SteamedPenguin

My main only squeeze and I were going through some old pictures of her father when we came across an envelope with a delightful stamp postmarked August 4, 1962. The stamp itself was issued in July, 1962 to commemorate Brien McMahon who authored the Atomic Energy Act.

Peaceful Uses 00: Brien McMahon commemorative stamp (1962)

There are several things I like about this stamp. In the era of "Duck and Cover" US policy makers must have had an interesting job. On one hand they had to scare the bejeezus out of Americans so that they can keep up the cold luke-warm war against the dirty, dirty Soviet Union. Nuclear bombs could fall, any day, out of the sky to fry some small town and its' apple pie. On the other hand there clearly was an interest in developing nuclear power for power generation as well as other uses. Nuclear power generation is relatively cheap, at least in the relative short-term.

So here is a stamp that tries to ameliorate that "scared shitless about nukes" feeling. The stamp itself is very conservative. It has a simple message and a simple design. To the left you have "Atomic Energy Act" and "Peaceful Uses" bracketing the symbol for nuclear power from the top and bottom respectively. On the right you have Brien McMahon. The conservative layout and simple message seeks to convey a feeling of stability and certainty in an era of increasing worry about the future. I wonder what people thought when they were licking this stamp during the Cuban Missile Crisis? My hunch is that the vast majority of people then, as now, saw the world as they wish to see it instead of as it truly is. It is easier to blame the Other for our problem instead of looking at ourselves to examine how we contribute to the problem.

Peaceful Uses 01: Brien McMahon commemorative stamp (1962)

Growing up with three brothers was a lot of fun and even though we were incredibly close, and continue to be, we fought as children, and adults, do. When one of us would complain to our parents about how the other is picking on us they would respond with: "It takes two to fight." In our childish wisdom we thought this response not only to be silly, but also incredibly unfair. Now that I am older, balder, wiser I can apply their words to children, but better yet I can apply it to how groups behave. Somehow the same adults who tell their children that it takes two to fight cannot understand their role when their country gets in a fight with another country. Countries scream and moan about how unjust and unfair the treatment of the other but no examination is made of their own role in the fight.

There are many systems of ethics in the world and they all have things to recommend them. We are taught virtues and vices as we grow up and we are supposed to adhere to the virtues and discard the vices. There are two distinct domains where adherence to virtues does not apply, or at best get special dispensation to ignore virtuous behavior. Business and nation-states seemingly don't need to regard virtues and vices are termed being realistic. This is curious, we are admonished to treat our neighbor well but treating neighboring countries or businesses well is regarded not only as a kooky idea but a subversive, dangerous idea.

Is this really how we want to raise our children?

My girlfriend's mother recently took a church-sponsored trip to Cuba and brought me back a very nice t-shirt:

Cuba/Imagine by Ares

She also found out more about the artist, Arístides Hernández, and boy am I happy she did! His stuff is kick ass. The imagery is grotesque and beautiful. On one hand my eyes want to move away from the imagery but I also want to pore over every detail. The political images are even more potent:

This image on racism is devastating:

Racism by Ares: By permission of Aristides Hernández

This image on justice brings me to tears; so simple but so deep:

Justice by Ares: By permission of Aristides Hernández

Check out Arístides' site and if you have more information about him, let me know.

Ha'aretz has an interesting article on Israels' image problems in the USA.

Let me give some excerpts that are interesting:

The article talks about the group of professionals starting to deal with Israels image problem in the USA, they include such illustrious people as:

... Elias Buchwald, one of the founders of Burson-Marsteller, the second-largest PR firm in the United States; Fran Oppenheim, the owner of a consulting company and formerly brand director at the food giant Kraft General Foods; Helen Marlow, formerly Phillip Morris spokeswoman and vice president in the giant tobacco firm, who dealt with the "anti-tobacco" wave

Let's take for example Fran Oppenheim:

One right-wing, zionist organization reports she is a "representative for The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations". This is no big surprise, they aren't going to tap people to market Israel in the USA that are just middle of the road Americans. She'll be a true believer, or better yet, somebody who has totally bought into Israel as necessary for her social and political well being. Not that Israelis are necessary, just Israel. I doubt her Ashkanzi sensibilities really make her care about the unwashed masses our Arab Jewish Israeli immigrants. If the Israeli establishment doesn't care, I doubt these milquetoast-toast American Ashkenazis care.

