’t.

For example, these folks are a few beads short of a rosary*.

Focus On Family Pulls Controversial Obama ‘Rain’ Video- right-wing Christian group produces a video asking fellow Christians to pray for torrential, road-swamping rains and floods during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Done in a light-hearted way, till the star lets slip the desire for “Biblical” levels of rain. I presume Bibilical as in The Flood. As in “please god, please drown and kill those filthy liberals at their convention.”

GOP Rep. To Environmentalists: Jesus Already Saved The Planet- craziest wingnuttery I’ve seen in years. Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota says that we don’t need to “save the planet” from global warming, because Jesus already “saved the planet” 2000 years ago. Good to know that the soul of the Antarctic ice shelf will be cleansed of sin when it’s last floe melts.

Church Signs That Won’t Make You Go To Church- assorted Christian wackiness. I love #5, and someone needs to tell Faith United General Baptist Church that that saying doesn’t mean what they think it means.

—
*okay, so I couldn’t think of a funny religious joke there. Sue me. If I hadn’t been on the religious theme, I would’ve used my favorite “not the most balanced part of this nutritious breakfast.”

Here’s a fun one.

Wal-Mart is apparently forcing its managers to sit through meetings explaining that unions are evil, that if Democrats win the 2008 elections then there might be more unions, and that how much this potential Axis of Labor Evil could hurt Wal-Mart, and possibly bring about the apocalypse maybe.

But, insists Wal-Mart, they are in no way trying to tell its managers how to vote.

Perish the thought.

(interesting factoid at the bottom of the article, though: “Twelve years ago, 98% of Wal-Mart’s political donations went to Republicans. Now, as the Democrats seem poised to gain control in Washington, 48% of its $2.2 million in political contributions go to Democrats and 52% to Republicans”)

School locked down after ‘ninja’ sighted in woods

Yes folks, school officials in New Jersey actually felt that an alleged ninja sighting was enough of a security threat to shut the school down.

Ninjas.

Sweet fucking christ.

It reminds me of an interesting essay I read recently which argued that the US has as a sort of “autoimmune disease, where an organism’s defense system goes into overdirve so much that it fails to recognize itself and attacks its own cells.” In some ways, that seems amazingly accurate. All manner of police, security and authority officials live on a hair trigger, and will attack their fellow citizens rather than actual threats.

Of course, this analogy breaks down quickly when you realize that America’s police, security, and authority officials don’t actually exist to protect the “body” or its “cells”, but to mantain public compliance with a system of rules and structures that benefit their ideological masters and the guys who sign their paychecks.

In conclusion, ninjas are awesome.

For, well, years now, there has been plenty of reason to worry that the US was going to embark upon a war with Iran. And when I say “embark”, I mean “launch a full-fledged air assault that would inevitably kill thousands and thousands of innocent Iranians, inviting the retaliation of Iran, Iranian-supported terror groups around the world, the Shiite majority surrounding American troops in Iraq, and all angry Muslims on planet Earth.”

There has been even more reason to be scared lately, with the revelation by journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration has already budgeted $400 million this year to “prepare the battlefield”, supporting various dissident/terrorist groups inside Iran to “destabilize” the government.

But now, the good news. Apparently, the Iranian government has “agreed to freeze its enrichment program for six weeks and begin negotiations with the P5+1 group of states as early as next week” (”P5+1″ being the US, France, Russia, China, Germany and the UK).

This is a positive direction, in that it takes away the major US excuse for invading Iran. Of course, the real reason that the US wants to invade Iran is to destroy its influence and power in the Middle East (”damn Iranians, thinking they’ve got the right to make decisions about their nation, their resources, and the general neighborhood they live in!”), so it might simply be a matter of moving on to the next excuse to put their plans of idiot stupid evil into action. I mean, when the US screeched about Iraq’s WMDs, Saddam Hussein’s move to allow weapons inspectors into the country should have cooled down the war fever. But goddamit, we were determined to bring death daisycutters depleted uranium-tipped anti-tank shells torture DEMOCRACY to the not-suffering-enough-yet people of Iraq.

In conclusion, I am less scared tonight of an assault on Iran than I was this morning, possibly for no good reason.

