I'm writing this to figure out why all the talk about Reagan seems almost supernatural to me.
Even the liberals and leftists, talking about that insane ketchup, and the unimportance of redwoods, laying the wreath at Bitburg. Nobody that I've seen has mentioned the Challenger, the space-shuttle that exploded on his watch.
The Challenger, you remember, blew up in front of millions of horrified children and childlike Americans. Back in the days when disasters were entirely unexpected.
It's common knowledge in some circles that the launch of the Challenger was rushed, against the advice and in spite of the warnings of those most responsible for its safety, to bring it off on the day of Reagan's State of the Union Address. As spectacle and patriotic stimulus. A Hollywood moment.
Instead he got to be the sober father figure to a shocked nation of television watchers.
The objection that comes most readily - to those so inclined - that of course even if it were the case that pressure from the White House was applied to NASA, that it wouldn't have been Reagan doing it, it couldn't have been, is most apt in its way.
He was incapable of that level of hypocrisy, he didn't have that Nixonian split down the center of his soul.
But that's the point, he didn't have a soul. Reagan was the first of the Stepford Presidents, he wasn't any more there than Max Headroom was there. A face, a voice, an attitude, all made of light. But the thing that wrote the script he acted was purest evil, by anyone's definition.
Reagan was one of those Faustian bargain-hunters who make it a part of the deal that they never have to confront what they've done directly, never have to be seen publicly deferring to the buyer of souls.
Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe should have their names linked to Ronald Reagan's, permanently.
informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica
Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.
Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors
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9.6.04
8.6.04
6.6.04
Ipecac thoroughly nails the neo-puritans
5.6.04
"Thirteen years ago a French journalist named Alain Buu and I spent two weeks inside a cellblock at Abu Ghraib prison."
�Frank Smyth
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An important question remains for Americans to ponder: Why have most people submitted so willingly to a new political order organized around fear? Other nations have confronted terrorism of a more sustained nature without coming thoroughly unhinged. I remember living in London briefly in the 1970s, when IRA bombings were a frequent occurrence. Daily life continued with stiff-upper-lip reserve (police searched ladies' handbags at restaurants, but did not pat down the gentlemen). We can only speculate on answers. Was it the uniquely horrific quality of the 9/11 attacks? Or the fact that, unlike Europe, the continental United States has never been bombed? For modern Americans, war's destruction is a foreign experience, though the United States has participated in many conflicts on foreign soil. Despite the patriotic breast-beating, are we closet wimps? America's exaggerated expressions of fear may look to others like a surprising revelation of weakness.
We can speculate. We can speculate that the media which played such a large role in the public's passive acceptance of the bizarre circumstances of Bush's election also contributed greatly to "Why...most people submitted so willingly to a new political order organized around fear". We can speculate that the media, as it was instructed to do, scared the shit out of most Americans after 9/11 and has kept them scared shitless ever since. As it was instructed to do.
Of course it's only speculation.
There's something seriously disheartening in someone of Greider's stature and accomplishments adopting that bogus philosophical stance - the posture of the television itself as it brainwashes and hypnotizes - of the American people's having any autonomy left to exercise, that Americans still think for themselves.
They do - they're told what to think about, and who - but they do think those thoughts they're told to think all on their own.
American attitudes are shaped entirely by the media; intentionally for the most part, but as with any half-drugged subject there's a risk of things getting out of hand. The illusion everyone's afraid to shatter is that the media is some kind of non-entity, just a willing little news machine telling us about the world, instead of a deceitful, treacherous, inhuman thief - the wolf in our grandmother's dress, smiling from the bed.
Is there an unbiased, even a relatively unbiased, journalistic media anywhere in the US? Where? Certainly not on television. Magazines? Not any with a large enough circulation to be called popular. Newspapers? Are there unbiased newspapers? In what town or city?
So we can speculate.
Something's coming soon. The control freaks, the arrogant bloodless men who ran the world into a ditch will now use the tragic results of their incompetence to justify further massive change, more control, and harsher measures to cope with an increasingly harsh landscape; making those familiar tough, masculine, responsible choices, reluctantly sacrificing and trimming, assigning value to human lives as they've always done.
We can speculate on that too, though it's not as poetic and soothing as meditating on the American character.
