A very tiny except from my impending DC Madam account

Ed.--I've posted some of this before, but it bears repeating.

This is taken directly from the text of my account and can also be taken as an assertion of intellectual property (the bracketing text and the edit of the transcript). You do not own it. Any copying requires a request as well as citation, no exceptions, and I will come after major offenders in a court of law, bank on it. This applies to everything I have ever generated on this site as well as outside of it.

This exchange was never reported by the mainstream press for doctrinal purposes.

"From day three (April 9, 2008) in the racketeering trial of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, an exchange for the ages that would serve as a fine example for law school students in the Anglo-American sphere, and which came towards the end of a long day of endlessly banal testimony:

 Q [AUSA Daniel P. Butler]. And did you compare the tax returns to the bank records for Ms. Palfrey?

A. Yes.

Q. And what did that show?

A. The comparison of the bank records for this year, 2002, show that there was a greater amount of gross receipts than was reported on this line.

MR. BURTON: Can we approach, Your Honor?

THE COURT: Yes.

(BENCH CONFERENCE ON THE RECORD.)

MR. BURTON: I don't know where this is going.

MR. BUTLER: I'm not going to any tax discrepancy, or anything to that effect.

THE COURT: You just saddled her with basically what is false reporting.

MR. BUTLER: Well, I don't think it's gone that far [Page break] yet, Your Honor. I'm not going any further with this line of inquiry.

THE COURT: Well, now you've put the defense in the position where they have to respond to this. How are they going to do that?

MR. BUTLER: Well, Your Honor, that was not the intent of my question, but I appreciate what the Court is saying.

THE COURT: What was the intent of the question?

MR. BUTLER: My intent of the question, Your Honor, was directed at the gross receipts that were deposited into this and comparing it with the bank records that we have. It was a poorly phrased question. That's all I can say about it. I don't know anything more than that.

THE COURT: Well, where are you going next?

MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, I'm going next with -- can I just have a moment, Your Honor? Your Honor, there's another chart in terms of -- I just need to grab it, just to answer the question more explicitly, if I can have a moment.

THE COURT: How much more do you have with this guy?

MR. BUTLER: Not very much at all, Your Honor.

MS. CONNELLY: I think there's a bunch more documents.

MR. BUTLER: Well, there's other documents we need to admit through him, yes.

THE COURT: Can he come back in the morning? [Page break]

MR. BUTLER: We can do that, Your Honor.

THE COURT: I think I want to instruct the jury that there was no tax charge, no tax claim in this case.

MR. BUTLER: That's fine, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Maybe I'll even instruct them they are to disregard that last answer because it's not relevant to your case.

MR. BUTLER: What I would ask is -- I'll defer to the Court on that, but I think there's no -- that the answer did not say that she has cheated on her taxes. [Even though it actually did say that, but...]

MR. BURTON: I think I have to move for a mistrial because of it, because she's not charged with tax evasion.

THE COURT: I know you have to file that motion, and the motion is denied. But I will give a corrective instruction right now.

MS. CONNELLY: Your Honor, in terms of scheduling, we do have some more civilian witnesses. He may not come back on until tomorrow afternoon, but he'll be available all day tomorrow. We just might put the other witnesses on first.

THE COURT: You've made satisfactory progress today.

(END BENCH CONFERENCE.) ...

I was expecting “Robertson pats AUSA” in brackets in the transcript next. ..."

Wikileaks releases what could be evidence of the murder of Reuters journalists as well as civilians in Iraq

WWW--This is a very big deal and gives some more context to possible harassment of Wikileaks by American military and/or intelligence personnel as well as of anyone trying to report the reality on the ground in American occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't even know how to put this into words, but I do recall this incident from July 12th, 2007 where Iraqi Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed by "friendly fire"...only now it appears that the fire was quite intentional and anything-but-friendly. There also seems to be an element of bloodlust and cowardice on the part of the crew of the Apaches. Did they know the two were journalists? This is unclear, but there is mention in the communications transcript from the copters that seems to connotate that they knew they were "civilians."Is this yet another "isolated" event?

