The long dirt nap

What to hope for in Egypt?

The American media appeases its audience with just-so stories that make it appear everything could turn out, like, totally cool and schweet.

Friday’s protests were the largest and most diverse yet, including young and old, women with Louis Vuitton bags and men in galabeyas, factory workers and film stars.

Freedom-loving patriots of all stripes and walks of life!  They undoubtedly hope for freedom, free markets, and a life of peace seeking rapprochement with all other nations and religions.  It's the dawning of a new day.

This is the New York Times, so they follow up with a little un-Disneyfied reporting:

Street battles unfolded throughout the day Friday, as hundreds of thousands of people streamed out of mosques after noon prayers on Friday in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities around the country.

Something tells me that they're not going to have to suffer the outrageous wall of separation between church mosque and state.  Oh, snap!  If only Southern Baptists would riot just a little...

A dictator like Hosni Mubarak is like a loan from the mob.  The vig is tough to pay in the best of times.  Sometimes it might even be worth it.  But when the loan is past due, someone's going to start losing fingers.

It's hard not to sympathize with the heady feeling of Egyptians, who are no longer too afraid to shout what they want, who have reached the point where they can boil over and they know that Mubarak can't liquidate them all.  Realists on this side of the world should remember how an organic revolution worked out in Iran under similar circumstances.

All the Muslim Brotherhood has to do to topple the government might be to assassinate Mohamed ElBaradei and make it look like the secret service's work.  He's the great Western hope, a man who has worked for peace.  But radicals know - witness the Bolsheviks - that killing or marginalizing the moderates to polarize the country is a path to decisive victory over a weakened foe.  Or maybe they'll capture our embassy.  That works too.

It's no coincidence that Teapublicans in the U.S. now think Orrin Hatch is not conservative enough.  The GOP has been marginalizing anyone who ever had a moderate thought - or even listened to a moderate expression.

A shared reproach

Click image for full Pat Bagley/Salt Lake Tribune cartoon.

I do not think that word means what you think it means

The Iranian state press has fired back at Carla Bruni for daring to say that adulterers should not be stoned to death. The nerve! The mullahs' pet editorialists have pointed to Bruni's non-medieval sexual history and called her a hypocrite and a prostitute.

Bruni even deserves to die for having had sex (presumably) with more than one man. You can't say they're not consistent.

Uh, guys - and you know they're all guys, and they probably all have some secret shame, maybe even scantily clad pictures of Bruni herself - she'd be a hypocrite if she were a prostitute who favored stoning the adulterers.

There must be a deep human need to tamp down sexuality. Or maybe it's just a deep masculine need to control female sexuality. All the world's major religions stock some of their strongest taboos for sex, especially those dominated by men.

Our own founding Puritans put scarlet A's on women's clothing and locked randy people in stocks. Current fundamentalists think the word moral is solely about sex; Bill Clinton was immoral for his sexual transgressions, but Duhbya is moral despite raining death from the skies on the thinnest of pretexts and despite torturing hundreds.

Orthodox Jews are forbidden to touch their wives in their time of "uncleanness."

Conservative Muslims hide their women in shapeless bags that are even worse than the traditional habits of Catholic nuns. But note how similar the hijab and the wimple are!

Even randy adolescents have their secular ways of enforcing sexual mores on girls: Is there anything worse you can call a girl than slut?

I'm just not sure I understand what this deep-seated need is...

Make the earth move, baby

Like American conservative Christians, Iranian Islamic clerics can't be in the same room with female sexuality. Showing a little ankle under their chadors, Iranian women make the ground move for the righteous mullahs. And it's the women's fault - or Allah's - that a few square centimeters of bony flesh give them such wood that they can no longer control themselves.

What is wrong with these freaks? And how did any people allow themselves to be under their control?

Spitting into the wind

In an age of hype, bullshit, and willed credulity toward incredible claims, some people resist, among them David Aaronovitch. I'm not sure there will be enough of us.

This is telling:

There are entire societies where the default position is to believe in conspiracy theories, like in Pakistan or Iran. There are very few people in the Pakistan military, for example, who don’t believe that Bush was behind 9/11.

Our culture has succeeded because it has been willing to grapple with the actual reality, rather than sinking into the temporary comfort of wishful thinking. I often doubt that it still is.

Canonical response to bad puns

Many of my relatives, friends, and acquaintances would like to have this response in their arsenals.

Click image for full Randy Bish/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review cartoon.

Twitter twits

Click image for Matt Bors cartoon.

Situational ethics

So.

Conservatives unwittingly reveal that they actually believe that President Obama can change an adversary into a friendly liberal democracy simply by talking. Of course, it is still true that they think his words have to match their foolish posturing.

Hey, does that mullah look like Darth Cheney to you?

Click image for full Tom Tomorrow/Salon cartoon.

Where Obama's support is a negative

Iran, of course. The worst thing President Obama could have done would have been to land with both feet in open support of Mir Hossein Moussavi.

Oops! Not dust

The self-contradictory bullshit of Iranian politics show in high relief.

