Tonight's post focuses on a Dumb Ass Carlos Fierro's whose "Obama and the End of Racism?" is posted at CounterPunch. I don't like Dumb Asses and I don't like Liars so I have two reasons to loathe Carlos Fierro.
The Dumb Ass writes:
The liberal minded among us who told us that first and foremost we had to make sure that Obama got elected, but that after the election the real work would begin, have remained oddly silent as the Obama administration begins to take shape. First it was the announcement that Rahm Emanuel would become Obama’s Chief of Staff. Emanuel, who is one of the most ardent supporters of apartheid Zionism practiced in Israel on Palestinians, also voted for the trillion dollar give away to banks, voted to authorize the war in 2002, and worked to defeat an anti-war candidate in Illinois (see Tammy Duckworth v. Christine Cegelis). Then there was the announcement that Lawrence Summers would head the National Economic Council and act as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Mr. Summers found fame when, as president of Harvard, he publically suggested that women are inferior to men in math and science, which accounted for Harvard’s disproportionately low numbers of women in math and sciences. Mr. Summers lost his gig as president shortly after. And lastly we learn that Hillary Clinton will be named Secretary of State, as hawkish a hawk there has ever been.
Now the first part, I could go along with. His cheerleaders have been silent. However, Hillary is "as hawkish a hawk there has ever been"? Proof? More so than Donald Rumseld? More so than Henry Kissinger? It's hard to see how she trumps every American that has ever lived, let alone Hawks in other countries.
Carlos is a Dumb Ass and a Liar. Like many a liar, he is most likely thinking of Hillary's 2002 vote. That vote, for authorization of the Iraq War, passed the Democratically controlled Senate. It's hard to believe that with so many Democrats voting for it, Hillary managed to leap ahead of all of them. But Carlos wants you to believe she did. He wants you, in fact, to believe his deluded fantasy that she's even more Hawkish than GOP presidential nominee John McCain. That's because he's a two-bit piece of trash liar.
He might try to point to Hillary's vote on the Iranian resolution. He can try. But Barack didn't vote on that one. He ignored the vote, he was a no-show, even after Harry Reid's office gave him a heads up. And, as Jake Tapper pointed out, Barack had already sponsored similar legislation earlier. So at worst Hillary can be guessed to be as Hawkish as Barack Obama.
But Carlos can't tell you that.
He can lie:
Even with this, it is hard to deny that the symbolic significance of Obama’s election to president is indeed staggering. It certainly wasn’t lost upon me. I was teaching as the election results began to come in, and we had a TV on in the background. My disinterest in the results didn’t mean that I couldn’t appreciate the historic nature of the event; historic it certainly was. The significance can be overblown, however.
F**k you, Carlos and kiss my Black ass. I have spent weeks thinking I was one of the few Black people not caught up in the hysteria. Not true. Huge turnout for Thanksgiving with relatives coming from all over the country and, time and again, they spoke of how it was no great turning point. Why? He's not Black.
We are Black.
Barack's bi-racial, half-White, half-Black. You could easily say that White and Black people have an equal right to celebrate his win; but don't tell us that a Black man is going to the White House. We don't buy that. We don't even buy that a High Yellow's easing into the White House.
It was a media narrative, a lie, that was told over and over to get the nation into a feel-good mode. No different than the shoes tossed in the tree in Wag The Dog. A lie repeated over and over to build support. I'm not buying it. Carlos has bought it and suddenly feels a flutter in his stomach. Shove it up your ass, Carlos, I'm not in the mood.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, November 28, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, the so-called 'coalition' continues shrinking, the press pimps spin for the White House, and more.
Yesterday, the treaty masquerading as the Status Of Forces Agreement passed the Iraqi Parliament and some form of the treaty was also released in English (finally) by the White House. While the White House issued a fact-free feel-good from the Bully Boy of the United States and the press, always desperate to fit in, copped a few feels of their own, the reaction was not as universal aclaim in Iraq. Wisam Mohammed (Reuters) reports approximately 9,000 people gathered to protest in Sadr City and another 2,500 in Basra. AP adds, "Al-Sadr's statement calls for "peaceful public protests" and the display of black banners as a sign of mourning. But it doesn't repeat his threat to unleash militia fighters to attack U.S. forces if they don't leave immediately."