The true believers are settlers. Not that I find settlers to be respectable people, but you gotta respect that sort of cheap commitment they have; Living in subsidized housing, getting what amounts to free water and power, and getting to shoot all the darkies you want without ethical or legal repercussions is hard living. By comparison this Fran Oppenheim really represent a weak commitment to Israel, living in the USA, being wined and dined by the cream of Israeli and American society, jetted here and there, without having to endure dealing with us smelly Palestinians.

I don't doubt she is a good marketer. After all it must take a wizard to try to sell utter crap. Just imagine what kind of integrity you must have as a person to stand in front of people and tell them that the rubbery piece of shit with a slightly yellow color is cheddar cheese?

That's right, she made her name selling crap and now she can cement it on the sidewalk of shame by trying to sell Israel, a racist, apartheid state that keeps ten million Palestinians under occupation, imprisonment, and terror, as a haven of not only democracy but good living and open-ness.

Next we have Elias Buchwald:

SourceWatch notes:

For the last 20 years Buchwald has been a volunteer media trainer at an annual program organized by the the American Jewish Congress and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A racist zionist crazy person has a mirror of previous article mentioning Buchwald:

The program is designed to improve the primary task of the foreign ministry representatives: hasbara - that peculiar Israeli word that is a hybrid of information, public relations and propaganda.The chief exponents of this craft are supposed to be the prime minister and foreign minister, but their English, ability to express themselves and the content of what they say does not exactly help to promote Israel's hasbara efforts, say Buchwald and Greenberg.

As a side note it is amusing to me to note that the same kind of people who have no problem breaking every international human rights law also have no problem breaking copyright. Not surprised, just amused.

Here is an interesting tidbit:

Buchwald senses that the terror mantra may have worked last year but is no good anymore, given Arafat's death. He suggests delivering a positive message: telling the Palestinians, "Come, let's make peace. We want a good economy for you. We want a good economy for us. We've had enough war. Let's live together."

That old Elias, he is a funny man. Disingenuous shit that he is. You do not work for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs then preach peace with us Palestinians when the mission of the Israeli government, and Prime Minister after Prime Minister is to eradicate the last traces of Palestinians off the land of Palestine. Maybe Elias Buchwald knows something about Israeli policy we do not? Perhaps Elias Buchwald now makes Israeli policy with regards to Palestinians and not the Prime Minister. I doubt that. He says "Let's live together" as if the barrier to Israelis living amongst Palestinians has been Palestinians and not the pervasive destruction of Palestinian homes, the rape of Palestinian resources, the imprisonment of Palestinians, and slaughter of Palestinian refugees.

Lastly we have Helen Marlow. Her name doesn't bring up much usable data, but "formerly Phillip Morris spokeswoman and vice president in the giant tobacco firm, who dealt with the "anti-tobacco" wave" should be sufficient to show what her merits are to the campaign. She defends selling deadly poison to an increasingly anti-smoking USA. That's right, she defends causing cancer, arteriosclerosis, emphysema. Hell, by comparison defending genocide, breaking international law, and torturing children should be easy for her. Maybe her epitaph will say "I was doing a job. I was just following orders."

Let us review:

Elias Buchwald is a professional salesman. His job is to sell anything to anybody. We know he is a long time media volunteer for Israel, but aside from that his credentials are selling the unsellable.

Helen Marlow a shill for the tobacco industry.

Fran Oppenheim salesperson for Kraft Foods. Selling the crappiest food in the world.

