By Jim Miles, Cyranos’ Journal Today

Obama at the UN Sept 25, 2012.

Israel is content with the status quo, with the its sense of ‘victimhood’ and with the U.S. as ally, its creation of the ‘war on terror’, an unending war that satisfies the political-religious-corporate-warrior elements of both governments…”

After beginning his speech with a nice homespun heartfelt story about U.S. diplomat Chris Stevens, Obama turned the rest of his speech into a series of lies that are all too common in U.S. rhetoric, lies that are concealed by fine sounding platitudes and homilies. Some of the lies are direct, but there are also lies of concealment, avoidance, wilful ignorance, and perhaps, genuine ignorance.

The UN

After the introduction, Obama continues by extending his ideas to the UN itself and

Sounds great, I would buy into it…except for the reality behind the statement. That reality is that the U.S. is one of the countries least disposed to “resolve their differences peacefully.” The global spread of U.S. military bases, generally considered to be well over 750, in over 120 countries in the world, speaks differently about “solving differences peacefully.” Obama reverses the general trend of U.S. history by saying that “diplomacy can take the place of war” when U.S. policy generally tends to be ‘we’ll threaten and manipulate first and then attack – overtly or covertly – if that fails.’

That trend can be seen in the history of Latin America and Asia in particular, with his later focus on Iran not accounting for the history of U.S. intervention there. In 1953 the U.S. and the UK covertly overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh government of Iran, with all its decades of subsequent events, in Iran, and elsewhere in the world where the Iranian model of displacing uncooperative governments was put into place, the next in line being Guatemala in 1954 (Operation PBSUCCESS).

Finally, in an interdependent world, such as we have now, the “greater opportunity and security for our citizens” tends to speak for the one per cent, the global corporations, rather than the 99 per cent of the rest of the world.

The crisis

Obama then focuses on the crisis, the attacks on the U.S. embassies set off by the hate propaganda produced by the Christian right in the U.S.:

And then, he leaves it at that, there is absolutely no honesty in speaking about the “deeper causes of the crisis” being, in my view, “the forces that would drive us apart.” Volumes have been written about the deeper causes of the crisis – to witness, Mossadegh’s Iran and Arbenz’s Guatemala as above, the oil agreements with the Saudis after World War II that maintains this bastion of Arabic feudalism to this day, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians under Suharto’s U.S. supported leadership, the unilateral support of Israel without acknowledging its nuclear threats and proliferation as well as its international humanitarian law abuses against the Palestinians, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing drone wars in Pakistan – a few among the many military interventions brought about by U.S. forces.

Some real lies…

Not true, as the U.S. did and said nothing when the Egyptian protests started and continued, hoping to maintain the status quo of their militarily supported puppet regime. Not true, as the leadership in Yemen remained under the control of the same regime, backed by the Saudis. As for Syria, still unsettled business, the suffering could well have stopped before it started if the U.S. and its coalition partners (the Saudis, Bahrain, all the GCC countries, all well known authoritarian governments) were not supplying the rebel groups with armaments but instead worked on replacing war with diplomacy.

Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with.

I think I covered this above, but let me add a few more. How about Vietnam and its denial of the UN promised vote on unification and the subsequent killing of millions of people? Or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a bombing that served only to demonstrate to the Soviets that the U.S. had and was willing to use nuclear weapons? Or what about the overthrow of Allende and the autocratic setup of Pinochet in Chile? The ongoing senseless blockade of Cuba? It goes on and on….Haiti, Argentina, Brazil, Grenada, Panama, Honduras, Columbia, Indonesia, East Timor, Laos, Hawaii….

The rhetoric continues with its disingenuity

And on this we must agree: There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents.

Fine, then the best thing for the U.S. to do is be quiet until they bring their military home and stop causing much of the mindless violence and the killing of innocents.

Now, let me be clear: Just as we cannot solve every problem in the world, the United States has not and will not seek to dictate the outcome of democratic transitions abroad.

In modern times, Libya and Syria notwithstanding, perhaps you did not “dictate” the outcome, but overt operations – as in Yugoslavia and Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan – combined with more covert operations and influences – as in the ‘colour’ revolutions in the Ukraine, Kirgizstan, and Georgia, along with all the meddling in post Soviet Russia – have certainly had large effects on populations in those areas.

