Your Weekly Rush; Fahrenheit 911

Rush Limbaugh echoes the PABAAH line about Fahrenheit 911. You should call your local theater and ask them not to show it. Or to put it in his own words . . .

"So what you should do, and it would probably be more effective, is to get as many people as you can to bombard a local theater in Omaha, if there is one that's going to screen the movie and say you don't think that this is right because this movie is not a movie. It's not a documentary. It's being misrepresented as to what it is. It's just nothing but propaganda and that you think a responsible theater owner wouldn't lend his screen to this purpose."

I am a bit stunned to find out Fahrenheit 911 isn't a movie. I guess it must be a Slide Show? An Interpretive Dance Performance? A Staged Reading of Haikus? I mean if it's not a movie, I guess Rush has a point. You show movies in a movie theater, so if Fahrenheit 911 isn't a movie, that wouldn't be the appropriate venue for it.

Oh, wait, apparently it is a movie. It's on film and everything.

As for it being propaganda, well Rush thinks that any presentation of the liberal position is propaganda (as opposed to what he does). Contrast his opinion on whether or not people should be able to go to the movie theater and see Mr. Moores movie vs. his opinion on whether or not his extremely conservative radio show should be balanced by something liberal on Armed Services Radio.

He also follows another aspect of the PABAAH line; we're guaranteed to fail, so it doesn't matter if we try. ". . . the odds are that we're not going to stop it. Nobody is going to able to stop it from being seen . . ."

So it's ok to try to censor a movie, so long as it doesn't seem likely that you will actually succeed. Not sure about the logic there, but what do I know. I'm just another liberal propogandist.

Messing around

Nothing to see here.

A bit on Fahrenheit 911

1. The movie will be shown in my home town of Tallahassee, Florida. Thinking of going the night it opens to take pictures of the crowd and any disturbances that might arise, although I doubt there will be any.

2. Those liars at Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti American Hollywood told another lie (how's that for moderate sensible dialogue). Well it's not that bad; I mean it's hard to believe that anybody would believe the lie since they link to the article that has the truth.

Here's the Lie. Moore's latest film project, Fahrenheit 9/11, is being supported by...terrorists.

Here's the Truth. Apparently after the movie had been made, some groups affiliated with Hezbollah have offered to help in distributing the movie in the United Arab Emirates. The original article where those PABAAH liars got their information from appeared in the Guardian U.K. and gives no indication that anybody connected with Mr. Moore accepted said help.

Still I don't want to be too hard on those liars. I mean this is a tough time for them; they've failed. The movie is going to be released and many Americans are going to see it. This is a real defeat for PABAAH, so I would imagine they are feeling pretty sorrowful.

3. Finally here's an interesting discussion of the role of criticism and Fahrenheit 911 by Roger Ebert.

Around the Horn; Part 34/37 The Day the World Turned Purple

Incidently that's part thirty-four thirty-sevenths, no part thirty four of thirty seven. Just in case it's not clear.

Words on a Page has a little article on fanatacisms. They're not just for Osama any more.

The Yellow Doggeral Democrat has the somewhat bone-chilling news that the Pentagon may be increasing its ability to spy within the United States.

Chris "Lefty" Brown has the scoop on Vice President Dick Cheneys true nature. Be prepared to be horrified and amused.

Speedkill has a missive on a recent poll taken among the Iraqi people that doesn't look that good.

Collective Sigh would appreciate it if you would not bring snakes around to any bars you might be going to.

And Then . . . has a great discussion of an article that appeared at Salon on the antipathy that many nations seem to feel for the United Statse.

Steve Gilliard's News Blog has a story on Signal Orange, an organization dedicated to raising American Awareness of those who have given their lives in President Bush's Iraq War.

The Fulcrum has a bit on Monty Python Alumnus Terry Jones and his reaction to the abuse / torture at Abu Ghraib Prison.

Rooks Rant has a somewhat redesigned web page and a piece on how we, the people, run the Government. So rather than complaining maybe we should make it better.

iddybud has a nice little humerous story; one filled with a bit of hope.

Anyway I'll be back later with a front page Wall Street Journal piece, so there's something to look forward too.

If the President Says It, It Must be So!

The New York Times has a good article today on a recent embarrassment the administration suffered.

"Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide. While it's possible that Mr. Bush and his top advisers really believed that there were chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, they should have known all along that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. No serious intelligence analyst believed the connection existed; Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism chief, wrote in his book that Mr. Bush had been told just that.

Nevertheless, the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11. And since the invasion, administration officials, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, have continued to declare such a connection."

The Bush administration needs to figure out away to do what they've done with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Before the War they were claiming Hussein had WMD's that could threaten the United States at a moments notice, afterwards they claimed they had always been looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs. That strategy has largely worked with the WMDs ("We're all actors in this I suppose."); they need to find a way to make it work with the Saddam/Al Qaeda link.

A Poem by Gil Scott-Heron

B-Movie

Well, the first thing I want to say is…”Mandate my ass!”

Because it seems as though we've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters, not even 26% of the American people, but 26% of the registered voters form a mandate – or a landslide. 21% voted for Skippy and 3, 4% voted for somebody else who might have been running.

But, oh yeah, I remember. In this year that we have now declared the year from Shogun to Reagan, I remember what I said about Reagan…meant it. Acted like an actor…Hollyweird. Acted like a liberal. Acted like General Franco when he acted like governor of California, then he acted like a republican. Then he acted like somebody was going to vote for him for president. And now we act like 26% of the registered voters is actually a mandate. We're all actors in this I suppose.

What has happened is that in the last 20 years, America has changed from a producer to a consumer. And all consumers know that when the producer names the tune…the consumer has got to dance. That's the way it is. We used to be a producer – very inflexible at that, and now we are consumers and, finding it difficult to understand. Natural resources and minerals will change your world. The Arabs used to be in the 3rd World. They have bought the 2nd World and put a firm down payment on the 1st one. Controlling your resources we'll control your world. This country has been surprised by the way the world looks now. They don't know if they want to be Matt Dillon or Bob Dylan. They don't know if they want to be diplomats or continue the same policy - of nuclear nightmare diplomacy. John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now.

The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can – even if it's only as far as last week. Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards. And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes riding to the rescue at the last possible moment. The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse - or the man who always came to save America at the last moment – someone always came to save America at the last moment – especially in “B” movies. And when America found itself having a hard time facing the future, they looked for people like John Wayne. But since John Wayne was no longer available, they settled for Ronald Reagan – and it has placed us in a situation that we can only look at – like a “B” movie.

Come with us back to those inglorious days when heroes weren't zeros. Before fair was square. When the cavalry came straight away and all-American men were like Hemingway to the days of the wondrous “B” movie. The producer underwritten by all the millionaires necessary will be Casper “The Defensive” Weinberger – no more animated choice is available. The director will be Attila the Haig, running around frantically declaring himself in control and in charge. The ultimate realization of the inmates taking over at the asylum. The screenplay will be adapted from the book called “Voodoo Economics” by George “Papa Doc” Bush. Music by the “Village People” the very military "Macho Man."

“Company!!!”
“Macho, macho man!”
“ Two-three-four.”
“ He likes to be – well, you get the point.”
“Huuut! Your left! Your left! Your left…right, left, right, left, right…!”

A theme song for saber-rallying and selling wars door-to-door. Remember, we're looking for the closest thing we can find to John Wayne. Clichés abound like kangaroos – courtesy of some spaced out Marlin Perkins, a Reagan contemporary. Clichés like, “itchy trigger finger” and “tall in the saddle” and “riding off or on into the sunset.” Clichés like, “Get off of my planet by sundown!” More so than clichés like, “he died with his boots on.” Marine tough the man is. Bogart tough the man is. Cagney tough the man is. Hollywood tough the man is. Cheap stick tough. And Bonzo's substantial. The ultimate in synthetic selling: A Madison Avenue masterpiece – a miracle – a cotton-candy politician…Presto! Macho!

“Macho, macho man!”

Put your orders in America. And quick as Kodak your leaders duplicate with the accent being on the dupes - cause all of a sudden we have fallen prey to selective amnesia - remembering what we want to remember and forgetting what we choose to forget. All of a sudden, the man who called for a blood bath on our college campuses is supposed to be Dudley “God-damn” Do-Right?

