Another Central American Coup

The military of Honduras has reportedly seized power, exiling president Zelaya at gunpoint yesterday. This follows the recent murder by the military of a leftist presidential candidate.

Obama and Hilary have reportedly been tut-tutting the coup, but given that the US has a military base in Honduras, and directly funds the pro-US parties, it is highly unlikely the coup could have occurred with prior US approval, if not direct assistance. Some things never change, regardless of who is in the White House.

UPDATE:
At this time, the State Dept has officially condemned the right-wing military coup, and there is no clear evidence that the US has conspired to oust the legitimate president. We shall see what unfolds in the next few days.

They're not quite lying...

...But they're hardly telling the truth.

Recently, I've had occasion to raise some concerns about what is arguably one of Australia's leading conservative blogs. The author of said blog is not an idiot, but holds some views that seem to me to be rather off the mark, particularly as regards modernism, feminism, and racism.

On this latter topic, I noticed these comments recently, in an apparent attempt to inflame white resentment:


Again we have the double standard. Whites are held to have wealth solely on the basis of inherited privilege...

The other problem with all the claims about white males being privileged is that it hides an underlying trend in which the real wages of white working class men have been falling since the 1970s.

It's a double whammy: you get paid less in real terms than your father did and at the same time you're told that you should be punished for being privileged - even though there are other groups doing better than you.

This is a deceptive bit of 'reframing', and both the far-right, and the more mainstream ruling elites do it all the time.

Let's take a look at the main substantive claim here, namely, that the wages of 'white working class men' have declined since the 1970s. Whilst it's technically true, it's extremely misleading. The author does not specify his source, but I presume he is referring to this data from the US, where 'real', inflation-adjusted wages peaked in 1972, only to enter steady decline thereafter, with a feeble, if temporary improvement in the late 1990s.

From this chart, we can conclude that it is not only the 'white working class' that has suffered, but all non-farm workers in the US, on average. We might just as easily claim that Black or Hispanic workers' wages have also gone down.

Now, many of the problems that conservatives note in society are genuine. There are plenty of things for people to be aggrieved about. The problem for conservatives is that they can't implicate capitalism in their grievances. This means that they are doomed to misunderstand our wages chart above. Our chart tells us that wages began to decline in the US in the wake of stagflation of the economy, the oil crisis, and the gradual abandonment of Keynesian welfarism for neoliberal economic policies.


We can see further that wages continued their decline under that cherished conservative, Reagan, whose assault on organised labour, and whose transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has since been known as Reaganomics. By the early 1980s in the US, the seeds were basically sown for the immiseration of workers thereafter, by way of the 'reforms' implemented by Reagan. No mention of this by the conservatives, however.

Furthermore, when wages peaked in 1972, union membership in the private sector was 28%. Today it is 8%. A quarter of all workers in the US earn wages that place them below the poverty line. The minimum wage in the US has repeatedly been attacked as a supposed barrier to employment. Today, it stands a third lower than it did in 1968. (source)

Meanwhile, the pay of CEOs was 26 times that of the average worker in 1965. In 1980, it was 40 times greater. By 2004, it grew to being 500 times greater (source). Clearly, as Mark Richardson said, 'some groups' are doing vastly better than others, however, this is on the basis of class, not race.

It's a shame, really, that rather than form a broad coalition seeking better rights for all, conservatives are all-too-often content to remain silent about their counterparts in power, and choose instead to scapegoat mythical 'liberals', or to indulge in the worst sort of race-baiting. Nonetheless, it has ever been thus, and this is why a better deal for all workers, white or otherwise, will never derive from the dead-end of conservatism.

'Socialism' under Obama

Some people are saying that the GFC has plunged Obama's US into socialism.



But then, some people are morons.

(Chart taken from here).

Chomsky on 2009

Here's a wide-ranging interview transcript with the indefatigable Noam Chomsky. Some highlights:

On the economy:

In fact, if you look today, it's quite striking to see the advice that the Western powers are following, the programs that they're following, and compare them to the instructions given to the third world.

So, say, take Indonesia again. Indonesia had a huge financial crisis about ten years ago, and the instructions were the standard ones: "Here is what you have to do. First, pay off your debts to us. Second, privatize, so that we can then pick up your assets on the cheap. Third, raise interest rates to slow down the economy and force the population to suffer, you know, to pay us back." Those are the regular instructions the IMF is still giving them.

What do we do? Exactly the opposite. We forget about the debt, let it explode. We reduce interest rates to zero to stimulate the economy. We pour money into the economy to get even bigger debts. We don't privatize; we nationalize, except we don't call it nationalization. We give it some other name, like "bailout" or something. It's essentially nationalization without control. So we pour money into the institutions. We lectured the third world that they must accept free trade, though we accept protectionism.

On party politics in the US:

I mean, we basically are a kind of a one-party state. I think C. Wright Mills must have pointed this out fifty years ago. It's a business party, but it has factions—Democrats and Republicans—and they're different. They have somewhat different constituencies and different policies. And if you look over the years, the population has—the majority of the population has tended to make out better under Democrats than Republicans; the very wealthy have tended to make out better under Republicans than Democrats. So they're business parties, but they're somewhat different, and the differences can have an effect. However, fundamentally, they're pretty much along the same lines.