Recall that in early April 2003, three Al-Jazeera journalists were killed by "friendly fire," and also calls to mind the "accidental" shooting of hostage and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena who was fired on by American troops just outside of the Baghdad International Airport and nearly killed. One of her Italian intelligence agent rescuers--Nicola Calipari--died of his wounds. Sgrena worked for the Italian Communist paper, Il Manifesto. One might think you're life might be in danger as a correspondent if you're not towing the line for the Pentagon.

A separate site from the main Wikileaks home has been created for the release, possibly for security measures to prevent its hacking:

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. (www.collateralmurder.com/index)

The military has been mostly silent on how the event occurred and how the slain died, but ruled in an inquiry that the rules of engagement at that time were observed. The whole story underscores the weakness of the FOIA as well, but whatever works, it's out now. Reuters demanded an inquiry and action in the aftermath in 2007, just as they've had to in obtaining the release of other Iraqi Reuters employees/journalists, from Iraqi prisons, and got very little from the Pentagon--at least not copies. They were shown the materials off-the-record. Criminals don't tend to indict themselves, especially when they're the ones in power.

There's no indication from any source of any combat or exchanges of fire immediately before the Apache helicopter gunner opened-fire on civilians and the two journalists, killing as many as eleven. One individual was viewed brandishing an RPG (soviet-designed rocket propelled grenade), but was seen after the event began and shots had already been fired. Two U.S. Army Apache helicopters were involved the 2007 incident with some ground forces nearby. Footage from one helicopter has been leaked to Wikileaks by a military whistleblower(s) and the activist site itself claims to have conducted interviews with other journalists, military personnel and other witnesses at the scene, including consulting with Reuters over the basic facts and timeline.

...WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work. (ibid)

Wikileaks makes a fine point that occurred to me almost immediately: if we're seeing what we think we're seeing (and hearing), the event could even be part of a pattern of violence, harassment, and intimidation against members of the press in American war zones, especially considering that Reuters has had other incidents of harassment directed against their personnel in Iraq. A few of these journalists were arrested under flimsy pretenses and ferried off to the palatial Abu-Ghraib prison where God knows how they were treated. Now is a time of scoundrels. It hasn't ended with the national elections of 2008.

Wikileaks appears to have done their homework and have even included photographs, a timeline, documents, and even the transcript of the communications between the helicopters, also very telling when taken with the rules of engagement at the time and the 38 minute video. This exchange is most galling and not honorable behavior for soldiers of any army, of any nation:

...17:46 Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

17:48 That's right. ...

18:29 I think they just drove over a body.

18:31 Hey hey!

18:32 Yeah!

18:37 Maybe it was just a visual illusion, but it looked like it.

18:41 Well, they're dead, so. ...

(http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html)

After these comments, there were more shots fired by the crew of the main Apache helicopter and a missile was fired into a building filled with armed civilians. There's no indication that any shots had been fired at the military personnel at any point in the roughly 38 minute event. It should be noted that many Iraqis carry AK-47s into dangerous areas, which one can assume, is when occupying troops and militias are present. Johnny got his gun, was instilled with fear and trained to kill, and imbued with a hair-trigger mentality. This isn't how soldiers are supposed to behave, not at all. Yet, the Pentagon says that this was part of the rules of engagement at the time. Are they sure they want to stand by that one?

Contrary to popular belief, life isn't a videogame.

"BREAKING NEWS-LEAKED VIDEO FOOTAGE EXPOSES PENTAGON MURDER COVER-UP," The Elf Wax Times, 04.05.2010: http://www.elfwax.com/news/breaking-news-video-footage-to-expose-pentagon-murder-cover-up/

Wikileak's page on the 2007 slaughter: http://collateralmurder.com/en/download.html

Tyler Bass's blog: http://spectaclemonopolized.blogspot.com/

NYTimes article on original Baghdad attack in July 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html

"The war on Wikileaks and why it matters," Salon.com, 03.27.2010: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+salon%252Fgreenwald+%2528Glenn+Greenwald%2529

http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html

"U.S. Bombing Raid Kills Three Journalists in Bagdad," Fox News.com, 04.08.2003: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83503,00.html

Some more thoughts on the word "retarded"

Now that Sarah Palin's tried very feebly--as is her wont in all endeavors--to control our language when she can't even control her own, it's time to pull our collective-heads out of our collective-asses and realize that this is just a word and that the context it's used in and the intent behind it are what's important. The word itself is unimportant, and mature adults know this and accept it for what it is. People say hurtful things, get over it, grow-up.