“You go give them liberals hell Ronnie.” That was the mandate. To the new “Captain Blighe” on the new ship of fools. It was doubtlessly based on his chameleon performance of the past - as a liberal democrat – as the head of the Studio Actor's Guild. When other celluloid saviors were cringing in terror from McCarthy – Ron stood tall. It goes all the way back from Hollywood to hillbilly. From liberal to libelous, from “Bonzo” to Birch idol…born again. Civil rights, women's rights, gay rights…it's all wrong. Call in the cavalry to disrupt this perception of freedom gone wild. God damn it…first one wants freedom, then the whole damn world wants freedom.

Nostalgia, that's what we want…the good ol' days…when we gave'em hell. When the buck stopped somewhere and you could still buy something with it. To a time when movies were in black and white – and so was everything else. Even if we go back to the campaign trail, before six-gun Ron shot off his face and developed hoof-in-mouth. Before the free press went down before full-court press. And were reluctant to review the menu because they knew the only thing available was – Crow.

Lon Chaney, our man of a thousand faces - no match for Ron. Doug Henning does the make-up - special effects from Grecian Formula 16 and Crazy Glue. Transportation furnished by the David Rockefeller of Remote Control Company. Their slogan is, “Why wait for 1984? You can panic now...and avoid the rush.”

So much for the good news…

As Wall Street goes, so goes the nation. And here's a look at the closing numbers – racism's up, human rights are down, peace is shaky, war items are hot - the House claims all ties. Jobs are down, money is scarce – and common sense is at an all-time low on heavy trading. Movies were looking better than ever and now no one is looking because, we're starring in a “B” movie. And we would rather had John Wayne…we would rather had John Wayne.

"You don't need to be in no hurry.
You ain't never really got to worry.
And you don't need to check on how you feel.
Just keep repeating that none of this is real.
And if you're sensing, that something's wrong,
Well just remember, that it won't be too long
Before the director cuts the scene…yea."

“This ain't really your life,
Ain't really your life,
Ain't really ain't nothing but a movie.”

Great poem / song. I'm reading so many articles on Reagan. Some of them about how President Bush is just like Reagan. Some on how we Liberals hated Reagan and are now faking an admiration for him. And a few on stem cell research and how Reagan wouldn't have wanted it. Just made me think of this song, which I was first exposed to on Underworld's contribution to the Back to Mine Series (a darn good series by the way). So I posted the lyrics to it.

One of the stories I find interesting is that apparently while President Reagan was President and obviously a political figure Senator Kerry made some staunch criticisms of Reagan. Now part of this is the whole shell game of "See Kerry's trying to claim the Reagan legacy, but really he didn't like Reagan's policy." Well I'm not sure Kerry is trying to claim the Reagan legacy. But it's an interesting conundrum, isn't it? I mean everybody I criticize is going to die someday.

What if Ann Coulter died tomorrow (and let me clarify that I hope she doesn't because frankly I need the material), I would probably say something about how she had a lot of passion and wrote reasonably well. Isn't that what people do? If someone dies you say nice things about them. But obviously that's not the whole story, is it?

Anyway reading all those articles made me want to post B-Movie.

Nice Moderate Discourse

Gary Aldrich chose to write his article this week on good old Hillary Clinton. Actually it's about the unveiling of the Presidential Portrait of President Clinton, but mostly it's about Hillary Clinton.

Apparently Hillary was wearing the following outfit.



Of all the indignities that women in our Society suffer, this is one that would drive me nuts. Basically Aldrich's article is an analysis of what Ms. Hillary Clinton is thinking based on what she is wearing. The assumption is that what a woman wears is automatically worth commenting on because it is a window into her soul.

Of course it's harder with men. "Here we see Dick Cheney wearing a dark suit and a white shirt with a tie, basically the same outfit every politician has worn since the turn of the century (not counting the brief cardigan dark ages). It looks like Mr. Cheney is a mindless conformist just wanting to do what everybody else does."

Nope it's just women that get to be analyzed based on what they wear. Fortunately, with Ms. Hillary Clinton it's a little easier, because Mr. Aldrich can assume a core of pure evil. Yep he already knows Hillary is evil (and, for good measure, a communist) so analyzing that blue dress isn't all that hard.

"I found it interesting that she came to the White House on Sunday dressed in a bright pastel - still a pantsuit - but one that would be suitable for a nationwide photo-op.

