Heaven and Hell

Two writers died this month, both from the British Isles, both in their middle-60s. One was a pig, a snitch, a backstabber, a liar, an ass-kisser of the powerful, a Neo-Conman regularly gibbering for more and more worldwide murder. This pig did his gibbering at Vanity Fair, at Slate.com, on MSNBC and CNN, on National Public Radio. Of course, you know this one's name: Hitchens.

The other was one of the best literary and movie critics of his post-literate time, one of the best novelists and short story writers, as well: the great Gilbert Adair.

Was Adair's death even mentioned in the New York Times or on the oh-so-precious NPR? Was his value debated at CounterPunch or Salon.com or at The Nation? Was he hosanna-ed in The New Yorker, at Harper's Magazine or The Atlantic Monthly?

Since Adair never met an elitist he didn't hate or mistrust, of course not.

His work was beautiful and kind and funny and human. Surfing the Zeitgeist is a fine place to start.

From its preface:

Let's put it bluntly. The health, and hence the future, of our culture is in the hands of hacks -- hacks of whom it may be said that, when they die, it will be as though, professionally, they never lived, as though their opinions were never expressed, as though the millions of words, the literally millions of words, which they committed to print during their lifetimes, failed to make the slightest impact on either their own posterity or on that of the medium to which their careers were dedicated. Given the stratification of our society, we have no choice but to entrust the management of its culture industry to these hacks, as we have no choice but to entrust our social and economic welfare to politicians. That, however, is no reason why we should regard the former as any more intelligent, any less obtuse, than most of us do the latter.

As December showed, this man full of faith and trust and heart had, of course, things backward.

Gilbert Adair, R.I.P.

Purple Crepe

No Phil Jackson. No Jackson staff. Jimmy Buss instead of Jerry. An already-breaking-down (and possibly divorce-court distracted) Kobe Bryant in his 16th season (most of those 100-game seasons). Lamar Odom traded by Jimbo to Dallas for nothing besides Mark Cuban's dirty shorts and some snapshots of Dealey Plaza. First four games without center Andrew Bynum -- with probably many more of those to come. An on-the-trade-block and often nervous Pau Gasol. And who exactly is the best 4th guy on the team? McRoberts? Metta World Peace? Barnes, Blake, Murphy, Fisher, Walton? Perhaps Andrew Goudelak or Jason Kapono? The slowest club in the league. A compressed season for one of the NBA's oldest teams. The media glamour passed over to their Staples roommate, the Clippers. And what reason is there to trust new head coach Mike Brown? What has he ever done with a veteran team used to being in the Finals, as player or coach?

I don't think we've discussed enough just what NBA Commissioner David Stern did to this franchise with his backalley reversal of the Chris Paul trade (to the Houston Rockets as well). Not just for this season -- a year already compromised by the lockout and by Stern's skulduggery -- but for the next five years (or longer) as well. Two of the three franchise players on the club are on the way down. The other (Bynum) has shown little evidence of long-term health or drive or offense-expansion. Where is the future?

I know we're all asking Santa for Dwight Howard. But why would Howard now come here? The glamour has shifted to the red-and-blue unis. Jackson is gone. The team has nothing beyond the big three (and in a trade that three would shrink to two or one.) Would he come here to play with a mid-30s Kobe Bryant? If not that, why then? (And is that a reason?) There is NO CHANCE Howard would agree to a trade during the 2011-12 season when he'd have to play with no PG, no SF, and no bench (and a first year Laker coach). So perhaps a free-agent signing in July (if Magic GM Otis Smith is dumb enough to wait)? Again, why to L.A. and not Chicago or Dallas or Houston or even the Brooklyn Nets? All those teams have much better parts than the Lakers will have going down the road.

David Stern has draped crepe over this paper-thin franchise. Prediction: 33-33, 8th seed, 1st round and out. (And worse to come in future seasons.)

Mass Murder, My Sweet

Chris Floyd:

This is the reality of what actually happened in Iraq: aggression, slaughter, atrocity, ruin. It is the only reality; there is no other. And it was done deliberately, knowingly, willingly. Indeed, the bipartisan American power structure spent more than $1 trillion to make it happen. It is a record of unspeakable savagery, an abomination, an outpouring of the most profound and filthy moral evil.

Line up the bodies of the children, the thousands of children --  the infants, the toddlers, the schoolkids -- whose bodies were torn to pieces, burned alive or riddled with bullets during the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Line them up in the desert sand, walk past them, mile after mile, all those twisted corpses, those scraps of torn flesh and seeping viscera, those blank faces, those staring eyes fixed forever on nothingness.

This is the reality of what happened in Iraq; there is no other reality.

These children -- these thousands of children -- are dead, and will always be dead, as a direct result of the unprovoked act of military aggression launched and sustained by the American power structure. Killing these children, creating and maintaining the conditions that led to the slaughter of these children, was precisely what the armed forces of the United States were doing in Iraq. Without the invasion, without the occupation, without the 1.5 million members of the American volunteer army who surrendered their moral agency to "just follow orders" and carry out their leaders' agenda of aggression, those children would not have died -- would not have been torn, eviscerated, shot, burned and destroyed.

