What George Orwell and Gordon Brown Don’t Know

Susan, I have been watching the forum at Miami Dade College all day long on book tv. It has been sincerely refreshing to listen to.

Well, I guess Georgie’s just going to have to get used to barking orders in French for a while. I know it’s a bother, but it looks like the Brits really did get tired of rolling over for him. Let’s see how long it takes before the French get buyer’s remorse if Sarkozy actually ends up supporting a real live war with real live French troops supporting one of these ghastly Bush-Cheney affairs. I’ll bet it doesn’t take them as long as it took the Brits.

My guess is that the French are mainly supporting Sarkozy due to his anti-immigrant tone, rather than his views on foreign policy. I doubt the French would tolerate their forces being sent into a useless war. Frankly, I’m amazed that Blair managed to retire on his own terms.

[...] What George Orwell and Gordon Brown Don’t Know Filed under: George Orwell, Gordon Brown — jr @ 7:08 pm What George Orwell and Gordon Brown Don’t Know [...]

Aside from the many Ministry of Truth sort of lies cynically concocted by the Bush administration, there is the striking and very scary fact that Bush is acting out the Orwellian nightmare in that he has put the United States on what appears to be a permanent “war” footing just as was the case with Oceania in Orwell’s novel, 1984, and for pretty much the same reasons. As several of the contributors have noted, George W. Bush has invented an endless and fraudulent “war on terror” as a means to keep the populace in fear and to control both the Congress and the media in order to enhance his own power as chief executive.

Nice!

My pithy observation has always been that Orwell was 100 years early. If we stay on this road to totalitarian hell bu$hlerCo accelerated, when our young children/grandchildren today are themselves grandparents, we’re full-blown there. Only 77 years from now and time flies.

Oh cool. I’m mad at myself that i missed Paul Krugman, but I think BookTV is replaying that shortly, and will watch.

What else did I miss?

Last weekend, a ‘winger author named Jack Cahill was on BookTV. I had to watch … he was speaking to a Republican club in California, and he’s written about — kind of in response to “What’s Wrong With Kansas?” — “What’s Wrong with California?”

It was mind-blowing to hear him spew. I didn’t know that George Soros is a Communist and that he’s using his money, through groups like Moveon.org, to spread communism in the U.S. I didn’t know that Rachel Carsons was a fraud. And the homosexual agenda? That’s spread by leftists who want to destroy the American family — it’s not about giving homosexuals rights, it’s about wrecking our social system. I learned a lot.

ONE THING the authors of the new Orwell essay book said today: The rightwing and GOP are very skilled at creating NEW FEARS in people, and also in creating great phrases where as the left and Democrats are lousy at it. As an example, they mentioned SCHIP — they said, on its face, that sounds like something people’d put in their TV sets to protect their kids from bad programming — why can’t the left come up with better names like “No Child Left Behind,” etc. GOOD POINT.

I must also say that I get the biggest kick out of seeing Gordon Brown on television because he is SOOOO un-TV-ish. He is so stolid and serious. He speaks brilliantly — well, he has a great mind. it is clear that he has a very measured, rational take on world affairs, and that he is incapable of bringing himself to indulge in the typical rhetoric of politicians.

I hope he doesn’t prove me wrong. And I frankly don’t know much of his history, except that he was a thorn in Tony Blair’s side.

Any nation that agrees verbatim with the Bush administration’s stated position concerning nuclear weapons development is at risk of being credited by the Bush administration with having given prior approval to any ostensibly preventive or preemptive measure that President George W. Bush might choose to take, such as striking Iran.

Susan,
I saw a little of George Soros, he was very good.
Yes – one of the rabid right’s favorite mantras is SorosSocialistMoveonCommunist as often as possible in a sentence. Maybe I should just say ScaifeMurdockBlackFascist the same way. Which would probably seem kinda stupid to most folks me but then again wingers don’t have to deal with facts or ethics. And stupidity is embraced.
Soros was an important player in the fall of the Iron Curtain. As was Havel, the Pope, the AFL-CIO, Lech & Solidarity, Gorbachev and every US President since Truman – concluding with Ronald Reagan.
It’s great to have you back, Susan.

