Not that this surprises me, but the Bush administration–very likely enjoying a great deal of relief–has been using the death of civilian Nick Berg in Iraq to its greatest advantage.

In recent days everyone was focused sharply on the administration concerning the growing Abu Ghraib scandal, with harsh criticism hitting them from every direction. But then, yesterday, when the news came out that there was a videotape of the beheading of American Nick Berg at the hands of an apparent al Qaeda group, administration officials likely high-fived each other: they had a possible ‘out.’

Everybody had been looking at the U.S. as the bad guy, the aggressor, the barbarian. The story itself was not that damaging, after all it had been out for some time without people noticing, but the damning part was the artwork. The photos of the prisoner abuse, so graphic and shocking, were what made the story move. But then here came al Qaeda to the rescue, with a videotape even more graphic and barbaric. Nick Berg was suddenly the administration’s man. All they had to do was say, “this guy is us,” and they could absorb his victimhood and make the prisoner abuse (which they had known about for many months but had hidden) seem to be, if not justified, then at least less bad.

Republican Senator Jon Kyl said it succinctly: “As bad as some of the things were that were done to Iraqi prisoners, it didn’t involve beheading. … That doesn’t justify it, but it does to some extent put it in context and show you what you’re dealing with in terms of the enemy.” Translation: we’re going to use this murder to take the pressure off of ourselves. Isn’t that sweet?

The administration not only enjoyed the distraction of the press from Abu Ghraib and used the story to excuse their own wrongs, but it even tried to use the killing to justify the war in general, trying to use Berg’s death to the greatest possible advantage to further their political agenda at home.

What’s worse, the administration is actually indirectly responsible for Berg’s death. Although the administration is now in the process of denying it as forcefully as possible, Berg’s family is being inconveniently unquiet in laying some of the blame at their door. Berg was in Iraq voluntarily to do reconstruction work–not as a contractor, nor as a soldier, but on his own. On March 24th, Berg was arrested by the Iraqi police. The U.S. knew he had been arrested from the beginning, of course, and says that the FBI visited him three times. Berg’s family say that the FBI informed them that Berg had been turned over to U.S. custody, and tried everything they could to get him released, even to the point of going to court and suing the U.S. government to let him go.

The Bush administration, then and now, feebly argue that they didn’t have him, the Iraqis did–but even if it is true and he was never turned over to the U.S., since the Iraqi police are still under U.S. control that is a razor-thin distinction, and even then only in legal terms and most certainly not in fact. Had they wanted him released immediately, they could have done it. Only when his family filed suit did they let him go–the next day–and Berg’s attempt to then leave the country on his own is what put him into the hands of the terrorist cell that soon executed him. He had planned to leave the country March 30, but could not when he was jailed; he left Baghdad April 10, and was likely captured soon thereafter. He was killed on Saturday, May 8, and his body found the same day.

Berg’s father spells out how he sees the government as responsible: “I think that they caused his death indirectly by detaining him without any rights. Even after detaining him I think they at least had an obligation to get him safely out of the country.” The administration is now claiming through an anonymous source that Berg had been told to leave the country–when and by whom, the source “refused to elaborate.” Just after he was released, handed his hat, and left to his own devices? Or before he was arrested–which would suggest that maybe his arrest was not a random or coincidental act?

Whatever the case, the administration’s handling of this affair is despicable. Despite their shoddy treatment of Berg, their arrest and dismissal of the American, when he was murdered they shamelessly exploited his graphic murder to their best advantage. One can be certain that if it were not for the fact that the family is now grieving, their pointing out the administration’s faults would have by now resulted in a now-familiar Bush smear campaign by the administration to besmirch their son’s reputation and call the family liars and publicity hounds. You can even see that much happening at a very subdued level, knowing they cannot go too far, but the echoes of it are there–the family is not telling it right, Nick Berg was arrested for “suspicious activities,” we told him to get out or Iraq, and even an ominous-sounding “more on him is coming next week” from an unnamed source in the administration.

