Apologies for my faux pas yesterday, everyone in the US must have spluttered on their turkey, or turkey substitute. Canada it seems does have a Thanksgiving holiday but it’s spread over 3 days and takes place in October, not the third Thursday of November, thanks Uncle Wiki, you teach me a new thing every day.
Mel
Creation vs. Darwin takes Muslim twist in Turkey
Reuters
Wed Nov 22
A lavishly illustrated “Atlas of Creation” is mysteriously turning up at schools and libraries in Turkey, proclaiming that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is the real root of terrorism.
Arriving unsolicited by post, the large-format tome offers 768 glossy pages of photographs and easy-to-read text to prove that God created the world with all its species.At first sight, it looks like it could be the work of United States creationists, the Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days as told in the Bible.
But the author’s name, Harun Yahya, reveals the surprise inside. This is Islamic creationism, a richly funded movement based in predominantly Muslim Turkey which has an influence U.S. creationists could only dream of.Creationism is so widely accepted here that Turkey placed last in a recent survey of public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries — just behind the United States.
“Darwinism is dead,” said Kerim Balci of the Fethullah Gulen network, a moderate Islamic movement with many publications and schools but no link to the creationists who produced the atlas.
Scientists say pious Muslims in the government, which has its roots in political Islam, are trying to push Turkish education away from its traditionally secular approach.Aykut Kence, biology professor at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara , said time for discussing evolution had been cut out of class schedules for the eighth grade this year.
“The students will just learn there is a theory called evolution defended by Darwin back in the 19th century,” he said. “However, views of Islamic thinkers from the Middle Ages about evolution and creation have been included.”
A DOSE OF RELIGION
Like the Bible, the Koran says God made the world in six days and fashioned the first man, Adam, from dust. Other details vary but the idea is roughly the same.But unlike in the West, evolution theory has not undermined the traditional creation story for many Muslims.
“Science is hardly an issue in Turkey , therefore evolution could hardly have been an issue,” said Celal Sengor, a geology professor at Istanbul Technical University.
Darwinism did become an issue during the left-versus-right political turmoil before a 1980 military coup because Communist bookshops touted Darwin’s works as a complement to Karl Marx.
“It looked like Marx and Darwin were together, two long-bearded guys spreading ideas that make people lose their faith,” said Istanbul journalist Mustafa Akyol.
After the coup, the conservative government thought a dose of religion could bolster the fight against the extreme left.
In 1985, a paragraph on creationism as an alternative to evolution was added to high school science textbooks and a U.S. book “Scientific Creationism” was translated into Turkish.In the early 1990s, leading U.S. creationists came to speak at several anti-evolution conferences in Turkey.
DARWIN AND TERROR
Since then, a home-grown strain of anti-Darwinist books has developed with a clearly political message.
“Atlas of Creation” offers over 500 pages of splendid images comparing fossils with present-day animals to argue that Allah created all life as it is and evolution never took place.
Then comes a book-length essay arguing that Darwinism, by stressing the “survival of the fittest,” has inspired racism, Nazism, communism and terrorism.
“The root of the terrorism that plagues our planet is not any of the divine religions, but atheism, and the expression of atheism in our times (is) Darwinism and materialism,” it says.
One Istanbul school unexpectedly received three copies recently. “It’s very well done, with magnificent photos - a very stylish tool of creationist propaganda,” said the headmaster, who asked not to be named. The driving force behind these books is a reclusive Islamic teacher named Adnan Oktar who over the past decade has published a flood of books under the pseudonym Harun Yahya.
“Harun Yahya has managed to create a media-based and popular form of creationism,” said Taner Edis, a Turkish-born physicist at Truman State University in Missouri.
Harun Yahya, which is probably a pool of writers, has turned out over 200 books in Turkish and translated many of them into 51 other languages. Oktar, 50, appears on the group’s Web site sporting a clipped beard and dapper suits. His works can be found in Islamic bookshops around the world and downloaded for free over the Internet.
Nobody seems to know how all this is funded. The Harun Yahya organization, based in Istanbul, declined to comment despite interview requests from Reuters.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Intelligent Design (ID), a more recent argument about life’s origins that is championed by U.S. Christian groups, may also be making the leap across the Atlantic. ID says some organisms are too complex to have evolved without some superior cause, but avoids calling that cause God because that would ban it from U.S. science textbooks.
Akyol, a Muslim believer who says Darwinism is incompatible with his faith, has been waging an uphill struggle to popularize ID here. But most Turks show no interest because they see no need to avoid naming God.
His lonely campaign got an unexpected boost last month when Education Minister Huseyin Celik hinted on television that he might want to see it added to Turkish textbooks.
“If it’s wrong to say Darwin ’s theory should not be in the books because it is in line with atheist propaganda, we can’t disregard intelligent design because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation,” he told CNN Turk.
Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data
New York Times
November 24, 2006
Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.
“I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who will head the committee beginning in January, said in an interview this week. “We’re entitled to know these answers, and in many instances we don’t get them because people are hiding their mistakes. And that’s no excuse.”
Mr. Leahy, who has said little about his plans for the committee, expressed hope for greater cooperation from the Bush administration, which he described as having been “obsessively secretive.” His aides have identified more than 65 requests he has made to the Justice Department or other agencies in recent years that have been rejected or permitted to languish without reply.
Now that they are about to control Congress, what he and other Democrats regard as a record of unresponsiveness has energized their renewal of longstanding requests for information about some of the administration’s most hidden and fiercely debated operations. In addition, other such requests by committee members deal with subjects like voter fraud, immigration and background inquiries on Supreme Court nominees.
With little more than two weeks gone since the elections that gave his party a majority in both houses, Mr. Leahy has already begun pressing the Justice Department for greater openness. In a letter last Friday, he asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to release two documents whose existence the Central Intelligence Agency, in response to a suit by the American Civil Liberties Union, recently acknowledged for the first time. Although their details are not known, the documents appear to have provided a legal basis for the agency’s detention and harsh interrogation of high-level terrorism suspects.
One document is a directive, signed by President Bush shortly after the September 2001 attacks, that granted the C.I.A. authority to set up detention centers outside the United States and outlined allowable interrogation procedures.
The second is a memorandum, written by the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department in 2002, that is thought to have given the C.I.A. specific legal advice about interrogation methods that would not violate a federal statute on torture.
With Democrats in control, it will be harder for executive branch agencies to sidestep requests for documents. Behind each request will be the possibility of Democrats’ voting to issue subpoenas that would compel documents or testimony, although Senate aides said they hoped to avoid conflict.
So far, few signs have emerged that the administration is preparing to be more responsive, even in the absence of a Republican majority’s protection. Mr. Bush has promised to work with Democrats, but there appears to be little change in the reluctance of the Justice Department’s officials to start opening its files to Mr. Leahy’s committee.
“The department will continue to work closely with the Congress as they exercise their oversight functions, and we will appropriately respond to all requests in the spirit of that longstanding relationship,” said a department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse. “When making those decisions, it is vital to protect national security information, particularly when they relate to sensitive intelligence programs that are the subject of oversight by the Intelligence Committees. We also must give appropriate weight to the confidentiality of internal executive branch deliberations.”
C.I.A. lawyers have sought in the past to avoid any discussion of whether the agency has documents related to its detention and interrogation of leading members of Al Qaeda in secret prisons overseas. The lawyers have said national security would be endangered if the agency was forced to tell in any way of its involvement in such operations.
But in September, the president said 14 high-level terrorism suspects had been transferred from secret locations abroad to the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. That effectively confirmed the existence of the prisons, as long reported.
The two documents requested by Mr. Leahy in his letter of last Friday are among what Congressional aides maintain are perhaps hundreds, crucial to shaping the government’s counterterrorism policies, that have never been released or publicly acknowledged.
Justice Department officials have long said they will resist efforts to require disclosure of classified documents that provide legal advice to other agencies. But in the interview this week, Mr. Leahy signaled that he expected the department to provide a fuller documentary history on issues like detention.
The senator’s letter to Mr. Gonzales requested “all directives, memoranda, and/or orders including any and all attachments to such documents, regarding C.I.A. interrogation methods or policies for the treatment of detainees.” It also sought an index of all documents related to Justice Department inquiries into detainee abuse by ” U.S. military or civilian personnel in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison or elsewhere.”
It is not known whether the material sought would clarify the origin and evolution of policies on issues like national security wiretaps, detention and interrogation. But there are wide gaps in what is publicly known about these policies, who authorized them and what exactly has been authorized by administration directives and legal advisories.
“The American people,” Mr. Leahy’s letter said, “deserve to have detailed and accurate information about the role of the Bush administration in developing the interrogation policies and practices that have engendered such deep criticism around the world.”
Nato set to expand role to tackle WMD and terrorism
Financial Times
November 24 2006
The Nato alliance, stretched by operations in Afghanistan, should further expand its role to include counter-terrorism, cyber-security and the security of natural resources, according to a classified document to be endorsed by presidents and prime ministers next week.
At a summit in Riga, Latvia, that begins on Tuesday, leaders including US President George W. Bush, France’s President Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair, British prime minister, will give their backing to an attempt to update and revise Nato’s strategy for the 21st century.
The document, which has been obtained by the Financial Times and will be made public next week, seeks to “provide a framework and political direction for Nato’s continuing transformation . . . for the next 10 to 15 years”.
