Thursday, May 26, 2011

Selective Amnesia: Oprah Winfrey, Iraq War Cheerleader








"(Bill) Moyers records an October 2002 Oprah show with guests Judith Miller and Kenneth Pollack speaking with certainty about Saddam's WMD programs. An Ahmad Chalabi flack also talks about how much the Iraqis hoped for an American 'liberation'. When an audience member meekly questioned the trio, Oprah cut her off with a dismissive 'We're showing you what is.'"





------"Oprah Hugs Hawks", The American Conservative, January 14, 2008.







As Oprah gracefully exits the stage it is fitting to recall she took great pains to admonish and shame an author she had previously promoted on her show and through her book club, James Frey, for embellishing a memoir about drug addiction to sell books. Strangely, she never invited Judith Miller or Kenneth Pollack back on her show to apologize to her audience and, most importantly, her for spreading lies to justify a criminal war against Iraq that slaughtered a million, displaced millions and cost trillions. Mea Culpas aren't asked from those in power. Executive Branch promoted lies paving the way for a criminal attack on a nation which led to the death and misery of millions does not ask for accountability. Writing a memoir embellishing one's struggle with drug addiction DEMANDS it.





This was "Oprah's America" in the 2000's.


(Granted Oprah deserves some credit for running a series of shows critical of the Iraq War run up after she shamefully granted a propaganda coup to the likes of Judith Miller, Pollack and Chalabi. By then it was too late.)


(The above pic is from a show not related to the Iraq War propaganda effort.)





(Thanks to Sam Husseini, Bill Moyers and A Tiny Revolution for their previous coverage. It is an honor and pleasure to echo their excellent work.)



A Tiny Revolution, "How About It, Oprah?", April 26, 2007.



Bill Moyers, "Buying the War".



Sam Husseini via Twitter and also cited by A Tiny Revolution.


















































































































Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Our Angelic Dr. Gingrich: Summa Plutologiae contra Gentium












"---why has Minerva been celebrated whilst Pecunia has been left in obscurity, although throughout the whole human race avarice allures a far greater number than skill?"





---St. Augustine, De civitate Dei, Book VII, 3.















"Their numbers, and their wealth, makes them haughty, and that is so far from being an argument to persuade us to forbear them, that 'tis a warning to us, without any more delay, to reconcile them to the unity of the Church, or remove them from us."





---Daniel Defoe, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters".




















The Angelic Doctor of Second Generation Reaganomics is a political type. He sustains his political celebrity by co-sponsoring efforts with charlatans on either side of the aisle, joining think tanks, appearing on corpress political talk shows and, most essentially, running or planning to run for President every election year to amass funds for his political pac. It's a living! A man who has not held a political office for twenty years has made more by doing what he loves best, and what also got him kicked out of Congress in an ethics scandal, raise money. He's divorced two wives and, like dame Pecunia herself, trades up in women to amass value. He's all for unfettered trade!










Inexplicably this veteran political hack has a reputation for having an enormous intellect. He was, to his eternal credit, the front man of the original Contract for America. It was, like Our Angelic Doctor's grasp of anything, an outdated economic and social programme we are now seeing revivified in various states of our Blessed Union. The corpress can't help but fall in love with a politician who zealously implements big policies to rape the many for a blessed and wealthy few. He's serious and courageous like his ideological homunculi, the Tea Party. They too are equipped with outrageously refined intellects. They too serve up left-over microwaved Heritage Foundation economic plans fervently praised by stupendous and unbiased intellectual luminaries such as David Brooks, Sean Hannity and Dick Armey.










Whilst divorcing two wives, one was served papers during Chemotherapy, publishing ghost-written civil war era historical novels, glorifying the States' Rights champions of course, and giving speeches at prestigious private religious colleges all over the United States, our intellectual and angelic, despite the porcine visage, hero also ran up an enormous expense account. His calls for shared sacrifice and belt tightening have yet to diminish his physical and pecuniary Transcendence. When you're a Media Savvy political careerist who toadies up to plutocrats you can't cater to the vulgare. Any sign of that weakness would lose him invitations to all FOXNews shows, Meet the Press, Face the Nation and, most importantly, Rush Limbaugh's radio show.