The treaty passed but no seems concerned and you have to wonder who in the US administration (or the press) is paying attention. The UN warned this month that violence would most likely increase as a result of Parliamentary elections being (finally) scheduled for next year. Was it really the time to antagonize Iraqis further? Will the treaty be looked at in a year or two the same way Paul L. Bremer's decision to de-Baathify the Iraqi government was? Will it be the failure that people point to and marvel over how the US just had to keep pushing, just had to poke the bear. Was it worth the anger and the ill will? No one wants to debate that or acknowledge it. The press is on their cop-a-feel high. Take Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) who breathlessly pants the vote was "historic". Historic? 149 members of Parliament voted for the treaty. There are 275 members of Parliament. That's barely over half. Historic? Really? The Scotsman explains the treaty better than any domestic outlet: "On Thursday, Iraqi lawmakers approved a pact allowing US forces to stay in Iraq for three more years." The domestic press outlets are too busy parroting the White House to note much reality. AFP explains, "The United States on Thursday hailed the Iraqi parliament's approval of a landmark accord for US troops to leave the country in three years, but a referendum on the deal next year could complicate withdrawal plans for the next US president." Ignore the referendum, ignore that the majority of Iraqis want the US out now, ignore that the backdoor deals that the US crafted to push the treaty through are not unknown in Iraq . . . On that last point, Iran's Press TV reports:
"Washington echelons repeatedly threatened to overthrow the Iraqi government if they continued their opposition to the security deal," said Tehran's interim Friday prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati. Iraq's al-Morsad reported on Oct. 10 that US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had warned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would be 'ousted' unless he signed the US-proposed security pact. Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi has also claimed that the Bush administration had threatened to cut off vital services to Baghdad if it further delayed the accord, saying the threats were akin to 'political blackmail'. "It was really shocking for us…Many people are looking to this attitude as a matter of blackmailing," al-Hashimi said on Oct. 26.
Ignore all of that and ignore that all of this is one big pressure cooker. It really is just like when Bremer disbanded the Baath Party and the real-time press rushed to hail that too. Let's drop back to the April 10 Senate Commitee on Foreign Relations hearing chaired by Joe Biden who noted "We've pledged we're not only going to consult when there is an outside threat, but also when there is an inside threat. We've just witnessed when Mr. Maliki engaged in the use of force against another Shia group in the south, is this an inside threat? . . . [that the proposed treaty requires the US] to take sides in Iraq's civil war [and that] there is no Iraqi government that we know of that will be in place a year from now -- half the government has walked out. . . . Just understand my frustration: We want to normalize a government that really doesn't exist." Senator Russ Feingold agreed noting, "Given the fact that the Maliki government doesn't represent a true colation, won't this agreement [make it appear] we are taking sides in the civil war especially when most Iraqi Parliamentarians have called for the withdrawal of troops?" But the press, reflecting their 'betters' in the administration, rush to ignore those basic facts. Feingold's question bears repeating, "Are you not concerned at all that the majority of the Iraqi Parliament has called for withdrawal?" Apparently the press isn't concerned but they're not free press, they can't report, they can only reflect the spin coming out of the White House.