But we's a reactionary people--bawss--and we go off half-cocked all the time since many of us "natives" (Eurotrash) are descended from lynch mobs, though that's another fairy tale for another time. Does it have to be said that this is just a word? Yes, apparently, it does: it's just a word, folks. You can't shield yourself or your kids from everything, and sometimes, sometimes, we have be tolerant and take our licks like everyone else. That's life, and part of being a real adult. You accept that there are things that are never going to go away and that you cannot get rid of them.

When you stampede like a wild herd of mindless buffaloes (OK, that's unfair to the bison), as many of us did in the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001, you start fucking-up all over the place. We all blew it, myself included, for various reasons. In my own case, I should have been far more defiant and opposed to the Bush II administration even in the aftermath of that event. I was not, and I was not alone, not by a long-shot. And wasn't the manipulation of language at the core of their misrule for eight very long years that the Tea Baggers (Tea Tards) seem to have missed entirely? Words like "terrorism," "weapons of mass destruction," "mushroom clouds," "attacks," "suspects," "terror alerts," and so many others, were injected with and took on new and very hollow meaning to whip-up fear in an already reactionary society and culture.

The bastards knew their marks well, and they not only rifled-through our wallets, but convinced many of us to hand over our hard won rights as Americans. This was not only stupid, it was, and still is, pathetic, and stinks of a people who probably don't deserve their liberties, if they ever did. That's not to say we can't fix what happened, but we have our work cut out for us, and that means endlessly demanding of the current administration, and probably the one after it, that there are real investigations into the crimes known or suspected of being committed by the administration of George W. Bush. We're either a nation of laws, or merely one of words, and now we seem to even want to hand over one of the last things that makes us truly unique as a nation: a historically rare and wide-ranging freedom of speech and press.

So, for an obviously corrupt and moronic woman and former politician like Sarah Palin to tell anyone what they can and cannot say is absurd and should be met with horselaughs from all corners of American society. The upside of this is that she's actually accelerating the demise of the GOP and causing incredible division in the ranks of the Tea Party (bowel) movement, a group comprised mostly of reactionary small business owners who, until very recently, were either apolitical lumps who flunked civics class, or outright ignoramuses. Instead of the Boston Tea Party, these misguided morons invoke the memory of the same kinds of idiots that gave us the Teapot Dome scandal, courtesy of the gift that keeps on giving, the GOP, a party that makes no bones about being for the big-shots and conglomerates.

Yet many of these same turds that gave us some of the mess we're in think they have the answers when they clearly don't at all. To say that these petty bourgeois fools shit where they eat would be redundant and their reactions are just that: the dysfunctional flailing of retarded children. Put that in your meth-pipe and smoke it tonight, Bubba.

The 7 CIA KIAs in Afghanistan: When revenge really means reprisal

Occupied Afghanistan--Remember all those WWII movies where the Nazis are being attacked by partisans and members of the resistance? This is what's happening in Afghanistan.
This doesn't mean the Afghans are "good guys," they're just reacting naturally, and they have their own issues. We're worse in our behavior at this historical moment.

The CIA are calling for "revenge" in an illegal war and remembering that this is an illegal occupation is the key (wars of aggression are illegal under international law): they're already kidnapping, torturing, and even slaughtering Afghan nationals, and now, someone they thought was going to be their "snitch" (informant) got into a military facility knowing seven of them were going to be there and blew himself and them up with a bomb strapped to his torso. That's desperation under a bloody occupation, not some arbitrary act for the hell of it, and it's not even necessarily extreme. It's what happens under bloody occupations.

What the CIA should have used was the term "reprisal," the one that the Nazis and their victims frequently used when they retaliated for deaths within their own ranks. The problem in their logic at Langley--and our own if we accept such arguments--is obvious. We're the wrong side, and we're the aggressors, not the Afghans. This kind of wrong-headed thinking is only going to keep us digging our own hole, and eventually, we're probably going to get our own Stalingrad in some form or another. This "revenge" is really reprisal, don't kid yourself. We're the bad guys. We're the wrong side. The Afghan that did this killed people who might have been there to torture in his mind, and certainly came as bringers of death.