She was not disappointed. Saint Hillary's smiling puss graced the front page of the conservative Washington Times, in living color. Editors, perhaps attempting to shelter readers from too much exaggerated glee, tightly pulled facial muscles, and arched eyebrows over saucer-sized eyeballs, chose a colorful car bomb for the above fold."

Aldrich ends his article with these lines.

"The other day, I watched a cat stalk and torture a helpless mouse - just before she killed and ate it. I swear I saw her grinning. The lesson? The mouse should never drop his guard because the cat has no sense of mercy and the cat is always hungry."

Nice. Not much subtlety there, is there? Hillary is Evil with a capital E, apparently.

What was that that someone was saying about how mean spirited our national discourse was getting?

Build a Better Light Bulb

Salon has a fascinating article on the efficiency (or lack there of) of the lightbulb today. The article is well written and easy to understand, plus it has a subject that seems dull until you read it.

The Part is not the Whole

Ben Shapiro's latest article is one that I have a hard time reacting to. It is basically an argument that Jews must support President Bush. He presents a lot of vague sounding statements about how the current anti-Semite members of congress are all liberals. Of course he's careful to throw Robert Byrd in there, due to his affiliation with the Klan of about 60 years ago or so. I know that in one or two instances he is quoting the Senator or Representative out of context.

Ben then makes the following hyperbolic statements;

"For all the Jews who fear American Christianity, the most tolerant and philosemitic ideology the world has ever seen . . .

President Bush and the American right have been the best friends to the Jewish community in the annals of modern history."

Kind of over the top statements. As for American Christianity being the most tolerant ideology the world has ever seen. Well, as an American Christian I'm not sure I agree with this.

Oh and Ben does repeat the historical distortion that Fascism is a left wing phenomenon. Fascism, for those who don't know, is a right wing phenomenon. That's not to say that President Bush is a fascist or anything like that; just that fascism sprang from the ideology of the right (in the same way that the horrors of Stalinism sprang from the left).

I'm also not show how I would react if a person of my faith were to write this article. Scratch that. I know how I'd react, and it would not be positively.

Conservative Judges

Robert Sheer's latest article reveals that apparently the person who wrote the memo in defense of torture is now a judge on the 9th circuit court of appeals.

"Conservatives once were identified with protecting the rights of the individual against the unbridled power of government, but this is not your grandfather's conservatism. The current brand running things in D.C. holds that the commander in chief is above all law and that the ends always justify the means. This has paved the way for the increasingly well-documented and systematic use of torture in an ad hoc gulag archipelago for those detained anywhere in the world under the overly broad rubric of the "war on terror."

Kind of a tough situation. What we have is a memo at the beginning of this process that appears to be an intellectual justification for the administration to allow torture. We have the actual abuse / torture occurring in Abu Ghraib. It's hard not to believe there wasn't some sort of connection between the two. But I'd feel a little more comfortable seeing a flow chart of exactly how the decisions that led to torture were made.

But I understand that that is unlikely.

Let's see what happens

Well Cal Thomas has an article today reporting that the Southern Baptist convention is considering discussing an amendment that would suggest that all Southern Baptists take their kids out of public schools.

All Southern Baptists would either home school their kids or send them too a religious school.

". . . it has been the decision by too many parents to allow government to shape their children's worldview and values that is responsible for spiritual and intellectual disorder that now inhabits the souls and minds of too many offspring of Christian parents."

Tricky one that; how do you educate children of different religions and intellectual backgrounds without giving these poor Baptist kids some exposure to different philosophies and ideas? Of course later on in the article he talks about returning to intellectual standards, which one assumes means either corporal punishment or bible reading.

Of course in the long run this is just going to return Baptist Church Members to the days in which education was the privilage of those who could afford it. I mean if you are a poor Southern Baptist family who can't afford a religious school, you must teach your children at home. Fair enough; maybe with "Hooked on Phonics," poor Southern Baptist kids will learn how to read which would be a step up. A few might be educated even better than those kids in public education. But it seems excessively optimistic, even foolhardy, to assume that most parents possess the skills to teach their children effectively.

That is in fact why we have teachers, isn't it?

Confusion Beats

You might want to swing by the old Daily Howler website. Old man Daily Howler put up an item about them polecats of the press, particularly that old Grizzly Bear Russert. 'Cording to Old Man Daily Howler, Russerts claws might not be as sharp as they used to be. Or, it's possible Russert might not realize that there are 12 months in a year. Thankfully, Old Man Daily Howler is fighting for the 12 month year against them pesky varmits in the Bush Administration who prefer the 10 month and 1 week year.

