Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post that summarizes the state of affairs, with links to lots of examples. "[http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/07/journalists-its-time-for-some-articles.html This goes on every day with the right's largest blogs]," he writes. "Every day, a new traitor, more treason, more journalists and Democrats who deserve to be hanged."
Obviously "USMarinesTanker" doesn't know the meaning of the word "hypocrite." A hypocrite is someone who advocates one course of action and does the opposite. This soldier is imagining that a hypocrite is someone who "judges a situation if you've never been exposed to it." By that standard, everyone in the world is a hypocrite: if you judge a terrorist without having actually <i>been</i> one, you're a hypocrite; if you judge Ken Lay without having been the CEO of Enron, you're a hypocrite, etc., etc. That's nonsense.
As for the notion that soldiers are "risking their necks to keep us safe," I don't believe that. Soldiers may <i>believe</i> that's what they're doing, but the evidence tells us otherwise. The number of terrorist attacks worldwide has risen dramatically and exponentially since the war in Iraq began. The entire Middle East is in flames, and it's only a matter of time before this blows back to American shores. It's certainly true that soldiers are "risking their lives" (and sometimes losing them), but soldiers of every nationality risk and lose their lives. During the Iran-Iraq war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides risked and lost their lives, but rather than making anyone safer, they impoverished and brutalized both countries. That's what the current war in Iraq is doing, also. It's making us <i>less</i> safe, not more so.
For the record, I don't think that soldiers are primarily to blame for the evils of war. The politicians who start wars are the people who deserve the lion's share of blame. I even agree that soldiers have the right to make morbid jokes, given the horrors that they experience. However, I <i>don't</i> believe that soldiers should be bigots, and "Hadji Girl" is a song that reflects cultural ignorance and bigotry against Arabs and Muslims. Supporters of the war seem blind to this fact, and that's part of the reason the war is going so badly. If you can't understand or appreciate the culture of the country where you're fighting, how can you hope to win hearts and minds, or even to understand your enemy?
----- Original Message -----
From: [[Stewart Brand]]
To: salt@list.longnow.org
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 12:40 PM
Subject: [SALT] Only connect (John Rendon talk)
I think that people were expecting a silver-tongued devil, an accomplished spin-meister, arrogant but charming, who would dance them into some new nuanced state of understanding.
What they got instead from [[John Rendon]] was an earnest, soft-spoken message of such directness and scope that it apparently came across to some in the audience as dissembling.
Polarization rules in Washington these days, Rendon said, and in the country. Moderates are made voiceless. Civilized discourse is nearly impossible. And everyone is consumed with the pace of the news cycle, displacing any sense of the long view.
Meanwhile in the world the US has a severe "credibility deficit," especially with the people in other nations. He said that his organization, The [[Rendon Group]], has done detailed research on how the United States is perceived in Islamic countries. The universal message from Muslims was, "You look at us but you do not see us." As for whether they felt positive or negative about the US, three groups emerged. Those who had some direct or even indirect contact with American people felt largely positive about the US. Those with more distant contact thought of the US only in terms of its corporations, such as [[McDonald]]'s, and had a more negative view. Those with no contact at all thought of the US strictly in terms of its government, and had the most negative view of all.
"This is the key," Rendon said. "The strength and credibiliity of the American people must be reflected in our government."
"There are really two campaigns against terror," Rendon said (he doesn't like the term "war on terror"). The one being conducted against existing terrorists by the military and intelligence people, and by 76 countries, is going pretty well. But a second campaign, against potentialterrorists, terrorists that we are creating, is barely understood. "When we say that our war is with 'Islamic fundamentalists,' 1.2 billion people think we mean them."
"We need to turn Islamic street into an active ally, not a passive observer." He gave an example of the kind of advice he gives US policy makers. When we focussed all our public attention on terrorist individuals, such as Bin Laden and Mulla Omar, we made just heroes of them. Focussing on the various named groups of terrorists has the same effect. But focus on specific terrorist tactics--- such stopping a bus and then shooting everyone with a certain kind of name (as happened in Iraq)--- puts world attention on something that might lead to changes of mind.
Rendon's greatest fear is that the US could go isolationist at the very time we need most to engage the rest of the world, when we need for people everywhere "to feel that we care more about them than their own governments do." For that strategic-level approach to policy he had a number of specific proposals:
-- Let the third year of high school be mandatory overseas.
-- US newspapers should partner out to the world, swapping journalists.
-- College alumni programs should emphasize international students.
-- Humanitarian assistance needs to be more enduring, as with Peace Corps programs.
-- There should be a global endowment for education, and a global endowment for health care.
-- Getting a visa to visit the US should be made welcoming instead of humiliating, as it is now.
-- The US government needs to engage overseas "more as an enabler than as an actor."
-- We need to be a better example of democracy by encouraging a convergent rather than divisive public discourse here at home.
It comes down to "networks and narratives," Rendon concluded. Five years from now what will be the narrative about the current five years taught in schools throughout the Islamic world and elsewhere? "The nature of that narrative will determine whether the conflict winds down in seven years or so, or it goes on for a hundred years."
I'll add one thing that emerged from the long and sometimes contentious questioning from the audience (download the audio this week for the full exercise). One question was, "Since weapons of mass destruction turned out to be nonexistent in Iraq, what is America's REAL agenda there and in the so-called war on terror? Is it oil, wealth, power, or what?" Rendon had nothing very satisfactory to offer in reply. At dinner after the talk, Danny Hillis suggested to Rendon what might be the root cause of the mutual bafflement. "People see a lot of seemingly irrational behavior and they assume there must be some hidden agenda driving it. What they don't realize is that having an agenda requires long-term thinking, and there isn't any going on."