On healthcare in the US:

I mean, for decades, the healthcare issue has been right at the top of domestic concerns, for very good reasons. The US has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs and some of the worst outcomes. It's also the only privatized system. And if you look closely, those two things are related. And the privatized system is highly inefficient: a huge amount of administration, bureaucracy, supervision, you know, all kinds of things. It's been studied pretty carefully.

On the potential for a rise in fascism:

Now, if you listen to early Nazi propaganda, you know, end of the Weimar Republic and so on, and you listen to talk radio in the United States, which I often do—it's interesting—there's a resemblance. And in both cases, you have a lot of demagogues appealing to people with real grievances.

Grievances aren't invented. I mean, for the American population, the last thirty years have been some of the worst in economic history. It's a rich country, but real wages have stagnated or declined, working hours have shot up, benefits have gone down, and people are in real trouble and now in very real trouble after the bubbles burst. And they're angry. And they want to know, "What happened to me? You know, I'm a hard-working, white, God-fearing American. You know, how come this is happening to me?"

That's pretty much the Nazi appeal. The grievances were real. And one of the possibilities is what Rush Limbaugh tells you: "Well, it's happening to you because of those bad guys out there." OK, in the Nazi case, it was the Jews and the Bolsheviks. Here, it's the rich Democrats who run Wall Street and run the media and give everything away to illegal immigrants, and so on and so forth. It sort of peaked during the Sarah Palin period. And it's kind of interesting. It's been pointed out that of all the candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one who used the phrase "working class." She was talking to the working people. And yeah, they're the ones who are suffering. So, there are models that are not very attractive.

Lazy blogging

Uncle Noam has a bit to say on the president-elect:

By usual indicators, the opposition party should have had a landslide victory during a severe economic crisis, after eight years of disastrous policies on all fronts including the worst record on job growth of any post-war president and a rare decline in median wealth, an incumbent so unpopular that his own party had to disavow him, and a dramatic collapse in US standing in world opinion. The Democrats did win, barely. If the financial crisis had been slightly delayed, they might not have.

You can find the article here.

Snippets

Rick Shenkman asks just how stupid and ignorant are his fellow Americans. Whilst Shenkman unveils a few embarrassing stats demonstrating that US citizens are far more knowledgeable about pop culture than world affairs, I suspect his argument doesn't fly. The picture he paints is not clear evidence of ignorance, still less, stupidity, (though frustrated agitators may interpret it as such). Rather, Shenkman seems to depict an abysmal disconnect between representatives and the represented, and a profound disengagement with politics on the part of the populace. These problems are not limited to the US - things differ here in Australia only in terms of degree, and we delude ourselves if we believe otherwise.

Speaking of politics - a majority of people surveyed in the US (and most other countries) believed that their nation should 'not take either side' in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the US, 71% of respondents adopted this position, a result that is hardly indicative of a dullard population in thrall to Christian Zionist lobbyists and other right-wing cranks. Incidentally, most nations apparently believed that both Israelis and Palestinians did themselves no favours in terms of resolving the conflict.

Now this position is not a 'leftist' position per se - for most leftists, it is perfectly clear who is oppressor and who is oppressed in this 'conflict'. Yes, neutrality is inherently conservative, in so far as it supports and rationalises the status quo. Nonetheless, these results show a US population that maintains rather different political perspectives compared to its elite political class. So much for representative democracy (to say nothing of at least $3 billion per annum in aid siphoned off to a militaristic Israel).

Finally, next to the US is a little country much-derided by the world's policeman. Nonetheless, in news you probably won't be reading in the mainstream media, researchers within this country claim to have developed a vaccine for lung cancer. Clinical trials were yet to be complete, but the vaccine itself will be made available to both locals and foreigners.

Neoliberalism: FAIL

We have seen before that capitalism, particularly in its neoliberal version, is a thoroughly discredited doctrine.

We have more evidence of this today:

[T]o imagine the IMF investigating the US financial system is unthinkable, or was. But, at the weekend, Der Spiegel reported that the IMF would conduct a full investigation into virtually every aspect of it...
The fact that the IMF is knocking on the very doors of its parents and waving legal papers about who lost the house, the car and the kids will, if the past is anything to go by, be buried in the US by pom-pom waving on CNBC telling all what a great time it is to buy.

But the news that the US Fed has now lost its last vestige of credibility did not end with the German report.
Part of the problem is the US media, which has for so long pretended that all is or soon will be well, a bottom is near, a recovery awaits in the second half of the financial year that will sweep away all problems, sown over decades, in a new expansion, a cycle that is ordained to come. The latest fantasy is that with the quarter's end, new profit figures will invigorate the bull, which will seed fertility.

The next President will be handed at least two wars gone horrible wrong and, by then, an economy in similar shape. The bull will have to be a particularly fertile beast. (source)

It is not for nothing that, in the US, the self-declared most powerful of nations, 36.5 million people were living in poverty as of 2006. The triumphalist flag-bearers of capitalism may some day come to realise that the 'end of history' has arrived at the door just yet.

