Aaron Swartz came across an extremely interesting talk at MIT by John Hockenberry about his experience at NBC in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. Here’s some of what Hockenberry said:
I was very happily employed at NBC. I wasn’t like, running around, trying to stuff toilet paper into the plumbing and sabotage the place. […] But I was interested, because we had a lot of meetings at NBC about, you know, if you’re doing a story and the person you’re doing the story about offers to buy you a drink, you’ve gotta say no. If you’re doing a story and they send you, after they see the story, some napkin rings — silver napkin rings that are monogrammed “Thank you, Jon, for the story,” you’ve got not only to return those, you’ve got to report those to the standards people at NBC because there’s a whole ethics and conflict-of-interest thing.
So at one of these ethics meetings — I called them the return-the-napkin-ring kinds of meetings — I raised my hand and said “You know, isn’t it a problem that the contract that GE has with the Coalition Provisional Authority […] to rebuild the power generation system in Iraq [is] about the size of the entire budget of NBC? Is that kind of like the napkin rings thing?” And the standards people said “Huh. That’s interesting. No one’s brought that up before.”…[T]he fact that it drew a complete blank among the NBC standards people was interesting to me.
“USA Today’s got a poll: ‘Do you think something’s wrong about the firing of eight US attorneys?’ 72% said yes. 72% of the American people, a bunch of blithering idiots who have no idea what they’re talking about, but yet they voted, so these polls matter.”
Mike Gerber and I have put together a parody of the A&E show Intervention. The person undergoing the intervention is a 60 year-old man named George. You’ll have to watch to find out exactly what he’s addicted to.
Y’know, if I were George Bush and I had just had my ass handed to me in the elections last November, I would revert into “preserve my legacy” mode. Bush needs a signature achievement to hang his Presidency on besides a shaky economy, divided public, and Middle Eastern country transformed into Hell on Earth. He should figure out a way to declare victory and bring the troops home, work with Democrats to pass (and claim credit for) some major piece of legislation, throw the divisive members of his Administration to the wolves (Rove/Cheney), and try to reinvent himself as a moderate in an attempt to make everyone forget why they hate him. Turn back into the “guy you’d want to have a beer with” and get something done.
But that would require a level of self-awareness that George Bush has never exhibited. With the cocky demeanor that the President has adopted, he still seems to think his post-9/11 attitude will fly with a post-Iraq, post-Katrina American public. If the Bush Administration looks like a chaotic mess, it’s because George Bush has no idea that people can’t stand him. At this rate, things will only get worse for Bush and co.
Give it up, dude. You aren’t getting any more tax cuts. You aren’t going to “reform” social security. You aren’t going to overhaul the tax code. You’re losing ground on abortion, stem cells, gay marriage, and every other issue that you ran on. Your presidency is over. You can either accept that fact and try to turn lemons into lemonade or you can just sit around the Oval Office and act like a petulant little boy.
First it was Newsweek, and now Time Magazine is getting into the dumbed-down cover for the American edition game. On the left is the cover here in the U.S., on the right is the cover of the Europe, Asia, and South Pacific editions. (Larger versions here and here) :
Replacing the more-newsworthy story about a Taliban resurgence with a human interest story that you’d expect to find in Reader’s Digest is pretty egregious, but the stories at the top are even more revealing. Last week’s Keane-inspired Reagan cover story that’s finding its way into the international editions is nicely balanced out by a Rudy Giuliani puff piece. But that’s not as bad as the juxtaposition on the opposite corner. While the rest of the world is presented an interview about “Africa’s Moment of Need”, Americans are patronized with a Desperate Housewives reference. It’s as if the editors of Time magazine think we Americans are too stupid and shallow to care about “real news”. Ugghh..
Excuse me if, at 62, and well into my second era of protest against yet another distant, disastrous, and disabling American war, I express a little confusion. Was it actually like this in Rome while the legions were off fighting on the German frontiers? Was this the way it felt in London while the imperial forces conducted their frontier wars in Afghanistan, or Paris when the Foreign Legion was holding down North Africa? Was this how it felt in Washington when Douglas MacArthur’s father was suppressing the Filipinos and General Jacob Smith was turning the island of Samar into a “howling wilderness”? Is this the way it usually feels in the heartlands of great empires until the barbarians actually do come knocking at the gates?
A former top American diplomat says the US deliberately resisted calls for a immediate ceasefire during the conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capability…
Mr Bolton now describes it as “perfectly legitimate… and good politics”…
Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was “damned proud of what we did” to prevent an early ceasefire.
I hope people don’t condemn Bolton here as a monster. Obviously he would be a monster if the “people” of Lebanon were actual human beings. Fortunately, they’re highly lifelike animatronic robots.
SERIOUSLY, THOUGH: I can barely resist making a montage of pictures of dead Lebanese children, with John Bolton in the corner saying “I’m damned proud of what we did.” But that doesn’t get anyone anywhere. Besides, I’m sure someone else has that covered.
AND: I see from the phonebook that Bolton lives a short distance from where I grew up, and just down the road from my high school. He also went to Yale, and his daughter’s there now.
I find it difficult to come to terms with two aspects of this kind of thing. First, that I’ve spent so much time so close to genuine human evil, mostly without being aware of it. And second, that human evil is so boring. You can understand why Faust would sell his soul, but all John Bolton got for his is the opportunity to shop at Montgomery Mall.