Confusion Reigns

There is an interesting interview over at Salon which deals with the inter-agency squabbles over Iraq between the Department of Defense and the Central intelligence Agency. The subject of the interview is Thomas Powers, author of "Intelligence Wars; American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda." The interviewer is Mark Follman, who has done good interviews in the past. This one isn't bad, but it's clear that Follman is trying to take the interview a certain direction.

Anyway the focus of the interview and the book (apparently), as mentioned above, is the conflict between the CIA and the DOD. Near the end of the interview is this exchange.

Is the war inside the U.S. intelligence system completely off the charts historically? Is there any precedent for this?

I can't think of any. It's not uncommon for the various secret branches of the U.S. government to be at odds with each other. The CIA quarreled with the Defense Department for years over Soviet missiles, but I don't remember anything like this. The CIA was present when that team of Iraqi police went in and ransacked Chalabi's compound. I mean, that's amazing. The only thing that would've made it more amazing was if it had happened in Washington.

In a way it reminds me of the "Night of the long knives" in 1934, the night when Hitler got rid of the Brown Shirts, the street fighting organization that had helped the Nazi Party come to power. It was a highly organized institution bitterly hated by the army. It was run by a bunch of people who were politically ambitious and were direct rivals of the group that came into power with Hitler. Literally in one night the offices and headquarters of this group were raided and many of them were killed in their beds. Immediately all kinds of propaganda came out about their low behavior and betrayal. It was an internal government bloodletting where one faction just simply swept the other off the scene.

What the CIA did to Chalabi isn't exactly the same, but it makes me worry even more about the level of covert fighting inside our own government.

It is a bit troubling, particularly after the Bush administration and their supporters have assured us repeatedly that "now the adults are in charge."

Eliminating Confusion

After perusing Mike S. Adams latest article, we, the secret masters of everything have determined that it is just too difficult to distinguish between Arabs who are guilty of terrorist acts and Arabs who are not guilty of terrorist acts. So we are holding the entire Arab "race" responsible for the actions of any terrorist.

Now some of you are wondering, "What about people who aren't ethnically Arab, but are Muslim? And what about people who aren't ethnically Arab but look like Arabs?" Well, in the interest of further simplification, let's just say that all Muslims or people who look like Arabs are in fact Arabs and thus guilty for all the acts of terrorism committed against the United States.

This simplifies things considerably. Adam's skeptical attitude towards the Torture at the Abu Ghraib prison (he puts abuse in quotation marks, suggesting not only does he question whether it was torture or not, he's not sure it's even abuse) is excused because they were Arabs and clearly guilty of something. We can disregard the Red Cross Report which suggested that 70 to 90 percent of the population of Abu Ghraib was arrested by mistake.

Also the tortured logic to his article resolves it self. He claims to be writing an apology to the Arab World for the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and yet he includes such phrases as this.

"I am sorry that Muslim extremists have not yet apologized for the U.S.S.
Cole, the embassy bombings, and for flying a plane into the World Trade Center, which collapsed in part on Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which is one of our Holy Sites."

See the apparent conflict resolves itself; the Arab world is clearly Arab, therefore they are guilty for September 11th. So when Mr. Adams suggests dropping at least 100 Daisy Cutters on the Fallujah region, killing thousands of civilians, well, they are Arabs aren't they? Therefore they are guilty.

We, the secret masters of the world, hope this clears everything up. By the way you might be wondering why we choose to use an obscure website like this to announce these deep truths. Well it's cause the Author just made us up, and he didn't want to let us give free publicity to some other site.

New Quote

And here is the New Quotes Page.

Enjoy.

Once upon a DreamCon Pt. 4

Well yesterday was the costume contest; a nice little affair. Here's some of the costumes; according to a more constant attender of Games, costumes were not that incredible. They looked pretty good to me, but what do I know?





Also played a game of Deliria last night, and it was a lot of fun. Deliria is apparently a game of modern horror and fantasy, somewhat like Mage and Changeling if you are familiar with those games. Here's the website if it sounds interesting; I can tell you the rules were easy enough and the set up was interesting.