Chomsky and the Middle East

It is next to inconceivable, within the mainstream of Western intellectual culture, that one might give a principled critique of the war – that is, the kind of critique we give reflexively, and properly, when some enemy state commits aggression: for example, when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia, or Afghanistan, or Chechnya. We do not criticize those actions on grounds of cost, error, blunder, quagmire. Rather, we condemn the actions as horrendous war crimes, whether they succeed or not.

This is taken from a recent interview, to be found here. Lazy blogging, I know, but I'm very busy.

We should all get the vote...

As I've said before.

Spot the Unfortunate Headline

The Failure of International Law

Professor Quiggin asks why charges of war crimes cannot be brought against Bush and friends.

This piece of legislation is one reason.

Before the Last Word...

I know that the recently departed Suharto, like all heroes of free market capitalism, will soon be re-baptised, and his atrocities will be forgotten (by all but the Indonesians). Thus it was for Augusto ('Sure he was a bastard, but he was good for the economy') Pinochet. So too, for Yeltsin - known in the West merely as a drunken buffoon, rather than as the man who foreclosed the possibility of a democratic Russia, all the while selling off his country's resources to KGB stooges, and Party cadres.

Naomi Klein has an excellent site that elaborates upon her equally fine book, The Shock Doctrine. Despite many dismissive reviews, I'm yet to see a serious refutation of her theses.

In any case, some interesting material on Indonesia is to be found there.

Indonesia had the biggest Communist Party in the world, with the exception of China. Ex-CIA operatives tell of the part played by the US in eliminating thousands of 'communists', from the highest offical, to village organisers.

The Indonesian economy was guided by advisors from Berkeley. The advice was unpopular amongst the people but then, I suppose that's what massacres are for.

Finally, a 1965 article from Time discusses how Muslims were armed, incited and trained by the Indonesian army and government to kill suspected communists and their families, 'by the thousands'.

Such are the costs of the 'free' market.

The Joys of Privatisation

The family of a teenage girl who died after a health insurance company delayed approving her liver transplant has accused the insurer of putting money before their daughter's life. (source)

Maybe that invisible hand isn't so 'efficient' after all.

Hypocrisy

Whilst the sabre-rattling continues in the West over the 'Iranian crisis', many of you will no doubt have seen a story about a state that comes a lot closer to genuine theocracy (I won't use the non-sequitur of a name, 'Islamofascism'), Saudi Arabia.

Iran still manages to be subject to regular scrutiny by our media and politicians, in advance of a possible strike by the US, Israel, or both.

Naturally, any such war will be presaged by a litany of 'human rights' abuses which bombing Iran will necessarily put right.

Never mind that it is Saudi Arabia's government who has defended a court's decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip. The US State Department found enough confected outrage to term this sentence 'astonishing'. Nonetheless, the Republicans, normally so astute in matters Islamofascist, could not actually bring themselves to suggest that the sentence ought to be changed.

Never mind that of the minority of insurgents in Iraq who are 'foreign fighters' attacking 'our' troops, the largest proportion come from Saudi Arabia, according to a recent report.

Never mind the fact that, despite opposition from protesters, the Anglophone world's traditional imperialists recently (and sycophantically) rolled out the red carpet for King Abdullah, head of one of the world's least democratic regimes, Saudi Arabia.

Never mind that Judaism is banned in Saudi Arabia, and Israeli passport-holders are not permitted into the country. The purportedly genocidal Iranian regime cannot get rid of its Jewish population, even when the said population is offered bribes by Israel to leave.

No. It is Iran who must be punished, by sanctions at first, by war if 'necessary'.

Right-Wing Halloweeners...

Can find some costume suggestions here.

Democracy-Building: Hint #20167

Supposing, for a moment, that we are to take the Coalition of the Willing seriously when they aver that they wish to 'build democracy' in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As we all know, the parliaments of Iraq and Afghanistan are not the prime movers of this equation. The fate of these nations rests not with Baghdad, or Kabul, but with Washington.

It therefore follows that, if we take the CoW seriously, we should be seeking to give Iraqis and Afghans the vote. In US elections. This might substantially alter some of the rhetoric and policy-making that emerges from DC.

We might go further, and argue for a US vote for all citizens whose countries host the US armed forces, or are subordinate to the US as their primary source of 'aid' and trade. This would, of course, encompass most of the world, and create a sort of global state.

The power-brokers in the US would obviously have some objections.

But then again, as a Frenchman once said, 'Nous somme tous Americains'. Leaving aside the problematic status of this 'Nous somme', this statement means, more or less, that this 'war' concerns us all. We are all 'other' to the terrorist hordes, all linked together in our primal struggle for survival, all bound by the same neoliberal logic of the marketplace.

Consequently, 'we' are all Americans now. Leaders and ideologues of the USA loudly proclaim their democratic credentials.

Is it not therefore time that we were afforded our basic democratic rights?