This is the reality of what happened in Iraq; you cannot make it otherwise. It has already happened; it always will have happened. You cannot undo it.

But you can, of course, ignore it. This is the path chosen by the overwhelming majority of Americans, and by the entirety of the bipartisan elite. This involves a pathological degree of disassociation from reality. What is plainly there -- the evil, the depravity, the guilt -- cannot be accepted, and so it is converted into its opposite: goodness, triumph, righteousness. The moral structures of the psyche are eaten away by this malignant dynamic, as are the mind's powers of perception and judgment. Thus depravity and evil come to seem more and more normal; it becomes more and more difficult to focus on what is really in front of you, to perceive, judge and care about the actual consequences of what you've done or what is being done in your name. Unmoored from reality, you become lost in a savage nihilism that cloaks its unsifted rage and fear and chaos in the most threadbare pieties. And thus you drift deeper and deeper into evil and meaninglessness, singing hosannas to yourself as you go.

 The rest.

Burn, Baby, Burn

An early Christmas gift. Christopher Hitchens is dead, joining the over 1,000,000 Iraqis (and Afghans, Pakistanis, Serbians, Somalis, and Libyans) he pimped so hard to murder -- 'though he'll be in a much warmer place, the sniffy little atheist.

Payback

During the months of October and November, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss -- winner of 10 NBA titles over three different eras -- became the most pro-player (or, least anti-player) force on the owners' side. Going around commissioner David Stern and his punk handmaiden Adam Silver, and around the more extreme owners led by Airhead Jordan, Buss put together the coalition which approved the lockout-ending deal, allowing us to have a 2011-12 season.

Over the past week:

1. The Lakers finalized a three-team deal for all-star PG Chris Paul. A deal which gave back to Paul's current team (the NBA-owned New Orleans Hornets) the reigning Sixth-Man-of-the-Year Lamar Odom, 18 ppg/10 rpg big man Luis Scola, 24 ppg guard Kevin Martin, and premier bench guy Goran Dragic. In a move unprecedented in NBA history, Stern & Silver stepped in to nix it.

2. Over the weekend, the Lakers attempted to rework the deal, ADDING future draft picks and a boatload of $$$$. Stern again said no.

3. Also over the weekend, Orlando mega-star Dwight Howard -- the player assumed by all to be the anchor of the next Lakers' championship era -- suddenly announced he prefered to play for gangster capitalist (and future fascist President of Russia) Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the New Jersey Nets.

4. And over the weekend, the Lakers were forced to trade the now very sullen and unhappy Lamar Odom to the Dallas Mavericks (NBA champs and LA's leading Western Conference competitor) for some snapshots of Dealey Plaza and Mark Cuban's dirty shorts.

5. This morning, the Orlando Magic announced they were taking Dwight Howard off the trade market.

6. And tonight, Chris Paul was sent to the Los Angeles CLIPPERS, the Lakers' inner-city rival and co-residents of the Staples Center, for less value than was offered to the Hornets by the Lakers.

Now watch the nerd-pack in the sports media turn on a dime and tell us what an honorable genius David Stern actually is. From the White House to the clubhouse, in USA 2011 there is no escaping the unspeakable:

"It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss." -- Thomas Merton

Paul

This summer and fall, it was both laughable and infuriating to see NBA commissioner David Stern take it between the cheeks every lockout day from the vampire owners (led by Greatest and Dumbest Dickhead of All Time, Michael Jordan); and lying every day to the sports media about everything. And now Stern allows this blatant hijacking of a three-team, league-changing, completely above-board trade!

However, as someone who's always bled Purple-and-Gold: what were the Lakers thinking here? Blowing most of your trade value on a point guard who's as fragile as he is magnificent? (With L.A. having one of the most brutal 66-game schedules in the shortened season.) Without Paul signing an extension? And without receiving in return the underrated Emeka Okafor as replacement big man for Gasol? Most important, any future deal for the incomparable (and indestructible) Dwight Howard becomes impossible without Odom or Gasol available to send along with the benumbed Andrew Bynum.

You did it for your usual slimy reasons, David -- but thank you! (Even though Gasol and Odom -- notoriously moody players under the best of circumstances -- have already started their funks.)

Back to the plantation for NBA darkies. Or in the words of great Pacers forward Danny Granger:

"Due to the sabotaging of the LA/NO trade by David Stern and following in the footsteps of my athlete brethern Metta World Peace and Chad Ochocinco, I'm changing my last name to 'Stern's Bitch', effective immediately."

Plantation Update: the reigning Sixth Man of the Year for draft "considerations"!!

Seventh Heaven

76 years after the birth of Mr. Chomsky, and 63 years after the Japanese retaliation at Pearl Harbor for the 1937-41 U.S./Brit economic terror war against it (explained here by Mr. Chomsky), Saya-chan was born!

Happy 7th birthday! Tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu!

Happy Birthday, Professor!

Celebrating 83 years today, without a moment's slow down. . .

G.U.T.

Grand Unification Theory.