Most excellent story I’ve read in a while:

Bolton dodges attempted ‘war crimes’ arrest

Author/columnist/activist George Monbiot shows up at an event where neocon John Bolton is giving a speech, and tries to make a citizens’ arrest, claiming that Bolton has committed war crimes and violated the Geneva Convention. Bolton managed to escape when security blocked Monbiot’s way.

“I’m disappointed I couldn’t reach him, but I made what I believe to be the first attempt ever to arrest one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war, and I would like to see that followed up.”

Right fucking on. Who’s next to try to Arrest John Bolton?

So you probably heard by now, former White House Spokesman Scott McClellan has released a new book, in which he accuses the White House of doing naughty things during his tenure: lies, propaganda, and that most heinous of crimes, tricking Scott McClellan.

As one would expect, American liberals are seizing these revelations (that we were all largely aware of) as the smoking mushroom cloud that exposes the Bush crimes for all the world to see.

Except that McClellan is a liar.

Seriously, the guy’s job in the Bush White House was to tell one bald-faced, easily disprovable lie after another to the media and the American people. He wasn’t that good at it, but he did it, lied for a living for three years.

But now that the liar is saying things that Liberals like, his word is to be trusted?

No folks, it doesn’t work like that. The man is a fucking liar. A fucking liar who is trying to sell copies of his new book, as well as try to clear his name in the history books. Like many before (and surely after) him, McClellan is telling the story of how all of the terrible things done by the Bush regime are Not Their Fault. The earlier you start telling your version of the story, the more likely your future encyclopedia entry won’t have phrases like “impeached” or “tried for treason” in it.

Of course, I must also note that McClellan seems to also use his book to try to clear Bush’s name, and explain how Bush was misled by his evil incompetent advisors. (Is there a stronger word than “incompetent”? Can we make “anticompetent” a word?)

The White House has gone into damage control mode thanks to McClellan’s book. Their strategy seems to be to paint McClellan as disgruntled, and possibly crazy (”We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew,” says new paid White House Spokesliar Dana Perino). Also, they are calling him a traitor.

But, the good news is that horrible, amoral sacks of crap are using the media to beat on each other. Everyone wins.

I’ll be doing a live radio show with the Neighborhood Public Radio project this Saturday at 2:30pm PST, live from the Rubber Rose. It’ll be broadcast over the air in San Diego on 103.9FM and also over the air in NYC on [find out what frequency they’re using in New York and type it here]. I plan to rant about the media, the presidential campaign, and talk about a new project I’m pondering, dealing with the looming energy/food/economic crises that are about to kick us all in the ovaries. The show should feature the return of my beloved BACKGROUND MUSIC.

[update]
SD frequency posted, no idea where to catch us in NYC. Also, duh, you can listen to the live stream online.

Come on by, the hijinx run from 1-3pm, I believe. And if I’m wrong, you’re at the Rubber Rose, an art gallery and sex shop. I imagine you’ll find a way to spend the time…

This is just embarassing. Newsweek publishes an article, in the form of a letter full of campaign tips for Barack Obama– written by Karl Rove.

It would be one thing if Rove was a freelance political consultant who worked for either party, or who had a specific ideology or issue that was his focus. But no. Rove has been a Republican political operative since he was 17 years old– for forty years. During his years in the Bush White House, he explicitly talked about his goal of permanent Republican control of the government.

But now, he’s generously giving advice to a democratic candidate. Because Karl Rove Kares.

Of course, the article is a hit piece. It’s sly, no doubt, but it’s hard not to see it’s intent. It fluffs up every potential Obama controversy, props up every trivial smear, slants every poll stat as a point on a downward spiral. An unbiased observer would probably come away from this article thinking that Barack Obama has a lot of work to do if he wants to be a popular political candidate.

However, I don’t really blame Rove for this. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, Rove gotta stab baby kittens in the eye with a shrimp fork. He’s evil and should be launched into the sun, but we shouldn’t exactly be surprised when he tries to do evil things.

But jesus Newsweek, this is pretty fucking embarassing on your part. Clearly this “author” has a conflict of interests, clearly he has an agenda, and you publish his piece anyway? Go put on your Shame Hats.

NY cops not punished for murdering an unarmed black man.

Again.

Yearly reminder: if you’re gonna go eat at a restaurant in a major city next week, you can eat at one of the restaurants listed here on April 24, and 25+% of your bill will be donated to a local AIDS-related charity. Not a huge deal, but if you were gonna go out anyway, you can do a tiny bit of good.