For the Health-Conscious...

Somewhere in the aphorisms of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche tells us that mockery, among other things, is a sign of good health.

With that in mind, I'd like to take a brief look at a blog I discovered, courtesy of this charming American 50-something.

The blog in question appears to be an unofficial fan site in honour of Republican Presidential candidate, Sam Brownback. Unfortunately, the blog does not appear to be ironic or satirical.

Of note is this particular blog entry, containing a clip of a relatively tame French music video, accompanied by the moderate heading - 'Why France is our Enemy'.

Being partly disposed to Francophilic tendencies myself, I though I'd peruse just why France is to be deemed an enemy of the USA, especially on the basis of a single music video:

This is the pinnacle of French culture- a debauched and depraved
temptress cavorting about for the tittilation of the vilest and most sinful
instincts within us.

Methinks he doth protest too much. And I'm sure the French themselves might argue that they have other cultural highlights than obscure music videos.

Until the French language and culture are exterminated, our culture and
our way of life will weaken under their relentless attack. France is our true
enemy. We must never forget this, nor can we forgive them for weakening our
culture and values enough that Al Qaeda could find a way to attack
us.

Despite the professed Christian leanings of the blog, one wonders if its author was under the influence of mind-altering drugs at the time of wondering, in light of the profound distortion of causality at play here. One also wonders whether the authors drug-induced paranoia has led him to dream up a cartoonish amalgam of striped-shirt wearing, accordion-playing, cheese-eating surrender terrorists.

Nonetheless, in the comments, astute and even-handed readers respond to the authors' call for genocide:

Sweet Jesus! I have never seen such a blatant attempt to push the gay
life style down mainstream societies’ throat than this video. It makes my blood
run cold thinking of the number of young men who despoiled themselves watching
this brunette cavort about in a tight dress and take their first step on the
road to drag queen hell. If this is what passes for entertainment over their
France well no wonder they don’t have the stones join us in the war for Freedom
against the Iraqis. This move is a blade out to slice off the manhood of any guy
who watches it.

Ah, not only are the terrorists French, they're also gay...

The author responds to readers' concerns (in bold):

“That video is one of the most depraved things I have ever seen in my
entire life. Why did you show us that, Sisyphus?”
I’m sorry, Marcia. I felt
it was important that we should know what we’re up against- harlots and
temptresses.
“Without French culture we would not have Les Miserables, The
Three Musketeers, Monet, Manet, Notre Dame etc etc.”
You call that culture?
Flush it all down the toilet and give me a decent movie like The Passion any
day.
“Why is this video so troubling? The girl doesn’t reveal anything; aside
from the short cut at the legs, even the costume is fairly conservative. She’s
just singing.”
And undulating her body in a lewd and suggestive manner. It’s
a criminal offense in most jurisdictions of America.
“Now look at Madonna:
for her entire career her specific goal was to push the buttons of traditional
values and spit at the boundaries she saw imposed on women. And she was
American! If you penalize the French on this one, look at home for more
disturbing “troubles”.”
Madonna never would’ve gotten away with that if not
for centuries of French culture leading up to it.

By my way of thinking, even The Passion is surely too lewd, containing as it does well-known Euro-hussy Monica Bellucci. Give me Charlton Heston anytime...

And on it goes. Read the whole thing if you've got time, and feel a need for a good laugh. Elsewhere on the blog, the author calls for the US to overthrow its erstwhile ally, Turkey.

Of course, we in Australia have our share of RWDB freaks, known by a range of traditional terms. We have Fred Nile and the Australia First Party in politics, Andrew Bolt and Janet Albrechtson in the media, and Tim Blair and Iain Hall on the intertubes.

Still, it's nice to know that things could be even worse.

Hall the Half-wit (Can he fix it?)

In response to a post from yesterday, about the Iranian president's visit to the US, serial cyber-pest Iain Hall has decided to go on the warpath again.

Hall tends to have a circle of bloggers he calls 'leftist' whom he reads, and attempts to critique. The present author appears to be one such blogger, though given Hall's refusal to actually debate on my blog, one can only conclude that he is attempting to drum up hits for his pathetic blog.

Debating on Hall's blog is amusing, given the poor arguments in Hall's arsenal, and the nutters who rail to his defence. Nonetheless, I've been placed on moderation, meaning that my comments do not appear on his blog until some hours later. This is hardly helpful to open and honest debate.

Before responding to Hall's imbecility, it may be worth reminding readers of some of my principal objections to his garbage. Hall's opinions are similar to those of many pig-ignorant hicks, but he is a special case for a number of reasons. These can be summarised as follows:

1. He has repeatedly embarked upon cyber-stalking campaigns, and threatened to expose the identity of pseudonymous bloggers with whom he has poitical disagreements.
2. He actively promotes and endorses the sentiments and output of fascist bloggers (such as AWH).
3. Virtually all of Hall's 'arguments' are cobbled together from the off-cuts of Melbourne's village idiot, Andrew Bolt.