Whoa horses! (To use a U.S. cowboy metaphor.) “Us” and “them?” Really? Unfortunately Obama has carried forward and improved upon many of the Bush era practices from his statement about being “with us or being with them.” Yes, all of us do have an interest in standing up to these forces, while remaining clear with where it originated.

Israel and Palestine

If the destination is clear and you are prepared to “walk alongside all who are prepared to make that journey” then peace would already have been achieved. Otherwise, this statement is also a lie. The revelations of the Palestinian Papers by al-Jazeera demonstrated that the Palestinians would go to great lengths to achieve peace; and discussions with most Palestinians show that they wish peace and are resigned to accepting only about 22 per cent of their original homeland to achieve that.

On the other hand, Israel continues to illegally build settlements in occupied territories and confiscate and annex land and resources from the Palestinians. Both Hamas and Fatah have indicated by their actions that they are capable of working towards a peaceful solution. Israel on the other hand has used the “peace process” as a mask to continue with its settlement projects. It also has been the aggressor in most of its wars, most recently with its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09, both resulting in large civilian casualties. Israel is content with the status quo, with the its sense of ‘victimhood’ and with the U.S. as ally, its creation of the ‘war on terror’, an unending war that satisfies the political-religious-corporate-warrior elements of both governments.

Next up, Iran

But just as it restricts the rights of its own people, the Iranian government continues to prop up a dictator in Damascus and supports terrorist groups abroad. Time and again, it has failed to take the opportunity to demonstrate that its nuclear program is peaceful, and to meet its obligations to the United Nations.

Double standards abound here. The U.S. has, and does, and will continue to support dictators around the world as the need fits their geopolitical needs. This is particularly obvious today with the U.S. renouncing the Assad regime in Syria while utilizing the dictatorial powers of the Saudis and the GCC countries to get rid of it. The U.S. is the creator of some of the more egregious terrorist actions around the world, using them as convenient, with al-Qaeda being both an enemy and a special operations task force for them at the same time. “Time and again [Israel] has failed to take the opportunity to demonstrate that its nuclear program is peaceful,” a not carefully guarded secret that it has upwards of several hundred nuclear warheads achieved outside of the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

We respect the right of nations to access peaceful nuclear power, but one of the purposes of the United Nations is to see that we harness that power for peace

Power harnessed for peace? Is that why the U.S. has about 5,000 nuclear warheads and is creating a euphemistic missile defence shield? Is that why the U.S. says nothing about the Israeli nuclear program, and has assisted the Indian nuclear program?

And make no mistake, a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained. It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy.

Can’t be contained? Unlike the Soviet Union, which was contained quite well, with their many thousands of nuclear warheads directed at the U.S.? And perhaps now Russia with fewer warheads, but still with the targeting? The Iranians may be a little bit crazy (as all politicians seem to be), but they have demonstrated over the years that they are not idiotic enough, in spite of their often strange rhetoric, to start a nuclear war. Of course the “security of the Gulf Nations” really refers to the security of U.S. control of the region with the aid of the dictators already in place. Ahh, the real answer is at the end, “the stability of the global economy”, the corporate elite want to continue harvesting the wealth of the world for themselves.

It risks triggering a nuclear-arms race in the region, and the unraveling of the non-proliferation treaty.

Whoa horses (again!)! I am confused. A race has to start somewhere, and Israel had nuclear weapons first, and the U.S. was in the process of helping the Shah with a nuclear program, and the U.S. has helped India avoid the NPT….so where exactly did this race begin? And so who is helping to unravel the NPT?

Universal values.

We know from painful experience that the path to security and prosperity does not lie outside the boundaries of international law and respect for human rights.

Now this is true, one of those pleasant homilies that allow the U.S. to feel good about its indispensable self when it castigates then attacks other nations for their own good. It is also obvious that the U.S. has not learned from their “painful experience” as it has always been more painful to others than to them; and they are more than willing to sacrifice many of their own native sons along this path to “security”. The U.S. has shown little respect for international law and human rights over the decades, and continues to reiterate this nice homily while using all means – economic and military – to dominate the world.

The United States of America will always stand up for these aspirations, for our own people and for people all across the world. That was our founding purpose. That is what our history shows.