That is pretty much John Rendon's point. When US policy consists mainly of a sequence of short-term reactions, the aggregate result is massive frustration.
--[[Stewart Brand]]
--
Stewart Brand -- sb AT gbn.org
The Long Now Foundation - http://www.longnow.org
Seminars & downloads: http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/
Hi there.
As my user name and subject line imply, that used to be my job. Sometimes when you take a life it is funny. Watching a human body instantly become lifeless and tumble awkwardly in the heat of battle is a stress reliever; knowing that you eliminated the enemy (before he elimiated you) and watch him disgracefully land head over heels. Killing is what we as the US military are trained to do, whether you like it or not - that's just the facts. Why else have a military?
That's the culture we as free individuals were impressed by, voluntarily joined, and maintain in order to keep you safe at home so you can freely express however you feel about absolutely any subject in the world. Like it or lump it, it's just the way it is.
Now don't get me wrong, taking a humnan life is a hard thing to do - especially your first time. There is something unnatural about it. But, when you have to do it over and over again, and you are trained to seek it out and do it instantly, and rarely get a chance to engage the enemy in a face-to-face fight because he resorts to IED's you become apathetic to it; and indeed it can be quite motivating and hillarious to mow a line of terrorists down as they run from house to house across an alley way. Watching them just get caught up in a stream full of hot lead and dropping like flies - man, I miss it in a way.
But, like I said, it's part of our military culture that we FREELY joined and enjoy, approve of, and love. I cannot expect you to understand the "why's"; but I do expect you to hear our side and accept that it is the way it is and that you can't change it. Remember, we're risking OUR necks to keep you safe so they don't come here and commit another 9/11. And I'm fine with that. The military isn't for everyone. I don't ask for special thanks. I volunteered. All I ask is for you to allow us our rights as Americans to joke around and be who we are amongst ourselves.
I think it's a bit hypocritical to judge a situation if you've never been exposed to it. But feel free to be a hypocrite because we've got your back and will die for your right to be one.
Oz indeed has many wizards.
I wonder how many people have ever read - and thought about - [[Stewart Brand]]'s resume.
Finding a complete copy is not as easy as it used to be, but the pairing of Brand and Rendon is quite natural.
Here's the resume:
* Graduate of Stanford where he absorbed the gospel of population control (including the always unstated part: "for the Third World")
* Joined the Army after graduation where he was an enthusiastic officer stationed at the Pentagon. He once called his military experience the most formative of his life - after Prep School.
* "Dropped out" of the Army and began roaming the country visiting college campuses and Indian reservations, posing as (we're all posers, aren't we?) an artist interested in hallucinagens and electronic art.
Means of support? Unknown.
* Latched onto the Pranksters - after Ken Kesey demonstrated a natural talent for disrupting anti-war gatherings (See "Kool Aid Acid Test")
Means of support? Unknown.
* When Kesey was arrested on the roof of Brand's North Beach apartment and jailed, Brand took over the Pranksters and changed its direction radically culminating in what was up to that point the largest mass dosing of a civilian population with LSD. Means of support? Unknown.
* This event, the Trips Festival, received massive, positive PR from the mainstream press.
* Immediately after the Trips Festival, the Bay Area was flooded with high quality LSD, much of it rumored to be manufactured with the support of the CIA which already had significant experience with the drug - as did the US Army.
* You can read the history books to see what the effect this tidal wave of drugs had on the Bay Area peace movement which was at the time by far the largest and most coherent in the nation. It was disruptive to say the least.
* After his Trips Festival experience (who funded it?), Brand landed a job at SRI, the pro-war think tank where he met Peter Schwartz, a member of the original class of the Peace Corps. Schwartz later translated his Africa experience into a position at Shell Oil in its intelligence department.
* The Whole Earth Catalog followed. When you strip it down to its bare essentials. it glorified drug use and recommended dropping out and living off the land (with advice often so bad, it virtually guaranteed failure.) Its publications were mostly silent on Vietnam, overtly supportive of Big Oil (via articles by Brand himself), and contained intricately detailed descriptions of the organizational structures of various protest groups (Who paid for the research on these?)
* Brand later became a cheerleader for Nicolas Negroponte's MIT Media Lab, the direct descendant of MIT's Center for International Studies, a CIA-funded operation which sent grad students to various Third World nations to study their communications systems in preparation for their destabilization.
* The Negroponte family made its money hauling oil and other commodities in Europe.
* Brother John Negroponte is currently head of all US intelligence and it is widely believed he was a US point man for atrocities carried out in Central America during the Iran-Contra era.
* Nicholas Negroponte wrote the check that started Wired Magazine. Brand and Schwartz were regular contributors. Wired basically took the magazine Mondo 2000, wrung every drop of progressive social thought from it and injected mass quantities of "Liberarian" thought - i.e. ignore politics, the market will sort it all out for the best etc. Upon seeing the first copy Timothy Leary commented: "It looks like a CIA version of Mondo 2000.)
* The founding editor of Wired was a man who during his undergraudate days sued his college, Columbia University, for permitting anti-war demonstrations. (Who paid for the lawyers?) Among other gems, he was quoted as saying that global poverty is not a problem worth worrying about.
* Brand and Schwartz founded the Global Business Network, a Big Oil friendly organization wrapped in "cool" artists and cutting edge thinkers
That's the resume.
Brand sure has an odd knack for showing up in the right place at the right time with the right stuff, doesn't he?
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times?
A remarkable career to say the least, but in the service of what?
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