Further background on Hall can be found here. Despite Hall's absolute refusal to acknowledge an debating positions other than his own, confronting his idiocy can be a useful exercise, if only so that his audience can discern how laughable his views are.

Now for some retorts to a retard:

Hall begins by saying:

Hap has been on holiday and despite being of the leftist greenie persuasion
he went on one of those environmentally nasty overseas holidays on one of those
polluting aeroplanes. So take a bow my Marxist friend and accept responsibility
for the many hundreds of tons of extra CO2 that you have paid to add to the
atmosphere.

I've never described myself as a 'greenie', nor written a post on the environment. Still, nobody would expect honest argument or serious debate from this species of rightard, who still apparently believes that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy.

In the post, I explain that my attention is focused on the US reaction to Ahmadinejad's visit, not the relative virtues of the man himself. This latter topic has been the subject of much attention, and I provided the reader with a couple of links should they want some background. Preambles notwithstanding, Hall responds:

See how he, quite neatly, sidesteps any serious considerations of this evil
little man so that he can clear the decks to get a good swing at his actual
topic?

Since it is my blog, I would have thought I was entitled to 'get a good swing' at my 'actual topic'. Also, see how, quite clumsily, Hall sidesteps any 'serious considerations' of Ahmadinejad by summarily dismissing him as an 'evil little man'.

In my post, I made it perfectly clear that I did not regard Ahmadinejad or Iran as democratic in any satisfactory sense. Whilst elections are held, I'm well aware that candidates are picked from a limited field, state censorship is rife, and the regime engages in many practices that human rights agencies regard as abuses. For this reason, I don't give Ahmadinejad any praise, and I don't think any progressive person can. Having said that, the hypocrisy of Ahmadinejad's detractors was my topic, not Ahmadinejad himself. Ahmadinejad has been subject to a significant misinformation campaign in the West, primarily as a result of his supposed anti-US leanings. Observers will note that pro-US Islamic regimes with worse track records than Iran (particularly Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan) are routinely ignored by the Western media.

In any case, in Iran, it is not Ahmadinejad who sets the agenda on foreign or nuclear policy, but rather, the Ayatollah. Hall doesn't seem to have got this far in his 'thinking', if his tortured neural spasms even deserve the term.

Hall continues:

People are naturally outraged the president of one of the world most
significant state sponsors of the Islamists wanted to “pay his respects ” at
ground Zero.

Actually, I don't think any state has sponsored more terrorism than the US in recent years. This is why I wanted to write about the hypocrisy of US reaction. Ostensibly, Ahmadinejad was 'paying his respects'. As a politician, he may well have been doing this for cynical propaganda purposes, but such use of 9/11 is routinely made by US politicians themselves. Unless Hall is a mind-reader, I'm not sure how he can assess the Iranian president's sincerity.

There is no doubt that most of the ordnance used in roadside bombs is
coming from Iran. It is also clear that Iran has been providing a great deal of
practical support and training to the Shia in Iraq. Iran clearly is not the only
supporter of the “insurgency” but to suggest that it is not a significant player
is to tell a lie.

No doubt to whom, Hall? As you can find in my previous Iraq posts, and on several bloggers in my links list, the Iraq insurgency is largely composed of Iraqi nationalists, not foreign fighters, Iranian or otherwise. The US itself has been providing a 'great deal of support' to all sorts of unsavoury groups within Iraq, Shia and Sunni. If Iran is a 'significant player', perhaps this is because, unlike the US, Iran is a neighbour to Iraq, and is directly subject to the outcome of war in Iraq. In Hallworld (also known as Noddyland), only the US are permitted to act in their perceived national interests, irrespective of where those interests may lie.

In my post, I compared Iran with Saudi Arabia, and suggested that the former got a 'bad rap', whilst the latter tended to receive a 'pass' in the Western media. Hall disagrees:

Err no Iran and Saudi Arabia are both theocratic states that are both
pernicious in their own ways but I seriously doubt that you could draw the
differences a broadly as suggested by Hap. In any case the Saudi’s don’t want
the bomb, as Iran clearly does.

Many things are 'pernicious' in Hallworld. Hall might have noted that Iran's leaders have repeatedly and explicitly said that they do not want 'the bomb'. Perhaps they ought not to be believed, but any honest person should be capable of noting that Iran is surrounded by a series of dubious nuclear powers (US-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Israel). Iranians would possibly have to be considered insane if they didn't want 'the bomb'. Nonetheless, if Hall has 'clear' evidence of Iran wanting nuclear weapons, he might wish to pass it on to the UN, US, and Israel, since these guys don't seem to have any definitive evidence themselves.

Hall opines:

You see in Haps Universe it is the USA that is the greatest threat to
the world. None the less he is happy to enjoy the fruits of American technology
like the plane that few him to is tropical holiday or the operating system on
his computer but he would soon realise the error of his ways were he to be
obliged to pray five times a day by the regimes that he clearly thinks are more
virtuous than the USA.

