“…a highly, terribly important issue…” 24 September 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War, WAR!.trackback
Good for Amy… in an era when most conversation is dreck – tho I suspect not entirely today at Columbia – she has Naomi and Alan…
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I’m just wondering if it troubles Mr. Greenspan at all that wars over resources in other countries are actually illegal. Mr. Greenspan has praised the rule of law, the importance of the rule of law, in his book. But in his statements about the reasons why this has not been publicly discussed, he has said that it’s not politically expedient at this moment. But it’s not just that it’s not politically expedient, Mr. Greenspan. Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?
ALAN GREENSPAN: No. What I was saying is that the issue which, as you know, most people who were pressing for the war were concerned with were weapons of mass destruction. I personally believed that Saddam was behaving in a way that he probably very well had, almost certainly had, weapons of mass destruction. I was surprised, as most, that he didn’t. But what I was saying is that my reason for being pleased to see Saddam out of office had nothing to do with the weapons of mass destruction. It had to do with the potential threat that he could create to the rest of the world.
NAOMI KLEIN: Yes, I realize that, but he was not simply deposed. The US invaded Iraq, occupied it and took control over its resources. And under international law, that it is illegal to wage wars to gain access to other countries’, sovereign countries’, natural resources.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Yes. No, I’m fully aware of the fact that that is a highly, terribly important issue. And as I said in other commentaries, I have always thought the issue of what essentially amounts to what is often called pre-emptive, preventive action on the part of some countries to secure resources or something else like that, it’s an issue that goes back to the Cold War, when we had the very difficult moral dilemma of what do you do when you think a missile is coming in our direction and you’re not sure whether it’s an accident or not an accident. And that is a problem which I think is a deep moral problem in civilized society. And the issue is one which I don’t think we’re going to resolve very easily. And as you point out, yes, I am a believer in the rule of law, and I think it is a critical issue, not only for domestic economies, but for the world economy as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: You have also advocated economic shock therapy and supported IMF programs that have transformed economies very, very quickly. And then, you say that you are in support of the rule of law. But I’m just wondering how, in a country like Russia, there could be rule of law when it’s being transformed in fast-forward in that way.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, remember that you don’t get a market economy merely by eliminating central planning. And remember, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union disintegrated, you didn’t have a market economy. What you basically had was a black market economy. And they tried to develop the institutions of the democratic society, and it’s not something which they have had back for generations. And as you can see now, there’s an increasing authoritarianism. It’s a very — it’s a society which has very different trends at different levels of that society. And I don’t know exactly where they’re coming up, but I don’t like the direction it’s been going in in recent years. [snip]
“increasing authoritarianism”, good one Alan. Here too, sweetie.
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… yes, just a device to hold up a thread… 8)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
UPDATE, 2:24 pm in San Francisco: we are back to bright sun and dust here… the faint rain is gone.
Let’s just throw some more words against the brick wall. Why not. Just for fun, as we all are having fun fun fun these days.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, they are talking about, in one day, for example, the East Rutherford operation center of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 100 Orchard Street in East Rutherford, a tractor-trailer truck pulling up, and though accustomed to receiving and shipping large quantities of cash, the vault had never before processed a single order of this magnitude: $2.4 billion in $100 bills. But ultimately, again, $9 billion of $12 billion gone missing in Iraq.
ALAN GREENSPAN: I am not familiar with any such evidence. And it was certainly not brought to my attention. I, frankly, find it very unlikely that those orders of magnitude were involved in any of the numbers that we were dealing with. You have to make certain that — there’s been a lot of confusion about losses, and people have used the dinar, the basic currency unit of Iraq, and assumed they were American dollars. And, of course, that gives you a highly distorted view. There’s been, I’ve seen, several reports fairly recently in which that sort of mistake was being made. But what I can tell you is that no such numbers of any order of magnitude of the type you are discussing came to the attention of the Federal Reserve.
AMY GOODMAN: This is based on that award-winning article in Vanity Fair, or the team who have won —
ALAN GREENSPAN: Let me put it this way, award-winning doesn’t necessarily —
AMY GOODMAN: Well, no, no. I mean Don Barlett and Jim Steele, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists. I’m sure you know their work. But Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I would just add that it’s quite surprising, actually, that Mr. Greenspan is unaware of this scandal around Iraq’s missing billions, because Paul Bremer had to testify before Congress and was asked directly about those missing billions. It’s been the subject of very high-level investigations. There is a huge paper trail around it. So this is hardly a secret, and it’s hardly just a matter that’s confined to Vanity Fair. This is —
ALAN GREENSPAN: Oh, I’m not saying that the losses are not real. I think they are, because, obviously, we can’t account for all the oil revenues. I’m just merely saying it’s not something which was directly related to any of the actions which the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to which we were referring, was involved, as far as I know.
and so on…
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Both Naomi and Alan have been on the talk show circuit pushing books.
I saw Naomi on Colbert and was nonplused. Front person, it looked like to me. Trying hard to stay to the script with Colbert.
The only thing that impressed me was Jon Stewart with Greenspan. “Wasn’t this drop in interest rates a choice in favor of stock market investors over savings account owners? (paraphrase).
Then more devastatingly, “Haven’t the Fed’s choice favored capital over labor?” (Again, paraphrasing)
The always glib Greenspan was overwhelmed.
I don’t know who counsels Stewart, but things have gotten to the point where no one in the U. S. compares to him (maybe Moyers but no one goes on with Moyers).
As Stewart himself repeatedly notes, it’s absurd that a clown is the only one asking serious questions.
So the woman has the man going “Yes, no, help!” LOL
Good one indeed. And as an equal opportunity insanity pointer outer
I thought this was hilarious.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/24/us.iran/index.html
Yes Klein and Greenspan have been around quite a bit for their books… several of Naomi’s articles and appearances linked to here…
I even caught Alan breathlessly declaring his love, still, for Ayn Rand on with CRose.