It adds that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction “are likely to be the principal threats to the alliance” over that period, adding that instability due to failed states, more sophisticated conventional weaponry and the disruption of the flow of vital resources will be among the main challenges for Nato.
The document has previously been endorsed by defence ministers, but has remained classified until now. Described by diplomats as building on Nato’s strategy goals, last elaborated in 1999, the document says that Nato should be ready to fight more than one big operation at a time, as well as an increasing number of smaller engagements.
It says “this requires forces that are fully deployable, sustainable and inter-operable and the means to deploy them”.
Nato defence ministers want 40 per cent of the alliance’s land forces to be available for overseas missions. At present, Nato officials admit, the proportion is much lower, since many European forces are still structured to defend western Europe against a now non-existent Soviet threat.
This week, General James Jones, Nato’s military chief, said he was hopeful but still not sure that the alliance’s showpiece rapid reaction force would be fully operational as scheduled by January 1. Gen Jones is expected to make an announcement on the force’s readinessat next week’s summit. A group of 15 Nato countries and Sweden is also planning to address Nato’s long-standing problems with long-distance airlift by joining together to buy at least three C17 aircraft.
The classified document - officially called the “comprehensive political guidance” - says Nato should put a premium on “the ability to deter, disrupt, defend and protect against terrorism, and more particularly to contribute to the protection of the alliance’s populations, territory, critical infrastructure and forces”. Some US officials are keen to open the door to a greater Nato role in helping with “homeland security”, although this remains controversial within the alliance.
The document adds that Nato should focus on “the ability to protect information systems of critical importance to the alliance against cyber attacks” as well as “the ability. . . to identify hostile elements, including in urban areas, in order to conduct operations in a way that minimises unintended damage as well as to the risk to our own forces”.
Other priorities it identifies are greater flexibility to respond to crises, more protection against weapons of mass destruction and the ability to carry out operations in difficult terrain.
The document emphasises the importance of Nato co-operation with other international organisations, such as the United Nations and the European Union.
It says, however, that collective defence, the original reason for the founding of the alliance which has now grown to 26 members, would remain Nato’s core purpose. “Large-scale conventional aggression against the alliance will continue to be highly unlikely,” it says.
However, as shown by the 2001 attacks on the US, which prompted the alliance to invoke its article 5 collective defence clause, “future attacks may originate from outside the Euro-Atlantic area and involve unconventional forms of armed assault”.
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November 24th, 2006
I’m stuffed and lethargic and not in the mood for hard stuff — so here’s a post-Turkey collection just for the pleasure of the reads; last one is interactive with links, so open to see.
Hope your day is gentle and interesting and relaxing … and if you’re doing the Black Friday thing [boycotting commerce] it will be especially quiet. It’s been six years since we had the feeling that even so pleasant a thing as a holiday was accompanied by a backdrop of hopefulness, and I’m not sure we know what to do with that yet … it feels unexpected, like a random downpour — odd, like a great silence in the conversation — sudden, like an earthquake. It’ll take some getting used to — a quiet day is a good time to contemplate the possibilities … and acknowledge the Blessing.
Jude
A Thanksgiving Prayer for Dick Cheney’s Heart - and a Few Other Favorite Things
Tony Hendra
Nov 24 2006
I give thanks O Lord for Dick Cheney’s Heart, that brave organ which has done its darn-tootin’ best on four separate occasions to do what we can only dream about.
O Lord, give Dick Cheney’s Heart, Our Sacred Secret Weapon, the strength to try one more time! For greater love hath no heart than that it lay down its life to rid the planet of its Number One Human Tumor.
I give thanks O Lord that we’re getting to kick The Lame Duck when he’s down. Thank you too Lord for making impeachment unfeasible so’s we get to kick him and kick him and kick him, have him to kick around for two more long years, kick him so bad his stupid quacking beak comes out his own greasy-feathered DA.
I give thanks O Lord that because of the sanity, decency and plain commonsense of the American voter, the whole world has finally had this self-evident truth confirmed: George Bush is what the whole world knew him to be the second it laid eyes on him: a talent-free, petulant, pea-brained bully.
Allow me to enlarge somewhat O Lord upon this particular thanks. Despite six years of suppurating drivel from his catamites about leadership and inner strength and Christian fortitude and courage under fire: George W Bush is, was and always will be that sneering, leering little creep who came to school in a chauffeur-driven car, yelled racist epithets at the scholarship kids, tripped up the guy on crutches, stuck his paw up the dress of any girl he pleased, had his toadies beat up anyone smart or weak or different, insulted teachers to their faces - and got away with it all, because his Dad had just endowed the new sports stadium.
And while we’re on the subject of his Dad Lord, I give thanks for the delicious sight of that craven, racist, traitorous, class-ridden old fool having to hoik his withered Yankee hams out of the comfy billion-dollar no-show job the Carlyle Group found for him, in a desperate attempt to save a dynasty built on graft, treason,war crimes and good old-fashioned brown-nosing.