Actually, the US has behaved more violently and aggressively than any other nation since WWII, so yes, it is the 'greatest threat to the world'. This does not prevent people from within the US making a variety of important contributions to the world. Most people can distinguish between a government and its people, and since I regard the US as a pseudo-democracy in any case, I don't hold the US people solely accountable for their government's atrocities. Furthermore, I didn't claim that Iran was 'more virtuous' than the USA. Discussions of virtue are for the preachers in any case. Iran's record on foreign policy is positively saint-like compared to the records of Nixon, Kissinger, Bush, and others. These facts somehow seem to escape Hall, who, to my knowledge, has never once managed to criticise US foreign policy, no matter how bloody or self-interested it is. To that end, I briefly remarked upon US misadventures in Asia and Latin America, to which Hall responded:

I would dearly love to know what part of the globe is now totally blank
because the last time that I looked the map of the world was still intact. Of
course Hap ignores the pernicious influence of his beloved Marxism and the
necessities of the cold war, that have been long gone now.

The first line is mere gibberish that can be safely discarded. As for the 'cold war' - it wasn't 'cold' for the millions of people destroyed by it. I would like to see Hall explaining its 'necessities' to the Cambodians who were carpet-bombed, to the Vietnamese who still have quantities of Agent Orange in their breastmilk, to the Hungarians who were ignored and left to die during their 1956 uprising, to the Chileans who had a democratic leader overthrown, to the Salvadoreans who were raped, tortured, or assassinated under the US-backed junta, or to the Nicaraguans dodging sea and landmines laid by US-sponsored terrorists. Or, to look at more recent examples, perhaps Hall could explain the 'necessities' of US foreign policy to the Pakistanis and Saudi Arabians, oppressed by US-backed tyrannies, or to the democracy protesters gunned down in resource-rich Uzbekistan, or to the Iraqis trying to avoid the horrors of white phosphorous, or to the Colombians who 'disappear' for the heinous crime of joining a trade union antithetical to US interests.

Hall does not stop here, however:

What is ridiculous about students protesting about a particularly bad
regime that hangs young women for the “crime ” of being raped? What is
ridiculous about protesting against the leader of a nation that makes being Gay
a capital offence? Hap appears to suggest that unless “human rights” are
universally observed that protest against any particularly nasty regime is
ridiculous. To my mind THAT makes Hap’s whole argument ridiculous.

To use a Christian expression, it does seem rather 'ridiculous' to point out the splinter in your brother's eye, whilst ignoring the log in your own. I'd have thought the anti-Iranian protesters would have more influence objecting to the regimes that are as bad or worse than Iran, but who receive support from the US government. After all, Iran is not beholden to the US for its policies (and this, no doubt, is its principal crime, in the eyes of Western commentators).

Never mind the fact that Hall's oeuvre largely consists of limpwristed attacks against minorities and their rights, whether these minorities consist of gays, women, 'leftists', or Muslims.

And yes, I do think that 'rights' need to be 'universal'. How quaint and quixotic of me, not to make moral exceptions when 'friendly' regimes engage in murder and plunder.

I also claim, in passing, that the US executes and imprisons a vast number of its citizens, and that it is, relatively speaking, an unsafe place in parts. I cited a recent study in support of this claim. Hall doesn't seem to like this:

One has to ask by what measure is Hap making such claims about the
cities in the USA? In any case if we were to group enough of these third world
cities together to equal the population of the United States would we have a
violent crime more often than the twenty two seconds of the piece quoted by our
friend Hap? I some how doubt it. This is typical of the foolishness and
falseness that you can get when you base the entirety of your argument on some
statistical snippet ,as Hap does here.

I'm happy to put statistics aside, and am also happy to aver that Saigon is safer than Detroit, and Vienna is safer than LA. I'd have hardly thought that this was a revelation. In any case, this is largely peripheral to the gist of my discussion, but just highlights the extent to which Hall is clutching at ever-diminishing straws.

Hall's tirade doesn't stop there, folks:

Just how can Hap claim that the outrage of these protesters is not real?
This is a wonderful example of our would be revolutionary projecting his own
prejudices upon the subject of his approbation. Can we really expect anything
different from someone who is so inculcated with the pernicious ideology of Marx
and Lenin?

Putting aside Marx and Lenin, and all their 'perniciousness', my post was grounded on facts, not revolutionary theory. It's particularly amusing how the rightards use and abuse the term 'projection', as if any of them had ever read Freud. It's abused almost as frequently as the term 'existential'. Perhaps that will be the topic of another post, namely, the intellectual bankruptcy of the Tories.

If I may ask my readers for one last display of patience, Hall goes on to conclude:

I must say that Haps conclusion gave me a much-needed belly laugh this
morning. Firstly, using Wikipedia, he cites a contentious court case as proof
that the USA is a land of bigotry , yet this case is still subject to appeal
through the courts and from what I have read is not as simple as Hap wants to
believe, then he cites the long dead “Jim Crow ” laws, again from Wikipedia. But
by far the most amusing is his citing of a piece from Gay news about the
treatment of homosexuals in the USA. This is hilarious when you consider that
Homosexuals in Iran face not discrimination as they do in some parts of the USA
but death at the end of a rope; When asked about Homosexuals in Iran Ahmadinejad
said that there were none. Of course this is because they have been killed or
will be if they dare “come out”. I could not think of a more ironically stupid
way of trying to suggest that the USA is morally inferior than all other places
and cultures on the planet. Can you dear reader?
So in conclusion just what
has Hap given us? From where I sit it seems that he has given us another of his
ANTI-USA rants that is long on prejudice and hypocrisy but very short on a
nuanced understanding of either political reality or the true nature of
humanity. Hmm, sounds like situation normal for the far left.

