Beyond Bomb Pops

Remember the militaristic red, white, and blue missile-shaped Bomb Pops? Now Star Spangled Ice Cream is one-upping them. Sick of donating to "liberal" causes through the purchase of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (like those bleedin' heart programs for inner-city youth, organic farmers, and illiterate kids), two conservative entrepeneurs have started making ice-cream that supports conservative causes (i.e. the military). With names like "Nutty Environmentalist" and "I Hate the French Vanilla," they're sure to corner the kooky, rich right-wing market (a gallon costs $76). But they seem to be leaving a few flavors out. "Ku Klux Flan" was one suggestion I came across in the site's mailbag. But how about "Bush's Key Lyin' Pie" (see previous post about the Pentagon's--ahem--fudging of intelligence on WMDs). Or perhaps "Reagan Rum Raisin" (the ice cream that won't trickle down!). Maybe that's overthinking things. After all, what's more uncomplicated, bland, and white than...Vanilla?

Lying for war's sake

The Bush Administration has a serious credibility problem. One day, Donald Rumsfeld tells the world that US claims that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction--the entire aegis for the war, mind you--was based on "good intelligence." The very same day, a secret transcript revealed that Colin Powell and British foreign secretary Jack Straw, during a February 5 meeting at theWaldorf Hotel in New York, admitted that the US-UK WMD claims couldn't be proven and were based on "assumptions." At the UN on February 5, Powell gave a very different assessment to the UN, offering an impassioned plea for war with Iraq based on intelligence gathered by "people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam is really up to." Let's not forget that the "good intelligence" Rumsfeld defends and the death-defying intelligence work Powell spoke of actually included a 10-year old graduate thesis they plagiarized and dubious information obtained from Iraqis on the Pentagon payroll. Now criticism is mounting that the US manipulated the data to support their war claims. Patrick Lang, a former director of Middle East analysis at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said of information on Iraq's supposed WMDS, the Pentagon "started picking out things that supported their thesis... It's political propaganda." Baroness Williams, Leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, said yesterday: "As new and disturbing facts emerge, the war on Iraq begins to look more like a tragic mistake ... It is very depressing to see our fears confirmed."

Hollywoodizing September 11

A personal friend of Karl Rove has produced a made-for-TV movie about the Bush Administration's version of their response to September 11. The Globe and Mail writes that "compared with other journalistic accounts of the period, the movie is clearly an effort to reconstruct Mr. Bush as a determined and principled military leader. The public image of Mr. Bush — who avoided military service in Vietnam and who has often been derided as a doe-eyed naif on satirical TV shows — is a key concern to White House communications officials, many of them friends of [the film's creator] Mr. Chetwynd." To air nationally in September, it depicts a hyperbolically decisive president:

"If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me! I'll be at home! Waiting for the bastard!"

His Secret Service chief seems taken aback. "But Mr. President . . ."

The President brusquely interrupts him. "Try Commander-in-Chief. Whose present command is: Take the President home!"

The reality is far more complicated and far less flattering. Which makes it more curious why, going into his re-election campaign, the president has classified--or, in MSNBC's word, censored--key Congressional reports on 9/11. (Via Cursor)

Big. Smelly.

The world's biggest flower is now in bloom in Bonn, Germany. More than 2.7 meters tall, the Titan Arum is also known as "the corpse flower" for its heinous bug-attracting stench.

Love, Whole Foods-style

When workers at a Madison, Wisconsin Whole Foods Market decided to unionize, the corporate CEO sent out a memo calling the decision "a very sad chapter in the history of Whole Foods Market... Madison made a mistake in their choice. It may take time for them to realize it, but I believe that they eventually will. We all make many mistakes in life. It is all part of our growth process because that is how we learn, that is how we grow. When confronted by great stress in life, we have but only 2 choices: 1. Contract into fear. 2. Expand into love." But love isn't what pro-union workers at the 143-store chain have gotten: some have been fired (they say illegally), some have been assaulted, some threatened. Now the New York Times is reporting on the anti-union efforts of the "Wal-Mart of Natural Foods." (Via Cursor)

News we could lose

US plans death camp in Cuba: According to Major-General Geoffrey Miller, the Pentagon has been toying with the idea of turning Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, so that prisoners held there (680 suspects held for 18 months without charge) can be tried, convicted and executed without having to leave the country.