So chalk one up for the administration’s spin team, they’ve been working overtime lately.

John Zogby, president and CEO of the Zogby International polling organization, is taking a “bungee jump” and predicting that Kerry will win the election this year. He calls the election “Kerry’s to lose.” The reasons?

First, Bush’s numbers are not high enough for an incumbent to get re-elected.

His second reason I don’t follow as well: there are “very few undecided voters for this early in a campaign,” and “historically, the majority of undecideds break to the challenger against an incumbent.” That would seem to go against Kerry, but Zogby sees it as saying that “voters have probably made a judgment about the better-known incumbent and are looking for an alternative.”

Third, the economy and the war in Iraq are the top issues for 50% of people polled, and good economic news may not help Bush so much, as there is a lag time between recovery and a change in people’s attitudes; even though the economy was in full recovery in 1992, Bush Sr. lost on the classic “it’s the economy, stupid” tack.

And finally, Zogby points out that Kerry is a strong closer, and does his best in the final weeks of a campaign.

Let’s hope the man knows what he’s talking about.

Google has for some time been my favorite search engine, as it has been for a lot of people. It also helps this blog out quite a bit, being the chief referrer among all the search engines; last month, for example, Google sent 1214 people to my site, as opposed to 589 from Yahoo, 375 from MSN, and 48 from AOL.

In addition, Google seems to have a much more human face. Just a few days ago, they started a Google Blog, which discusses Google and other search engine issues in a straightforward, personal style (even comical sometimes–their advice for young people who want to clean up their blogs for Mom-viewing sagely suggests using “more Mom-friendly vocabulary,” e.g. “I got really drunk last night” to “I got really marshmallow last night.”) Another example is that, as an expected artifact of linking to all content–even offensive content–searches for the word “Jew” resulted in links to a great many anti-Semitic and supremacist web sites; Google has made very public an explanation and apology that tells why this happens and how to avoid such results.

Google also has some good secondary services, including Blogger, which allows anyone to make their own blog for free. It is actually very, very good. It only takes a minute or two to set up, and there you go. It allows access with the excellent Mac blogging app “Ecto” (wBloggar on Windows also will work). Photos cannot be uploaded, but can be added to the blog if they exist elsewhere on the web. You are given the choice of 25 design templates (with a link to more), and are given access to the HTML template so you can make custom changes. It also allows for comments, RSS feed, and a fair amount of customization through the site settings. The downsides are no categories, a banner ad at the top (“Ads by Google,” so not too obnoxious), and no direct stats (although they do point you to sitemeter.com). Blogger’s BlogSpot Plus service allows for photo uploads, statistics and more, but they are presently not accepting new accounts for that service.

Google also is starting a new service–not yet widely available–called “G-Mail,” a free web-based email service like Hotmail or Yahoo, but with a full gigabyte of mailbox space. Google gets its money back by adding their less-than-intrusive text ads.

The long-promised Air America Radio archives are still not up and running (no reason given as to why and no hint as to when they will be). Fortunately, other people are more on the ball. Here are the archive sites I have found so far:

Air America Place

• All shows since the beginning, listed by date, with guest information; MP3 format
• Free registration required; allows access to a post with a username and password and links to the password-protected archive with the shows.
• Great bandwidth–I got speeds up to 192.8 KB/sec.

Ogg Vorbis Archive

• Last one week of programming in one-hour chunks
• All spots in Ogg Vorbis audio format only (will play OK on Windows, may need software added to play on a Mac).

The Randi Rhodes Archive

• Last two weeks’ programming for this show only; MP3 format
• Individual interviews from the show dating back to well before the show moved to Air America.

If you want to listen to the show live, here is a URL which will activate a Real Player live stream.

Just a few days ago I blogged on how Bush’s numbers were falling, especially in terms of his specific performance on key issue such as national defense and the war on terror. At that time, his Gallup numbers on the issues were falling, but his overalls were not much different than has been usual.