There's plenty of evidence that the US is rife with bigotry, and is probably more 'fundamentalist' than either Turkey or Malaysia, for instance (though not, in fairness, more whacky than the mullahs of Iran). You can find evidence for this in studies, for instance, or even in last week's episode of The Chaser, where US respondents reported it would be a good idea for Muslims to be forced to identify themselves, with tattoos if necessary. One can only hope that that segment was a 'set-up'.

The Jim Crows laws are not so far removed from the experience of many Black Americans, which is precisely why we have seen such a strong reaction to matters of race in Jena. We must remember that the laws in question were state-sanctioned racism, dissolved a relatively short time ago. The laws themselves were not radically different to the 1935 Nuremberg laws. Germany has come clean about its past, and has attempted to make amends. The US, and its blind and ardent supporters (like Hall), have done no such thing.

Obviously, I have no interest in showing the US to be 'morally inferior'. My point was simply focused on the hypocrisy of the protesters, and the idiotic response of conservative pundits. Their pious wailing in the name of 'human rights' would be akin to apartheid-era White South Africans complaining about Black rights in the US.

In short, Hall has produced another misguided attempt to draw readers to his blog, and to ignite further flame wars. All of this I would accept in good humour, if not for Hall's continued and baffling support of bigots and would-be fascists. Until Hall can redeem himself by renouncing his endorsement of such scum, it is only fitting that he be treated as the unprincipled cretin he is.

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!

Much attention is being given to the visit that Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has undertaken to the US. I won't waste my time debating the relative merits or possible purposes of this visit, or indeed, the relative merits of Ahmadinejad himself. Ken L of Surfdom has already provided a pretty reasonable summary of reactions thus far (here and here).

Needless to say, nobody on either side of politics is holding up Ahmadinejad as a poster-boy for democracy. Even if they did, this would be largely irrelevant, given that the Ayatollah is the supreme ruler of Iran in any case.

What's amusing is the hypocrisy that has accompanied this little visit by the Iranian. Ahmadinejad wanted to visit the site of the September 11 attacks, and bleeding-heart conservatives united with cruise-missile liberals in the collective victimhood (and amnesia). Naturally, this sense of victimhood is predicated on the (false) notion that Iran is behind the insurgency in Iraq. Or else, these US victimologists justify their pious outrage on the pretext of Ahmadinejad's alleged human rights abuses. No doubt such abuses have occurred in Iran, but it is noteworthy that this latter country receives far more indignation than does Saudi Arabia, the rulers of whom make Ahmadinejad look like Gandhi.

As is often the case, the most amusing quotes came from Dr Condoleezza Rice, who said that any attempt by Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero would have been a 'travesty'. She explained:

"I think this is somebody who is the president of a country that is
probably the greatest state sponsor of terrorism, someone who is a Holocaust
denier, someone who has talked about wiping other countries off the map," Rice
told an interview with CNBC television network. (source).

At least Rice managed to get her first 12 words right.

If being the 'greatest state sponsor of terrorism' was a universal criterion for say, denying visas to the aggrieved countries, then post-WWII US politicians might find much of Latin America, South-East and Central Asia and Africa off their travel itineraries. Furthermore, whilst Ahmadinejad might (supposedly) talk of 'wiping other countries off the map', the US remains the only post-WWII power to have put this policy in practice, repeatedly.

The most ridiculous sight of all was that of the Columbia University students protesting Iran's human rights record. (Remember, 'human rights' only becomes an issue with regimes that our Government's don't like. Hence the silence about Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan, or Colombia, or numerous others).

Many of the world's cities, including in the Middle East, and particularly in Asia and Europe, are safer and no more discriminatory than cities in the US. Iran, with its addiction to state censorship, is hardly a stellar example these days, but it still does not imprison and execute its citizens on anywhere near the same scale as the good ol' US of A.

But we should let the protesters enjoy their faux-outrage, and give our blessing to this rare and pious unity of 'conservative' and 'liberal'.

After all, the US is the paragon of democracy - land of the free, home of the brave.

On Liberty (At Gunpoint), and Collaborators

Only the fanatics and die-hard ideologues persist in apologetics for the Iraq War any longer. Not so in the case of Afghanistan, whom many, including the 'cruise missile liberals', believe is a 'just war', a legitimate response to the events of 11/9. Americans were justifiably upset; unfortunately, the wounds of the terrorist attack quickly festered until somebody, somewhere, hat to be hit. The War on Terror would commence, but to kick it off, some brute vengeance was needed. Afghanistan served as the piñata.