Same as the old bawss: Obama continues to cling to Bush II intelligence policies, while The Times contradicts itself ad infinitum

Washington D.C.--The New York Times did an editorial on Sunday condemning President Obama for invoking the very same kinds of claims to national security as the administration of George W. Bush. On the face of it, they're right, but we're not a proactive culture, so they were nowhere to be seen in 2004. While the criticism is deserved, one should remember exactly who's stating it: The New York Times, the same people who bent over backwards for the Bush II administration's claims on national security again and again, depriving the American public of vital information, and they sat on this NSA wiretapping story for over a year that had been uncovered by journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. We can assume there were others besides it and the Judith Miller doing the reverse for the same administration in the Plame scandal!

On Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, we got this anonymous editorial--so it can be assumed that the institution itself backs it--sternly titled "The Cover-up Continues," something that they're practiced hands at at the Times and would therefore know when they saw it:

...In that case [of the renditioned Ethiopian national Binyah Mohamed], the Obama administration has repeated a disreputable Bush-era argument that the executive branch is entitled to have lawsuits shut down whenever it makes a blanket claim of national security. The ruling rejected that argument and noted that the government’s theory would “effectively cordon off all secret actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the C.I.A. and its partners from the demands and limits of the law.” The Obama administration has aggressively pursued such immunity in numerous other cases beyond the ones involving Mr. Mohamed. We do not take seriously the government’s claim that it is trying to protect intelligence or avoid harm to national security.

Great, and again, they're right, but thanks to their practices surrounding the warrantless wiretapping program and other areas, they definitely affected existing lawsuits; it would be impossible for the suppression not to have. No, in 2004, the New York Times did just that--they took seriously the government's claim that it was trying to protect intelligence and that if they published, it would harm national security. Or, it's just their excuse and they conspired criminally or abetted or enabled them, or any number of unpleasant permutations.

Like most mainstream journalists, Risen and Lichtblau valued their careers and bank accounts over the common good when they should have held a press conference once it became clear that their editors were going to sit on the very explosive information of high crimes, and they kept quiet. The program itself was illegal under the 1978 FISA. The role of the Times couldn't be more crucial in this story since they bought criminals over a year to cover things up and to ready the legal obstacles to slow things even further. They say the wheels of justice grind slowly, especially when you put a wrench in the gears. There has been very little support in Congress to rein-in these practices or to hold anyone accountable for them, quite the opposite. Years passed as weak calls for investigations ensued and predictably went nowhere. Dueling court lawsuits went back-and-forth, and...

Then-Senator Barack Obama voted (as did the majority of the Senate) in the fall of 2008 in favor of granting the telecommunications corporations who aided-and-abetted the Bush II administration for a bill that granted them all retroactive immunity, a kind of oxymoron of the law. He was hardly alone in his "yes" vote, and it could be said with genuine shame that a Rockefeller was leading the charge. Lichtblau mischaracterized the behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Bush II administration last year at the expense of Salon, thankfully not me:

For 13 long months, we'd held off on publicizing one of the Bush administration's biggest secrets. Finally, one afternoon in December 2005, as my editors and I waited anxiously in an elegantly appointed sitting room at the White House, we were again about to let President Bush's top aides plead their case: why our newspaper shouldn't let the public know that the president had authorized the National Security Agency, in apparent contravention of federal wiretapping law, to eavesdrop on Americans without court warrants. ("The inside drama behind the Times warrantless wiretapping story, Salon, 03.28.2008)

Remember the wonderful national elections of 2004 and all the irregularities? No, not just the pandering to those who fear homosexuals and African-Americans, the problems at the polling places. Do I think that NYT journalist Eric Lichtblau is telling the whole truth here? Oh sure, I'd sit on a story for over a year, sit on the knowledge that high crimes had been committed by people under the color of authority. It's what all good apparatchiki do, both Lichtblau, Risen, and most of all, their editor, Bill Keller. The Times, Risen, and Lichtblau continue to be vague as to when exactly that first meeting occurred in 2004, but we can rest assured it was before the elections.