Susan:
OK my friend..I have ( mostly useless ) 500 channels and I have never heard of booktv.
And when you think about it who ever thought of naming a channel booktv..think about it..You can’t read a book and watch tv and you can’t watch tv and read a book. So..why not booktv? I’m just play’n.
Listen, I’ve got to agree with you.. I can’t stand rightwingers that want all our rights but are first in line to deny rights to gays and anyone else they don’t like…They try to tell us what america is supposed to be like and how to act..Or they Ann Coulter you..Wether they or anyone else likes it or not, gay people are americans and deserve every right and protections under our constitution as anyone else. It’s not open to interpretation by the GOP.

That’s spread by leftists who want to destroy the American family — it’s not about giving homosexuals rights, it’s about wrecking our social system.

a comment on Atrio’s blog that says a lot

(CNN) 2020. Mr. Jones, it now costs you $50 a gallon for gas. Your family is living on potatoes and gifts from local charities. Both your sons have died in Iraq. You have terminal cancer, as does your wife. You both have been denied the kind of medical care that could have saved your lives. And your house is being repossessed under the bankruptcy law. What is your take on this?

I am glad you asked. I want to stop abortions and have us win in Iraq. I want prayer in schools and abstinence-only teaching here and in Africa. And I want illegal aliens out of this country. They have destroyed this country!
spinoza 66:6 | 11.11.07 – 10:06 pm | #

has anyone seen this documentary, War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2007)?

“War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another …” -imdb.com

fyi hoosier hoops, all. book tv is not separate tv station, it is a regularly scheduled program on cspan2. (runs on the weekends. they have some great stuff (in the public policy arena) that would be like catnip for folks here; serious “intellectual brain food.”

per their link, (see below) starting at 10pm est/edt tonight — like right now — they are reairing for 8 hours many of the authors shown earlier today.

so if ya want…set your vcr/dvd before going to bed. there are some seriously excellent authors and presentations. i caught part of it earlier today (more on that in a separate post). good stuff.

here’s a link to get you into booktv
http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx

It’s on C-Span2. But its Web site is http://www.booktv.org

I’m a BooKTV nerd. I love it. I even watch the rightwingers often — it’s clear that they stand on their heads to try to give all sides a chance to promote their books.

It’s only on on the weekends, except during holidays, when it runs extra days … e.g., on Thanksgiving weekend, it’s on for four days, and I’m in heaven! :)

The video for the Orwell panel today probably isn’t up yet, but it will be. I checked, and I don’t think it airs again before tomorrow morning. But I’m sure that BooKTV will reair it in the future — you just need to check their schedule.

I signed up for their weekly newsletter, and it tells me all the shows that will be on.

What Wethornet said.

It used to be, on my DISH schedule that I can scan on my TV, that BookTV’s program desriptions weren’t listed, which was frustrating — I’d have to go to their Web site and look up each show. But for the past three-four months, DISH’s TV schedule displays the name of the author and the author’s book — so I can set my DVR to record shows that are on in the middle of the night. Hopefully, whatever cable/satellite system you have gives you a programming schedule with details.

haven’t seen it. have heard and read good things about it.

[...] an interesting post today on What George Orwell and Gordon Brown Donâ

o/t

LA Times Photog Offers Heartbreaking Update On Marlboro Marine.

here is something i found over at dailykos. it is, quite simply, one of the most powerful and beautiful things i’ve read and heard in 4+ years on the war.

a diary entry. about the young marine that was the subject in one of the iconic photos of the war. he was smoking. the marlboro marine. outside of fallujah. he’s now out of the marines courtesy of ptsd. marine is home in kentucky. photographer stays in touch occassionally. marine struggling. they drive together from kentucky to west haven, connecticut and a va center with the best ptsd program in the country. and so on.

i think this deserves it’s own separate post. (hint susan and larry.) and distribution far and wide. (hint the rest of y’all, and susan and larry.)

it is a photo essay — 3 parts — on the marine by the l.a. times photo dog who took the origional photo. the marine now has ptsd. the first 2 parts are in his words; part 3 is the photo dog’s words.

i and the netroots give the msm media a ton of grief. it richly deserved imho; had they done their job this war would have never happened. but i give kudos to the la times and their photographer for the story presented here.

dailykos diary link: (for background purposes if wanted.)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/12/23650/893

la times 3 parter: (about 18 minutes of audio and photos.)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/marlboromarine/

Sounds like Gordon Brown might be listening to Iaea’e Elbardei who has repeatedly said that Iran poses no “imminent threat” and that there is “no hard evidence” to back up the cakewalk in Iraq zealots repeated claims about a unsubstantiated nuclear weapons program in Iran.