Amnesty International states the obvious: the "war on terror" has left people more scared than any other time in post-Cold War history. The report says: "The 'war on terror', far from making the world a safer place, has made it more dangerous by curtailing human rights, undermining the rule of international law and shielding governments from scrutiny."

Counting bodies: "We don't do body counts," Tommy Franks said famously during the war on Iraq. Others do, and the counts aren't promising. While some organizations put civilian deaths from the war as low as 1,600, others go well over 7,000. And among Iraqi soldiers, the death toll is between 13,500 and 45,000.

Precision advertising

I wouldn't usually praise a TV ad but this European commercial for Honda Accord creates an amazing series of Rube-Goldberg-meets-Fischli-&-Weiss reactions. I'm told it's one continuous shot, the result of 606 takes. (Link requires Flash 6.)

An army for peace?

Mel Duncan, founder of the Nonviolent Peace Force, is selling peace bonds to raise funds to train, pay, and send nonviolent peace workers into war-stricken areas around the globe. Unlike other peace intervention groups, this one is not "about creating martyrs"; they train workers in nonviolent negotiations, human rights monitoring, and other skills. Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, the group has offices in Belgium, Ecuador, India, Canada, England and San Francisco and more than 12,500 supporters in 47 countries. The sale of 100,000 "peace bonds"--at $10 a pop--will help fund the group's pilot project to send 15 workers to Sri Lanka for a three-year stint. Sri Lanka's 19-year old civil war has killed more than 65,000 people and displaced 1.6 million.

The Only-in-Minnesota Quote of the Day:

"People respect the crap out of somebody going 40 miles an hour on a lawn mower."

Our president went to war and all we got was this lousy economy!

Downloadable posters, stickers, animated gifs, handbills and more, all free of charge at Stop George in 2004!

Quoth Neil Young:

The reaction to France that the administration allowed to happen is so immature. These people have their own opinion - they're French! They're not fuckin' Americans, they're French ! Vive la difference, hello? And this big deal about Bush landing on an aircraft carrier? Talk about a six-year-old kid with a Tonka toy - we got it here.

From The Guardian

The F Word

Before you call someone a fascist, it's good to define your terms. Fascism, writes Ben Tripp, is "an extreme right-wing ideology which embraces nationalism as the transcendent value of society." Further, fascism relies on fundamentalist revolutionary ideas, it's defined through xenophobia, militarism, and supremacist ideals, it employs "mythic beliefs such as divine mandates, racial imperatives, and violent struggle." His point? Bush and his merry band of neoconservatives are fascists, "and they make Mussolini look like a mezzafinook." He writes:

[T]here are three sacred lines with regard to American democracy that can never be crossed: the line between privilege and power, the line between Church and State, and the line between civilian and military leadership. Cross any of them, and you're at fascism's doorstep. Cross two, you're on the threshold with your hand on the doorknob.

George W. Bush, son of unimaginable privilege, crossed the first line when he was selected to be president by the Supreme Court and accepted the job. He crossed the second line when he revealed his divine imperative, such as when (after the disaster of 9/11) he spoke of being "chosen by the grace of God to lead at that moment." (attributed by Tim Goeglein, deputy director of White House public liaison and a barrel of laughs at any party.) When George climbed out of that airplane in his shiny new war suit, he didn't just carry his own cute little self across the deck: son of privilege, chosen of God, and wearing a military uniform, he passed through the doorway from mere wickedness to fascism. Our struggle in the time ahead is to resist the urge to follow him.

Embedded reporter catches flak

A journalist embedded in Baghdad with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) writes in Editor and Publisher about the two wars fought in Iraq: one he witnessed and wrote about and one Fox News covered. While Fox showed celebrating Iraqis tearing down statues of Saddam, Ron Martz witnessed and reported on "bloody street fighting in Baghdad." Many of the countless letters Martz received from readers questioned his patriotism, ancestry, and sexual orientation--and one woman suggested he tune into Fox News to get unbiased news coverage!

The criticism was not limited to me. They even criticized soldiers for doing what all soldiers do - complain. When I voiced complaints from soldiers about lack of mail, water, and spare parts, they were called "whiners" and "crybabies." And when I quoted one soldier who had been under fire almost daily for four weeks complaining about faulty intelligence, one reader suggested he be stripped of his uniform and sent home in disgrace.