History isn't going to be kind to any of them in the intervening years, regardless of their lame attempts to paper over the pertinent questions of why exactly they sat on it. Another terrorist attack? A book deal? Give me a break, they were terrified in the editorial board that James Risen's book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, was going to expose that they decided to sit on the story for political purposes and ran it before it was published. They would have continued sitting on it had it not been the case. How much else of our history are they sitting on? We could be in real danger, and they wouldn't tell us. As a matter of fact, that's the case, and one has to assume that "the newspaper of record" is becoming about as reliable a source of information as a Wall Street banker. Somehow, I think they do lunch occasionally.

Licthblau's statements about the illegal program and his actions and attitudes surrounding it are a lie, a fabrication, and he's not a real journalist, and more like a stenographer. So is the Times' recent concern about being a government watchdog. It's a double-think like no other, as though they never sat on the story for over a year to help the Bush and the GOP through a tough election. That's what friends are for. Executive Bill Keller and the NYT showed considerably less concern about Bush over-reaching on national security than he does over Obama, and sat on the story for an incredible thirteen months.

But he's very careful in not being too specific as to how early they knew:

"A year ago, when this information first became known to Times reporters, the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country's security.

"Officials also assured senior editors of The Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions.

"As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.

"We also continued reporting, and in the ensuing months two things happened that changed our thinking.

"First, we developed a fuller picture of the concerns and misgivings that had been expressed during the life of the program. ("N.Y. Times statement defends NSA reporting," CNN.com, 12.16.2005)

Right, it's the job of a free press to take elected officials and their appointees at their word. This is the behind-the-scenes line held by the New York Times during the administration of George W. Bush, but oddly, not so in the case under Barack Obama, even though he's essentially doing the very same things that Bush did and is attempting with considerable effort to continue these expansions of power in the executive branch in the areas of national security. What's it going to be, eh? Who are you guys? Really. Small wonder that neither Keller, Risen, or Lichtblau will speak with any specifics about 2004.

"The inside drama behind the Times warrantless wiretapping story, Salon, 03.28.2008: http://www.slate.com/id/2187498/

"N.Y. Times statement defends NSA reporting," CNN.com, 12.16.2005: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/12/16/nytimes.statement/

"The Scoop That Got Spiked-Times delay on wiretap story leaves questions unanswered," FAIR, 01.11.2006: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2798

The Cover-up Continues," New York Times, 10.25.2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26mon1.html?_r=2

"The best and the brightest" is a crock: The U.S. Military as a form of welfare and a cult of the dead

I have never understood this: our men and women in uniform as supposed to be the best and the brightest people in our nation, yet I think we all know that this is just more rhetoric, more lies. We all know it's bullshit and that the best and the brightest aren't rushing out to join--with noteworthy exceptions like a Pat Tillman or a Sergeant York-- they're heading to where the good paying jobs are. There is also the dark side of the military in our culture: People like Lt. William Calley, the commanding officer present at My Lai during the Vietnam conflict who told his men (Calley was under orders himself) to slaughter the entire village, every man, woman, and child--and they complied. And how many movies have we seen with crazy veterans killing when they get home? For many, all this changed the perception of American soldiers across the world forever, never mind America.

Interestingly, Calley recently apologized for this atrocity at a Knights of Columbus gathering in Ohio, his home state where he's worked in a cushy job as a jeweler since at least the early 1970s. Hardly anyone noticed and it was barely reported. Most of the men who served under him haven't been so lucky, so pampered, which is a matter of race as well as class. Speaking of class, a huge percentage of our homeless are veterans, most from the Vietnam War. The claims regarding all of our troops are wildly distorted claims. They are lies the occlude the reality on the ground. Like a lot of things in modern American culture, this over-adulation begins with the First World War and has more to do with motivating the domestic population towards another, future war then it does in actually honoring the dead. It's about money and power.