Another pleasant homily followed by more illusory rhetoric. Yes, the people of the world want two or three square meals a day, a decent job, a reasonable place to live, and the ability to participate in their indigenous culture. The U.S., while proclaiming that it will always stand up for these aspirations as it was their founding purpose, have demonstrated quite the opposite. It started with the first settlers and their “civilizing mission” among the natives, whom, according to their religious beliefs, were nothing more than heathen savages.

The actions that speak the truth against the rhetoric continued across the North American continent with the genocide of large numbers of native people, spread through the other Americas, then took off overseas with its newly acquired Spanish possessions. Once overseas, it became a global power looking to control the wealth of the world for its own homeland purposes.

Imperial designs

The leaders of the U.S. empire utilize the wonderful rhetoric of humanitarian principles, universal values, and freedom of democracy to cover the reality of their actions around the world. The unfortunate part is that some of them actually believe their own rhetoric, remaining blind and ignorant to the manner in which it is applied via the military and corporate structures, and wonder why the rest of the world “hates” them. Obama’s speech reflected this in its finest form. He is a strong speaker, a good orator, but is also simply the front man for the power of the nation – the corporate nation – that is interested in maintaining its significant wealth and power differential with the rest of the world.

The United States is the largest military nation in the world. It carries the largest debt problem in the world (with perhaps the EU combined following closely behind). It remains in defiance of all the scientific information regarding global climate change. This combination of ill health and grand-standing rhetoric does not bode well for the future of the U.S. and the world.

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Ted Koppel’s Terrible Media Criticism
Posted on 09/25/2012 by Peter Hart, FAIR

TV news veteran Ted Koppel has done two pieces on NBC’s Rock Center that attempt to critique the partisanship of today’s media system. But what the reports really illustrate is that some people aren’t very good at playing media critic–especially when they feel obligated to suggest that “both sides” are equally at fault.

Koppel’s first report (9/13/12) looked at right and left watchdogs, “an industry out there on both sides monitoring and recording anything that could hurt the political opposition.” That “industry” consists of the liberal  Media Matters for America and the right-wing Media Research Center.

As Koppel explains, “You got people sitting there with headsets…waiting for someone to make a misstep.” He goes on to wonder whether the groups on both sides are “feeding the sausage machine.”

But his argument starts to fall apart right away, as he begins to tell the story of Georgetown law student and women’s health advocate Sandra Fluke. Koppel explains that radio host Rush Limbaugh’s famous remarks about Fluke–in which he called Fluke, among other things, a “slut”–seemed to be inspired by a column published by the Media Research Center. (The piece in question ran under the subtle headline “Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate.”)

Limbaugh’s comments provoked an outcry, which Koppel explained this way:

Bingo. Limbaugh had committed the kind of gaffe that fuels an entire industry, and he gave the Obama White House a gift that keeps on giving.

Well, maybe. Or he’s a sexist creep who said exactly what he wanted to convey to his audience–which isn’t really a “gaffe” at all.

Koppel explains that a “counter-gaffe” came soon thereafter, when CNN pundit Hilary Rosen said that Mitt Romney’s wife Ann “has actually never worked a day in her life.”

“I mean, this is a two-sided fistfight,” anchor Brian Williams explained as the segment closed. But it’s hard to see how the two sides can be equated. One side published a nasty hit piece on an individual, which was echoed by the most powerful radio talk show host in the country. Apparently the offense on the liberal side was noticing Limbaugh’s sexist drivel. The other example consisted of a dopey comment from a relatively obscure TV liberal mostly known for doing corporate PR.

The second installment (9/20/12) was no better, as Koppel attempted to explain how the media make all of this even worse by giving a platform to combatants on both sides.

Williams set up the show with the expected riff on how both sides do it. The secret tape of Mitt Romney at a fundraiser talking about the “47 percent” was the first strike, but then came “the counterattack from the right–the tape of Barack Obama from 14 years ago saying he believes in redistribution.” Actually, the Obama tape was deceptively edited; the rest of that passage includes Obama talking about how to “decentralize delivery systems” in order to “foster competition” and “work in the marketplace.”