If this is Israel's Branding Dream Team then you know that Israels case is extremely weak. It is like getting represented by Johnnie Cochran, you know the perp is guilty when Cochran represents you. We know Israel is a genocidal, law breaking, occupying country, which is only reinforced by the presence of Buchwald, Oppenheim, and Marlow who come to whitewash and prettify the strange fruit hanging from the trees.

Wolfensohn is going to cry to Condi 'My Penis is an Oil Tanker' Rice about how bad the Palestinians and Israelis are treating him:

Wolfenson said he was close to a decision to return home and added that he will convey his worries to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly after she arrives in Israel on Sunday evening.

More at Ha'aretz

Palestinians and Israelis have played the diplomacy game longer than Bush has been sober. While both play within the general game that the US sets through policy both use their respective positions to play as best they can. The Palestinian Authority has never really understood the parameters of the game, and therefore play pretty badly, but they have moments where they seem to be able rise above their endemic stupidity and corruption to make a brilliant play. But hey, even a chimpanzee can come up with something higher intelligences think is art, even if they only play with sticks and feces.

The Israelis are playing more and more dangerous games. They are coming up hard against the 15-20 year population limit which will turn the 'Jewish' state into a minority state. After over sixty years of racially cleansing Palestine the Zionists are coming to a world where they are the minority in Palestine. People like Sharon are smart enough to see it, but I think most Israelis are not ready for the consequences and are not able to appreciate the fact that the State of Israel as we have known it for the last 60 years is in its' twilight.

The Palestinian Authority can play stupid. Yes Palestinians are dying, yes they are becoming miserable and more desperate on a day to say basis. Sometime you can see desperation percolate as the minutes go by, but what is that in comparison to the power the Palestinian Authority can reap when the Palestinians get a state. Whatever that state may be. Say Israel faces the music and allows Palestinians to becomes "Israeli" citizens, then the PA is poised to reap the goodwill of that exchange for several years and be a political power amongst Palestinians. On the face of things they will have brought this change. Another scenario is that the US forces the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza or both separately, in order to wash its hands of us. This would also leave the PA in a position of power, for a while, but very likely short lived and forced to share with Hamas. Either way, time is on their side, despite the high costs. They already sold out the essence of the Palestinian struggle and given up any claim to Palestinian principles so the misery of several million Palestinians isn't something that weighs too heavily on their conscience.

The Israelis are in the unenviable position of having won almost every single battle, having scored almost every point, having dominated the enemy so thoroughly only to see themselves lose the war. Right now world Jewry is centered in the US and Israel, and with the economic situation for the Israeli state becoming more and more tenuous over the next 15-20 years their prospects for recruiting more Israelis are very low. At this stage almost anyone who is going to emigrate already did. Despite highly publicized trips to Israel, nominally free, filled with propaganda, brainwashing, and lots of emotional arm twisting, more people are leaving Israel, for Europe, Canada and the USA, than are coming in. Palestinians have a much higher reproductive rate that Israelis, and the reproductive rate is not about to go down as the economy totally gets destroyed and more and more people become ultra religious. Between the anvil of poverty and the hard hammer of Occupation ignorance and desperation are being born in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen. Higher Palestinian reproductive rates spell doom for Israel. Israel has always had a hard time selling its image. Only the facts that the occupation happened "long ago" and that Arabs and Jews have been fighting "forever" and that the occupation is "fait accompli" has given Israel the veneer of respectability, but as the Palestinian population keeps rising the veneer is eroding as the State of Israel ceases to have legitimacy as a "Jewish" state. At some point the fragmented West Bank and Gaza might become self-governed, but they'll be self-governed slums and right next to the pristine white Riviera style homes of the European settlers. Coming only within a generation since the end of Apartheid, these images are deadlier than a thousand suicide bombers.

