Women in Basra

This report from The Guardian about the status of women in Basra (click on title, then run the video) saddens me deeply. The film of the Iraqi women, dressed in normal western garb, coming and going about their business in the 1960's, and now, out of fear, draped in those ugly coverings: How has this happened? Indeed, how have we Americans allowed our nation to revert to past injustices and constraints on freedom? Are these times a present-day version of the Dark Ages?

Startling numbers

Check out this essay revealing the astounding shift of American incomes in the last five years, with the top 5% of household incomes gaining income at unprecedented rates, while the bottom 95% has lost an average of $3,600 annually in the shift.

I'd like to see the Democratic-controlled Congress address this issue, for heaven's sake. So far, I don't think it's even on their radar.

It's as simple as ABC--Anybody but Clinton

I'm probably going to change my voter registration from Green to Democrat so I can vote in the upcoming California presidential primary. I'm now in the process of deciding which of the candidates I'll vote for. Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing my thoughts with you on this blog, as much to focus on them myself as to edify you.

My first thought is, of course, that Hillary's not the one. Here's one reason: She's almost as bad as the Republican candidates when it comes to the war in Iraq.

Fasten your seat belts

And put your money in gold. It looks like we're in for a bumpy ride.

(I especially like the reaction of the financial executive to the enormous increase in the producers' price index: "Ugh!")

A word from the wise

Juan Cole on Nancy Pelosi.

I just don't get it

Look, I'm a political science major, and I've stayed abreast of politics since college. I know that in the US Senate (under its rules, not under the Constitution, mind you) it takes 60 votes to invoke closure and therefore to force a floor vote on proposed legislation. I know, therefore, that if a measure--like the energy bill yesterday--receives "only" 59 votes for passage, those 59 votes could not cut off debate if the opponents of the bill demanded to continue. In other words, if those opposing the bill chose to filibuster the bill, they could continue to do so for eternity and thereby tie up the Senate to avoid a floor vote on the bill, which, if allowed, would pass by a simple majority vote.

My question is this: Why don't the Democrats simply keep the bill on the floor and thereby require that the Republicans filibuster the bill? Make them spend Christmas on the Senate floor, make them keep the floor for weeks and months to avoid a closure vote? Particularly in this case, where the Republicans (and one Democrat, Breaux from Louisiana) are opposed to the energy bill as it's written because it increases some taxes on the massively-profiteering oil companies.

Am I crazy here, or are the Democrats simply cowards?

I'm going out on a limb here

because I know only what's in the papers, but this FBI investigation into various affairs of the federal entity that has been reporting massive defalcations and waste and fraud in the Bush administration's Iraq "reconstruction" activities feels and smells like retribution to me. Does it to you?

One tires of asking...

"Where's the outrage?" You'd think, wouldn't you, that somebody--an American leader of the feminine persuasion such as Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi or my Representative, Lois Capps--would cry out for her gender. But no. Let the Iraqi women suffer in silence.

A fundamental question

"Are Americans really 'better than that'?"

Another day in the life

of the "improving security situation" in Iraq: 72 Iraqi civilians killed, 177 wounded.

Further to the "Bush plan" to help subprime borrowers

I realize that Paul Krugman is a "liberal" economist/journalist, but in addition to the source I cited in my previous post ("Sweet Spot, 12/07) about the effect of Bush administration's "plan" to deal with the subprime loan debacle (namely, that it's a cruel hoax and a charade) check out Krugman's analysis in yesterday's NYT. His view: That it's an ineffective, industry-driven attempt to preempt a Congressional effort to deal meaningfully with the crisis. In other words, a cruel hoax and a charade.

Iraq according to the American Empire

So this is the Bush administration's version of "success" in Iraq: a series of segregated communities and regions, patrolled by police squads and separated by checkpoints and blast walls.

A perfectly fitting ending to a perfectly horrific war.

Sweet spot

The terms of "Bush's plan" to "bail out" borrowers whose subprime loans are in danger of foreclosure is both a cruel hoax and a charade. Here's a capsule of what it really means to both mortgagors and the lenders (and those who bought the loans), namely, nothing but a worthless news headline that does nothing but create the impression that Bush is helping borrowers, when in fact the administration's position is that it doesn't care at all about those who need help, but only those who read only headlines.

An illuminating lede

Here's the first sentence of an AP dispatch from Baghdad today:


"A car bomb exploded in a largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad on Wednesday and killed at least 14 people, police said, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a visit to the capital that security and stability were within reach, although more work is needed."

(Actually, an update of the story says that 16 were killed in the bombing, and that nine more Iraqis were killed elsewhere in the country by other blasts.)

Any questions?

Old news revisited

Now that the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear proclivities has been made public, it's illuminating to revisit a month-old story about the White House efforts to delay and alter it. If you wondered why they (particularly Cheney) weren't satisfied with its conclusions, now you know.

What next?

Okay, so Hugo Chavez isn't the dictator Bush said he was, and Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons after all. What new monster will this administration create to scare us into voting out of fear? My guess: We'll have a new "terr'r alert" in the next week or so. And a monthly one from now until election day, 2008. Recall--even if Bush doesn't seem to focus on it--the "evil-doers" who caused 9/11 are still at large, and growing larger.

Winning by losing

The (narrow) defeat at the Venezuelan polls of Hugo Chavez's multifaceted constitutional initiative (it contained many provisions, not just the "president-for-life" clause that the US media focused on) must certainly gripe the Bush administration. There goes their claim that Chavez is a dictator. Now what's their counter going to be, when he repeatedly lambasts their imperial acts around the globe? And what's going to happen to all those plans of the CIA to stage a coup against him? Gone off the drawing board? Don't count on it.

Supporting the troops

If these policies, laws--and this prosecution--are indications of the mindset of our military, I'm certainly more supportive than the brass is.

Figures don't lie

The level of violence in Iraq is "leveling off," it is said. And the obesity rate in the US is too.

Could these be caused by similar phenomena: The maximum quotient of suffering has been reached?

I told you so

Here's a capsule, related by Juan Cole, Middle East expert, of the important part of last night's Republican presidential debate. (I couldn't watch the whole thing. It was beyond my tolerance. Way beyond.) It's an exchange between Congressman Ron Paul and Senator John McCain about the war in Iraq, which reveals--as Professor Cole points out--that McCain is a dangerous, demented militaristic nutcase. (My phrase, not quite his.)

During this presidential campaign--even before it began, when it became clear that McCain was going to run and was thought of as a "maverick" and a frontrunner--I've been on my soapbox, yelling about him: that I knew his history, having been in his Arizona constituency for decades, and that for all his charm and affability, he's at heart a mad warmonger. Now do you believe me?