The great Peter Dale Scott with a brilliant capturing of our past 50 years. Rather detailed and at times hard to follow (with webcam video and sound), but very worthwhile.



The footnoted text.

American Idols

Angry

And loved by millions of 6-year-olds the world over.

The Year That Was

Another small piece of the harmonic good cheer of '63.

New Pig City

Occupy N.B.A.

Etan Thomas says it.

Superman

Gone four years now.

Joe

The greatest Heavyweight of all time, used up and spit out by the sports media now celebrating him. Anti-Jordan, Anti-Tiger, R.I.P.

Hot Air

Sources told ESPN.com's Henry Abbott that in a Thursday evening conference call among owners, Michael Jordan of the Charlotte Bobcats was among a vocal group of owners upset at NBA commissioner David Stern for not driving a harder bargain to this point. The New York Times reported that Jordan's group wants the players' share to be no higher than 47 percent, down 10 percent from its current 57.

Good job, Mr. Dickhead. Now try to sign a top free-agent over the next ten years.

Men

Boo

Blood Simple

Another international leader murdered, another legal and historic abomination, another chorus of cheers from the gibbering class, another day in the USA.

Another view of the victim of Obama's latest bloodletting; and about chickens coming home to roost . . .

The Unpeople

In news from Yemen, the U.S. government is being accused of killing a 16-year-old U.S. citizen in a drone strike last week. The teenager, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, became the third American killed in Yemen in a U.S. drone strike in the past three weeks. He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born cleric assassinated in a separate drone strike last month. Initial news accounts reported Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was 21 years old, but his family says he was only 16. They said he was born in Denver in 1995. Nasser al-Awlaki, the boy’s grandfather, said, "To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It’s nonsense. They want to justify his killing, that’s all."

Chris Floyd.

How to Talk to Rocks

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Playful? Against the most sophisticated and deepest police state in human history? Against the most vicious and selfish money class?

Chris Hedges aside, my hunch is that things have become so bad, that normal political action has become so delinked from consequence, the only chance for a weakening of Corporate suffocation is to start making Jamie Dimon, Ben Bernanke, Lloyd Blankfein, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Brian Moynihan, Hank Paulsen, Dick Fuld, John Mack, John Thain and all their apparatchiks very physically uncomfortable.

One year later, the permanent Egyptian comprador class is stronger and more entrenched than ever. And whatever happened to all that jumping and yelling in Wisconsin? (Besides the carceral anti-union laws going into effect.)

France, Russia, Mexico, Cuba, South Africa, the Congo, China, Iran, Algeria, Nicaragua, the antebellum South -- all successful revolutions against much weaker established states than USA 2011. And not one of them playful.

A Kent State/Jackson State event may be in the offing. Then back to iPhone apps?

Once again, Mr. Twain:

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror', if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the horrors of the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."

Antidote

One year before his execution by the National Security State, almost to the minute.

April 4, 1967, Riverside Church in Harlem.

No More

Liars

Not that assassinating the Saudi Ambassador (and the rest of the "royal family") isn't a great idea. . .

Ray McGovern, Justin Raimondo, Patrick and Alexander Cockburn, Gareth Porter.

Pretty rich smoke coming from a regime that just summarily executed three U.S. citizens. . .

Collaborators

The protests are being infiltrated.

While the pigs are being pigs.

Picnic

Thank you, Michael Hickox.

The C.B.A.

The new Communist Basketball Association! Bill Simmons and Jay Kang explain.

"A Great American said. . ."

And about all those whining darkies. . .

Zeke

My favorite basketball player (and GM) of all time. Pure heart.

Jonathan Abrams with a beautiful piece.

The Moment

Together

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave. -- Chris Hedges

Go.

The Most

"The most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties" says Jonathan Turley.

The Killer

Nice how our greasy pole climber, teaching us each day the humanity of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, at last found his Presidential niche. Two years ago, the Facebook psychopath (and his minions) arrogated unto Himself (and themselves) the right to kill anyone on the planet, anywhere, any place, at any time -- including (especially) U.S. citizens. (And to think Nixon was to be impeached for ordering the break-in at Dan Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.) No indictment, no trial, no charges, no sentence, no judge, jury or evidence. Since the huckster has otherwise proven to be a WH political incompetent not seen since the days of Warren G. Harding, it does warm the cockles to see him excel at something: remote control extermination -- ending the life of another human being with the ease of sending a Twitter tweet.

Since it's now clear that Barack Obama's sole mission was to take the guilt monkey off the backs of a generation or two of cocksucking corporate vampires -- homo Reaganus -- how appropriate he's become the public apostle of breaking the link between human extermination and human consequence -- a daily supersaturation of amorality that fails any longer to outrage or even interest. This killer is an intergalactic bore.

In another must read, Chris Floyd indicts Obama's latest Designer Murder.

The Letter

Get lost.

The Deal

You were expecting Statehood maybe?

Chump Change

We Are

1968 - 2011

Noam on the Day

Pop Goes the Weiner

If this doesn't convince someone to primary-challenge the White House weasel, what will?