David Ehrenstein (he of the Magical Negro op piece on Obama, some months ago…) and Andrew Breitbart seem to have a going gig at the moment in the LAT:
Today, Ehrenstein and Breitbart discuss the fall season of antiwar flicks. Later in the week, they’ll attempt to define Hollywood values, locate Hollywood conservatives and ponder Hollywood’s impact on the 2008 presidential race.
Dog eat dog is such a soul-stirring philosophy. How did mankind ever reach such lofty heights?
BHHM #2 – what’s so pathetic about Ahmad is that he is so unworldly and undereducated. Smarter than GWB but equally arrogant and foolish. The world would be laughing at these two clowns if not for the power they have; real power in Bush’s case and more imagined in Ahmad’s case. Put them together with Sarkozy and his mad dog, and Putin is practically a model of sanity.
Smarter than GWB but equally arrogant and foolish
ain’t it the truth.
Is that David Ehrenstein from Atrios’ site?
hmmm from ABC’s Sneak Peek:
8 ezekiel
yes… he has his own site as well, David E’s Fablog.
I have not checked it in a while.
THERE IS NO GOD!!!
I remember.
And understand.
Is it me … or is the Dhrama Queen spending more time at PFF than his own sham blog… or is he “doing a Booman” and trying to increase hits by starting intermural blogging wars???
via TruthOut:
The News Hour doing a segment on how, fifty fucking years on after JAMMING IN VIETNAM, the M-16 is still second to the AK-47, which does not jam. Among other differences…
argh.
BHHHM — I wish you would flesh out a piece on Bonehead and post at PFF or somewhere.
Earlier this summer when I wasnt evenb following DK, I would see bonehead all over promoting the site. The Time and NYT blogs for sure. Especially after sheehan told them off and it was making the news outside of whitoleftosphere.
He doesnt seem to get that outside of there he no one really gives a fuck about what he has to say. I know at one blog he was told to basically sticka sock in it.
Re. 126 in the last thread: I’ve always been amazed by these lawyers who seem to have the time to post hundreds of comments a day on Daily Kos (taylormattd, for example).
I find it hard to believe that they aren’t defrauding their clients by blogging on the latters’ nickle. I would love to see, for example, taylormattd’s and dhonig’s timesheets and correlate them with the timestamps of their diaries and comments on Daily Kos.
I find it hard to believe that they aren’t defrauding their clients by blogging on the latters’ nickle.
they are. some clients take billing very seriously. Others don’t. Some demand a discount depending on outcome, others don’t.
Up to the client. Tho a good partner or senior associate on a case should know what the smaller shits are up to. In my experience, depends on the firm.
LOL Quite frankly, I doubt Hillary’s clients at the Rose Law Firm got their nickels’ worth. Not at the rate she was hunting down Bill’s sex partners.
BHHHM — I wish you would flesh out a piece on Bonehead and post at PFF or somewhere. —- Revisionist
I second and third the motion from the floor!!
wellll not like I have a subscription that I can cancel in protest… LOL:
wowoow
I completely missed this, just catching up at 266 comments. I am so behind!
MB is calling himself a radical again
“radical”
he’s not, he’s a toadie.
8)
“another site” didnt like your take
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/24/18394/5297
Secret US Air Force Team to Perfect Plan for Iran Strike
I just never could see Cheney leaving office without expanding the war OFFICIALLY to IRan and Syria… Iran being the big Kahuna.
Nor could I ever see Bush leaving office without using a nuclear weapon.
That big Club of One, he wants in with Truman.
Ezekiel,
“I saw Naomi on Colbert and was nonplused. Front person, it looked like to me. Trying hard to stay to the script with Colbert.”
Naomi Wolfe was on Colbert last Weds or Thursday talking about her book. I think you may have her confused with Klein?
gayle
thanks for that… Wolfe (Naomi) seems to be shifting gears. Klein (Naomi) seems to me to be the person she has been for years.
new piece up
Pavlov’s Dopes.
12. D. Throat – 24 September 2007
Is it me … or is the Dhrama Queen spending more time at PFF than his own sham blog… or is he “doing a Booman” and trying to increase hits by starting intermural blogging wars???
A little from Column A and a little from Column B.
Dhrama Queen has already smothered his own site in banishments and The Rules so that it has, in the short space of a month, become an incredibly stultifying place. A real yawn-fest, as they say.
geesh. what a liar.
She is going to kill us iwth words, slobbery slippery senatese words. Call her Kerry Updated – and then some:
16. StupidAsshole – 24 September 2007
Re. 126 in the last thread: I’ve always been amazed by these lawyers who seem to have the time to post hundreds of comments a day on Daily Kos (taylormattd, for example).
I find it hard to believe that they aren’t defrauding their clients by blogging on the latters’ nickle. I would love to see, for example, taylormattd’s and dhonig’s timesheets and correlate them with the timestamps of their diaries and comments on Daily Kos.
If their clients are well-known, and their names a matter of public record, it would be a simple matter to forward an archive of the threads to those clients.
Lots of people cheat their employers and clients, unfortunately, blogging when they should be at work. If only I had such an easy job that allowed for such luxuries! The only spare time I have in the day is early morning, evenings after the work is done, and (sometimes) lunch.
But that’s the life of a top-secret agent (008, which puts me one up on 007): all work and not much time for blogging.
oh Madman you MUST be wrong.
Tzipi Livni spoke at the UN and said that Mahmoud threatens
zee whole wehrld.
ST —
You assume that they arent being paid to blog……..
oh, I forgot.
