http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/dissent-of-the-day-3.html#more
From Sullivan:
“The protestors keep saying that they want their country back. Sorry, my fellow small-governmenters, but this country is a democracy, and you didn’t lose your country, you just lost an election. You had your chance for eight years. You blew it, and you lost.”
David Brooks’ column in yesterday’s NYT is well worth reading:
“The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
Remnants of the dignity code lasted for decades. For most of American history, politicians did not publicly campaign for president. It was thought that the act of publicly promoting oneself was ruinously corrupting.”
“This is more like the American revolution than the French one… What the Mousavi movement wants is a revolution within the system. What they want it perestroika and glasnost. Of course, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad realize that this could lead to what perestroika and glasnost led to in Russia: the end of everything.”
Erika M. Anderson kicks it:
Arsenal’s new signing – yes he’s fucking political.
I was saddened to hear about the death this week of one of the true greats of American letters. I must confess to not having read as much of his work as I would like; I did, however, recently stumble upon this interview containing this rather thought-provoking observation:
“When I was a boy, the bestselling books were often the books that were on your piano teacher’s shelf. I mean, Steinbeck, Hemingway, some Faulkner. Faulkner actually had, considering how hard he is to read and how drastic the experiments are, quite a middle-class readership. But certainly someone like Steinbeck was a bestseller as well as a Nobel Prize-winning author of high intent. You don’t feel that now. I don’t feel that we have the merger of serious and pop — it’s gone, dissolving. Tastes have coarsened. People read less, they’re less comfortable with the written word. They’re less comfortable with novels. They don’t have a backward frame of reference that would enable them to appreciate things like irony and allusions. It’s sad. It’s momentarily uphill, I would say.”
Agree/Disagree? Either way, I encourage you to discuss.
If anything speaks to the United Nations’ impotence as an international political actor it’s this.
You do know that it was Israel, the 25th richest country in world, that destroyed all those buildings and killed all those people, right? Seems to me it wouldn’t be impolite to ask them to put their hand in their fucking pocket…
In moral terms Israel’s recent operation in Gaza was an obscenity and an abomination. Whether or not it was illegal, under International Humanitarian Law, is for wiser minds than mine to argue over.
Equally unquestionable is that the conditions in Gaza’s refugee camps constitute a humanitarian crisis; unfortunately this crisis has been caused by an act of man and not God and is therefore a political one as well. There simply is no separating the two and the BBC simply cannot afford to undermine itself by broadcasting a third-party appeal of this kind. Commercial (or semi-commercial) institutions can be as selective as they like when it comes to the causes they support, public ones cannot.
One thing I don’t know is if the BBC has screened DEC appeals for previous humanitarian campaigns with political overtones (namely Darfur and the Congo); if it has then Mark Thompson’s a hypocrite and should be ashamed. Consistency is everything.
Another question worth asking is how the Beeb’s own Comic Relief and Children in Need fits in with all this?
Fo Brizzle
Surprisingly decent BBC vampire/werewolf/i-see-dead-people drama called Being Human. In case you missed it last night, you can watch it here.
As advertising revenues plummet and publishers slash and burn newsroom jobs, one would think newspaper journalists would have quite enough in the way of angst-inducements. The social media age, however, seems to be providing a whole new kind of consternation:
“If you have or are getting a Facebook page, leave blank the section that asks about your political views, in accordance with the Ethical Journalism admonition to do nothing that might cast doubt on your or The Times’s political impartiality in reporting the news.
Be careful not to write anything on a blog or a personal Web page that you could not write in The Times – don’t editorialize, for instance, if you work for the News Department. Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill…”
As impossible as it is to achieve, and as I have said before, neutrality is a noble goal to which all news journalists should aspire and to which few, especially in Britain, even come close. News should be colourless and new reporters should endeavour to avoid adding even the gentlest editorial hue, whether that’s within their reports or without them. The New York Times is clearly committed to this task and should be applauded for its (largely) independent and apolitical news reporting.
But is company-wide Twitter Censorship the way to go? Would the Times not be better served, if it really wants to paint itself as the purest of the pure, to rid itself of individual bylines altogether? Or would that be too much of a blow to individual egos? How else would they get laid?