Where does this leave the Americans? American policy had centered around using Israel as a fulcrum to move the Middle East. The actions in the Gulf War have given rise to a situation where Israel is becoming more and more obsolete and expensive. The US cannot have an about face that is too quick or it will risk looking weak in the Middle East. Should it cut Israel loose it would signal a free for all against Israel that could strengthen too many opposition parties in the state the US is trying to cultivate pro-US regimes in. After the first Gulf War American policy makers began realizing that it is cheaper to have people 'voluntarily' support you than to grind them into the ground to achieve the same object. The Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Egypt are such examples. Especially where the local regimes are already weak domestically on a variety of issues. Yet, the Americans can't be seen as being too friendly to Israel, at least not unacceptably so. So who is sent in to pass these rocky rapid? Is this intrepid band of adventurers lead by people who are articulate, versatile, and capable of dealing with so many nuances of the Middle East? No, they send in the most dogmatic, inflexible, inarticulate, and plain stupid gang that can't shoot straight. At the time where the USA needs more capable leaders American hobble themselves by electing not the smartest and the brightest, but people who reflect them so honestly as to be painful. Venal, vindictive, provincial, ignorant, xenophobic, misogynistic, short sighted, dogmatic, corrupt, and arrogant are not traits that are helpful to have when you are trying to lead the world from over six thousand miles away and never have come together so clearly as they have in the second Bush Administration.

They send in a succession of envoys, special envoys, friends, people of interest, Big Names, and characters to massage the "Palestine Problem" all of which are destined to fail. The Palestinian Authority isn't stupid enough to trust the US so completely as to undo themselves, and like chimpanzees cornered by hunters that aren't above flinging shit at the US as last resort. The Israelis on the other hand know full well how expendable they are. If need be the US would cut them loose without a second thought and as the situation gets less favorable to the US Israel is jockeying for a better position hoping that when the fall comes, it doesn't come to hard.

For all its might though the American game is impotent. The Neocons in power haven't yet realized the magnitude of changes coming across the Arab world. Their destabilization of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon have too many consequences their simplistic world view cannot grapple with. What has not happened yet is somebody calling them on their game. Nobody has yet made the decision to deal with the unknown instability and forsake the current instability that everyone thinks they know.

People talk about the 'realities of the Middle East', the weight of history, and people bred to do this and that, what people haven't confronted yet is that we are for the time being prisoners of little else but out our conceptions. The danger is always there for those people who think that change is not in the air when it is, very few people recover from that mistake. So many agencies making the same mistake has the ingredients of great comedy, tragedy, or most likely, both. Whatever the change though, the people who are paying for it are the people who always pay for it. While governments may lose power and prestige the ordinary person on the street is more likely to lose their life.

Right after the bombings happened a friend asked me about the meaning of it all; the bombings in Amman, what al-Qaeda means, and other stuff.

Let's start by the place of Jordan in the Middle East.

Jordan is a small country bordered by Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The size of the country is further diminished by most of it being desert and arid hills, leaving the population in a fairly narrow band running North to South along the Palestine border. The Jordanian economy is negligible, last I checked the Jordan, with a population size close to New Zealand has a annual deficit close to the annual surplus of New Zealand.

Things have changed over the last ten years for sure, I just don't have the number on me, I doubt things have changed that much though.

Outside of the Israeli military presence Jordan has been a CIA station and base of operations for over thirty years. Actually, until the first invasion of Iraq, Jordan was the biggest US presence in the Middle East outside of Israel. Having US support gave Jordan a much needed cash influx over the years. More recently Jordan has become a much more active military support area for the US in the second invasion of Iraq. Providing a much needed thoroughfare for mercenaries to enter Iraq. It is brisk, and lucrative business. Lastly, while the Jordanian monarchy gives a lot of lip service to the Islamicist factions they are a monarchy and the preservation of the monarchy trumps many other things. They've also had their share of troubles with local Islamicists.

For clarity, Islamicists are political factions using the language and perceived philosophy of Islam to achieve their aims. They are frequently called Muslim Fundamentalists and other similar names, but such names are ridiculous as well as insulting to the fabric of Islam. Their use reeks of ignorance if not at its worst, malicious slander of over a billion people.