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A new cast of leaders. Like Seinfeld. Only bigger.
"It would not seem that the President needs to consult personal counsel, thereby preserving the attorney-client privilege, if he has no knowledge about the leak"
Suffice it to say that whatever the meaning of Bush's decision to talk with private counsel about the Valerie Plame leak, the matter has taken a more ominous turn with Bush's action. It has only become more portentous because now Dick Cheney has also hired a lawyer for himself, suggesting both men may have known more than they let on. Clearly, the investigation is heading toward a culmination of some sort.
FindLaw/CommonDreams
4.6.04
"I find myself in a head to head confrontation with the army, while the public at large is jeering and mocking me from the sidelines. Right wingers see me as a traitor who is dodging the holy war that's just around the corner."
its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organisation in the world
The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th anniversary, rumours are more rife than ever.
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In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg.
In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the theory that Bilderberg pulls the strings with which national governments dance.
And while hardline right-wingers and libertarians accuse Bilderberg of being a liberal Zionist plot, leftists such as activist Tony Gosling are equally critical.
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"My main problem is the secrecy. When so many people with so much power get together in one place I think we are owed an explanation of what is going on.
Mr Gosling seizes on a quote from Will Hutton, the British economist and a former Bilderberg delegate, who likened it to the annual WEF gathering where "the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is made worldwide".
"One of the first places I heard about the determination of US forces to attack Iraq was from leaks that came out of the 2002 Bilderberg meeting," says Mr Gosling.
"The idea that such meetings cannot be held in private is fundamentally totalitarian," he says. "It's not an executive body; no decisions are taken there."
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That activists have seized on Bilderberg is no surprise to Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories.
"The idea that a shadowy clique is running the world is nothing new. For hundreds of years people have believed the world is governed by a cabal of Jews.
"Shouldn't we expect that the rich and powerful organise things in their own interests? It's called capitalism."
Jonathan Duffy/ BBC News Online May.15.04
the foreign information media
My protestations that I had not noticed this caveat, nor been alerted to it, that I had travelled to the US on many occasions, both for work and pleasure, that I had, in fact, lived there as a permanent resident and that my husband was a US citizen, as was my New York-born daughter, all fell on deaf ears.
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I requested a glass of water, which the interrogating officer brought me himself. He was a gentle, intelligent interrogator: the interview lasted several hours and consisted of a complete appraisal of my life, past and present, personal and professional.
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"How dare you treat an American officer with disrespect?" he shouted back, indignantly. "Believe me, we have treated you with much more respect than other people. You should go to places like Iran, you'd see a big difference." The irony is that it is only "countries like Iran" (for example, Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe) that have a visa requirement for journalists. It is unheard of in open societies, and, in spite of now being enforced in the US, is still so obscure that most journalists are not familiar with it. Thirteen foreign journalists were detained and deported from the US last year, 12 of them from LAX.
Elena Lappin/Guardian UK Jun.04.04
safe passage
Saudi authorities gave safe passage to three suspected Al Qaeda gunmen after the three killed 10 of the hostages they were holding at a hotel in the oil hub of Khobar, a senior security official said.
The official, speaking Wednesday on condition of anonymity, said upon hearing hostages had been killed, US officials advised the Saudis that letting the militants go would avert a bigger catastrophe.
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Officially, the Saudi interior ministry has said the three used hostages as human shields to escape Saudi commandos early Sunday and a fourth attacker, said to be the ringleader, was captured. The official said the three walked away at about 2:20am Sunday, hours before 80 commandoes landed on the roof of the hotel and began knocking on the hostages' doors to tell them they were free to leave. At 2:20am, reporters less than a block away from the Oasis Compound housing the hotel saw bullets streaking over their heads from the direction of the complex. The official said that was machinegun fire from one of two accomplices who were in a car not far from the site and were covering the three men's escape. The attackers walked across the compound, stole a van and fled Khobar to nearby Dammam, the official said. They then abandoned the vehicle for a car commandeered at gunpoint from a Saudi driver and drove off with police in pursuit. The three left behind a fourth militant because they thought he was dead, the official said. Saudi authorities had reported the gunman they had in custody was wounded. The escape of the three gunmen, who killed 22 people in a shooting rampage that began Saturday at two oil industry office compounds and ended 25 hours later at the compound, has stunned Saudis and expatriates.