I give thanks to thee Lord for the hilarious notion that 41 is in any way superior in skill-sets, smarts or statesmanship to 43! O Lord thou dost indeed make it a cake-walk these days, for the clowns and jokesters! Thy comedic munificence is boundless Lord!
And before I leave this rich vein O Lord I give Thee thanks for the possibility - at long last - that this axis of incompetent evil is OVER. That a crime family who gave us two disastrous Presidencies in the space of a decade might finally be bound for the oblivion it so richly deserves. For Thou knowest Lord in Thy infinite wisdom that with truly evil stupid people - the Nazis spring to mind - it always takes TWO defeats to finally bring them to their knees. So let it be with Bushdom. (And perhaps one of these fine days the neo-Confederates).
But to return O Lord to that for which I give Thee the most thanks: that dinged and dented old jalopy, democracy. Countless millions of miles on the clock but still getting us to our destination safe and sound. Above all O Lord I gave Thee thanks for that which keeps the old jalopy running, the aforementioned ordinary American voter. Maligned, demeaned, taken for granted, treated like a sheep or bug or robot, her intelligence insulted by mail-order demagogues, his actions blithely predicted by arrogant non-entities, as if he had no more free will or character than a chip in a calculator.
But in the final analysis proving once again, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the ruled are always smarter than the rulers.
I give thee thanks O Lord that Thy glorious sun is finally breaking through the viscous, vomit-colored cloud-cover of Republican bigotry, repression, fear-mongering, greed and graft. A blighted carapace of despair and depression that has blotted out the clear blue sky from horizon to horizon for six long years, O Lord, like a billion pairs of enormous morbidly obese buttocks sitting on our heads.
I give Thee thanks O Lord for those same sagacious voters of all persuasions, creeds and ethnic origins, who saw the carnage in Iraq for what it is. I pray Lord that those who voted to launch the carnage might be inspired by your Holy Congressional Spirit to take a long hard look at their guilt in the murder of 200,000 entirely innocent people who never lifted a finger against the United States. Most especially those Democrats who, to curry crass political favor, voted for war in the teeth of their own lifelong principles.
Touching which, O Lord, when the white dove of Thy peace descends upon Washington to hover over the new Congress, may it take a long, wet crap on Hillary’s hundred-dollar hairdo.
OK - LET’S EAT!!
Ruba-dub-dub! Thanks for the grub! Yay God!
A Very Special Turkey
digby
For those of you who, like me, are spending Thanksgiving in the company of rightwingers, here’s Rush Limbaugh’s version of the pilgrim story to remind you that that your dinner table conversation could actually be worse than it is:
On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.
“But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford’s detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness,” destined to become the home of the Kennedy family. “There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford’s own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure.
“When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats.” Yes, it was Indians that taught the white man how to skin beasts. “Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. “Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part [of Thanksgiving] that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share.
“All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well. Nobody owned anything. They just had a share in it. It was a commune, folks. It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the ’60s and ’70s out in California – and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way. Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace.
“That’s right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn’t work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild’s history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future.
“‘The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years…that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,’ Bradford wrote. ‘For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense…that was thought injustice.’ Why should you work for other people when you can’t work for yourself? What’s the point?
“Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford’s community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? ‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford, ‘for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’ Bradford doesn’t sound like much of a…” I wrote “Clintonite” then. He doesn’t sound much like a liberal Democrat, “does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? Yes.
“Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Following Joseph’s suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians to 20% during the ’seven years of plenty’ and the ‘Earth brought forth in heaps.’ (Gen. 41:47) In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves…. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the ‘Great Puritan Migration.’” Now, other than on this program every year, have you heard this story before? Is this lesson being taught to your kids today — and if it isn’t, why not?
Can you think of a more important lesson one could derive from the pilgrim experience? So in essence there was, thanks to the Indians, because they taught us how to skin beavers and how to plant corn when we arrived, but the real Thanksgiving was thanking the Lord for guidance and plenty — and once they reformed their system and got rid of the communal bottle and started what was essentially free market capitalism, they produced more than they could possibly consume, and they invited the Indians to dinner, and voila, we got Thanksgiving, and that’s what it was: inviting the Indians to dinner and giving thanks for all the plenty is the true story of Thanksgiving. The last two-thirds of this story simply are not told.
Now, I was just talking about the plenty of this country and how I’m awed by it. You can go to places where there are famines, and we usually get the story, “Well, look it, there are deserts, well, look it, Africa, I mean there’s no water and nothing but sand and so forth.” It’s not the answer, folks. Those people don’t have a prayer because they have no incentive. They live under tyrannical dictatorships and governments. The problem with the world is not too few resources. The problem with the world is an insufficient distribution of capitalism.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Remember to be thankful that you don’t have to spend the day with Rush Limbaugh.