None more so than the media crack whore Alissa J. Rubin who joins with Campbell Robertson (New York Times) to pimp one lie after another and, most notoriously, the lie that the treaty "goes into effect on Januray 1, 2009, when the current United Nations mandate that currently governs American troop operations in the country expires." Put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard, Alissa J. The treaty now goes to the presidency council where the three members may approve it or they may shoot it down (only one vote is required to nix the treaty). Translation, at this point, nothing goes into effect on January 1, 2009. Don't get stoned and try to 'report,' Alissa, it only embarrasses yourself, the paper and everyone else. Who, what, when and where, not predicitions passed off as facts. She's far from the only cop-a-feel-pimper, but she is the worst. The Washington Post manages to include (buried deep) the following on the treaty:
". . . the pact also allows the Iraqi government to negotiate with the United States to extend the presence of U.S. troops if conditions on the ground are not stable. The Los Angeles Times manages to note: "The pact allows for amendments if both sides agree to them. U.S. officials have indicated that they interpret that as permitting an extension, if security conditions in Iraq are deemed too shaky to leave Iraqi forces in charge. 'There is a provision for extension, by agreement of both sides,' one U.S. official said." While the Iraqi Parliament has now approved the treaty, the White House thinks they can get away with circumventing the Constitution and refusing to allow the treaty to go before the US Congress. American Freedom Campaign picks the lack of US Congressional input into the treaty as the abuse of the week:Iraq Parliament to vote on U.S.-Iraq agreement, while Congress has no inputDuring the Bush administration, the power of the executive branch has been greatly expanded. At times, President Bush has treated Congress like an inferior branch of government – and, to be honest, Congress has done very little to demonstrate it minds being treated that way. Case in point: On November 17, the New York Times reported that the U.S. and Iraq had reached an agreement setting the terms of the U.S.'s presence in Iraq after the expiration of the UN mandate on December 31. Although the Bush administration is calling this agreement a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a category of international agreement that does not require congressional approval, it is clear that the agreement goes well beyond a traditional SOFA. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has no plans to seek congressional approval. What makes this even worse is that under the Iraqi constitution, this kind of agreement must be approved by the Iraqi Parliament. So we are left with a situation in which the Iraqi Parliament is voting on an agreement that will affect the lives of U.S. soldiers, but Congress has no voice at all in the process. And what is Congress doing about this? Very, very little so far…
And while Biden could express frustration April 10th over the treaty and object to it, while Barack Obama could do the same as he was running in the Democratic Party primary for the presidential nomination, while he could show boat and pretend he shared Hillary Clinton's objection to a treaty without Congressional approval (even becoming one of the 13 co-sponsors of the bill she put foward), while Biden and Obama could run in the general election insisting that the treaty must have Congressional approval, that was then. Every time a Barack wins an election, a Barack loses a spine. Deborah Haynes (Times of London) shares this today: His transition team will now be poring over every word of the document to see what it will mean for those soldiers who may remain in Iraq for up to three years after the expiry of the UN mandate on December 31. Mr Obama, a lawyer, will be anxious to see that American troops remaining in the country do not fall foul of Iraqi or international law.The treaty was yet another 'present' vote for Barack. He couldn't stand up, he couldn't do a damn thing. When you've built your own myth around your so-called judgment and the only thing you have to remotely base that claim on is a 2002 speech, you're paralyzed and that's what Barack's rushing to enshrine: a paralyzed presidency.
Meanwhile further tensions on the horizon as Reuters reports, "Oil contracts signed by the Kurdish regional government (KRG) with foreign oil companies are not recognised by central government in Baghdad, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani said on Friday."
In other news the so-called coalition of the willing continues shrinking. CNN reports Japan is ending their air mission in Iraq as 2008 draws to a close. Takashi Hirokawa and Sachiko Sakamaki (Bloomberg News) note that "Japan Air Self-Defense Force will terminate the airlifts, which started in March 2004 and are designed to help reconstruction work". UPI adds that Yasukazu Hamada, Japan's Defense Minister, "said Japan's air self-defense force mission had helped in imporving the Iraqi situation, Kydo news service reported." Deborah Haynes (Times of London) observes, "President Bush's 'coalition of the willing' is set to all but disappear from Iraq by the end of the year, with 13 countries, including South Korea, Japan, Moldova and Tonga preparing to withdraw their few remaining troops. Britian, Australia, Romania, Estonia and El Salvador are the only nations, apart from the US, that plan to remain after a UN mandate authorising their presence expires on December 31."
Some of today's reported violence?
BBC notes 9 dead (plus the bomber for 10) and fifteen wounded in a Musayib mosque bombing. Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the mosque death toll rose to 13 ("12 worshipers" plus the bomber) and notes a Baghdad car bombing that claimed the life of the driver and 2 others while leaving fourteen wounded as well as a Diyala Province house bombing that claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiers with three more injured.
In music news, I Am Three announces there new digital download available here or here which includes the tracks "Burning Me," "Fell Over," "I Try," "Monkeyphonics," "Nostalgia," "Worth It" and "Strange addiction." In addition, Kat reviews Labelle's Back to Now here. In non-music news check out Gaza Strip: a catastrophic human toll - by Mahmud Hams / Agence France-Presse.
iraqwisam mohammedtimes of londondeborah haynesthe new york timescampbell robertsonalissa j. rubinthe los angeles timesthe washington postamerican freedom campaign
mcclatchy newspapersmohammed al dulaimyi am three
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