Marisa #26 – What differentiates the anti-social personality disorder (previously known as sociopath) from the schizophrenic or delusional is that the thoughts of the former are logical, or even rational, if one understands the assumptions and information data-set from which they are working from. Thus, it’s fairly easy to see that taking on Iran is logical from Cheney’s worldview. As I don’t think GWB is technically delusionally, anymore than Ahmad is, althought their grandiosity does give that appearance, I can’t construct a logically framework that would lead him to lust for the opportunity to use nukes. (And I’m not willing to subject myself to getting further inside the brain of Cheney to consider that such an act would be logical for him.)
I wouldn’t put any money on GWB knowing that it was Truman who approved the use of nukes on Japan. But, if he does, he truly hates to do anything that was done by a Democrat. Condi may not have much power these days, but I do think she would strongly urge GWB not to consider nukes. As would Laura. Not because they’re nice, only because they appreciate that this would severely tarnish GWB’s legacy. GWB honesly believes that he is worthy of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize (part of his delusions of grandiosity) and if he doesn’t already know it, Condi and Laura will explain to him that he will not get that prize if he uses nukes. Obviously I guessing on all this, but Laura and Condi have tagged teamed him before. Condi appears to have been defeated on the question of force versus diplomacy with Iran but she’s hanging in there for a reason and I doubt it is to be sitting at State while Bush/Cheney nuke Iran.
Marisa #31 – yes, she’s a liar but it’s the dopes who support her that confound me. How their hands haven’t explosed from all the cognitive dissonance is beyond me.
Good Robert Kuttner article, “The Bubble Economy” at Common Dreams.
I wouldn’t put any money on GWB knowing that it was Truman who approved the use of nukes on Japan. But, if he does, he truly hates to do anything that was done by a Democrat.
Plenty of Republicans are fine iwth Truman. As are conservative war mongering Democrats.
And sorry, I have never thought Bush so thoroughly, conveniently stupid as Democrats insist he is.
He is like a lot of Americans, high and low, Brutish and limited. A very different thing…
I think he knows Truman dropped the bombs on Japan.
I am THOROUGHLY sick of the dismissive games Democrats have played against Ike, Ron and W.
Always calling them stupid or out of it. Tired playbook.
Frankly, it just leaves people calling the Democrats mistaken or more stupid even than.
Nukes have never been off the table, whatever they tell the American peeepuhl.
bush has merely advanced the time frame that as generally accepted for when they would be used …
I just don’t think he wants to leave office n to having exercised something ELSE for the history books.
nukes? probably won’t use ’em [yet] … but very useful as propaganda & threat – both for domestic ‘relief (i.e. ‘we only bombed ’em w/ conventional munitons’) & the usual gangsta threat held over the world’s & our enemies head(s) ala the narrative of Empire and the Bomb: How the U.S. Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World by Joseph Gerson:
“. . . reveals how and why the United States made more than twenty threats of nuclear attack during the Cold War—against Russia, China, Vietnam, and the Middle East. He shows how such threats continued under Presidents Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush.”
{I missed hearing about this book when it came out, but it looks quite good}
& finally, a demonized voice sez:
Re #1 Ezekiel
I saw Naomi Wolf recently on Colbert. Has Naomi Klein also been there.? I’m having a little trouble getting my Naomis straight here.
Marisa #38 but Ronnie was out of it. At least by ’84. Nancy and Ronnie’s inner circle made his decisions. DEMs today certainly don’t dismiss Ike, they revere him, along with Goldwater demonstrating their ignornace. But Ike should be dismissed because he didn’t run things much more than Ronnie did. “The Best and the Brightest” since WWII have had enormous power in our government. JFK (although the complete story can’t be written), Nixon and Carter were just arrogant and self-confident enough in their own intelligence that they were less directly under the power of the B&Bs. The old guard (WWII) ended with Clinton which leaves us with an even more venal form of B&Bs. The only thing that saved Clinton’s sorry ass is that the Pentagon detested him enough that he wasn’t allowed to play in their sandbox, and he so wants a second chance for that to prove to them that he too is one of the B&Bs.
A year or so ago the Pentagon seemed to be pushing back on Cheney’s plan to go forward in Iran. But lately that opposition seems to have disappeared. Could it be that they’ve decided that it’s inevitable and better to go forward with it while George is still in the WH and not when the Clinton’s move back in?
Marie
I know about Ron Reagan. I know, knew long ago, there was a small senatorial commission charged wtih “watching him” in the second adminsitration. Baker of TN among others…
A doctor on the panel. I saw the debate wtih Mondahl.
They could not win against him.
Bush walked into the first debate wtih Kerry, close to non compos mentes. Kerry was clueless was t do with that. Bush survived. All the little lemmings at Dkos (and elsewehre) slobbered for joy at Kerry’s prep school training on disply in Debate 2 and 3….
Better to know where the jugular is.
It gets old.
It’s not necessary to use nukes. Saturation bombing with conventional bombs will kill thousands directly, and tens of thousands indirectly as the bombs destroy sanitation systems, roads, hospitals, electrical power grids, and water supply pipelines.
I’ve always wondered why Bush’s opponents like to trumpet his utter stupidity. If the man is so stupid, then doesn’t that mean you have been outwitted by a dullard? Rather, I see Bush as one who is not learned (in the sense that he can find Canada on a map nor realises that Brasil has black people, too) but is what is called “street smart”. Bush knows quite well how to grasp and how to wield power, as does Cheney. Unfortunately, they are men lacking in any sort of moral vision or empathy, which is the defining characteristic of sociopaths, and so use the power they have grasped to evil ends.
Now here’s my question of the day: Just who the fuck is Ek Hornbeck, and is he unchained from his keyboard at feeding times, or do they just throw the raw meat in front of him so he can keep blogging?
I was in Sweden for three lovely weeks this summer, and never once saw any dispute settled in a “Swedish knife fight”. One chap did bump into another at the grocers, but he apologised and the other fellow harrumphed and adjusted his spectacles, but that was about it.
I think Ek Hornbeck’s role may be to make Armando appear mentally and emotionally stable by comparison. If so, Mission Accomplished.