Loathing

Chris Hedges, Chris Floyd, and Mike Davis.

Obamammy

Stop Hoping

California Democratic Party May Dump Its Progressive Caucus for Proposing a Primary Challenge to Obama

On July 30th the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party passed a resolution proposing that a primary challenge be offered to Obama next year.  The Progressive Caucus's certification expired at the same time, and while other caucuses were routinely recertified that day by the state party, the Progressive Caucus would not have been, had a vote been held.  So the recertification was tabled, and the Progressive Caucus is in limbo.  It no longer exists.

Bernie Sanders? Can't we find someone who can still chew his own food?

Matt Damon! (Better yet -- George Clooney.)

Mr. Gladio Goes to London

What the heck happened to pig Murdoch and the NewsCorp scandal? What happened to all those calls for sniffy-pimp Cameron's resignation (and prosecution)? And how 'bout the coming investigations of Scotland Yard's stiff-upper-lippers?

Arthur Silber and Hal Austin have some answers. Does Gladio (here and here)?

And Sometimes the Bear Eats You

Bet the PCP market goes down as well.

Belated Birthday Wishes from Brother Malcolm

Boy in the Hood

In honor of the pimp's Big Deal.

Chris Floyd.

So the deed is done. The "debt ceiling" crisis has been "resolved" by a further maniacal destruction of the commonweal, in a bipartisan pact that completely ignores the murderous imperial wars as the primary drain on the nation's treasury. The deal also sets up an unaccountable politburo (the special "Super Congress" committee) that will remove further coddling of the rich from the democratic process altogther.

However, I do feel I must defend our president from the charges of "weakness" and "cowardice" and "capitulation" that are pouring in on his noble head from all sides. Many learned Thebans are advancing the idea that Barack Obama has somehow "capitulated" to "extremists" who "forced" him into this "terrible deal."

The truth of course is that the Republican "extremists" served the same function for Obama as the "fatal vision" of the daggers did for Macbeth: "Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going." Obama came into office declaring his intent to strike a "grand bargain" on the deficit, eagerly putting Medicare, Social Security and other programs on the table for "reforms." He made clear from the start that his first and foremost allegiance was to the elite institutions of the financial markets (and the militarist oligarchy they feed); hence the $13 trillion offered up to Wall Street as compared to the transparently inadequate $700 billion offered as "stimulus" to the rest of the country -- money that was like tossing a few grains of sand into an ocean of economic need ... and which is now gone anyway.

Obama had many options for avoiding this "crisis," long before it came to a head. He didn't take those options because, like all good disaster capitalists, he wanted and needed a crisis of this sort to enact the brutal economic agenda he has openly advocated from the beginning. The result, of course, will be further impoverishment and diminishment in the lives of millions of ordinary people, for years to come -- and, ironically, the eventual collapse of the monstrous system that supports the ravenous elite that Obama serves with such panache.

History affords few examples of the political elite of a country commiting such an act of national suicide in order to protect the already super-rich from the slightest impingement of their already colossal fortunes.

I suppose Easter Island might serve as a pertinent precursor.

Bitches

"Hitler is dead, but the bitch that bore him is in heat again." - Brecht

Justin Raimondo on the Aryan fascist killer's bearers (and handlers).

Beckvik

You tell me the difference.

Good Man

Reading This Blog Can Get You Fired

Sieg Heil.

 (And check out the comments section to see just how gutless this "society" has become.)

Independence

Noam Chomsky in Cologne, June 7th.

Made in the USA

John Ashcroft even looks like Harry Feist.

"I Wanted To Be With You Much Longer"

The ending of Haibane Renmei, "Prayer"



The previous twelve episodes.

Nothing Up His Sleeve

Gareth Porter on Obama's Afghan "withdrawal."

Linh Dinh on our "Sentimental Mass Murderer."

And David Walsh on Tom Hayden pimpin' for the Pimp.

A Picture is Worth

An amiable Navy veteran loses his comfortable job at a big-box store, enrolls in community college, and seeks to reinvent himself while falling for his apathetic speech professor in this romantic comedy reteaming Academy Award-winning Charlie Wilson's War co-stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Larry Crowne (Hanks) has just been downsized. The unfortunate victim of a failing economy, Larry decides that his best option to avoid becoming idle is to take some classes at his local community college. In no time, Larry befriends a colorful group of moped-obsessed outcasts on the road to self-improvement, and begins working to sharpen his communication skills in a public speaking class taught by Mercedes Tainot (Roberts). Disenchanted with her job and bored in her marriage, Mercedes has begun to feel as if she's missing out on life. But whenever she's with Larry, all of her problems seem to disappear. Now, just as Larry and Mercedes are feeling as if their lives have been put on hold, they both discover that fate sometimes has a way of giving us exactly what we need, at precisely the right time.

Sister Hood

Katha Pollit in The Nation.