Bush’s popularity numbers over the past few months

Gallup did a new poll released today, and Bush’s numbers have dropped to a new low: 46% approval, 51% disapproval; that’s lower than he’s ever been at Gallup.

The poll focused mostly the public’s reaction to the Abu Ghraib scandal, and found that 54% said it bothered them a great amount, 25% a fair amount; 73% said no circumstances justified the abuse; 56% said they felt the soldiers were “acting on their own,” while 34% said they were following orders; and that while 83% and 85% felt that the soldiers and their superior officers (respectively) were a “great deal” or “fair amount” to blame, 48% said the same about Rumsfeld, and 42% about Bush. Rumsfeld’s popularity dropped to 46% from a high of 71% last April when the war was starting. About half felt that it was a major setback for both the war in Iraq and against terror.

And for the first time, a majority of Americans–54% vs. 44%–believe that it was not worth going to war in Iraq. By the exact same numbers, a majority feel it was not a mistake sending troops (go figure that one out when considering the prior number), but that stat also is on the drop.

On the less reassuring side of things, 79% saw this as a breach of “Accepted U.S. Military Policy,” meaning that most will see this as less a structural problem and more of a “bad apple” problem, which is highly unlikely. And 56% feel that the soldiers were “acting on their own,” which also seems incredibly unlikely–how could such widespread abuse occur without their supervisors knowing it? Along the same track, 64% see the abuse as “isolated incidents.”

And while those who saw this as a major setback to the Iraq and terrorism efforts were high (48% and 49%), the number of those who saw this as a minor setback or no setback at all numbered a combined 50% in both areas.

All of this seems to say that while everyone is shocked and demoralized by the issue, it is seen as a fluke more than a pattern. This story is not going away anytime soon, however, and as more information comes out–especially about the contractors, and how much abuse was going on.

Then there is the fact that Bush, Cheney and others in the administration seem to be spending half their time mentioning to everyone in earshot about what a swell guy and terrific Defense secretary Rumsfeld is. One thing I will say for hardcore Republicans, they are very often loyal to their own to a fault. And this may very well be to a fault indeed if the images get worse and public opinion darkens.

Meanwhile, the military is wasting no time getting the court-martials started, with the first “streamlined” judgment coming up next week in Baghdad. One wonders if this is SOP, or if we’re beginning to see some show trials in a likely useless attempt to placate the Arab world.

The trials will not be televised (no surprise there), but reporters will be allowed, and the soldiers and their families have made it pretty clear that they are not willing to take the fall for this.

It seems only natural that this would happen. There is a story going around the web news sites that claim a “gotcha” on Michael Moore. They say, more or less in synch:

Michael Moore said during an interview with CNN on Thursday that he was aware shortly after he began shooting Fahrenheit 9/11 that Disney chief Michael Eisner had told his agent that “he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it.” Moore’s remarks appeared to be at odds with a statement that he had posted the previous day on his website saying that he had learned only on Monday that Disney intended to bar Miramax from distributing the movie, and they raised the question of whether Moore was bringing up the issue now in order to manufacture controversy over the film in order to promote it.

This story appeared on Disney’s own “Mickey News,” and has been reprinted, either verbatim or very close to that, in many places. Indeed, Moore did say that Eisner had made that statement:

A month later, after shooting started, Michael Eisner insisted on meeting with my agent, Ari Emanuel. Eisner was furious that Miramax signed this deal with me. According to Mr. Emanuel, Eisner said he would never let my film be distributed through Disney even though Mr. Eisner had not seen any footage or even read the outline of the film. Eisner told my agent that he did not want to anger Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida. The movie, he believed, would complicate an already complicated situation with current and future Disney projects in Florida, and that many millions of dollars of tax breaks and incentives were at stake.