The Cult of the Dead Solider is about creating a false history where our troops have always held to the rules of war and where every conflict is a just one. Even very recent history must be misrepresented. In the official story, all of our troops are noble young men and women who heard the call of their nation and joined to defend it and its environs for the common good. The reality--as we should know by now--is far less glamorous and any person capable of independent thought should view such assertions with the utmost suspicion. Life in the modern world is a minefield. After 1973, we switched over to what is now euphemistically known as the "peacetime army," and the rest applies to the other branches, they're all-volunteer now too. Yet, economic conscription is still conscription and we all know that many Americans join--as they are right now in large numbers--when the economy is bad and there are few other alternatives. In other cases, it's simply a matter of individuals who couldn't hack it in civilian society and literally had no other options regardless of the state of the economy. If you think I'm kidding, look at the lives of retired military and how rapidly they become unraveled after discharge. So why are they all "heroes"? They sound desperate to me, and I grant that this isn't the entire story, but it's the bulk of it.

In 1991, noted historian George Mosse published his seminal Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars, a book that details how the Cult of the Dead Soldier came into being and what its purpose is. Frequently, our soldiers have been painted in our culture as young, nubile, and brave, having come to the military out of pure patriotism and a sense of sacrifice for the group. Again, while there is some truth to this, I think we all know that many people--in the past and the present--have joined because they had nowhere else to go, something that's been a truism well before 1973 when the draft was ended. There was a good reason for this that has a lot to do with the current version of the Cult: the myths weren't true and the very real perception that the children of the poor were fighting the wars of rich men was commonplace and hasn't gone away entirely. As a matter of fact, it's alive and well. This healthy and cynical contention came out of the revelations of war crimes, the Pentagon Papers, but really out of ground level experience. People knew they were being screwed and lied to.

The enthusiasm of going to war is a normal prelude to reality setting-in: at the end of WWI in Germany there was no talk of glory, no celebrations over the war dead, no parties celebrating the loss. The reaction of many after any war is to want to forget and to cling very tenaciously to the myths of warfare and nationalism--that there was glory in it, that the sacrifices were necessary for the group, and that it was all a worthy cause that enriched all. That's a hard sell nowadays, but the desire to believe it is still very much alive, and it's part of a pathology. This dynamic was played-out in many different ways in our culture since 1973, from Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" movies where the muscle-bound actor went back to Vietnam to "win this time," to the the equally bad "Top Gun," Reagan's exhortations to get us involved in Central America during the 1980s, and the depictions of military men and women in recruiting ads as young, vital, cleanly-scrubbed, and pure in intentions and behavior.

The enthusiasm which youth had once felt for war as adventure and personal fulfillment was difficult to sustain after experiencing the reality of war, but the nation, using the Myth of the War Experience, was able to keep the flame alight. ...Yet it was the political Right and not the Left which was able to annex the cult and make the most of it. The inability of the Left to forget the reality of the war and to enter inot the Myth of the War Experience was a gain for the political Right, which was able to exploit the suffering of millions for its own political ends. The Myth of the War Experience helped to transcend the horror of war and at the same time supported the utopia which nationalism sought to project as an alternative to the reality of postwar Germany. (Mosse, 106)

The true costs of war and the endless suffering and repercussions have been all-but-forbidden except with noteworthy exceptions. During this conflict, so little suffering and carnage is being shown to the public that the culture had to do catch-up with endless displays of gore in CSI programs on network television. But, generally, Vietnam has posed too much of a challenge, and so, damage control has been the approach since that sordid conflict. The domestic information war was like this before Vietnam, but the methods have had to become more subtle, which makes them more insidious, from lousy xenophobic action films to video games. Our troops should never be viewed as angels nor our causes automatically "just" or "necessary," but that's the message being spoon-fed to our children.

In a democracy, talk of war should always be highly contentious and there should be a very serious debate over its necessity and what its real world costs are going to be. "Will we be better off?" should be at the top of the list. Have we been better off since the Vietnam War? The invasion of Panama in 1989 and the Gulf War in 1991? The Balkans during the rest of the 1990s? When does it end? It depends on who you ask. The shift from classical depictions of our troops has shifted to that of the victim: recall when it was alleged that American POW Jessica Lynch was mistreated and raped by her Iraqi captors. It was a total lie concocted by propaganda chiefs at the Pentagon.

Lynch once stated, "They used me to symbolize all this stuff. It's wrong. I don't know why they filmed [my rescue] or why they say these things."