France, I don’t like you anymore. Because what is the point of having all those smart, cultivated, social-democratically inclined secular people if it turns out they are such self-satisfied creeps? . . . Almost as repellent as the sexual entitlement of French men, with their insistence on their seigneurial right to “heavy flirting,” is the docility and feminine-mystique-ization of the French women who enable them. Well, maybe it’s not entirely their fault: not only do they never get to eat a square meal (oh, so that’s why French women don’t get fat), masses of them are on tranquilizers —- twice as many as French men, and one of the highest rates in the world. But how pathetic is it to see them rising in defense of their right to be pawed by their bosses (“in France we don’t want war between the sexes. . .” writes Laurence Masurel, former political editor of Paris Match). Or applauding men for betraying them as if it’s proof of their manly greatness, as did Anne Sinclair, DSK’s zillionaire wife: “I am quite proud! For a political man, it is important to seduce.” How out of it are French women? In one poll, they were even a little bit more likely than men to believe that DSK was the victim of a plot (a view held by a majority of both sexes) and less likely than men to believe he was definitely not a victim of a plot.

Uh, huh.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like LeBron James?

Bill Simmons with some brilliant solutions.

Bank Bailouts Explained

From Omid Malekan.

@ 100

Robert Johnson, here are.

When We Were Men

Happy 96th Birthday.

Quantitative Easing Explained

By Omid Malekan.

Kentucky vs. King

Chris Floyd.

Can cops now invade your home without a warrant anytime they feel like it?

Sure they can.

Doesn't this completely and literally eviscerate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and specifically requires the use of a warrant?

Sure it does.

So, was there really any point in having an American Revolution, if we have ended up with a tyranny far more implacable, intrusive, violent and extremist than anything in the wildest dreams of the most retrograde royalist serving King George III?

Reckon not.

Springtime for Chomsky

And his lengthy reaction to the OBL mob hit.

Publisher

Harper's great John MacArthur on Murder Inc. and its worshippers.

There’s much to criticize about the bloody pageant surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden: the assassination of an unarmed man apparently in front of one of his unarmed wives; the unseemly displays of patriotic fist-pumping by Americans who feel themselves superior to chanting Islamic radicals; the brazen exploitation of the killing by a president already campaigning for re-election, and America’s “alliance” against “terrorism” with Pakistan, a country led by corrupt, double-dealing oligarchs who sell themselves to the highest bidder. (Bin Laden’s “hideout” near the Kakul Military Academy sounds like off-campus housing for a visiting professor.)

But I’m even more disturbed by watching Obama, the supposed anti-Bush, becoming the ex-president — playing the “straight talker” and “decider” on “60 Minutes” better than Bush himself: “Justice was done, and I think anyone who would question that the perpetrator of mass murder on American soil didn’t deserve what he got needs to have their head examined.”

That includes me, since I would have preferred to see bin Laden walked to his arraignment in handcuffs and then placed on trial in a pop-up courtroom in the desert, somewhere between Reno and Las Vegas. Most Americans, including the former constitutional-law professor Obama, believe that our system of justice is better and fairer than, say, Afghanistan’s. So why not demonstrate that equal justice under the law applies to mass murderers, including ones who brag about their crimes? Timothy McVeigh got his day in court, as he should have. Isn’t that what’s supposed to make us more civilized than al-Qaida?

Obama would have been wiser to follow the French government’s example in its treatment of Carlos the Jackal, a notorious terrorist and killer of French intelligence agents who is now mouldering in prison, a largely pathetic and ridiculous figure. Alive but incarcerated for life, Carlos will never be seen as a martyr like bin Laden. But since this is a French idea, it’s clearly crazy, like refusing to invade Iraq. Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin certainly should have had their heads examined.

To be fair, there may also be people in President Obama’s Cabinet who need to have their heads examined. Hillary Clinton best expressed the administration’s increasingly delusional thinking when she suggested that bin Laden’s execution will help the war effort: “In Afghanistan, we will continue taking the fight to al-Qaida and their Taliban allies. . . . Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today it may have even greater resonance. You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us. But you can make the choice to abandon al-Qaida and participate in a peaceful political process.”

That’s a great idea, especially the “peaceful political process” that surely would ensue when Hamid Karzai and his warlords started settling scores with Mullah Omar and his warlords around a conference table. As for the Taliban, it has little interest in al-Qaida’s international aspirations and will also “continue taking the fight” to America to rid Afghanistan of foreign occupation. I want to believe that Clinton is sane enough to read this sort of information in her intelligence reports (or at least in the newspaper), but then she also says that Pakistan is a “democracy.” Maybe the secretary of state had her hand over her mouth in the famous Situation Room photo because Obama’s national-security team was really watching “Patriot Games,” with Harrison Ford. It is a very exciting movie.

Of course, there’s nothing new about U.S. leaders playing tough-guy jingoes and justifying our history of “extra-judicial” killings. It’s no coincidence the CIA gave bin Laden the code name Geronimo, since America’s Wild West culture long ago concluded that the only good Indian is a dead Indian (though at least the real Geronimo was taken prisoner). And it’s clear that our justice system is so degraded by 9/11 and its aftermath that putting bin Laden on trial was probably a political and practical impossibility. Since the CIA used him in the 1980s to help drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, imagine the character witnesses his lawyers might have called.

