Good Terrorists

This week in Alabama, the ATF uncovered a paramilitary group with a cache of weapons, but the newspapers hardly mentioned it. The AP wire appears to be the only coverage. Perhaps news organizations are taking their cue from the Justice Department, who's been quick to downplay their own bust, stressing that the "ragtag" group "had no apparent plans to use the weapons."

"They just have a beef with the government, and they stockpile munitions," U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said at a news conference in Fort Payne.

With the same level of prominence given the arrest of the Alabama Free Militia, the AP's follow-up gives the group's lawyer a platform to tell the world that machine guns, grenades, and explosives are "much ado about nothing."

It's hard to imagine such a blasé attitude about an anti-government militia with a cache of weapons if the militia members were Muslims instead of these good ol' boys.
These fellers seem to be the right kind of terrorists. The type we don't need to worry about, and don't need to put on the news. These good terrorists have been no big deal to us for a long time. Did you hear about the abortion clinic bomber recently arrested in Austin TX? Probably not.

Or how about the good terrorist known to have planted a bomb on a Cuban plane that killed over 70 people, you know, the anti-Castro guy that is currently being protected by the US government? An American court determined he can't be sent back to Cuba or Venezuela to stand trial because he might be tortured there.

Stay the Course, Alberto

It's pretty inevitable that Alberto Gonzales will leave his job, but I want him to stay. Everyday that he's a part of this administration is a day this president looks like a swindling incompetent ass.

The White House attempts to minimize scandal (withholding documents, changing explanations, claiming to accidentally delete emails) just prove to the American people that they are hiding some wicked high crimes. Crimes so high that Bush and his war cabinet are willing to openly obstruct justice to avoid having them come to light.

Karl Rove is another liar I'd rather see keep his job. When these fascists resign from the White House, it will plant the notion that the problem is solved, the bad apple was chucked. The whole issue becomes old news more quickly.

Besides, if Karl Rove resigned, he wouldn't have any trouble finding work. His policy ideas and dirty campaign tactics would still be corrupting our democracy. If he stays at the White House, at least we can keep a better eye on him.

The longer this evil stays in our news bubble, the more damage they do to their own right-wing power-grabbers, the Unitary Executors. The law never fully caught up to Richard Nixon, but he went down in history as an acknowledged crook. George W. Bush may avoid prosecution, as well, but he'll always be known as the least competent president, and probably the scummiest sleazebag in American history.

ps - Keep on keepin' on, buddy - "Gonzales Insists He Did Nothing Wrong"

Good News Gal

If you're tired of living in a country that has so much wrong with it, change the channel. During the Superbowl, CBS ran a commercial for its nightly news with Katie Couric that promised us what the Bush Administration has been asking for, but unable to produce: good news.

"We hear a lot about what's wrong with America, but there are so many examples of America's can-do spirit. Good people doing great things, on CBS news."

So, feel good, America. We're one step closer to Stephen Colbert's satirical utopia. Forget the facts, it's the feeling that matters. Katie is your "half glass full" sort of news.

Stop the Surge

Again, the White House controls the language, and thus, they control the debate. From the people who brought us "Shock and Awe" and "Turning the Corner" we now have a new word to replace the phrases, "send more troops," "risk more lives," and "make more war."

Surge is what we say now. But what should really concern us is just how quickly and easily this new name, this new term for going against the will of the American people, has come to such pervasive use in the media.

PS - Stay tuned for "sacrifice," but Keith Olberman pretty handily puts that one to bed with this excellent little rant:

Making (Up) History

There are many ways to make up truth. The most effective technique requires multiple sources that reference and reinforce each other. For this to work, disparate authorities make seemingly small contortions of fact, and then others refer to these aggregated authorities to make the case that a falsehood is true.

This is what a Committee of the US House of Rep's was doing when the UN's Atomic Energy Agency (IAEC) busted their work. The House committee wrote a report exaggerating the nuclear threat posed by Iran, but the IAEC called that report, "incorrect and misleading," as well as "outrageous and dishonest."

The intended purpose of the report was to give the White House and other war mongers an illusion of evidence to support an attack on Iran. Once the lies had the imprimatur of a "government study," they could then be used as a tool of persuasion. The task of anyone disagreeing with the report would then be to disprove the multiple inaccuracies. In this way the debate becomes a level removed from the question at hand. This technique puts layers of questions into the discussion, making it more difficult for facts to separate themselves from the fiction.

The full effect can be seen by reviewing the work of the White House Iraq Group, and Judith Miller, former "journalist" for the New York Times. In this scam, White House officials led Miller to sources for stories that made their case for the invasion of Iraq, and then those same officials would refer to the New York Times to support their arguments. Much of that reporting was later discredited by the NYT editors, but long after the war had started, and with little public notice.

This technique is tried and true. We've seen it used effectively to cast doubt on the existence of global climate change, the probability of evolution, and the hazards of smoking.

It can also be employed locally as well. To dismiss an employee, for example, supervisors might place small and questionable concerns into an employee's file. When these one-sided anecdotes are taken together, they seem to add up to a larger issue. The employee, to defend herself, must then pick apart and dispute all the smaller complaints. These layers of fallacy are usually too much to overcome.

Fear Campaign, Once Again

When two news items showed up next to each other on my Google News, I thought, 'hey, maybe these stories are related …' -duh.

But, talk about a desperately slow news day, or the lame state of our passive journalism. I guess we're all tired of that same old Death-in-Iraq-Rising-Poverty-Corrupt-Government-Katrina-Anniversary story. These were Google's top stories:

No Blood, No Foul

Human Rights Watch recently issued a gory report about Camp Nama, the sequel to Abu Ghraib. The report is chocked full of firsthand accounts by the torturing soldiers. It's a disgusting page turner and perfect beach reading.

The story of Camp Nama, located at the Baghdad airport, was first reported by the New York Times on March 19, 2006, but the Charleston Gazette was the only other paper to run the story. It seems torture by the US is just not newsworthy even though the story proved that abuse continued after the images of Abu Ghraib were made public.

Where the new report differs from the NYT version in March is that the testimony of soldiers makes absolutely clear that torture was not the work of a few bad apples, but sanctioned Pentagon policy. But this too, seems not worth telling people about, as only one paper, the Washington Times, reported it.

PS - If you prefer your torture porn in magazine form, Esquire has the story.