What pains his admirers most is that, now, as The Angelic Doctor, he has the temerity to speak plainly and, a detour for Mr. Gingrich, truthfully about another one of his epigone's, Rep. Paul Ryan, economic plan. It is unfair to hold this saintly and holy architect of contemporary and anachronistic right wing political ideology to any standard! His intellect makes him a fount of Our Creator's light set against, and magnified by, general human darkness. This spiritual war for the Future of America, to him, is a contractual relation. And, in a disciplined and Saintly harmoniousness, much like his market based matrimonial practice, is for sale to the highest bidder.










I have consciously tried to discuss our Angelic Doctor in Sacerdotal tones. His worship of campaign contributions matches the divine zeal of televangelists' insatiable fundraising efforts. The scope of his Goliath sized intellect merits allusions to the Angelic and Saintly Fathers and Doctors of the Mother Church. Though a Philistine, he's still blessed with the opulence of earthly paradise without donning a hair shirt or having a single original thought. Can any man deny Our Lord has shown him favor?















Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Buttons

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away-----
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

---------Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the Eighth.




Silence inspires song uxuriously.

Our eyes, buttonholes of light.




The Moon,
pregnant and virginal,
spills silver
over the city.


Eyes assonant
with its descent,

Awash and aglow,
we stroll past
idlers, gawkers
and feuilleton hawkers.


The Moon,
hoary and venerable,
ebbs gray
into day.





vestments of a ministry
choreographed infinitesimally
to errant tongue and truant curl


Rebellion
of empty heads,
and arsenals
of debt

rise from neon banality

kindled
by pale hands
in brushfire
pocked lands.


Two children run in terror as air shakes their faces' upon dark waters.

A dozen pink scarves disguised as clouds ignored by serious people at dusk.

Listen as mother sings a lullaby to her babe of Angels swallowing doves in clouds.


Hunger shivers from a thousand dirty cupboards.
The cross drags a straight line over every heart.

There is no button to fasten this point.
Theology, rarefied dramaturgy
----Snap.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Kenosis, 0 = Infinity

It never begins always.
Presence, a figured void,
empties itself forever.

The Paraclete rests
mumbling wry litotes
as American youths 
joystick bomb shepherds
a world away.

Still, the Paraclete knows
nothing erases nominal value.

This orthodoxy revokes all doxa.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Jingoist Porn: When Imperial Bogeymen/Patsies Lose Their Usefulness










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"Justice was done."




----President Obama, May 1, 2011.








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"But the prelude to worse trouble often wears the guise of a change for the better."




-------Lucian, A True Story.




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The bloodlust of "patriotic Americans" was sated. The President claimed, on live television, that an illegal assassination was "justice". His Constitutional Law bonafides are as much toilet paper as the US dollar. People could not wait to rush out and cheer for the further collapse of the rule of law in a nation that proudly claims its strict adherence . They cheered the murder of an old dialysis patient who served as the bogeyman for US imperial interests in the Caspian Sea basin. A man who served as the neverending pretext for War Contractors and Private Mercenary groups to seek a plenteous bounty from the US gov't. I imagine they're mourning his death. He was their greatest cash cow.




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News Media stars swooned over the violent details of Bin Laden's death like masturbators viewing a snuff film. And, the greatest horror of all, the people cheered and were proud. Sadism vanquishes Law, Human Rights and even sane policy. We made a so called fundamentalist Bond villain a Martyr. It would have served our interests to capture him(he was unarmed) and put him on trial and show the US still has one shred of regard for legality. But a poll lift for President Obama and a celebration for our disgraced military and intelligence agencies are more important than the Constitution. Now "the People" are clamoring for the death photos. Constant War and its propaganda demoralizes people.




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Don't act surprised when this great victory over Terrorism(an assassination that mimics a terrorist act)leads to an even greater defeat for Civil Liberties in the US. News stories of threats from angered Al Qaeda members are already broadcast. Bin Laden was always a figurehead for Al Qaeda and in the past few years his prestige had eroded. He has no power in Yemen, Somalia and Libya---the latest hotbeds of Al Qaeda activity. Odd that the US kills the symbolic leader of Al Qaeda just as it is arming and training Al Qaeda in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi. Odd Bin Laden was killed at the end of one of the worst weeks for the US military in Afghanistan(massive jailbreak in Kandahar, 500 Taliban escaped and elsewhere 25 US soldiers were killed).




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We went to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda, now that it is headless and so few will our troops be leaving? (laughter) It appears HUMINT from sources not in custody was crucial in singling out this location. It wasn't garnered from testimony extracted by torture. Does that mean torture will no longer be used?(laughter) If the people cheer on illegal assassinations(cold blooded murder), then torture is a bagatelle.