Even if there were a few courageous members of Congress to make the case for simple justice, or for prompt exit from Afghanistan, the gibberish gushing from the media would have made it impossible for them to be heard. What can we possibly learn from the bin Laden affair when even the serious press functions as facilitator for self-interested politicians? The best example of this appeared in The New York Times, the day after the government admitted that Osama was unarmed and that he didn’t use one of his wives as a shield, contrary to the previous day’s version in the “paper of record.”

As The Times explained it, “haste” had led to “discrepancies” in the official account. “But the episode also reveals the pressures as the White House, intent on telling a dramatic story about a successful operation, sought to manage a 24-hour news media ravenous for immediate and vivid details.” Oh, those dreadfully ravenous reporters, forcing counter-terrorism chief John Brennan and his bosses to invent things that never happened. Perish the thought that there was a political or P.R. motive in the telling of the bin Laden “take out” tale. Anyone that cynical should have his head examined.

But of all the fantastical media stories on the rubbing out of bin Laden, the most preposterous concern the Pakistani government. One minute they’re our loyal allies; the next they’re perfidious coddlers of evildoers. Recalling the words of Capt. Louis Renault, in the film “Casablanca,” Gen. Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayani, the Pakistani army’s chief of staff, was “shocked, shocked” not only that America invaded his country’s air space uninvited but also that bin Laden was hiding under his very nose. Let’s be honest: The only plausible explanation for the raid’s “success” is that the U.S. finally agreed to pay the Pakistanis more in cash or in kind than they were getting from bin Laden himself or his friends in Saudi Arabia.

What’s more, the nearly $450 billion already spent on Afghanistan in America’s Terrorist Games has been a complete waste of money — exactly the sort of self-defeating expenditure that terrorists like bin Laden have hoped to provoke.

Sadly, American justice and candor — the old-fashioned Humphrey Bogart, Harrison Ford variety — lie at the bottom of the ocean with Osama bin Laden’s corpse.

Penultimate

The next-to-last episode of Haibane Renmei, "Reconciliation"



The previous eleven.

More

Sonny Clark.

Purple Haze

What the heck happened to the Los Angeles Lakers?

In a season of irregular menstrual cycles (no offense to Pau Gasol) -- starting the year 8-0, losing four-in-a-row, winning seven-in-a-row, losing four-in-a-row, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers, winning seventeen-of-eighteen, then going on a five-game-losing streak toward the end of the regular season, struggling distractedly against a mediocre New Orleans Hornets club in round one of the playoffs -- the Lakers ended 2010-11 not only being swept by Mark Cuban's Mavericks (losing the final "win or go home" game by 36 points) but also by becoming a group of guys who would clearly rather go on vacation than spend another second in each other's presence. Or with their (now gone) head coach.

As a Lakers fan since before they got Magic Johnson, I've never felt the emotional attachment to the post-Shaq "Kobe Lakers" I had with the Showtime teams of the 80s (not even close) or the Shaq Threepeaters of 2000 - 2002 (or the goofy Nick Van Excel clubs of the 90s). The problem is Bryant. His spirit has dominated the team since 2004, even with the chastening of Phil Jackson's return in 2006. There is no joy in Kobeville. Whether L.A. is on a five-game losing streak or repeating as NBA champs, with Kobe is it always grim, grim, grim. While absolutely one of the greatest players (and winners) of his time, Kobe Bryant is a tight-ass bore. Not someone easy at all to like in the way we like our athletes, sometimes close to a crush. When the 80s Lakers would lose to the Celtics or Sixers or Pistons, I would feel bad as a fan but even worse for Michael Cooper, Mychal Thompson, and James Worthy. It's impossible for me to feel bad for Kobe Bryant.

Many of the current Lakers perhaps feel the same way. The club became wholly unglued at the end. Imagine. Two-time defending champs. Three-time defending Western Conference champs. The last run for your 11-titles-winning head coach. One-game -- win it or not only go home but send Phil Jackson on his way in the most embarrassing manner possible. And the team -- with the exception of a first-half Kobe Bryant, who then also seems to pack it in -- shows up sullen, petulant, in a snit. And quits.

Obviously a team with a very delicate sense of purpose and togetherness. Maybe Gasol just got sick of playing with Bryant. Or Odom with Gasol. Or Gasol with Andrew Bynum. Gasol, of course, has taken the most heat from the sports media, as well he should. Something funky was happening with him and the league must have smelled it. Beginning in early April, when the Lakers were still playing their best basketball, several players around the NBA, from separate teams and divisions, began to whisper (publicly) about Pau Gasol's manhood -- the manhood of the starting center on the NBA's two-time defending champions. First, Kendrick Perkins of OKC said something. Then A'mare Stoudemire of the Knicks. Other players went with it, off the record. What was going on here? The Lakers were playing great and there weren't any "Pau Gasoft" cracks since L.A. lost to Boston in the '08 Finals. Gasol himself won the championship last year by his very tough and focused Game 7 performance (while Kobe was melting) against the Celtics. So what were the April remarks all about?