The Pentagon went as far as to coerce Lynch into lying about what happened while she was being held by Iraqi troops and doctors during the invasion in late March 2003, even including the allegation in her ghost written biography; Lynch has since accused the military of using her in a propaganda effort to sell the war and that they embellished her own account. Less than one year after her ordeal, the Pentagon-backed "Saving Jessica Lynch" aired, selling more lies. Instead, she was used as a pawn on several levels, not merely including the lie that she was raped by Iraqi troops, it being a bald appeal to classic American racism as well as sexism. But why did the West Virginian Lynch join the military? She needed money for college...

There are much better and efficient ways to care for our young people, to give them a real shot at the future, and it would behoove us to begin the process of demilitarization within our economy. Patrick Tillman is another stellar example in the deification-through-victimhood of our troops. The irony is, Tillman really was a hero, but not for the reasons that the Pentagon's propagandists told us. He was a hero because he saw the war in Iraq as a lie, as a violation of international law, and I believe he went overseas to bear witness to the crimes so that he could testify about them when the smoke had cleared. I also believe that his fellow troops and possibly some officers figured this out as well. They had to use him in death for their ends because...you do the math. They destroyed his uniform and his diary. Why did they stop at that? Bad press.

An interview with Dr. Noam Chomsky, from "Interpol Magazine," February 1995 (Part 2 of 2)

This was an interview conducted through the mail with Dr. Chomsky while I was finishing my degree in American History at Ball State University. Just two-months after I received his answers in the mail, we all witnessed the Oklahoma City bombing, and the first stirrings of the war on terror (really a domestic one against all of us). It's been a long road from the Spring of 1995. At that time, the internet was just starting to become accessible, and its impact on the political and cultural discourse is only now being realized. 1995 was a year when the "zine revolution" was occurring, and it was quickly-supplanted by the high-price of paper and the internet.

This interview was done for one of those little zines--my own--called "Interpol." I actually got copies of it in zine-central, the legendary Quimby's Queer Store in Chicago. It was pretty surreal going up to the Windy City and seeing those copies in the store (I never got paid, incidentally), it felt pretty good.

All that said, I would never trade the blog format, it's superior in every respect to that old digest format, and it's getting better all the time. Dr. Chomsky is a very friendly and encouraging person, and when he passes from this world, we will have lost a wonderful human being. Appreciate the flowers in life, they are fleeting. Try to be that person you admire, and strive to make a better world for all. That's the meaning of life.


Matt Janovic: Is "Leftism", as defined by the mainstream culture, more a problem of semantics, rather than a cohesive movement? It seems that throughout much of the 20th century, when groups worked and protested and acted for honest political change, the press and various "populist" elements resorted to labeling them "anarchists," "reds," "communists/commies," "pinkos," etc. . Do you agree with the analysis that often mob actions are stimulated from above, or are there complex social and economic reasons behind scapegoating and vigilantism?

Noam Chomsky: If I were a PR specialist trying to indoctrinate and marginalize people(as they do, quite consciously), I'd try to deprive all words of meaning, so that it's impossible even to think and talk coherently about things that matter (the powerful will continue in their own ways). To a large extent, that's happened. Personally, I keep away from words like "left," "liberal," "conservative," etc.

They have been so deprived of meaning as to become useless. Take "conservatism." The Reaganites were called "conservative." In fact, they were statist reactionaries; a genuine conservative would have turned over in his grave to hear the way the term is used today. There's also been a massive falsification of the "sacred texts." Take Adam Smith. We are supposed to worship at his shrine, but if anyone takes the trouble to read him, they'll find a very different picture from the official version handed down in the doctrinal system.

As for "mob action," it has so many different causes and sources that one can't generalize. CIO organizing and the civil rights movement were "mob action" from one point of view; the rampages of Hitler's organizations were too. Usually, when destructive mob action is stimulated from above, as it often is, it appeals to genuine social and economic concerns, manipulated for that purpose. Those are the tools in trade of demagogues, of every stripe. We've got plenty of experience with it throughout US history, dramatically right now.

Matt Janovic: What can the average person learn from the fall of the Soviet Union?