The ayatollahs still run things, but the state claims it's a democracy. For Ali Khamenei, the fact that the Presidential contenders all pay lip service to the reactionary 1979 revolution gives great solace. It was definitely not a liberal democracy he and his fellow theocrats were looking for.

Khamenei had already made his decision, of course. The only question for the authorities is how to pacify to population to their adherence to Stalin's maxim: The voters decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.

Oh, and the protesters are dust, according to Ahmadinejad, but then they aren't. After all, there are so many of them. Uncountable numbers.

Republican ballot-counting

Islamic Republican ballot-counting, tee-hee. Put a cleric in charge and fudge the vote-count so much that it looks like a mandate from god.

This is how it's done:

The authorities closed universities in Tehran, blocked cellphone transmissions and access to Facebook and some other Web sites, and for a second day shut down text-messaging services.

And, of course, this shows Khamenei was in on it from the beginning:

Ayatollah Khamenei closed the door to any appeals for intervention in a statement issued on state television on Saturday afternoon, congratulating Mr. Ahmadinejad on his victory and urging the other candidates to throw in the towel. “Our respected president is the president of all the people, including those who were his rivals yesterday, and they should all help and support him,” he said.

Bloodthirsty

We Americans like to think of ourselves as a peace-loving nation. We aren't.

Sure, some of us are, possibly many, maybe even a majority. Maybe not. But there's a strong current of blood lust not even a step up from savagery that runs through many Americans' violent and ugly view of the world.

Iran's nuclear ambitions? Don't ask questions. Don't talk. Don't bother with economic coercion. Attack.

To your lastpoint: eliminate their capability now, so they cannot use it later. Do not make the mistake of thinking they won't. and, talking will not get us there. --ronreganfan [sic] (4/9/2009 12:18 PM EDT)

Pirates from lawless Somalia? Don't negotiate the release of their hostages, backed by the threat of force. Attack everyone everywhere.

Yesterday, April 8th, 2009, Somali pirates attacked an American merchant ship. To the government of Somalia, I say the following: You must get contol of your population and end their piracy right now. If you don’t, we will. If ending their piracy means destroying what little there is of your sorry nation, we will destroy your sorry nation. If any Somali pirate ever again attacks an American ship, we will act accordingly. Do not appeal for mercy. Do not mistake our resolve. --camper9574 (4/9/2009 5:22 AM EDT)

Negotiation is not an option. Get Captain Phillips back safely, then take quick and severe action.
If some innocents get in the way then they should not have been in the area. --icepack (4/9/2009 7:30 AM EDT)

These idiots have no idea how vast the Indian Ocean is. (Note: I have no qualms whatsoever about defending shipping. I'm just not willing to kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out.)

North Korean missile? Never mind that Kim Jong Il is probably sick. Never mind that this society will collapse under its own weight quite soon. Attack.

Newt Gingrich says he would have disabled the long-range missile before it ever left the launch pad. --from the CNN story

Yes, the US should have bombed the launch pad as soon as the threat became known. Now the North Koreans will think they can get away with it every time. --Cameron (April 6th, 2009 4:00 pm ET)

Fortunately, many commenters on the Jack Cafferty story of Jingo Newt recognize the Republican war drumbeat for what it is.

This is what the bully faction of the conservative movement has to offer: perpetual war. Fer chrissake, in 2003, they wanted to invade France for merely verbal disagreements with the Bushists.

We're already in theater in two wars, maxed out on both our soldiers and our credit cards. If we fought all the wars the wingnuts want us to fight, we would be on a permanent war footing. And our deficits? We'd never see a balanced budget again.

The stupidest attitude of all that the bully faction of the Republican Party sweats out through every pore is that if you don't agree with their every carpet-bombing knee-jerk reflex, you must want to befriend every enemy and show America's throat to their knives.

So, of course, it's all Obama's fault that these conflicts heated up. It's all Obama's fault that he hasn't yet killed anyone. Never mind that all three of these problems have been going on for years. Nope, the wingnuts' selective amnesia prevents them from ever seeing problems in context, where those problems are more complicated.

Apologia

How about this: "I'm sorry you're a thin-skinned authoritarian idiot who doesn't understand the concept of entertainment."

Does Ahmadinejad also think we should apologize to ourselves for the U.S. movies that insult the U.S. in some chip-on-the-shoulder way? Or just for the ones that insult our intelligence?

If the latter, will the Iranians also apologize for insulting our intelligence with this demand? I'll say one thing, I won't apologize for insulting Ahmadinejad's intelligence.

Republicans sold out to Iran

If this potentially lethal technology leakage had happened under a Democratic administration, the Republicans in Congress, on the Sunday talk shows, and on hate radio would be frothing with rage over it. The media would dutifully echo the wingnut noise machine with "some have questions."

How do I know this? Remember Bill Clinton and China?

Duhbyomacy

Click image for full (week-old) Mike Luckovich cartoon.

Not that Iran's really a responsible party, but it makes a good laugh.

Duhbya has excused North Korea from the axis of evil. Could Iran be next with a get out of dutch free card? Then Duhbya will claim the conquest of the whole axis as his legacy. Sow's ear, silk purse, ah, the magic of Republican marketing.