But what all of these thinly-veiled attack stories have in common is that they all conveniently ignore his next paragraph:

But Michael Eisner did not call Miramax and tell them to stop my film. Not only that, for the next year, SIX MILLION dollars of DISNEY money continued to flow into the production of making my movie. Miramax assured me that there were no distribution problems with my film.

In other words, Moore had every reason to believe that things had been smoothed out. After all, would Disney spend six million dollars on a film they never planned to release?

But stories that are circulating completely ignore that part of Moore’s statement, or dismiss it casually as “spin.” This is either widespread yellow journalism, or just one case of yellow journalism followed by a plethora of news outlets being lazy and just taking the original smear at face value without bothering to check the facts.

Chalk one more up for the “liberal media.” Those guys….

The media has been covering the Abu Ghraib scandal pretty much 24-7. As it should be, considering the impact it will have on (a) our soldiers, (b) the Democratization of Iraq, (c) our relations with Middle Eastern nations, (d) our relations with the people of the region, (e) our credibility and standing overall internationally, and (f) the current political election process. Although there have been many scandals and debacles (Valerie Plame, medicare, lies about WMD, etc.) that should have been enough to cause nationwide outrage, this one is certainly as appropriate as any other, as it highlights the total lack of morality in the administration. It doesn’t care about the rights of people, nor does it see the value of a system where one presumes innocence before guilt. In this war, to this administration, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, and if we destroy some innocent lives in the process, well, you can’t make an omelet and all that stuff. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the American population stands by and watches, or not, in the exact same way that a herd of antelope grazes nearby as a lion tears apart one of their numbers (Jose Padilla): it’s OK, they didn’t get me, so I can relax now.

Guantanamo, for example, was always just a way to avoid pesky human rights issues, as was the non-classification of the prisoners so as to avoid conventions and treaties, and the hiring of “civilian contractors” has always been an uneasy, unspoken-of corner of the war, essentially mercenaries outside the purview of any system of law or justice.

One case of fallout over Abu Ghraib is that soldiers have fallen under blackout. No more free communication back home, no more emails. Not because of any direct security concerns, but because they don’t want those pesky G.I.’s sending out any more disturbing images, and as the situation gets worse, they don’t want their people to be telling any more stories if they can help it. Retrospectively, just as news cameras helped turn public opinion in Vietnam, the G.I. with a digital camera will be seen as the modern version of that news camera in the Iraq conflict. The sad thing is, because of political fallout, the troops will be cut off from a major source of positive morale. But if it’s inconvenient for Bush….

Rush Limbaugh’s usually disturbing rhetoric has become even more disturbing than usual in his defense of the humiliation, rape, torture and killing or Iraqi prisoners. He has called it no worse than ” fraternity hazings” which are “no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation” (I didn’t know that Bush had been sodomized with a plunger), and that the tactics used by interrogators were “emotional release,” “having a good time,” “blow[ing] some steam off,” “like anything you’d see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage,” “pretty thoughtful,” and “a brilliant maneuver.” He adds that “Nobody got hurt. Nobody got physically injured.” Good lord, do people actually take him seriously in light of what’s been released, what has been shown to be true so publicly? If so, then his listeners of that persuasion must be the most feeble-minded pushovers that you would have the misfortune of encountering.

Counterspin Central makes the very salient point that Thomas Hamill, the truck driver who was kidnaped in Iraq, was treated better by his captors than Iraqi prisoners have been treated by the U.S. Counterspin also points to this historical legal decision on the matter. I gotta add this site to my regular reading list, it’s a good one.

Bush, meanwhile, has been doing poorly in the polls, and may dip even more deeply in the weeks to come as the Abu Ghraib scandal continues to grow. The newest Gallup poll, taken before the prison scandal was full-blown, shows that 62% of the American people are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., with only 36% satisfied. While Bush’s approval polls stay floating near 50%, every specific area people were asked about Bush shows greater dissatisfaction: economy (41% approve, 56% disapprove), foreign affairs (42% approve, 53% disapprove), the situation in Iraq (42% approve, 55% disapprove). The only item where Bush got better than 50% was on his handling of the war on terror (52% approve, 45% disapprove), but if you look at the chart, you’ll see that his approval numbers are sharply dropping on that and will likely fall into the “disapprove” majority within the next two months.