Noam Chomsky: The simplest lesson is a familiar one: in a conflict, the more powerful adversary tends to win. Europe began to separate into two parts in the 15th century, the West beginning to develop, the East becoming its "third world." That continued right to the early years of this century--for much of Eastern Europe, until 1945. There are some rules of the international game: (!) service areas have to fulfill their function, not get uppity about following an independent path; (2) if they do take off on their own and turn out to be successful in terms that appeal to others in the same boat, they really have to be crushed--in official rhetoric, they are a "virus" that might "infect others," a "rotten apple" that might "spoil the barrel."

If it's a speck in the Caribbean, it takes a weekend. If it's 1/6 of the world, it takes 70 years. But the logic is rather similar; and not surprisingly, much of Eastern Europe is returning to its earlier origins. Sectors that were part of the industrial West, like the Czech Republic, are returning to that status; parts that were basically service areas are returning to the typical third world model. There are all sorts of nuances and complications, but that's a fair approximation.

It's worth stressing that despite much pretense, Western leaders had no serious objections to Stalin's awesome crimes, any more than they had fundamental objections to Hitler or Mussolini, or to Saddam Hussein, or to a host of similar and lesser monsters. On that, the documentary record is very clear, and one can learn about it in arcane monographs (or the marginalised dissident literature). In a really free society, it would be on the front pages and in the school texts, along with much else that is consigned to the memory hole, as Politically Incorrect (in the operative sense of this ridiculous term).

Matt Janovic: Dr. Chomsky, what kind of direct improvements would you envision for the American worker in the workplace, if there was more democracy in most institutions of our society? How do you think that could be brought about?

Noam Chomsky: Right now [1995] one can't look for any improvements; the immediate problem is to preserve the rights that were finally achieved at least in part in the 1930s, after a century of bitter struggle, and have been eroding ever since. They are now under very sever and cruel assault, not just for working people: the same is true of family values, as I mentioned. A traditional stance within the US labor movement and intellectual life, as American as apple pie, is that industrial democracy must be a central component of operative democracy.

If the central decision-making institutions of a society--in production, commerce, finance, ideology, etc.--are in the hands of unaccountable private power, then democracy is a thin reed at best. That's traditional and mainstream. Today it sounds exotic, but that's because the American tradition has largely been demolished, also being "Politically Incorrect." How can democratic practices be extended to the central institutions of the society? There's only one answer, always: the same way they were slowly extended to governmental functions. That was never a gift; it was the result of committed popular organization and action.

Matt Janovic: In a truly democratic society, what do you think our educational system would be like?

Noam Chomsky: Education in a democratic society would try to encourage the natural curiosity and independence of mind of children, instead of suppressing it and channelling them into obedience and conformity. It would celebrate the traditional values of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, which held that teaching should not be like filling a vessel with water, but helping a plant grow in its own way by allowing it to have proper food and light. These traditional conservative values are, of course, anathema to contemporary statist reactionaries.

Matt Janovic: Lastly, what is your idea of international humanism, and do you believe that to impose Western democratic and humanistic ideals (as the Chinese communists/nationalists loyal to the party argue) on non-Western nations is cultural imperialism?

Noam Chomsky: The idea that the West tries to impose "western democratic and humanistic ideals" on the rest of the world is one of the most ridiculous scams that the commissar class has indulged in. Western leaders, including intellectual elites, are dedicated to undermining these professed ideals at home, and centuries of brutal history show how they have "fostered" them elsewhere. Take simply the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UD).

The official line is that we courageously defend its universality, fighting off the "cultural relativists" of backward countries who say it doesn't fully extend to them. As even a moment's attention will show, the US flatly rejects about half of the UD even in principle, and grossly violates the rest. That's not controversial; the documentation is readily available. But for the doctrinal managers, it doesn't matter: what is important is ideological warfare, not truth or honesty--in fact, those are the values that have to be undermined.

Link to Part 1: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/05/interview-with-dr-noam-chomsky-from.html#links

End of Part 2 of 2 (and statement of intellectual ownership): This interview is the intellectual property of Dr. Noam Chomsky and Matt Janovic, in toto. Permission to reprint, quote, or reproduce can be obtained through written permission from the authors. Quotes of up-to four lines are acceptable without permission. All rights reserved as of 2007, Noam Chomsky and Matt Janovic.