So why does Al Qaeda attack Jordan now? Let us be clear, this is not just an attack against American interests in Jordan, this is an attack on Jordan.

Jordan is Vulnerable to Attacks on Tourism

Since the Jordanian economy is not something to write home about they are very dependent on Tourism. Millions of dollars have been spent to maintain, promote and create places where niche tourism has a foothold. Conservations efforts in Jordan are largely maintained as economic currency. The Red Sea, Wadi Rum, Petra, and many other tourist destinations, as well as some biblical ones, are all very heavily promoted and protected.

Hitting Jordanian tourist hotels is meant not only to hurt the US companies that manage them, but to hurt and punish Jordan and Jordanians. Weakening tourism is designed to make the monarchy make concessions to the Islamicists.

Hitting Jordan is an Attack Against the USA

Hitting a country so closely allied with the USA sends a message to the US government. Stay out of Jordan. As far as threats go this one is fairly marginal. You don't threaten the school bully by picking on the kid under the school bully's protection. Unless of course you are trying to send a message to other kids: "See? The bully cannot protect you from us. We will hurt you." This is an attack against American prestige.

Aside from laying out what this attack is, it is helpful to lay out what the attack is not.

Members of al-Qaeda make all sorts of noise about supporting Palestine. It is doubtful that a bunch of uneducated sheep-herders can even find Palestine on a map. Let us be clear, al-Qaeda never has or ever will be a supporter of Palestine or Palestinians. At best they are defending Muslim holy areas under non-Muslim control, at worst they are just a bunch of xenophobic barbarians who just dont like jews. Not liking Jews never has and never will translate to support for Palestine. This I mention only to make sure that one understands that attacks on hotels that are frequented by Israeli tourists are meant to attack the hotels for the most part.

Al-Qaeda is expanding its base of operations and they are picking on some of the weaker links: Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It is notable that they have not done any work in Syria or Lebanon, and in Palestine they are a non-entity.

It is not likely that al-Qaeda will find much of a base of operation within Jordan. The backlash from this operation will limit al-Qaedas support base, with or without American intervention. Jordanians like their standard of living compared to what itr could be, and their measures of liberalization and democracy, while limited, give them enough of a platform to see better horizons. Compared to Egypt and Saudi Arabia they consider themselves lucky.

Even though I am an American citizen, and currently reside in the US I am a perpetual foreigner. I look at the US through the eyes of a well-informed outsider, almost an insider, yet always evaluating things from the outside. I don't identify as US citizen except in the legal sense, and US citizens don't necessarily treat me like fellow US citizen.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I keep looking at people around me and I do not see any undue horror that thousands of their fellow country people are dead. This in itself is somewhat incomprehensible to me, but hey, judge not lest you be judged says the good book. Perhaps millions of US citizens just keep their emotions hidden. Or perhaps the sadness is just too much, or whatever, I can't come up with more excuses.

OK, so maybe sadness is the wrong angle. Maybe I should be looking for different reactions. Should US citizens be outraged? Maybe not. It isn't like any government can do anything about natural disasters. They just happen, right? And New Orleans being hit with a category 4 hurricane is not something that was ever predicted, right? Hell, this storm was such a fluke, a one in a billion chance of this happening. Nevermind that scientists have been talking about this for years. Articles have been written, scenarios drawn up, and recommendations made. Nobody took it seriously enough apparently to do something about this.

At this stage I don't know whether people in the USA even get outraged about anything except their precious little right to bear arms and the price of gasoline. Well good, now they can take their SUV's and their rifle and drive through New Orleans.