Just like before the invasion of Iraq there are
plenty of other military and policy analyst questioning the zealots claims about Iran. Gordon Brown is in good company

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-brzezinski23apr23,0,3700317.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Been there, done that
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Talk of a U.S. strike on Iran is eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the Iraq war.
By Zbigniew Brzezinski, Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security advisor to President Carter from 1977 to 1981.
April 23, 2006
IRAN’S ANNOUNCEMENT that it has enriched a minute amount of uranium has unleashed urgent calls for a preventive U.S. airstrike from the same sources that earlier urged war on Iraq. If there is another terrorist attack in the United States, you can bet your bottom dollar that there also will be immediate charges that Iran was responsible in order to generate public hysteria in favor of military action.

Flynt Leverett
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10326/

General Wesley Clark
http://www.stopiranwar.com/?page_id=16

Scott Ritter
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/144204

Thank you Thank you to all who have served this nation in the belief that that they were being told the truth by our leaders.

So absurd that Cheney gave a speech on Veterans Day at Arlington Cemetary. A man who ran from serving in Vietnam. Would have been far more appropriate to have Republican Senator Hagel and Dem Senator Webb have addressed the crowd. A bi-partisan speech by two men who put their own asses on the line.

Anyway my deepest appreciation to all those who have served our nation with the most sincere intentions.

I watched Tom Hayden and Craig Unger at the Miami Dade bookfest. They were great, Hayden especially!

Hayden observed that the Code Pink ladies won’t make a dent protesting at Congressional hearings. The best way to effect change is to vote the assholes out, or threaten them with heavy losses at the polls. He also said he was amazed that none of the anti-war groups have planned for a protest in case Bush attacks Iran. The anti-war groups better get on it!

Craig Unger observed about the Niger docs what he described as the “elephant in the room:” The documents were forged! They were forged and they were passed along to various intelligence agencies more than once.

I know a certain number of women who participate in Code Pink actions, and I hate to say it, because some of them are very nice people and they’re all well-meaning, but I think Code Pink has become counter-productive. Sort of like the yippies were way back when. I don’t think they advance the cause of peace and they give the wingnuts something to latch onto.

too bad brown didn’t replace blair sometime before 03. the american people thank you mr prime minister. don’t back down. we are on the edge of disaster. helping our government is NOT helping us.

Sarkozy is a johhny come lately to the “professional electoral candidate” style of politics of Berlesconi, Bush, and Blair. though i liked when he helped out in the hostage crisis thing

They just look like they’re a bunch of nuts. Sorry to say that too, but it’s true. And they detract from the anti-war position, which is what is the saddest thing of all.

Time was … I have to ask Other Lisa for a copy of the photo … but, about 2002-2003, Code Pink did a brilliant protest on the beach in Santa Monica/Venice … they used people to create one of Picasso’s great paintings of a DOVE (for peace), and then took aerial photographs of what they’d created. It was so clever and so beautiful and so uplifting. I miss that Code Pink.

I attended the first Code Pink march in the fall of 2002. Medea Benjaman and most of the women and men have the most honorable intentions. They did not want the invasion to take place and have been committed ever since. Medea and her husband Kevin started Global Exchangehttp://www.globalexchange.org/ and are clearly committed to justice and peace issues all across our planet.

I did question Medea early on about the costumes etc. She said it was a method to draw in the MSM and indeed it does. I have disagreed with some of their methods, especially when some whack shit stood behind Valerie Plame Wilson during her testimony for the Senate. This distracted and undermined her testimony.

But I do not question Medea’s intentions. I think they should start wearing dark suits into the hearings. When they stand up when something outrageous, or absurd takes place during the hearing, if they had their street clothes without all of the pink hullabaloo I think it would be far more effective.

I think their willingness to show OUTRAGE is completely acceptable. If only more Americans were willing to show some outrage about the death and destruction in Iraq the situation might change. The warmongers bank on a certain level of complacency and apathy.

They should dress like MEN.

They should dress like MEN. Come on Susan, have you never heard of street theater. This is street theater with political content.

Susan propoganda is visibly effective when people adhere to its message. There’s a lot of adhering going on right now.

Heartening to hear of Brown’s courage. Lets see how long it lasts. But the deeper and more important question is, will it make a difference?

Unlike Orwell, I only measure outcomes. The rest is irrelevant.