Also, according to that PFF diary, NonPartisan has been attacked by “libertarian college professors”.
Well, once the libertarian college professors are set after you, they’re like hounds after a bloodied rabbit, old chap. It’s best to surrender and die with quiet dignity.
Either that, or challenge them to a Swedish knife fight and flay the skin from their bones.
I see from my Ikea catalog that there’s a sale on knives. How convenient.
eye think ek hornbeck is just yankin everyone’s chain….eye mean who gives a rat’s ass about his buddhist doctrine or whatever that was on DD ….he’s playin on the internetz
have a laugh once in awhile,eh?
why is catnip picking up a dead trail on a comment not even directed at her?////that’s a fools errand….she’s a teeth gnasher that nippa
sup mcat?
Adam B on his second dk diary today.
do your magic BHHM!
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20099873
this one is more swedish
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90044938
strictly speaking it is not necessary to
use napalm on al Safwan
to shut hospitals and position snipers to pick off those who make it to the hospital, Fallujah to al Qaim to Ramadi to whereever we wanted to do that.
to allow extensive use of cluster bombs.
to make sure we poison an area with DU
to use white phosphorus at Fallujah and whevereelse we may have.
That is done for fear and power.
Which is what a use/the use of a nuke is all about. Fear power and the dominating use of a weapon that is limited distribution.
I have long thought bush wants to use one before leaving office.
I don’t bother anymore as I think a lot is set in place but I read Alan Arkin and FAS for years, and as I read along there are enough changes under this administration, to how nuclear weapons are regulated, the use, release of them in war and so on, that it seems clear to me.
It is just my opinion.
ST, it’s true what they say about the healing power of laughter, and on days like today, you deserve a great deal of the credit for preserving what equilibrium remains to me.
Ezekiel, it’s nice to see you again. Only the other day I was wondering where you’d gotten off to, and now you’re here to tell us.
A convenient and welcome serendipity. much like the knife sale at Ikea. 😉
That second one is dead solid perfect, Rev. Still short enough for close-in fighting, but ethnically correct. The devil is in the details.
In reply to your question of last week, which I didn’t see until much later: no, I’m not a TU anymore. My troll-hunting option was from my account untimely ripp’d, possibly after an impolitic comment or three. It’s so hard to keep track.
A couple of good pieces up at Orcinus:
Burying the truth about Bush
Stoking the fires of hate
He’ll use a nuke when he attacks because he knows people think he shouldn’t. That’s been the pattern of his whole fucking life.
“Petty and Cruel Dictator” – By Cindy Sheehan
moiv – doubt your TU status was lost for anything you said. A few comments everyday that get 2-3 recs is worth more than one comment posted more than a week ago that gets 50 recs. IOW it rewards showing up more than quality and approval. I suspect that all the people who add the obnoxious tip jar to their diaries think they are building up some sort of super mojo. Hah. Seems as if troll ratings sting more than they used to, but maybe not because in the past when I was trolled it was almost always enmasse by a clarkie gang of thugs. So maybe it was always sensitive to troll ratings and those extra pile ons were not only stupid but useless.
From the Orcinus piece on “hiding the truth about Bush” (and of course, grafs are loaded iwth links at the site, linked to in Madman’s post just above, comment # 54):
Through a Lens, Darkly
It’s long, only read the first part, but it’s heartbreaking. Another story about how America “solved” the race problem by only focusing on the surface while ignoring how far we fell short:
What a shameful nation this is.
Go Cindy!
I found the perfect mate for pony boy.
Madman, thanks so much for that VF link.
yvw
MitM- #59 – “heartbreaking” is an understatement. That has to be one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read. Shy and sensitive and abandoned, used and abused from the horror of that first day at Central High and the full school year and practically ever since the.
Did Bill Clinton ever attend an integrated school? How dare he use these people for photo-ops when Central High to this day isn’t integrated. The crappy schools we send black children to today may be worse than what existed back when “separate but equal” was the law of the land and god help us, may have been more equal. The Indians and blacks would be justified in just killing off white America. All we’ve ever done is take from them and destroy the communities the have built. And WE are going to save Iraq? Hill and Bill and going to fix Iraq? They couldn’t even fix a crappy little state with less than three million people. I detest all these phony “liberal” do-gooders. (sorry for ranting)
Go Cindy is right, Catnip! Is there anyone else willing to tell the truth publicly as she is? Certainly not among our elected officials. Well, Kucinich does to an extent.
They will use nukes in Iran. I have read many times that they are already there, tactical nukes.
In several reports I read, if they do use them, it’s possible that nearly a million people could die.
When they plan these wars, it seems they do not pay any attention to the civilian death toll.
well The News Hour did a long segment to day on Central High. It is nominally integrated. And I doubt it will ever be more than it is today. The principal wept, but kids said it is by choice.
San Francisco schools are not integrated. They instituted one system in 01, which over the past year or so was proven to have led to further segration, so they made plans for a voluntary but race based re formulation.
Out the window now, with the latest rulings in the Seattle and Louisville cases.
BAR says there is zero energy in the so called black leadership for a battle for integration. They will settle for some quasi semi sorta kinda battle for “separate but equal”
Sad too, as Kozol had pointed to KY as a model for the nation, they were slow, but when they got it, it was a remarkable plan and much supported by parents across the board.
I think the POINT is to kill civilians. Alwyas has been. Certainly all the wars of the fucking past century nd this one.
“The crappy schools we send black children to today may be worse than what existed back when “separate but equal” was the law of the land and god help us, may have been more equal.”
Not in deep East Texas. They got hand-me-down books from the white schools (whose own were so sadly out of date that the books the black students used must have been antediluvian), and some of their school buildings were built with the corrugated tin more commonly used for roofing.
We moved from Houston to rural Trinity County in 1961, when I was in the fifth grade, and I still remember the shock I felt upon learning that what I thought must be a stock barn was actually a school. Inexcusable and unforgivable.