Somebody knew something, because beginning with those remarks the team went into emotional free-fall, and Gasol became punked. He became scared and confused on defense, passive and hesitant with the ball. Perhaps he announced to the team he was coming out. Another rumor has Kobe's wife saying something to Gasol's steady girlfriend which caused Gasol to be dumped. (Yet, how does this compare to Steve Nash in December witnessing the birth of a black baby to his white wife? These guys are human. . .) How does the Gasol situation explain the clear separation taken from his teammates by Lamar Odom? By Andrew Bynum? The aghast frustrations of veteran Derek Fisher?

What happened this spring could very well have happened the two previous springs. A few more timely Houston Rockets baskets in '09 would have knocked the would-be champs out in the opening round. A couple Laker misses in 2010 would've sent Phoenix ahead to the Finals instead of L.A. So let us all now send a red-hot poker to GM Mitch Kupchak's house, the man who sat on an aging and very charmed team when so much movement was happening around the league, except for helping to create a bench dominated by the "Killer Bs" -- Barnes, Brown, and Blake -- standing for very BAD and beyond them the likes of Luke Walton, the 62-year-old Joe Smith, and Phil Jackson's pot-dealer. And dear old Derek Fisher, still starting at point guard. . . a wonderful guy, a fine union leader, and currently worth less than zero as a basketball player. Why didn't Kupchak pick up O.J. Mayo or Corey Brewer (or Ronnie Brewer) for chump change? Or Stojakovic? Or Tony Allen? Perhaps Kurt Thomas would've slowed down Nowitzki or Jason Terry. . .

Phil Jackson must also take his medicine, along with his peyote. His inflexibility must have stoked the fires of dissension. Why did he refuse, since the Fisher situation was not going away, to play Kobe and Artest together more in the backcourt? Why wasn't Odom, Bynum, and Gasol on the court more often? Artest, Bryant, Gasol, Odom, and Bynum for 34-38 playoff minutes per game seems pretty unbeatable to me. And the terrible misuse/underuse of Andrew Bynum. . . After the Carmelo-for-Bynum rumors went away in January, Bynum was the best player on the Lakers and the best center in the league aside from Dwight Howard. Yet the offense never went through him. No offensive adjustments were made. He continued to sit out the last six minutes of each game. Why, Phil?

The worst part of the collapse is Jackson going out this way. I'll miss him very much. The easy thing about being a Lakers fan, aside from all the winning, is that it's an organization of class, wit, and intelligence. Unlike the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dallas Cowboys, there's nothing piggish or underhanded or cynical in how the Lakers win titles. Phil Jackson embodies these good qualities (as Kobe does not) in ways which are true and unique. (The Laker teams between Jackson's two coaching reigns were drab and grim -- they took on Bryant's aura instead of their head coaches. Detour ahead. . .) While Game Two of the Mavs series was coming to its dispiriting close, the fans at Staples Center booed, left, yelled bad words. And no one acknowledged they may have been seeing Phil Jackson for the last time. And they were.

Glee

All of it.

The widespread bloodlust reaction, as if millions of Muslim lives hadn't already been destroyed, with trillions of dollars spent destroying them.

The "24" sort of way the Killers killed the killer. (Those 25 commandos have book and cable deals already signed.) And our stylish Ivy-educated Peace Laurete proving true the wisdom and leadership qualities of another Ivy-educated prize-winner (Commander of the Order of St. Sebastian, in his case):

You indeed can kill anyone.

The further exposure of the Pwog malignancy, with the likes of Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, and Commander Kos cheerleading the way for cold-blooded murder of an unarmed old man (yes, I know he was the Evil One), several guards, and a guard's wife.

The lies told afterwards, extrajudicial executions not being enough: that the Evil One was shot while defending himself with a sawed-off shotgun, and using one of his wives as a body shield. (The woman was critically wounded by commandos, of course.) No one could possibly be a he-man hero, unless it's a couple dozen psychopaths who can only operate when the odds are 10 to 1 in their favor.

All this coming the day after the murder of three of Muammar Gaddafi's grandchildren and one of his sons, in yet another attempted assassination of a world leader, thousands of miles from Abbottabad.

Mission Accomplished announced via Twitter.

The event telewaved into the White House of the United States, for personal private viewing by Killers of the killer. (When George Clooney in Syriana [2005] included a scene showing members of the White House micro-organizing and viewing the blowing-up of a Muslim Sheik, the Bush White House publicly condemned the movie as an "immoral lie." Now Obama wallows in such things, as all things Bush/Cheney are intensified.)

U.S. media jackals foaming at the mouth over Pakistan allowing the Evil One to live comfortably and securely in its midst, as if the U.S. hasn't taken over much of the Pakistan military and security service (I.S.I.) and caused thousands of Pakistani deaths from Obama drone strikes.