Gotcha

The AP gives us three examples of the political game of gotcha, and not one of them originated with the usual purveyors of idiotic controversy in miniature - journalists. Instead, the story describes three controversies that fundamentally are legitimate subjects of political reporting:

• John McCain's abject ignorance of the actual timeline of the escalation in Iraq
• CBS's careful editing of an interview to avoid exposure of McCain's ignorance
• the details of Obama's willingness to meet with the ugly, awful leaders of enemy countries without precondition

The last one, the Republican one, comes closest to the usual invidious gaffe-seeking. Only a captious Republican could think that "without precondition" means "without preparation." Of course, the McCain campaign is trying to make the weak-minded think Obama meant "any time, anywhere, at the bad guys' beck and call," which is just ridiculous idiocy for ridiculous idiots, and there's no way Obama committed to anything so dumb. Still, it's useful for Obama to clarify, even though he was probably clear at the time he first said he meet with those in power in Iran.

Even more, McCain's frequent need of factual correction about what is supposed to be his signature issue ought to be at the top of the news. The guy doesn't have what it takes - unless you want four more years - and we ought to know that before we make another moronic choice.

We all remember

The rhetoric of American political campaigns, both from the candidates and the media, pretends to be tough and incisive. But it only dekes toward issues before ducking into hysteria. It exaggerates every utterance in whatever way it might be most negatively construed. My blog-buddy Winston Smith at Philosoraptor aptly calls this practice radically uncharitable interpretation.

Obama says it's worth talking to Iran, and blood and guts McCain fakes outrage, pretending that Obama said he'd happily take one of Iran's future nukes up the butt if that would start negotiations. If Americans at large had their bullshit detectors turned on, they would see this for what it is and chalk up the bullshit against its purveyor. Instead, we appear to prefer being lied to. And McCain locks himself into policy that has no alternative to violence.

Yesterday, Hillary made her now-infamous remark about RFK's assassination. People with an ax to grind or conventional wisdom to sell leapt to insinuate that she meant in her heart of hearts that, hey, she could still get lucky the way Hubert Humphrey did in 1968 if only James Earl Lee Harvey Sirhan would just do her a favor.

I think she was trying only to paint as precedented her time frame for accepting loss of the nomination. "We all remember ...," she started. She was using Bobby Kennedy's death as a memory aid, as a teacher or any speaker might find a touchstone. Her error was to use such a large fact to make such a prosaic argument. The fact's horror overwhelmed the mnemonic.

Mere mention of assassination does provoke our fears, mine anyway. Obama could be the sort of transformational figure that JFK, MLK, and RFK threatened to be before each in turn was gunned down. What would the 1960s have achieved had all three survived the decade?

There are thousands of Confederate throwbacks in this country who might take up arms against a renewal of that transformation, arms that they already own. James Earl Ray, Byron De La Beckwith, and the Philadelphia, Miss., KKK of 1964 are gone, but their hate-filled racist inheritors are still here. They have not failed to notice that Obama is a black man with a real chance to be President.

There are also thousands more Mark Chapmans, Arthur Bremers, and John Hinckleys - crippled little narcissists who kill for attention, who might again snatch chaos and defeat from the jaws of victory.

We all remember. Don't we?

Kidney punching

Republicans should be forbidden by etiquette from ever accusing someone else of cheap shots - especially when they fill their rejoinders with cheap shots.

John McCain is willing to do or say anything to be President. So of course he'd just ignore good manners, anyway.

Tool of power

Even big media apologist Howard Kurtz can't hide the obvious opinion of Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly that their role in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is to act as a propaganda tool. Fox is about O'Reilly's puerile, egotistical, bullshit form of entertainment, not about informing its audience.

It's good to see Kurtz even report this story. Of course, there are some things he does wrong. The most glaring is that he doesn't provide GE/NBC's rebuttal of O'Reilly's delusional gasbaggery until the very end of the story. I'm sure Bill himself has some investment somewhere with tendrils into Iran, so by his own logic even such a saintly one as he is killing American soldiers.

Kurtz's omissions are also glaring. He provides no background on the alleged factual error Keith Olbermann made when describing Roger Ailes as providing advice to Rudy Giuliani. Fox's non-denial denial ("If he was offering Rudy advice, you think Rudy would have done as badly as he did? No way Roger was giving him advice.") should have been counterposed against the known history of Ailes advising the Bushists.

Later, Kurtz alludes to a Kos blogger who did an ambush interview with O'Reilly. Even Olbermann criticized it. Here's the thing: O'Reilly sends his producers out all the time to ambush their prey. He's supposed to be immune to this because he's in the media? No way. We have the power now.

It has always puzzled me that Bill O's viewers can't see that everything he says needs first a sniff check for bilious bullshit - from a safe distance where you won't be overcome by fumes.

Bullshit - an acquired taste?

Oops. In two days:

• Al Qaeda leader? Not so much. More likely just another coerced "confession".
• Iranian weapons? Nope. (via Atrios and Washington Monthly)
  

Makes me miss the old, old days of Media Whores Online. Ya think the transcriptionists will ever tire of the taste of grass-fed bullshit?