A friend recently told me she believes TV has significantly "dumbed down" the American public and lowered the collective IQ. After seeing and hearing the public reaction to this war, I am beginning to believe she is right.

I thought embedded print journalists were doing the public a service by giving them a close-up, personal view of the war without it being filtered through military minders and censors. Apparently, the public, at least that part of the public that prefers to get its news from TV, does not want that. What they seemed to want from this war was for the coverage to fit their own biases and preconceived notions. No other views were tolerated. And TV seems in large part to have given them exactly what they wanted.

(Thanks, Andy.)

Bush: The poor aren't necessarily killers.

The president, on the link between poverty and terrorist extremism:And the poverty problem -- listen, this nation is committed to dealing with poverty. First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill.

Bilingual ordinance sign

In English and canine. (Via Boing Boing)

Siva on Adbusters

Adbusters has kindly linked to my interview with author-NYU professor Siva Vaidhyanathan on their home page (scroll down to "Culture is Anarchistic" link).

Shocking Gall: Boycott Ford

"Shock and awe"--as we all know by now--is a military euphemism for firebombing, dropping anywhere from 800 to 3,000 bombs on a country in 48 hours. But now Ford Motor Company is teaming up with country singer Toby Keith (whose song "The Angry American" includes the cornball lyrics "we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way") to cutesify the term. Keith's new tour, which will promote Ford's new F-150, will be dubbed the "Shock 'n' Y'all" tour. Yet another reason I'm glad to drive a Subaru.

Carrying a peace

Two Lutheran churches in the Twin Cities are suing the state of Minnesota for violating their religious freedom by passing the new conceal-and-carry gun bill. The law, which goes into effect next Wednesday, will allow places like churches to prohibit guns on premises, but forces them to allow guns in parking lots. This--argues Edina's Community Lutheran Church--goes against their Christian principles and the nonviolence they've been promoting since the Vietnam war. The church site also includes, adjacent the parking lot, a childcare center and playground.

It's nice to see the faithful weighing in on the antiviolence side of the debate. The Letters to the Editor section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has featured plenty of folks quoting the bible to support their right to lug a Luger (Christ said: "Let he who hath no sword, sell his cloak and buy one."). In this climate of fuzzy theology, I'm not sure how to take this letter-writer's screed:

Regarding the Legislature's recent "conceal and carry" decision, I've chosen to write a haiku poem:

If he had been armed

Jesus could have saved himself

from crucifixion.

Sell your kid to Ruffles

If you had a baby this week and chose to name it Horton-- after potato-chip maker Ruffles' 1950s mascot "Baby Horton"--you could win $50,000. Only trouble is, little Horton won't be your baby, but Ruffles'. Read the fine print:

By accepting Award, Award Recipient agrees, and agrees to confirm in writing, that Sponsor shall have the right to use Award Recipient's and Baby's name, likeness, voice, and biographical information in any and all media now known or hereinafter developed without territorial, time or other use limitations for advertising and promotional purposes (except where prohibited). By accepting Award, Award Recipient further agrees, and agrees to confirm in writing, that Award Recipient and Baby (where possible) shall take part in media events designated by Sponsor on times and dates as reasonably requested by Sponsor.

Operation Gut Privacy

The snitchily named Operation TIPS, a vast network of personal data on potential terrorists and law-abiding citizens, has been renamed yet again. First TIPS, then the ominious Total Information Awareness program, and now the Terrorism Information Awareness program, the Orwellian data tracking system is still just as scary. The Pentagon will gather information that could fill the Library of Congress more than 50 times over, stuff like passport applications, visas, work permits, driver's licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases, arrests or reports of suspicious activities. Plus it'll give federal agents access to commercial databases of financial, education, medical and housing records. Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, says that "Since 9/11, the FBI is authorized by the attorney general to go looking for information about individuals with no reason to believe they are engaged in, or planning, or connected to any wrongdoing."

Manufacturing Dissent

Rock and Rap Confidential writes that "the attack on the Dixie Chicks was a political maneuver no less calculated than the Watergate break-in." Phone calls urging radio stations to pull the Dixie Chicks from their playlists, it turns out, originated from Republican Party headquarters in Washington. And an alternative concert timed to draw crowds from the Chicks tour-opening show was organized by the Republican Party in South Carolina.

Earlier: Michael Franti's hip-hop band Spearhead has been under surveillance by the FBI for being part of the "resistance."