But also remember that the reason people are hungry in the world is because they just don’t have enough incentive to eat.
Thanks—No, Seriously
Molly Ivins, Common Dreams
Friday, November 24, 2006 by Truthdig
It’s time to give thanks, and I want to start off with a great, big thank you for the top American movement conservatives and all the fun we’ve had since Election Day. I know I promised not to gloat after this election was over, but I’m not talking unseemly gloating—I’m talking about moments so brilliantly hilarious the only option is to put your head down on the desk and howl.
First in line is the wit of The National Review’s Kate O’Beirne, who clearly teamed up with Borat to explain the great conservative win. Her explanation is that this is a win for conservatism because a great many of the D’s elected are so conservative themselves. She says half of them are conservatives.
She is indeed right. If only twice as many Democrats had been elected, it would have proved that there are twice as many conservatives in the country, and this is clear to any thinking person. We might challenge Ms. O’Beirne to explain how the next Republican win is a victory for liberalism.
The reason that O’Beirne and others are able to accept such an absurdity is because they’ve been listening to George W. Bush for six years and are thus able to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
Speaking of “thinking,” another great moment for conservatives this year was highlighted on the Nov. 16 edition of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Host Jon Stewart addressed a recent remark that CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck made to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.
Beck said, “I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’ ” After airing Beck’s comment, Stewart declared, “Finally, a guy who says what people who aren’t thinking are thinking.”
While the Washington press corps worried its pretty little head to a frazzle over Nancy Pelosi’s Armani suits and terrible start as speaker of the House (except she hasn’t started as speaker), they forgot to fret over Trent Lott, who had previously been bounced unceremoniously from the Senate leadership team to which the Republicans just reelected him. They seem to have forgotten that he had expressed the wish that Strom Thurmond, the segregationist candidate for president, had won in 1948.
Thanks for the late Johnny Apple and the now retired Adam Clymer (who predicted a 28-seat sweep and the possibility of taking the Senate) for reminding us that The New York Times used to know how to cover politics. So, for that matter, did The Washington Post, now graced only by E.J. Dionne.
Thanks for Cokie Roberts, who was the only alert citizen on television on election night. The others were either stalwart Republicans or John McCain worshipers.
Thanks from a grateful nation for an obedient press corps that failed during Bush’s six-hour, carefully orchestrated visit to Indonesia to register the fact that there were massive demonstrations against his administration and its policies toward Muslims. The demonstrators during his short visit forced him to stay behind the presidential palace wall all day and—due to concerns for his safety—not spend the night.
So many of our media mavens have been so wrong for so long that we may yet see a mere modicum of becoming self-doubt from our professional pontificators. And think how thankful we’d all be for that. Their sources, led by Karl Rove, have had them eating Pablum out of their hands for years now.
Nope. No hope.
Four Quiet Things to Be Thankful For
Robert J. Elisberg
11.24.2006
1. James Inhofe (R-OK) will no longer be chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Last week, Senator Inhofe explained that global warming is merely “due to the sun,” and the world needn’t be concerned because “God’s still up there.” After you’re done twitching from the utter senselessness of his comments, remember that the problem is not that Mr.Inhofe is on the committee (which is bad enough) - but that he is chairman. He is in charge of the senate’s committee on the environment. There will always be people who believe the world is flat, but you don’t make them head of NASA.
Global warming is a scientific issue, to study scientifically. This isn’t a matter of faith. With the potential stakes to mankind so disastrous, thinking you can leave them to prayer is like jumping off a skyscraper and trusting you’ll land safely because you believe in divine intervention. The last time humanity ignored a cataclysmic natural disaster because “God’s still up there,” the only ones who got out okay were Noah’s family and a bunch of animals. James Inhofe’s chairmanship is proof why religion should reside in the heart and not in the head of a government gavel.
2. Ted Stevens (R-AK) will no longer be chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Senator Stevens described the World Wide Web: “And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes.” And again, when the numbing pain in your head subsides, remember that Senator Stevens is not just someone’s uncle befuddled about technology - but he is chairman of the committee that oversees regulation of the Internet. He is in charge.
This is a case of not having a clue. This is someone intentionally hiring a school bus driver who doesn’t know where the school is. Or where any of the students live. Or how to drive a bus. This is being named chief surgeon by your pals even though you’ve never been to medical school. But you did watch an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Putting Ted Stevens is charge is evidence of the adage: Republicans know how to win election but not govern.