This evidence is exactly what I’ve been talking about: that Bush’s overall approval ratings are not a true indicator of how people feel about Bush, but rather how much they support the presidency in general, and how they have not yet seen Kerry enough to be interested yet. But as Kerry starts speaking out more, and as the press starts covering him more–and as his new positive-tone ad campaign gets rolling–we might see Bush’s overalls dropping as Kerry’s rise.

That probably only strengthens Chickenhawk Bush’s resolve to smear Kerry’s war record, as he did McCain’s and as the GOP did Cleland’s. Here’s a post by Kevin Drum which shows how blatantly the Washington Times tried to mislead its readers into thinking that John O’Neill served with Kerry in Vietnam. The large-print quote reads, “I was on Kerry’s boat in Vietnam. He doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief” (O’Neill served on the same boat after Kerry left Vietnam, and never met him); Drum points out many things, among them that the large-print quote never actually appears anywhere in the article.

Intervention Magazine online also has good writing on the topic, starting off with a quote by Kerry: “I think a lot of veterans are going to be very angry at a president who can’t account for his own service in the National Guard, and a vice president who got every deferment in the world and decided he had better things to do, criticizing somebody who fought for their country and served.”

You might note, in a by-the-way fashion, that on a sidebar of the Intervention article, there is the following quote: ” If Bush had demanded the same level of proof of WMDs that he demands for global warming, there would be no war in Iraq.” Good one.

Michael Moore has written an open letter responding to many of the criticisms that have come out against him, as well as Disney’s excuses for why they are doing this:

Disney told him a year ago they would never distribute the film. Moore points out that Eisner did not stop the film a year ago, as he could have, that Miramax promised it would be distributed by them, and that Disney itself spent $6 million on the film in that past year–hardly the actions a company would take if they had always planned on not distributing the film.

Disney stopped distribution because the film is political, and Disney is not. Moore points out that they distribute Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh regularly, and that they even distributed one of Moore’s films, one with a political edge, in 1998, and election year.

Disney only distributes family fare. True, Moore concedes–but only under the Disney label; one of the reasons they have Miramax is to distribute more adult films, like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, two films that are most decidedly not “family fare.”

Moore is really behind all this as a publicity stunt. Moore points out that films which switch distributors at the last minute have often failed. And let’s not forget that this film hardly needed something new to be controversial; this film is a giant controversy all in itself, and needs no help from something like this. Moore does not touch on a more blatant fault in accusations I have seen–that Disney is as often being targeted as complicit in this, that it is all a publicity scheme plotted by Disney and Moore. Which, of course, is absolute BS, as Disney is getting a huge black eye from this, not to mention the fact that the film will almost certainly be distributed by someone else; how will Disney profit from that?

As usual, Moore’s critics have tried to smear, ridicule and marginalize the filmmaker, and as usual, they do it by making extremely limited claims, making them sound bad while they are actually full of holes, and then pretend they are iron-clad and somehow represent the entirety of Moore’s work. The most common example is the job his critics did on “Bowling for Columbine.” Critics claimed that Moore was lying when he claimed that the Lockheed-Martin plant in Littleton, near Columbine, did not manufacture arms (they did), or that Moore portrayed Charlton Heston as speaking in Colorado 10 days after the Columbine shootings when he “actually” gave the speech 900 miles away and a year later (which is false–Moore’s account was accurate). Moore refutes these false claims on his site, but when you find yourself speaking to conservatives, they always proclaim that Moore’s films are “full of lies” and point to the fake attacks.