That is heart-breaking. Hard to believe also. There is so much hatred in this country. It just seems to get passed along from one generation to the next.
And people wondered why Katrina was allowed to happen. I’ll never forget finding a link to the FPs of newspapers around the world. There probably were about 100 of them. It was like looking at a poor African country without the means to save its own citizens. Hard to believe those photos were taken here. Desperate people. And Bush is still president!
Many of the headlines had the word ‘Shame’ in them airc. For a while afterwards I thought something positive might come of it all.
moiv – was thinking more about the quality of the instruction from the teachers than the facilities and supplies which particularly in the south were dreadful. Given the quality of most textbooks today not sure being up to date is much of an improvement from the outdated ones.
Do you recall when the schools were integrated in Trinity Co?
Of course I have no first-hand knowledge of the quality of instruction, although it must have been hard to focus on learning anything inside a tin oven — and that’s what it must have felt like.
The civil rights movement made its first public appearance in East Texas in about 1964. That’s when the marchers hit the streets. But by the time I attended a fully integrated school, we were living in Dallas and I was a junior in high school, 1967-68.
In those days, high school began with the 10th grade. In that year, the student body was about 50/50 Anglo and Latino. The next year, we were about 25% black. Perhaps it was largely because we were in a large urban district, but the transition was very smooth.
moiv #71 thanks. So, unless AR was more advanced than urban TX, Clinton is unlikely to have attended an integrated school.
On instruction I was thinking of the differences in history class for Elizabeth at her all black school and what she got at Central High (“slaves were happy” type of crap)
oh but Bill has had black GFs… surely that counts.
I am being sarcastic.
That’s probably spot on, Marie. One advantage of being isolated out on the highway in a tin barn was that the teachers had enough freedom to deviate from the state-approved curriculum.
No idea about AR schools, but since Bill C is a few years older than I am, the integrated school story doesn’t sound too likely to me. No matter how small the town, there was room for separate schools. When I lived there, the sign at the city limit said “Trinity, Pop. 1787.”
Did he? Or is that just another myth promulgated by Klein’s silly book? (Yeah, it was in a stack of books passed on to me last year and I read it. Wretched writing, down there with Ayn Rand and my ability to critique the writing quality of a novel are fairly rudimentary.) As Lenny Bruce once said, “If a man is horny enough, he’ll screw mud.” Probably apt for Bill, although not sure that he bothers much with screwing; might be a bit too intimate for him and a bj will satisfy him. Many people seem to think that philanderers and sex addicts are great lovers and they’re not.
well I am not a Bill fan. The stories predate the Joe Klein book, if you mean Primary Colors.
I feel pretty sure the Black Ladies Literary circle that titter and promote him as the first black president (pardon me while I vomit) also titter and pass around the black GF stories.
Does not take a Klein to do what the likes of the author of Beloved will volunteer to do.
I very much doubt Bill skipped being with a black woman, frankly. If not then, in Africa the past years.
my knowedge syncs with moiv. i wasn’t in school yet, but my sister (who’s like way older than me!!) went to all white schools until her freshman year, 1967/68, in the near-houston area. i can’t cite, but i personally believe that all secondary schools were integrated no later than that year.
it began in texas in 1950.
My latest: America’s Need for Enemies
Frankly, I find the whole repressive atmosphere extremely depressing and I’m sick and tired of bloviating Bush and and his bunch of power-hungry compadres who offer absolutely nothing but destruction as a cure for what ails the world. These are very sick times.
bay and moiv were the elementary schools integrated at the same time as the high schools?
This is for Catnip:
The thing about liars and hypocrites… is that there is no need to “argue” with them… just “quote” them…. and you will always win.
Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1 by Juan Cole
#80. That only applies to their site D Throat. They can run around on other sites threatening people in any way they choose – especially at pff where they know the only consequence will be a public outing of their hypocrisy while claiming not to “give a rat’s ass” about what people think of them.
Apparently someone posted hornbeck’s pff comment at docudrama and it was deleted. “Vigorous debate”, my ass.
mahmoud is on with charlie… pretty much a travesty
Lebenese are delaying the September vote, BBC:
There is so much hatred in this country. It just seems to get passed along from one generation to the next.
It doesn’t just get passed along … it curdles and mutates, taking new forms, usually less overt so that the current perpetrators can pat themselves on the back about never using the word “nigger” while they cut pay for teachers and defund the public schools with voucher programs.
I’m still utterly unconvinced that those assasinations in Lebanon have anything to do w/ Syria. I fail to see what they have to gain by them. Now they are delaying elections? I feel a cancelation and some kind of “emergency” government coming.
The very unPC War Nerd on the latest Lebanese assasination.
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=12776&IBLOCK_ID=35
On a personal note, I was in NYC this weekend and went out with lucid to see a Slovenian band made up of friends of mine. We had a great time. He recommended an Argentine restaurant and a local bar near the club, and both were good. We stayed up until the wee hours. I *Heart* NY!
Stupid AH, no. 16,
Billing your clients for time you didn’t actually perform work for them is a serious crime, along the lines of embezzlement. It’s also standard practice in the legal industry, and the percentage of lawyers who are actually punished for this (either in-house or by the legal system) is microscopically small. Even when someone is caught red-handed and punished, the clients often don’t care. I knew an attorney in Delaware who was actually fired by his partners, and sanctioned for this. His clients were primarily a bunch of elderly blueblood ladies who continued using him as their lawyer in spite of the fact that he was caught billing them for hundreds of hours when he was in fact out to dinner and the opera, on vacation, etc. They thought he was charming. Eventually (this matter took several years to run its course), he was disbarred, a sentence that shocked everyone, most especially him. Since he was married to a duPont heiress, most everyone in the know assumed he’d get off with a slap on the wrist. As it was, after he was kicked out of his firm by his partners, the reason was said to be that he had decided to leave because he was expecting an appointment to either the Federal bench or an important job in the Department of Justice. My wife worked at the firm that canned him and knew the truth, but we both had to help keep up this cover story everytime the subject came up, which it did often since I worked at another law firm, the Wilmington, Delaware legal community is small and inbred, and people knew my wife worked there and would more than occasionally ask if I knew what was going on with the guy.