There seems to have emerged amongst professional satirists, some concern that Obama may be an “untouchable”. Not in the sense that they “must not” or “should not” make jokes about him, but in the sense that they just don’t really have anywhere to go, at least not without sounding snide and petty.
Chris Rock on Making Fun of Barack Obama:
Chris Rock: He’s just one of those guys, you know, like Will Smith. There’s no Will Smith jokes. There’s no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? “Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Aniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You’re such a loser.” What do you say? “Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.” There’s nothing to say about Brad Pitt.
CNN: Why is Obama like that?
Rock: It’s like “Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids. You’re the first African-American president.” You know, what do you say?
Jon Stewart gave it a go on Tuesday. In signature style the Daily Show spliced together clips from Obama’s inaugural address with similar lines from various speeches W has given over the years. It was a valiant effort at demonstrating The Daily Show to still be fit for purpose, that it can live on without Bush in the White House, but one that ultimately ended up lampooning itself rather than its subject.
Colbert will live on as his target is not “the establishment” as such, but the lunatic right-wing pundits like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who will presumably have even more reason for rabid rants now the right has been reduced to the role of court jester. Speaking of whom….
But Jon Stewart, I suspect, may have to back off – for a while at least. Perhaps the show will revert to its pre-Bush format and be less political, more focused on ridiculing celebrity culture, possibly including the celebrity culture that surrounds the new president. Being pretty much the best thing on tv, I think he’ll ultimately be fine.
He isn’t of course, the only one struggling. This is the best the Onion could come up with: Inauguration Crowd Moves To White House Gates To Watch Presidency Happen which is pretty lame stuff compared to the prophetic piledriver it gave us upon Bush’s inauguration. Private Eye fared little better, its cover portraying Obama in conversation with Hillary Clinton. He is asking her “So can we still blame everything on Bush?”. She responds: “YES WE CAN!”
(Will post the image when I find it online.)
I’ve been wondering, since Obama named her his Secretary of State, less why he offered it to her and more why Hillary Clinton accepted. As a Senator representing one of the most populous states in the nation she was position to be a powerful national voice with a job, ostensibly, for life.
Sully offers a very reassuring answer:
‘…my sense is that she would not have taken the job if she were not convinced that she has a chance to go down in history as an architect of a breakthrough Middle East peace agreement.’
Of course this doesn’t mean it will happen but it does, at least, suggest that Obama is serious about tackling the subject. There is no doubt that Hillary is an intelligent individual, savvy as they come (although her campaign management might suggest otherwise) but also determined to secure for herself a legacy on a par with her husband’s. She could not claim the crown but this would surely be the next best thing. Let’s just hope she knows her history.
BarackInTheHouse
For one more day at least. From tomorrow we will judge him for what he is doing and what he has done. Today is about a memorable, powerful, careful speech introducing us to a presidency, along with the possibility that presents, as well as a not-so fond farewell to an uninvited guest. Here’s the speech in full.
From last Monday’s Graun:
Nothing beats living alone. Why shackle yourself to a fellow human being for the rest of your days? Because you’re in love? Don’t be a wuss. That’ll fade after a few years and all you’ll be left with is a walking catalogue of tiny, grating quirks gleefully pointing out your shortcomings. To avoid murdering each other, you’ll have to keep yourselves anaesthetised with DVD boxsets and the occasional holiday. Life partner? Joy thief, more like.
to Beth for her front page story from last week’s The Scotsman.
Much of the aeaction to the imminent purchase of The Evening Standard by former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev seems to have been not-so-subtely tinged with xenophobic sentiment.
For me the idea that a foreigner should own a major British newspaper and run it to serve their own personal agenda is of no less concern that someone running one for purposes of profit.
I highly doubt Lebedev will use the paper as a mouthpiece of anti-Putin sentiment, but even if he did, would that really be so much worse than the current modus operandi? The Standard is a rag with vile editorial positions, catering to an up-their-own-arse, out-of-touch, London elite. In its current form, it won’t be missed.
The world has one more weekend of Bush. From this:
To this:
Can’t wait!
Books are useless! I only ever read one book, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin… but what good does that do me?