OK, so outrage is beyond the emotional repertoire of US citizens. Maybe fear is something they understand. After 9-11 every red-blooded American was out to go get somebody for New York. Never mind that many US citizens avoid anything related to New York like the plague, probably would never go anywhere near the Twin Towers, and generally speaking despise the self-absorbed, provincial, and somewhat snooty denizens of New York City. I can't say I blame them; that garbage-strewn, rat infested shithole called Manhattan gets way too much play in the news anyway. Yet after 9-11 everybody was embracing New York City like a long lost cousin they secretly had a crush on. Hell, for some people New York only became as a real place when 19 shitheads decided to murder several thousand US citizens, and do some charity demolition work by removing two eye-sores from the NYC skyline. Suddenly New York stopped just being a set for Law and Order and became a city, not just any city. A city for all Americans.

For a while the getting was good. Some sheep herders in some country most US citizens can't spell, never mind find on a map, got killed from afar. Towel heads, camel jockeys, and other assorted 'Arab' looking people got shot, and that seemed to do wonders after the big bummer of having a US city bombed.

Let us contrast this with New Orleans. Perhaps up to twice the number of people killed in NYC are dead and dying in New Orleans. Over a million US citizens are internal refugees. A city is close to being wiped out. Yet the response is somewhat tepid. That's right, after having a US city bombed once all of the USA is jaded. So tragically hip they can't even scrape enough wits together to contemplate their own danger.

The Massacre of New Orleans is a study in how a system does not work. Ultimately it is not important whose jurisdiction is preserved, what authority is granted, or which agency is responsible. From the city government up to state government all the way to the top office in the federal level there has been a massive dereliction of duty. Thousands of US citizens were left to die due to the incompetence, negligence, apathy, and sheer stupidity of all the systems involved. The lack of a systematic, thorough, and pre-prepared evacuation plan points to the willful negligence of the responsibilities that are inherent of governing bodies. The sheer amount of deaths was preventable, and as it was not prevented responsibility for the dead lays on the shoulders of so many governing bodies.

OK, so as a country the USA says, OK screw the New Orleans people, that's what you get for living in a city under the sea level. OK, but that is not the point. The point is that despite the bad location of New Orleans, disasters of similar magnitudes can happen at a number of places, and yet people are not putting one and one together to understand that a repeat of the negligence of New Orleans can happen in any city. Hell, New Orleans would have been better off had it been a terrorist attack, maybe then the cowboy Administration of George Bush would have ridden in with horses and six-shooters to make the bad guys go away.

What is so tragic is that this is a systems failure. It is never beautiful when systems fail because for the most part the idea is that you design a system not to fail, or if they fail for unforeseen circumstances that they fail in a gradual manner so as not to take out everything lest the failure of the system be more catastrophic than the even itself. Having proper evacuation plans is not something governing bodies can ignore, especially as cities get bigger and bigger and evacuations become more difficult.

The biggest tragedy of it all is that several thousands of US citizens were allowed to die in such a cruel and callous manner in the richest nation on the planet. Calling it anything less than a massacre is not possible.

I've always like the dirty, politically incorrect, crass, and downright rude of political observers 'The Rude Pundit'. Couching his analysis in terms so base, scenarios so vile, and imagery so depraved that you just have to read closer. Without giving quarter or backing down from the Fascist-inclined Right Wing running the USA, his blog is probably one of the most entertaining and educational reads you can find on the web.

His latest is the Holy Rude One in very good form:

He's talking here about the Victory Center Rescue Mission in Clinton, Iowa, which received a grant for over $300,000 from the Clinton administration, and the Mission did not abide by the guidelines for the grant, which demanded that the board of the mission be opened to, say, non-Christians. It's like if you're a guy who goes to an orgy and the one demand is that you use a condom. But not only did you not bring your own, you refuse to wear one when it's given to you. Fuck that, you say. You want your cock free and fleshy. Now, perhaps you shouldn't have come to the orgy. But by Bush's logic, not only should you be allowed in the orgy, you should be able to fuck freely. After all, what kind of orgy is it that gives a shit about safe sex when there's jizz to be sprayed? Should we not measure the success of the orgy by how sticky the floor is after everyone's gone?