3. Bill Frist (R-TN) will no longer be Senate Majority Leader.
Dr. Frist called the Senate together to proclaim, “Based on the footage provided to me, which was part of the facts of the case, she does respond.” With crippling problems facing the United States - with a disastrous war raging in Iraq, and a collapsing one in Afghanistan - Bill Frist had the Senate meet in Special Session to pass a bill that dealt solely with the private life of a single, brain-dead woman who he diagnosed via remote control. Inaccurately. (As if it would be possible to diagnose someone by remote control accurately…)
This is the man in charge of running the United States Senate. Setting the serious agenda for America. And he played it as if it were an out-of-tune ukulele. A game where rules don’t even matter, just as long as you won. This is the man who tried to buy off the U.S. public with a $100 rebate check for gas, hoping they wouldn’t notice that the pump remained sky-high. His irresponsible handling of the Terri Schiavo embarrassment is the metaphor for Republican reign: the facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter, just click the remote and see if everyone will forget what they were just watching.
4. George Bush will be a lame duck President with a Democratic Congress.
George Bush thinks the lesson of Vietnam is “We’ll succeed unless we quit.” If anything summed up his complete misunderstanding of the entire Iraq debacle, that was it. If anything explains the horrific mess of his Presidency, that was it. This is jumping into quicksand, flailing away and, as you sink up to your chin, gurgling that the lesson you’ve learned is that you’d get out if only you struggled even more.
Then again, this is the man who relentlessly proclaimed, “I’m a uniter, not a divider.” Of course, now that nearly 70% of the American public understands united that Iraq is a disaster we should never have gotten into…it may be that, finally, he was right.
I’m thankful for these changes. The Democrats in charge now have to act well and work for the American public. The Republicans, too. But after six years of government by blind faith, ignorance, misdirection and foolish division, I’m thankful we have a chance.
“A Good Time Was Had By All!” — A Washington Thanksgiving Farce
Chris Weigant
11.22.2006
I’m here in Washington on assignment, my editor having provided me with a ticket to what he swears is the best Thanksgiving party inside the Beltway.
I walk into the entrance lobby, and am immediately confronted by two doors — one which obviously leads to the main hall, and one prominently marked “The Closet.” I shrug off my winter coat, walk over to the closet door, and pull it open.
“Close the door!” yells Mark Foley from deep within. Pastor Ted Haggard steps from the shadows to the doorway and berates me: “Oh, look, it’s the Vast Left Wing Media Conspiracy here to shine light into our closet! Don’t you have anything better to do?” He slams the door shut in my face.
More than a little bewildered, I back away from the door. As I stand there wondering what to do with my coat, ex-male prostitute Mike Jones shoulders his way past me. He has two congressional pages with him as helpers, who set down a toolbox next to the closet door. They rummage within it, then start removing the hinges from the door, and attacking it with a large prybar. Mike turns and notices me (and my coat), and helpfully points to the main door.
“Coat check is inside, to your right.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, and enter the main hall. Momentarily dazzled by the festivities within, I turn to my right to find a window in the wall with a “Coat Check” sign. I stroll over, and to my surprise find Donald Rumsfeld inside, hanging on a hook halfway to the ceiling. He looks soaked, and water dribbles off him to form a puddle on the floor beneath.
“Check your coat?” he asks me. Because the sight is so shocking, he has to repeat himself. “Check your coat? What? You’ve never seen anyone hung out to dry before? Come on, give me your coat.”
Dumbfounded, I hand it over. He tosses it to Ken Mehlman (also dangling from a hook), who attaches my coat to a cable and presses a button. The cable retracts, and my coat is whisked into a dark hole in the ceiling marked “Does NOT go to the NSA. Don’t even ASK.” A cold breeze blows from the hole, causing Rumsfeld and Mehlman to slowly twist in the wind.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I protest, “Where’s my coat going?”
Rumsfeld sneers at me. “I guess we’ll just have to call that a ‘known unknown.’ You came here to check your coat, well, golly gee, that’s just what we’re going to do. Maybe your coat has weapons of mass destruction in the pockets. Maybe it will benefit from a stay at Guantanamo. We’ll just have to see, won’t we? Don’t worry about your coat, we’ll completely check it out.”
I attempt a last stab at ever seeing my coat again, “Well at least give me my claim check.”
Rumsfeld’s face breaks into that Skeletor grin he does so well. “We know who you are, don’t worry.” With a shudder, I turn away from his cackling laughter.
I move forward into the enormous hall of festivities. I immediately look for the open bar, of course (this is a standing rule which must be strictly adhered to, or they’ll kick you out of the Journalism Union). I spot it over the heads of a crowd, and elbow my way towards it.
It turns out the crowd blocking progress is just standing looking wistfully towards the bar, and not actually ordering drinks. I shoulder past “freedom fries” Bob Ney, and, as I pass Mel Gibson and Robin Williams, I overhear a snatch of conversation, “…yeah, I expect Michael Richards to join us any day now….”