Incidentally, according to people in the know, he’d been taught these dubious practices by the top partner on the letterhead at another firm where I later worked, and where this guy had first practiced. When I moved over there, this top partner’s bilking of his clients was a secret so open you couldn’t even call it an open secret. Everyone from other lawyers to paralegals to secretaries talked about it openly.
Live from Pittsburgh:
Very sad that the Linking Drivel crowd in Philly won’t return my calls. OTOH, got a sweet (ha !) deal on a slightly used chocolate fountain at Goodwill yesterday. Now they’ll have to come crawling to me !! You just WAIT !!!
Mcat, I totally agree that 99% of what’s on even the prestigious end of the airwaves is drivel. mr_xeno had the local NPR station on and I couldn’t believe the simpering tongue baths that pass themselves off as “interviews.” Nobody asks any hard questions regardless of how stupid and outrageous the subject is being. It’s all about simpering and fluttering and getting through the thing without riling the hoi polloii in the car while they’re driving about the countryside. I can’t be the only person against whom this backfires. Patronization doesn’t soothe me;It makes me enraged.
Popped on CNN in the hotel (great room, btw. Air-conditioning and kitchenette w/working coffeepot = paradise.) the other day and caught some Coulter clone with incredibly ugly helmet hair screeching about some young White woman who killed her baby. Skipped out to the Weather Channel to see about climates and such. Back to CNN half an hour later and hatchet-heart-helmet-head is STILL GOING ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT THE YOUNG WHITE WOMAN WHO KILLED HER BABY !!
Holy fuck. Think CNN is planning any coverage on all the little brown babies our brave troops are responsible for the deaths of ? Nah. But there was a “Stay The Course” ad on from some she-zombie chanting that her husband and daddy died from tewwowism and that’s why the great lightshow in the Mid-East must continue. Nazi propaganda, American style.
Last night, mr_xeno had the Burns WWII snore-fest on for about twenty-two hours. Haven’t we seen all of this about three billion times on the History Channel already ? Yawn. Propaganda is right. Except I’m pretty sure that it’s our turn to play the 3rd Reich. :p Doubt Burns or any of his fans have the wit to understand that though.
How do you folks watch/listen to this stuff day after day. I feel horribly guilty because even in such tiny, controlled doses I find it unendurable. I feel like somebody dumped a bucket of sewage on my head from three stories up.
>:
msxeno,
Last night, mr_xeno had the Burns WWII snore-fest on for about twenty-two hours. Haven’t we seen all of this about three billion times on the History Channel already ?
I believe Burns has actually taken a good deal of material from a show that was done previously either on PBS or THC. It deals with the elderly fighter pilot from (IIRC) Minnesota who now lives in the Maryland suburbs of DC. I think he’s also cannibalized some other programs that have previously run on THC.
Apparently, he’s signed a new contract with PBS that runs through 2022. Great news for insomniacs.
Bless yer’ tewwowist-coddling heart, JJB. I feared that ennui was just making me imagine things.
Walked past a BBBookstore the other day while being touristy and saw that there’s already a tie-in books for the show. Prominently displayed all shrine-like in the window. What was most telling, however, was that right across the street was a shuttered Indy bookstore. Seriously.
(Brought a pair of headphones, my Photoshop tutorials and 1356 iTunes along on this trip and Saved My Marriage From Certain Doom.) 😉
SV – let’s just say I was hurting at the office yesterday… I had a great time too. Hope your Slovenian friends had a great first time in NY.
Never realized that Morrison was such a Clinton hound. I’ve always loved her books. Song of Solomon is among my favorites.
Newsweek rates Little Rock Central High School as one of the best in the country. The school is about half black and half white.
Marisa #85 – so what does delaying the vote mean? The pro-Syrian bloc could easily calculate that by not showing up the vote would be delayed. But do they gain anything from this? It’s not as if their numbers will increase a month from now. The only thing I can come up with is that the delay removes Lebanon from being a flashpoint in a conflict for a month. Delay may be good if it interrupts a possible US-Israeli timetable. And I’m probably not making much sense by making so many guesses with practically no information. Just sensing that Lebanon might be part of the Iran-Syria war escalation equation.
lucid
yeah toni morrison and aslo the author of caged bird…. cannot think of her name. ‘Hounds’ is a good word for them. To be that uncritical of someone who fucked over people, is just flat stupid.
I am assuming the Childrens’ Def Fund, Wright of the Wright-Edelmans does not “gather round” the old home fire this time. She and her org did yeoman work for Hillary in ’92, helping sell an image that was a far cry from bitch atty in swamp state.
For that they got the horrible “welfare to work” scheisse. her husband quit HHS over it. TOO LATE.
outofwater #95 Newsweek rates Little Rock Central High School as one of the best in the country. If this is one of the best, then this country is in far deeper trouble than even I think it is:
oow
I will hunt up that transcript from TNH yesterday on PBS. Post it later.
The classes arrange themselves whites on one side blacks on the other.
AP is all white (they interviewed one black girl who is in AP classes), and remedial and groups that lag behind are all black.
the principal wept on camera.
And yes, even being integrated and iwth a principal that cares and tries, it is far and away ahead of many schools thru out the nation.
Marisa – #97 Maya Angelou – Do you have information on a split between the Clintons and Wright-Edelman? Hoping you’re right. One would think that after Clinton’s dissing of Sister Souljah, Lani Guinier and Joclen Elders, not to mention welfare “reform” that these women would have learned their lesson. The Clintons have played the black community better than GWB does his evangelicals. At least GWB’s gang got a Supreme Court with a majority of creepy conservative Catholics out of their bargain with the devil.