So these new claims are not really all that new, but unfortunately, they have possibly helped convince a lot of people that Moore is less than reputable. He’s not slick, like his critics are, I’ll give you that, but he is honest, and is far, far more accurate than the right-wingers. It is sad that a few people at the Academy Awards in 2003 (not the whole audience, not even a sizable part, but a few people up in the upper tiers) booing Moore when he gave his speech have somehow given conservatives a form of traction to discount him in the eyes of many people. The truth is, Moore is like a film version of 60 Minutes, but with wit, passion, and humanity. I may not always agree with him on everything, but I do respect him.

Again, things have kind of been overwhelming lately in the What’s Up In Politics department, and with my new classes starting (two courses, each a more or less brand new prep), I’ve been a bit pressed for time. So let’s take a look at just a few of the things that have been happening lately, aside from the Moore film being yanked by Disney.

There is of course the Iraq prisoner debacle. It’s really gone beyond just “scandal.” The Arab world is outraged, of course. The world community is disgusted with us now. What little moral high ground we occupied is shattered. There is the hiring of “contractors,” who operated in Iraq under no law–military, U.S., nor Iraqi law applied to them–and tortured, humiliated, and killed God knows how many prisoners.

Bush and Rumsfeld apologizing may have a little currency at home, but pretty much zero overseas–not that they really care too much about that–especially when Rumsfeld refuses to step down over the matter, even after he withheld the evidence in the case, failing to notify Congress. He claimed he takes “full responsibility,” just like Bush did for his lie about the Niger uranium in his State of the Union speech. It is clear that in this administration, the claim of responsibility is a fake-out, a hollow promise.

Kerry is getting Gored. It comes as no surprise that the fourth estate is doing this; they savaged Al Gore in 2000, where they massed on him and labeled him a liar because he mixed up exactly which of 17 trips he had gone on with James Lee Witt, thinking he had visited a specific forest fire in Texas with him when in fact Witt was not on that trip–and yet Bush was selling whoppers right and left, like claiming that “the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum,” a blatant and easily-checked lie, and the press stood back and failed to take him to task for it. Gore got flamed in the media for trivial stuff, whereas Bush was telling lies that affected the entire nation; but to read about it in the press, Gore was a pathological liar and Bush was “plainspoken.”

Well, here we go again. We have Bush telling lies at a fervently increasing pace, and yet the press is jumping onto all sorts of Republican smear campaign bandwagons, like the one which is trying to claim that Kerry’s Vietnam service was nothing big, that he has no bragging rights because he only got “minor wounds,” and BS like that. Like they did with John McCain and Max Cleland, these Chickenhawks who have hardly any service time at all between them are trying to smear their opponent’s honorable service record–and the press is licking it up. The GOP produced a man who they misleadingly labeled as someone who had served on Kerry’s swift boat (making sound like he had served with Kerry, when he actually served after Kerry and had never been with him one moment in Vietnam), who they tried to seel as impartial (he is clearly biased), and the press sold it to the people.

The liberal media strikes again.

Fortunately, Kerry is finally gearing up to present himself in his own words. Kerry’s failure to counter Bush’s smear campaign may have allowed him to save money while Bush spent his pile, but Kerry may be coming in to the “Who Is John Kerry” game a bit too late–people seem to see him as a tax-raising, flip-flopping liberal. Kerry’s $25 million commercial spurt will hopefully help undo some of that, but one gets the uneasy feeling that it might be harder than it would have been a few months ago.

Democrats.com has announced a boycott of Disney, a move I heartily approve in light of Disney’s current attempt to prevent Moore’s new film from coming out (see previous post below). Disney has no right taking such a partisan stand on this issue–if they do not like the film, they can hand over distribution to someone else. If they truly fear “alienating viewers,” then they made a huge mistake–banning the film will alienate far more liberals than letting a subsidiary release a Moore film would alienate conservatives.

At this time, the Democrats.com web site is not responding, for what reason I do not know (too many visitors? Or a malicious denial-of-service attack? Or just maintenance?).