I finally break through this gaggle and find myself at the bar next to a guy just as underdressed as I am. As I order a drink, he introduces himself as a wire service political reporter. He offers to show me around the room, and we both leave the bar area together, fresh drinks in hand.
“To fit everyone in the celebration, like-minded people were seated together,” my new friend explains. “This table here in the shadows, for instance, is the Iraq Reconstruction Table.” We stop to see what is going on.
Several Republican congressional committee chairmen are dressed as waiters. They constantly circle the table, dispensing mounds of cash onto the guests’ plates. I see a man with a “Halliburton” label who is almost drowning in the pile of cash being shoveled in front of him. The KBR man next to him helps staunch the flow by moving some of this money onto his plate. I spot Parsons and Bechtel nametags on other guests. But my attention is drawn to the centerpiece on the table — a massive, full-sized ice sculpture of a man with an accountant’s eyeshade and a magnifying glass. “Who’s that?” I ask my guide.
“That’s Stuart Bowen, Jr.,” he replies, and (noticing my blank expression), continues, “He’s the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The Republicans froze him out by canceling his budget, since he was beginning to uncover some nasty truths.”
At this point we have to back away from the table, since the cash is piling up everywhere, spilling onto the floor in heaps. Head waiter Hastert claps his hands, and a team of congressional Republicans appears, dressed in janitor’s outfits with “Oversight” prominently written on the back. They start hurriedly sweeping billions of dollars under the carpet, while chanting: “Nothing to see here! Move along!” The patrons at the table thank them for their efforts by stuffing their pockets with bundles of cash, “for your next campaign.” As we walk away from the table, I take a last look at the ice sculpture, which seems to be melting slightly, as drops of what I assume is water run down the icy cheeks from the statue’s eyes.
Further back in the shadows, a trial seems to be taking place at the next table. It’s hard to figure out what’s going on, though, since apparently the only one who is allowed to speak is the judge. We stop and listen in for a moment.
“…the Defendant (whose name is a classified secret) is not permitted to talk with his lawyer (since he may talk about classified matters) and is not permitted to challenge his detention in civil court (since they aren’t cleared for classified matters and may reveal secrets) or to even talk about his interrogation (since it involved classified secrets) or the methods used in such interrogations (since the methods themselves have been classified top secret) and cannot use any of these facts in his defense (and we’re not even sure he’s allowed any defense whatsoever) since this may alert our enemies to our (top secret) interrogation methods, which are not torture as we define it (which definition we cannot reveal, as it is classified), even if the only people on the planet who haven’t heard these techniques already from the free press (which we’re thinking of prosecuting for treason) must have just arrived from Mars…”
We wander away, as listening to the judge drone on is beginning to make my head ache. We quickly pass an enclosed niche where dozens of people are repeating the judge’s words and muttering “damn straight” and “right on” at various intervals. I lift an inquisitive eyebrow as we hurry past, and my friend dismisses them, saying, “That’s just the right-wing echo chamber, pay it no heed.” Just before we’re out of earshot, a chorus of “Ditto! Ditto! Ditto!” breaks out.
The next table is on the edge of the shadowed section. “Here’s a funny one,” my host points out, “You might call this the ‘K Street Project Memorial Table.’” Sad-eyed Republican lobbyists appear to be desperately cleaning up an almost-bare table. There are still a few dollars and some coins lying around, but most everything has already been shoved into their briefcases. They notice us watching them and rush over with freshly-printed résumés feverishly clutched in their hands. They begin loudly grunting, “Got jobs? Got jobs?” at us. We hurry quickly away, but at least one of them gets close enough to shove something in my pocket.
Once we’re clear of them, I pull it out. It’s a dollar bill with a strange question-mark sort of shape (or perhaps a warped numeral 3) printed on it in ink. My friend grabs it with disgust, crumples it up and tosses it over his shoulder. “Earmarks,” he explains briefly. “Half the money in this town has earmarks on it.”
We finally come out of the shadows into brilliant white light. Powerful spotlights from all around are all focused on the next table. To my surprise, I see several prominent Democrats seated with an equal number of well-known Republicans. John Kerry and John McCain are chatting next to each other. Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton share a private joke. John Edwards, Sam Brownback, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, Wes Clark, Bill Frist, and Al Gore are all sitting comfortably together. Even as we stand watching, dozens more rush to the table and grab seats (most of whom I don’t recognize). The table seems to somehow expand to fit each one of them in.
“OK, this one’s easy,” I say, “This must be the 2008 presidential candidate table.” My friend nods with a grin.
“Notice the media?” he asks.
I turn back, unsure of what he means, but then I spy (on the floor) all the big talking heads from the television media, crawling around underneath the table. They all appear to be fighting for scraps that fall from the table. Tim Russert seems to be hoarding these scraps, but selectively. Katie Couric looks confused, but she’s gamely trying to keep up with the others. Particularly disgusting is Chris Matthews, who is busily licking Hillary Clinton’s toes, murmuring “Please run, Hillary, please run… I’ve already spent the past year mentioning your campaign every chance I can get… I’m obsessed… please, please, please run…”
“Revolting,” I comment.