Sounds very similar to my high school in the late ’80’s. It was fully ‘integrated’ racially in terms of demographics for the city, but there was only one African American kid in the AP track courses and less than five in the Honors track courses. All of the African American students had been ‘filtered’ to the lower performance track back in elementary and middle school. There was very little social interaction between African Americans and whites, save on athletic teams. And there was an an incredbile amount of overt racism on the part of whites from lower economic strata.
Integrated my ass.
Marie
Debka did nto add much.
Perhaps the Syrian backed walk out want to avoid soemthing this month. I don’t know.
I remember when the Israeli Lebanon war was going on, one thought was that the Israelis wanted to knock out the Hizbollah preparedness, just as part of the flight path to Iran. but that was over a year ago. I assume Hizbollah (tho I know nothing) has re-armed and is prepared.
Off to check war nerd (aemd links above at 88) see what he says.
*******************
ms xeno!
have a lovely few days… ROOM SERVICE. Early and late!
Oh – and this was in the industrial north…
What I wrote above, Edelman quit HHS (one of three) o protest the welfare bill. It was public then, 10+ years ago.
And I don;t see Marion Wright around Hillary this time, nor do they (MSM) regurgitate in articles about her )Hillary’s) great work with the Childrens Def Fund. So my take is that Marion W-E has bowed out.
As I said too fucking late. They worked to craft a fiction for Hillary o 92, one she traded on for years. Now the slobber is that she worked for decades “on laws for equality of wimmens”..
It is true that the students voluntarily segregate themselves socially at Central, and it is true the classes are majority white, but that is not deliberately because of race. The band is almost all black, the orchestra almost all white. The students do eat in different areas, but there are a scattering of each race both areas. The school does not recruit white students any longer because its academic reputation makes it unnecessary.
The problems which cause the PAP and AP classes to be predominately white occur before the students arrive at the school. Those same problems are endemic throughout minority communities’ nationwide. It is absolutely wrong, but it is also largely not the fault of the high school. The problems that cause any student to enroll in high school unprepared start at least 14 years before that student’s arrival. Those failures in the educational system should be addressed and are an indictment of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the whole United States.
Last week, during the Jena protest, the administration at Central asked the students to wear black in support of the six. An overwhelming number of all races did so. It is inconceivable that a Jena type situation could be duplicated at Central. Maybe Central couldn’t be Jena because the racist families send their kids to private school or they move far out of the school district to avoid integrated schools, I don’t know, but it is simply not the racist cesspool which is found so much in the South. There is racism there, no doubt about it, but there is racism everywhere.
That is not to say there aren’t problems. White students were mugged after football games a few times last year, but no one attributed it to racism. A black assistant principal who is known as a strict disciplinarian was also beat up by some black kids last year as well. It sucks. Last year there were gunshots fired at an end of year festival. There are murders close to the school. There is violence around the place; the school is in a poor, crime infested neighborhood.
The student leaders of the school are mostly black. Very many black students thrive there, but the number of black students that derive all the benefits of the superior education available at Central is far eclipsed by the number of whites who do.
Well, it’s not unexpected. All ‘good’ American leftischers always return to the fold no matter how their ideals are betrayed.
I’m done. For good. 2006 was the last straw. [And I struggle to understand why I came back for 2004 & 2006]. Our system is unsustainable & will collapse – already is in the process of collapse. No amount of oinment & bandaging will save the patient. There is only such thing as a kairos moment if you believe in fascist conceptions of history [see Heidegger]. And thus it doesn’t surprise me that at the point of decline, this country has turned so wholeheartedly in that direction.
Let’s just hope something more noble rises from the ashes.
Still looking for the saudi king’s quote regarding the danger to US interests if they don’t resolve the Israeli/Palestinian issue…pre-9/11, to flush out this diary:
http://www.politicalfleshfeast.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=485
lucid #101 – my high school in the ’60s had so few blacks that it didn’t seem strange that I rarely had any classes with them. They did tend to congregate with each other at lunch time but there was not only no overt racism or shunning (many participated in integrated extracurricular activities other than athletics where they were very visible and respected). In my tenth grade class a young black man was elected to the student council. The next year the 10th graders elected a black man as their class president. Which in retrospect is remarkable considering that out of a class of over a 1,000 students, blacks were less than 10%.
The second high school on the other side of town had more black students. Not much interaction between the two schools (rivals in sports) but my senior year when we did a student council exchange day, I came away from it wishing that they could keep our president and we could have theirs. Ours was a drippy white kid and they had a charismatic, intelligent and cool black kid.
We weren’t race conscious enough back then to recognize all the various signs of it. But there was an ease and acceptance and general sense of equality in our interactions. It’s rather embarassing to recall that there wasn’t a black cheerleader and we didn’t think that was odd. It would have taken so little for the school to do a bit better but overall it was so different from the stories like Elizabeth’s or yours that I have trouble understanding how anyone can consider that normal much less desirable.
outofwater #105 – yes, I acknowledged that the problem begins before high school in one of my earlier comments. For some it begins in day care.
From my personal experience it’s easy to see why I expected the whole race question to be resolved within a generation simply by integrating the schools and fostering a climate of equality. Easier said than done when one’s reference point is a school a couple of centuries removed from the real world in America.
MC- I didn’t notice your comment about Central before I posted above. It isn’t very surprising that the principal of Central would weep, on or off camera. She is a very demonstrative person.
It’s baffling that they interviewed the “only” black AP student, because about a quarter to a fifth of the AP and PAP classes are composed of African American students. Where there is tragic (but not forced) segregation at Central is seen is in the regular classes, some are almost all black, and not much education happens in many of them. As I said, it’s not perfect, but it’s not Jena either.
oow
SOunds like you know the principal, do you?