Worst of all is the hailing of our cold-blooded Assassin-in-Chief, just visiting "Ground Zero" to suck as much political blood from this as possible (as he did with the Tulsa shootings). Obama's Historic Moment. The Day the Obama Era Was Defined. Not defined by his appointments of no one but Establishment collaborators these past 20 years in the War of Terror or in the takeover of all systems of U.S. power by corporate totalitarians. Not the crushing of everything he ran on in 2007/08. Not the continuance and/or expansion and/or creation of wars in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Libya. And not as overseer of the final national dismantling of public, social government in the United States. No, Barack Obama'a historic legacy is the murder of an elderly sand nigger.

All of it, so sickening and heartbreaking. After the ten most criminal, anti-democratic, and economically fearful years in U.S. history -- the country can still get punked and manipulated by something like this.

He Made the Pants Too Long

Two days after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passes the United States Congress, LBJ takes care of serious business.

Now, and then

Good news for humanity last week as ghoul Cathie Black was forced to resign as CEO of New York City's Public School system, after only 96 days in which Black managed to (at my daughter's P.S. 139):

-- Reduce four 1st-grade classes (Saya's grade) to three.

-- Fire a dozen teachers, including my daughter's original 1st-grade teacher, someone she liked very much.

-- Cancel many traditional school parties, dances, and festivals.

-- Reduce once-a-week school assemblies to once-a-month.

-- Eliminate the 6th-grade (with plans to eliminate the 5th-grade next school year).

-- Reduce the school lunch program, with an increase in cost.

-- Reduce ESL instruction.

-- Eliminate after-school care.

-- Eliminate the breakfast program.

-- Reduce extended-day instruction for struggling students from five days per week to three.

Oligarchy's pimp Mike Bloomberg then appointed someone named Dennis Walcott to replace Black, a man with all the "education background" Black lacked, but who's just as committed to devolving what was once the best public school system in the country into a wealth = education formula.

Chris Hedges today has a beautiful column about what is being done to our children and why.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Even before the “reform” blitzkrieg we were losing half of all teachers within five years after they started work—and these were people who spent years in school and many thousands of dollars to become teachers. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our charter schools system—whose primary concern is certainly not with education—are delighted to replace real teachers with nonunionized, poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. Corporatism is about the cult of the self. It is about personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside.

The demonizing of teachers is another public relations feint, a way for corporations to deflect attention from the theft of some $17 billion in wages, savings and earnings among American workers and a landscape where one in six workers is without employment. The speculators on Wall Street looted the U.S. Treasury. They stymied any kind of regulation. They have avoided criminal charges. They are stripping basic social services. And now they are demanding to run our schools and universities.

In a tribute to Robert Frost spoken one month before Dallas, John F. Kennedy presented his vision of a civilized America.

"Of the 1 Percent, by the 1 Percent, for the 1 Percent"

Joe Stiglitz on Democracy Now!



His new Vanity Fair article.

And Jeffrey Sachs.

Parting

Part 11, Haibane Renmei.



Previous episode links.

You Lie

I want to begin by paying tribute to our men and women in uniform who, once again, have acted with courage, professionalism and patriotism. They have moved with incredible speed and strength. Because of them and our dedicated diplomats, a coalition has been forged and countless lives have been saved. As we speak, our troops are leaving Iraq to its people, stopping the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan, and going after al Qaeda all across the globe. As Commander-in-Chief, I’m grateful to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and to their families. And I know all Americans share in that sentiment.

For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom. Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.

At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Qaddafi declared he would show “no mercy” to his own people. It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973.

In this effort, the United States has not acted alone. Instead, we have been joined by a strong and growing coalition. This includes our closest allies -– nations like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey –- all of whom have fought by our sides for decades. And it includes Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who have chosen to meet their responsibilities to defend the Libyan people.

To summarize, then: In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly zone with our allies and partners. To lend some perspective on how rapidly this military and diplomatic response came together, when people were being brutalized in Bosnia in the 1990s, it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians. It took us 31 days.

Moreover, we’ve accomplished these objectives consistent with the pledge that I made to the American people at the outset of our military operations. I said that America’s role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners. Tonight, we are fulfilling that pledge.

It’s true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right. In this particular country -– Libya -- at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for action, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves. We also had the ability to stop Qaddafi’s forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground. To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and -– more profoundly -– our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

We went down that road in Iraq. Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our troops and the determination of our diplomats, we are hopeful about Iraq’s future. I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests. That's why we’re going after al Qaeda wherever they seek a foothold. That is why we continue to fight in Afghanistan, even as we have ended our combat mission in Iraq and removed more than 100,000 troops from that country. There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and our values are. Sometimes, the course of history poses challenges that threaten our common humanity and our common security -– responding to natural disasters, for example; or preventing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring regional security, and maintaining the flow of commerce. These may not be America’s problems alone, but they are important to us. They’re problems worth solving. And in these circumstances, we know that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help.

Let us also remember that for generations, we have done the hard work of protecting our own people, as well as millions around the globe. We have done so because we know that our own future is safer, our own future is brighter, if more of mankind can live with the bright light of freedom and dignity. Tonight, let us give thanks for the Americans who are serving through these trying times, and the coalition that is carrying our effort forward. And let us look to the future with confidence and hope not only for our own country, but for all those yearning for freedom around the world.

Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

BURN IN HELL.