Homer Simpson
from Stephen Walt:
Imagine that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had won the Six Day War, leading to a massive exodus of Jews from the territory of Israel. Imagine that the victorious Arab states had eventually decided to permit the Palestinians to establish a state of their own on the territory of the former Jewish state. (That’s unlikely, of course, but this is a thought experiment). Imagine that a million or so Jews had ended up as stateless refugees confined to that narrow enclave known as the Gaza Strip. Then imagine that a group of hardline Orthodox Jews took over control of that territory and organized a resistance movement. They also steadfastly refused to recognize the new Palestinian state, arguing that its creation was illegal and that their expulsion from Israel was unjust. Imagine that they obtained backing from sympathizers around the world and that they began to smuggle weapons into the territory. Then imagine that they started firing at Palestinian towns and villages and refused to stop despite continued reprisals and civilian casualties.
Here’s the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews in Gaza as “terrorists” and encouraging the Palestinian state to use overwhelming force against them?
Here’s another: would the United States have even allowed such a situation to arise and persist in the first place?
The latter question, in my opinion, almost renders the former irrelevant. In 1967 the US was so entrenched in Vietnam that it would not have had the means to prevent an Israeli defeat, even if it had the will. Following Vietnam however the US would, I am sure, have continued to provide political and material support to the hardline ‘freedom fighters’ Walt mentions and would have acted as it did in South America in the 60s and 70s. In order to destabilise any Palestinian regime trade embargoes would have been introduced – IF the US even assented to recognize Palestine as a state – while provided the Jewish militants with weaponry and special ops training. Full access to the upper echelons of government would have been accorded and freedom to fundraise in the United States would have been allowed. While it might be argued that the Palestinians would have received similar support from the neighbouring Arab states, I think this is a flimsy position to hold. There has been little evidence to indicate that either Lebanon, Syria or Egypt have ever been all that bothered about the Palestinian refugees and could easily have been co-opted by a few juicy American carrots or the odd pointy stick.
I’d guess that any Palestinian state would have been overrun within a decade. Simply put, this situation simply could not have happened in reverse.
Why? Cuz is awesome.
"Wherever you are in the universe I will bring you a nice cup of tea."
Really lovely documentary. Find it slightly strange that someone could think of it as a heist movie when, to me at least, it’s more about passions and dreams and living the impossible.
A heist movie is all about the ‘how’ while Man on Wire is all about the ‘him’. The process, the preparation and the problems, although detailed in the film, is of much less interest than the protagonist. Petit is a fascinating character; utterly self-absorbed and solipsistic, I’m not sure he even acknowledges the enormous contribution of his friends to his walk between the towers, nor the sacrifice they make to enable him to achieve it.
In one of the opening shots we find ourselves witness to the birth of the twin towers as the earth-movers begin to tackle the site. Eerily evocative of the scene almost thirty years later when the heavy machinery once again moved in to excavate the ground following the collapse of the towers. 9/11, alough unmentioned, looms heavily but respectfully over this film.
Urge you all to borrow it from me.
An alarmist headline in the L0ndon Pap3r, glimpsed over someone shoulder on the bus, successfully alarmed me yesterday. In a mere seven words those pornographers and cockfight promoters calling themselves journalists managed to imply that Obama was going back on his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay. Turns out the actual, far less tabloid-friendly story is that the new president intends to issue an executive order on his first day in office to begin the process of decommissioning the prison. That being the case however, he still seems to be hedging, and that leaves a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth.
This from the NYT article:
“It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.” Closing it within the first 100 days of his administration, he said, would be “a challenge.”
I don’t really understand this statement. Simply relocating the current detainees to a military prison or similar facility on a base on US soil can not be that much of a challenge and would immediately demonstrate Obama’s sincerity and commitment to “change”. I appreciate that the subsequent sorting of the 250 or so detainees into those that will be released and those that will be charged will take some time but this process should take place as far from the “legal black hole” as possible. Normal legal order must be restored: The Bush administration’s reflexive line that the detainees are “the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort.’” should be dismissed with extreme prejudice and no presumption should be made as to their guilt or likely dangerous nature.
Guantanamo has been, and continues to be, not merely ‘a stain on the US military’ but on the entire American people.
Lol this country.