BTW, I am not using Central High to castigate the south and integration. I have mentioned Kozol and what he has written on KY and their voluntary race based system (now shot to hell of course due to the Loouiville case) and I remember, at a distance the mess of forced integration in MA, it made national news..
Frankly I am in the west which seems a lot like the SO on many days. As I said our schools are segregated and now they are shelving a race based formula, due ot the SC rulings. SF is largely segregated as well.
Oh well.
in our school district, yes. i’ve also found a later date of 1969 mentioned in this abstract from the Journal of Sport and Social Issues which conflicts with my earlier comment that 67 was latest.
and a little more detail from an abstract of a report, dated 1963 titled: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools–southern States, 1963, Texas. that summarizes
i just bet a white guy wrote that.
i also ran across a significant “end around” even later than the 69 date abstracted from: Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston.
I’m very interested in the Ken Burns programme on World War Two. I can’t wait to see who wins.
Chloe Wafford, aka Toni Morrison, and Bill Clinton are, erm, on intimate terms, you might say.
I can’t wait to see who wins.
Shouldn’t it be obvious by now? [hint it wasn’t the allied powers]
i’m still digging around and found some info on the mansfield “integration slow down” mentioned in my comment above. appears it may have served as a model for the gov of ark. in regard to little rock. today’s Texas history movie.
113
I watchd a single hour of it last night. Pure exhortation for war.
As are several companion pieces shown around it, so to speak, here in the Bay Area, on KQED. They did rerun a good documentary on Manzanar… but most of it has been just war mongering.
Mcat, didn’t you know that war is about sacrifice, honor, dignity & true citizenship?
bay #116 Thanks for the research. In 1965, faced with the loss of federal funds, the Mansfield school district quietly desegregated.
That’s what a real leader would have done in 1955 and added to that by sweentening the pot for those districts that desegregated and welcomed federal inspection of their accomplisments. That would have rewarded innovation and creativity among local school boards and educators. It would also have given many states like CA a few more bucks. In general it’s much easier to buy support than enforce change at the butt of a gun. That’s exactly what I’d do in Iraq. (Not the stupid way that Bush/Cheney did it with bundles of cash, but at least they sort of know people can be bought.)
World War Two is the so-called “good war”. People ignore the fact that there were race riots in Detroit during World War Two (in 1943, to be exact–so much for the American unanimity of purpose), and more than a bit of discontent on London’s working class East End, which took the brunt of the Blitz–and of course the war included the totally unnecessary slaughter of civilians at Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
Studs Terkel wrote a very good book about World War Two which I think was much less rah-rah than Burns’ programme. The following are quotes from the oral interviews Terkel did with the so-called “Greatest Generation”:
I’m tinned meat byproduct.
plus WW2 eliminated much of our history with its paper drives. Thats the reason so many of the 30’s/40’s comics are so rare.
Let’s not forget that World War Two gave men such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and Prescott Bush (GWB”s grandpappy) the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to betray their country and throw in their lot with the Nazis. Not that they were ever made to pay the price for their treason, of course–such matters are reserved for the lower class sorts.
I enjoyed Terkel’s work; I also heartily recommend Paul Fussell’s “Wartime” (not strictly limited to WWII).
Studs was amazing — I love his oral histories.
from TPM….
“State to Blackwater: You Don’t Say Nothin’ to No One, See?
By Spencer Ackerman – September 25, 2007, 5:05PM
Now this augurs well for a thorough inquiry into Blackwater’s recent behavior in Iraq. Just three days after Rep. Henry Waxman announced his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee would hold hearings into the deaths of 11 Iraqi civilians, a State Department contracting official wrote to Blackwater with a simple message: you don’t say anything we don’t tell you to.”
Fascinating, our State Department is gonna be Blackwater’s mouthpiece.
Shame, that. Back in the day, one of my favorite songs was “Old Balck Water” by the Doobs…
Um, “Black”. The Doobie Bros were into mild intoxicants, not steroids.
heh, good one wozzle!
Have all of the people [and I use that term loosely] involved with this latest Blackwater incident been spirited out of the country yet? I wonder where they take them…Saudi?
brinn #128 – might be in Paraguay
mattes:
re: “Still looking for the saudi king’s quote regarding the danger to US interests if they don’t resolve the Israeli/Palestinian issue”
gee, what a revelation. Saudi Arabia using Israel to deflect criticism ffom their own insanely wealthy devious kingdom…they’ve been using that canard since forever.
what does SA do except fund radicalism and terrorism, eh?
you’ve got to come up with something better than that
mattes – me thinks yer going batty
Encouraging diversity in the media:
Heard a discussion on NPR Friday about Ken Burns’s The War; two-pronged — first part was some guy named Chavez, apparently he’s been dogging Burns about having excluded Latinos from the documentary. His argument is that since Burns took federal funds, he ought to have included all the ethnicities that participated in the American effort. Um… right. My argument — make your own fucking documentary. Guy makes a 13-hour documentary, leaves out Latinos. Bummer. I bet he left out gays, too. I bet a bunch of gays served. Maybe the gays should protest, too. Sheesh.
From this right-wing blog: http://tinyurl.com/2f9t34
Yeah, fuck them Lateenos. Who the fuck do they think they are, anyway, wanting to be included in a documentary about a war just because they fought and died in it? The fucking nerve of those beaners!
Once again, I’ve been processed and tinned.
Too right, Marie — I forgot about Paraguay!
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sorry fro the delay. A new name will trip moderation – I have it set so all first time commenters go to Moderation, as a spam preventative.
Think “studs” tripped Spam… LOL.
You can comment under as many monikers as you like. Think Owen Paine of Stop Me Before I Vote Again had 6 or 7…
but it can trip the delays. Then again those get trpped pretty regularly anyhoo…
soo…