After the crime of September 11, the Taliban, presumed to be hiding Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, were given a series of ultimatums by Bush (20/9/2001):

By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And
tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:
-- Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Al Qaeda who
hide in your land.
-- Release all foreign nationals, including American
citizens you have unjustly imprisoned.
-- Protect foreign journalists,
diplomats and aid workers in your country.
-- Close immediately and
permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every
terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate
authorities.
-- Give the United States full access to terrorist training
camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are
not open to negotiation or discussion.

Understandably, the Taliban requested some proof of bin Laden's involvement in the crime, prior to opening their borders to foreign troops. This supposed recalcitrance on the part of the Taliban, and the alleged lack of a non-violent means of securing bin Laden, served as the pretext for war. It is now clear that the Taliban were, in fact, prepared to extradite bin Laden to Pakistan for prosecution, a fact usually lost on the Eustonites, and other apologists for murder. The Taliban even offered to try bin Laden under Afghanistan's (Islamic) laws, as the US would no doubt seek to do with its war criminals.

By October 7, 2001, Afghanistan was being bombed. The Taliban again attempted to negotiate with the US, offering to hand over bin Laden should American bombing cease. Bush preferred to keep bombing than to have bin Laden, and added, in relation to the Taliban's request for proof of bin Laden's guilt:'There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty'.

So the war continued, and has to this day, with thousands of civilians killed, and no signs of the imminent capture of bin Laden. Even Al-Jazeera's Kabul offices were destroyed; this is more or less the equivalent of bombing the Fox News Network of the Arab world, assuming that Fox had actual journalists.

Yet what a history lessons when a war is 'just', particularly a good, democratising, humanitarian war? With shades of Noel Pearson's comments last week, namely, that critics of the Iraq war were 'willing failure', so too did Christopher Hitchens aver that America's Democratic Party, and other critics of the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are apparently 'defeatists' who are 'rooting for bad news'.

It is in that light, then, that the past few days have brought more bad news, and certainly more 'rooting'. US and NATO forces have even killed more Afghan civilians this year than the insurgency:

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance
Force, blamed the insurgents for hiding in areas populated by civilians, who are
then killed during attacks against militants, but he said "that does not absolve
ISAF of the responsibility of doing all it can to minimize civilian
casualties."
On Saturday, [Afghan President] Karzai accused NATO and U.S.-led
troops of carelessly killing scores of Afghan civilians and warned that the
fight against resurgent Taliban militants could fail unless foreign forces show
more restraint.
"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as
such," Karzai said angrily.
The mounting toll is sapping the authority of the
Western-backed Afghan president, who has pleaded repeatedly with U.S. and NATO commanders to consult Afghan authorities during operations and show more
restraint.
Karzai also denounced the Taliban for killing civilians, but
directed most of his anger at foreign forces. (source).

More humanitarian intervention was evidenced during recent air bombardments in the southern province of Helmand, where it is estimated that over 50 civilians died. Meanwhile, the CIA continues to dole out millions in cash and arms to Afghan warlords, and the decidedly undemocratic Pakistani government, and Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, pledged that Australia's involvement in the region would be for 'as long as necessary'. He noted (and dismissed) the recent spate of civilian casualties:

It is very, very foolish for any person of goodwill to try to create some
sort of moral equivalence between NATO and what the Taliban does. (source).

Naturally, the equivalence is not to be found: the Taliban are a brutal regime who do their killing via bombs, and hand-to-hand fighting; whilst the US and NATO do it 'surgically', with tanks and planes. Moral outrage at 'Western' brutality, is therefore quite out of the question, especially as regards this, the most 'just' and 'necessary' of humanitarian interventions.

It is apt that the chicken hawks who condemn any anti-war Westerner invoke pre-World War II analogies, by referring to their ideological opponents as appeasers. Putting aside the fact that the Nazi war machine was nothing remotely like the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, perhaps we who oppose these wars could accurately term the chickenhawks as 'collaborators', propagandising invasion and ongoing invasion, in the manner of the most contemptible Vichy stooge.

Leaving Afghanistan for the moment, and turning to Iraq, two US soldiers have been charged for these charming little incidents:

Staff Sergeant Michael Hensley was charged with three counts of
premeditated murder, obstruction of justice and of wrongfully placing weapons
beside the dead bodies in an apparent attempt to cover up the crimes.
Specialist Jorge Sandoval was charged with one count of premeditated murder
and with putting a weapon by the body. (source).

But hey, who said democracy was meant to be easy? Perhaps, with a view to avoiding charges of 'moral equivalence', the US might consider having the said soldiers tried by the Iraqis themselves. But this would imply a degree of moral reciprocity, and for a Coalition that assumes its exceptionalism is self-evident and axiomatic, such things simply won't do.

Afghanistan remains on the brink of being a 'failed state', even according to the Americans, and bin Laden and the Taliban are still at large. At least the US thirst for post 11/9 vengeance was sated, albeit temporarily, and 'power' implied in the name of the world's last 'superpower' finally had an opportunity to vaunt itself.


UPDATE: The Age has a few things to say about Afghanistan and civilian casualties.