Many are wondering how the militants could have slipped away in an area bristling with hundreds of troops.
Jordan Times Jun.04-5.04
people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor
The recording, obtained from the US Justice Department, are of Enron employees apparently scheming to shut down power plants as California's electricity prices went sky-high.
"If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?" Enron worker said on the recording played by CBS.
"Oh, it' s not something you want to just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way," another says.
"Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down?"
CBS said a public utility in Snohomish, Washington, near Seattle had obtained the tapes from the Justice Department.
"This is the evidence we've all been waiting for. This proves they manipulated the market," a utility spokesman told CBS.
The utility is one of thousands of people and businesses who would like to get their money back.
"This is the evidence we've all been waiting for. This proves they manipulated the market"
"They're [expletive] taking all the money back from you guys? All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?" asks an Enron trader on the tapes.
"Yeah, grandma Millie, man," said another. "Yeah, now she wants her [expletive] money back for all the power you've charged ... for [expletive] 250 dollars a megawatt-hour."
Aljazeera Jun.03.04
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Accenture, which is, after a name-change, the consulting firm Arthur Andersen, which is an Enron co-conspirator, is now in charge of all data related to anyone officially entering and leaving the US. These don't seem immediately related, but they are. Accenture is running BC Hydro, which is the formerly publicly-owned utility of British Columbia.
3.6.04
Formerly known as Andersen Consulting [Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that polished things for Ken Lay and the Enron team], Accenture is major provider of management and technology consulting. Social Services outsourcing for State and Provincial Governments, especially in the area of Welfare services, is one of Accenture�s focus areas and is the main focus of this profile. This outsourcing for government includes computer systems design and network creation and management. Accenture's history of social services outsourcing, which often amounts to privatization of major parts of social services delivery under a certain time period, has often been very problematic. The problems have been especially serious in the U.S. states of Ohio and New York and the Canadian Province of Ontario, as can be seen in this profile under "Social Profile"
Washington�s decision to introduce stricter entry procedures for visitors has drawn criticism from Swiss politicians and data protection officials.
The new rules come into force on September 30 and will apply to citizens from 27 countries who are currently permitted to travel to the US without visas for up 90 days.
Steven Yonkers, a US official in charge of privacy issues relating to the new regulations, told swissinfo that passenger data would not be released to third parties.
"We�ve carried out an extensive assessment of our security systems and [have imposed] very strict guidelines about what can be done with the data," said Yonkers during a video conference at the US embassy in the Swiss capital, Bern.
"We will use the data to create a complete travel history of visitors. [That way] we'll be able to start a programme for regular travellers, so they can travel more easily and rapidly to the US," he added.
But he also confirmed that the data could be stored securely for up to 100 years and accessed by US government offices.
U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) GAO said the first phase, or increment, of the tracking system at 115 airports and 14 seaports was largely on time, on budget and successful.
"However, DHS[Homeland Security] has not employed rigorous management controls typically associated with successful programs, such as test management, and its plans for implementing other controls, such as independent verification and validation, may not prove effective," the report stated.
The report added that testing of the implemented system wasn't well managed and was completed after the system became operational. Now that the second phase of the system is under way, such management controls still haven't been established.
California Treasurer Phil Angelides said July 25 that his office - which controls $45 billion in state and local funds - will stop doing business with Accenture and 21 other companies which headquarter offshore to avoid taxes and legal responsibilities.
Erik Olbeter, a technology analyst in Washington for Schwab Soundview Capital Markets who followed the bidding process closely, said the contest was unusual because instead of dictating requirements, the government left it to the companies to define "their vision of how to track foreign visitors." Homeland Security's guidance on the contract was so open that "one of the bidders told me, 'I'm not sure if I'm building a red firetruck or a yellow submarine,' " Mr. Olbeter said.link KWSnet Jun.06.04
Robert Block, Jonathan Karp, Joann S. Lublin/WSJ (reg.req.)
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What this story is evidence of, the underlying forces at work, the overall plan and purposeful direction of the men responsible for it, is much bigger than anything else in the current events landscape, including the US presidential elections in November.
twophoto-Tim Sloan/AFP
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