Koppel starts his argument by suggesting the media have gone from the likes of Walter Cronkite to the Fox News Channel’s shouting conservative Bill O’Reilly (ignoring  the flourishing of far-right broadcasters well before O’Reilly). Actually, Koppel argues that “the bar for civility on cable television and talk radio has fallen so low that by comparison, O’Reilly seems almost reasonable.”

Indeed, if the show was meant to be ironic, then it succeeded; much of it was Koppel allowing O’Reilly to hold forth on incivility and the coarsening of the political dialogue. O’Reilly, true to his character, turns the discussion  back into a complaint about the forces arrayed against him: “I have been vilified to the extent that I have to have bodyguards almost everywhere I go.”

The Koppel segment wanted badly to show that “both sides” are contributing to this destructive cycle: “The partisan ranting is more widespread than ever,” he says. But for a supposedly two-sided problem, it seemed like they had trouble finding the left-leaning equivalent to far-right talk show hosts like Michael Savage and Mark Levin, save for a few fleeting clips from MSNBC.

The segment closed with a discussion that perfectly illustrated the problem with Koppel’s approach: Far-right shock pundit Ann Coulter posing as a media critic, alongside comedian Bill Maher–presumably a stand-in for the left. (“Smart, stubborn, and ideological opposites,” Koppel explained.)

Even though the pairing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Maher wound up making the most coherent observation by challenging one of Koppel’s statements:

 KOPPEL: The bifurcation is really extreme. I mean, the left is further left and the right is further right.

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Hanna  is a 2011 European-American action thriller film that contains prominent fairy tale elements, directed by Joe Wright. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as the title character, and Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett. The film was released in North America on April 8, 2011 and in Europe on May 5, 2011.

The Editor says:  As the most appalling decadence envelops the capitalist world, many of its movies reflect the putrefaction.  Actioners of course excel at this. And this is one of them. All noise and ludicrous stunts calibrated to wow juvenile audiences, and using the cheap gimmick of a nubile sociopathic killer, this extended bore partially glorifies or cynically decries the deeds of US intel agencies, while serving as devious recruiting posters for precisely these entities. 

BY HIRAM LEE, WSWS.ORG
In a cabin in the Arctic, Erik (Eric Bana), a rogue CIA agent, trains his young daughter, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), to be an assassin. The two have lived like recluses all of Hanna’s life, in hiding from the CIA. The young girl appears never to have experienced the world.

Hanna is being trained to kill Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), another agent with whom Eric shares a dark history. Once Hanna’s training is complete, she flips a switch on a transmitter which alerts the CIA to her presence. Erik flees before the authorities arrive, with plans to rendezvous with his daughter again in Germany. Hanna allows herself to be taken into custody. The bulk of the film follows her escape and subsequent journey to reunite with her father in Berlin, fighting off mercenaries hired by the CIA along the way.

Hanna, directed by Joe Wright (born 1972), is a very insubstantial and contrived film. It bears some similarity to the series of films built around Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne character, in that it involves a former, essentially super-powered asset of the CIA seeking both freedom and revenge against the agency.

Like those films, the hero, or anti-hero, in Hanna is an expert killer, capable of inflicting sudden and brutal violence. One is meant to be impressed by—to find “cool”—the detached, unfeeling way in which Hanna brutalizes and kills her enemies. That her foes are the CIA and also brutal and unsympathetic is, to say the least, beside the point.

As with Source Code, when the filmmakers are forced to deal with human beings, and make attempts at generating feeling and emotion, the movie simply becomes tedious. A large section of the film—during which Hanna is introduced to a number of new life experiences, from her first time listening to music to her first kiss—is awkward and completely drained of inspiration or spontaneity.

Presumably, the filmmakers are attempting with these sequences to bring out the damage done to Hanna by her father and present her with the opportunity of renouncing everything she knows–violence and coldness—in favor of life, and new experiences. None of it comes through. If real life is as it is depicted in this film, one wonders why the girl doesn’t immediately run back to her cabin in the far north.

In any event, whether they are entirely conscious of it or not, the filmmakers have rendered the more violent and sadistic elements of their character the most alive and appealing. Hanna is just the latest in a long line of glorified revenge killers to have appeared in Hollywood thrillers and action movies in recent years. It is a deeply unhealthy phenomenon.

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A tribute to Joe Bageant we could not miss

Joe at the keys: We still miss you, old man.