My pal agrees, “Yeah, he needs help.”
We turn away from the glare of the klieg lights, to the biggest table in the room. Hundreds of people sit at this table, but I don’t recognize any of the ones closest to us. “Congress,” my guide helpfully explains. The centerpiece of this table is another ice sculpture, this one of a duck wielding crutches, hobbling along on what is obviously a broken leg. As we watch, dozens of Democrats rush into the room and start yanking Republican seat-holders out of their chairs. “Time to go!” they gleefully chant over and over again.
Shelley Sekula-Gibbs causes a momentary spectacle, yelling, “No, you can’t remove me, I just started! You’re all fired! And all of your staff! They’re fired too!” I see Tom DeLay, from his spot on the sidelines, cringe in embarrassment. Katherine Harris, also on the sidelines, is in the process of being forcibly restrained and wrapped in a straitjacket. She appears to be frothing at the mouth.
Suddenly, the room lights dim. Our attention is drawn to the stage, which occupies one side of the hall. Several bad warmup acts come out in swift succession; Rush Limbaugh doing his Michael J. Fox imitation, then George Allen (while casting wistful looks at the presidential candidate table) doing a standup comedy routine which seems to consist entirely of politically incorrect jokes. A scuffle breaks out from the wings, and O.J. Simpson briefly steps on the stage — only to be abruptly yanked off again by Rupert Murdoch. Madonna and Barbra Streisand come out and do a brief duet rendition of their new song, “George W. Bush is the Anti-Christ” — and then the stage falls mercifully silent.
As the anticipation grows, suddenly the Secret Service is everywhere. They take up positions on the stage and throughout the crowd. There are three on the stage in sight of us, one of whom is sporting a black eye and several bruises, and two of which are holding purses. I shoot a puzzled look at my friend, who whispers in my ear, “They’ve had a bad week. Those two were on First Twins duty when Barbara Bush’s purse was snatched from a restaurant in Buenos Aires, and the other one got beat up while off duty down there.”
Another man with a badly bruised face wearing a suit walks on stage, looks around, and checks the microphones. My friend whispers to me, “That’s the White House Travel Office Director. He got mugged in Honolulu while Bush was returning from Asia. As I said, they’ve had a bad week.”
A spotlight hits the stage and the band strikes up “Hail to the Chief.” A waxwork dummy of President Bush is wheeled on stage, holding an equally fake Thanksgiving turkey. As the dummy gets to center stage, the crowd gasps. Bush’s face is as bruised and torn-up as the other two men. My friend explains, “Bush couldn’t be here, so he called Madame Tussauds to use their wax figure, but unfortunately, someone just vandalized it. You might say it got a thumping.”
The crowd waits expectantly, but the Bush figure just stands at the microphone. Several clicks and buzzes are audible, then a thin trickle of smoke starts rising from the figure’s head. The Bush figure’s head slumps forward unexpectedly, and the tray with the fake turkey crashes to the floor. The turkey is beyond repair, and the carcass has formed a perfect outline of Iraq on the floor. A second gasp goes up from the crowd.
Richard Perle appears from the right wing of the stage, ranting: “That turkey was a perfectly good turkey and it would have successfully been fed to the American people if Bush hadn’t dropped it so badly! The idea of the turkey was sound! It was just mishandled! It could have been a good turkey!”
Kenneth Adelman and Michael Rubin join in behind Perle, “He’s right! Listen to him! The neo-cons had a great turkey of an idea, and the White House bungled our beautiful turkey!”
Karl Rove darts out of the gloom from the wings, twirling a lasso over his head. He ropes the three dissenters and yanks them back into the right wing.
Meanwhile, technicians have furiously been working on the Bush figure’s head. They finally back away, and the figure’s head speaks in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Dick Cheney. “I hereby declare we have achieved victory in Iraq! I declare Victory!”
After a stunned pause, everyone in the room starts yelling, “Victory! Victory! That means we have to get out now! Get out! Get out! We have to get out!”
The crowd has transformed into a dangerous mob, rushing pell mell towards the exits. I am in fear of getting trampled, when my friend turns to yell: “You have the power to stop all this! Click your heels together!”
I understand him perfectly, and click my heels together while murmuring “There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…”
I awake on my couch, with the Lions game playing on the television.
Silly me, I had succumbed to the tryptophan and fallen asleep after my Thanksgiving dinner.
Yes, it had all been a horrible dream….
[Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!]
Thanking The Shit Out Of Stuff, 2006
Bob Cesca
11.23.2006
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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November 24th, 2006