Update from Mark at VuDeja: FAIR has the email address of a Disney bigwig, Chairman George Mitchell: george.mitchell@piperrudnick.com. Working for Change has a page with a pre-written, editable message to Mitchell where you add your personal information and send it from there.

I’ll edit this post to add more information as it comes out, but make your position known to Disney, as I am doing: I will not buy any Disney DVD, CD, video, or movie ticket. Around the World in 80 Days looked like it might be entertaining, but I will not go to see it. Every Disney associate and subsidiary should also be boycotted: ABC, ESPN, A&E, Lifetime, The Disney Channel, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Caravan Pictures, Discover Magazine, and many more; here’s a list of Disney’s holdings.

Do not boycott Miramax films, however–Miramax is the good guy here, taking Moore’s film when Gibson dumped it, and standing by Moore, so go see Kill Bill, Vol. II, Jersey Girl, or Ella Enchanted if that is to your tastes. Steer clear of Around the World in 80 Days, Haunted Mansion, or The Incredibles (even though Steve Jobs’ Pixar made the film, it’s still Disney). Don’t buy the Finding Nemo or Pirates of the Caribbean DVDs or videos.

More later.

Update: a new AP article with a definite right-wing spin has appeared that nonetheless seems to have some reassuring news: apparently Moore is free to find a new distributor, and Disney is not able or willing to shelve it; Eisner reportedly told CNBC, “That film will get a distributor easily.” I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude on that one.

This is a pretty big one. Michael Moore’s new film, Fahrenheit 911, is being distributed by Miramax. The Disney Corporation owns Miramax. And Disney is telling Miramax that it will forbid the distribution of Moore’s film. In other words, if Disney has its way, you will never see Moore’s new film. This is the newest censorship play by media elements, after Clear Channel disconnected Howard Stern and Sinclair Media forbade its stations to show the Nightline broadcast which listed the names of American soldiers who have died in Iraq. Not surprisingly, all instances of recent censorship have favored Bush.

For those of you who are not aware, Moore’s film centers on President Bush’s relationship with the bin Laden family, and likely will also focus on the Bush-Saud connections and other Bush scandals related to 9/11. Originally, Mel Gibson’s film company was to distribute the film, but Gibson dropped it, and Miramax stepped in. Moore has been working on this film for a long time, and is only one week away from finishing it. The film has been selected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

So Disney’s decision, essentially, is to tell the American people that they are not allowed to see the film. Period. End of sentence. The reason? Moore claims that Disney CEO Eisner asked Moore not to distribute the film last spring because it might anger Florida governor Jeb Bush and cause him to yank away tax breaks that Disney enjoys in Florida, home of a great many Disney properties. Disney denies this, but offers no alternate explanation except to say that “the film is against the interests of the company because it would alienate viewers.”

Disney is using a contract clause which allows it to axe a film “under certain circumstances, like an excessive budget or an NC-17 rating.” Disney and Miramax are talking, but Disney says it will not budge–which could lead to arbitration. Moore himself says that “if I have anything to say about it, you’ll see it this summer — because, after all, it is a free country.” Irony noted.

Personally, I can see no legitimate reason for Disney’s actions, and the fact that Jeb Bush holds an incredible amount of influence over Disney in Florida makes Moore’s claim all the more believable. Moore is finishing work on the film, just before it is released at Cannes; fortunately, the Disney censorship move will not prevent the film from showing at the festival.

But it may mean that you won’t get to see it anytime soon. Miramax’s chairman Harvey Weinstein stands behind Moore, but that may not be enough. Still, the furor caused by this may be enough to reverse Disney’s stand. After Harper Collins threatened to destroy Moore’s already-printed book “Stupid White Men” in the wake of 9/11, a campaign headed by librarians changed their minds and the book became a huge No. 1 bestseller.

I would ask that all readers who want Disney to stop this to call or send email/letters to Disney. Alas, Disney makes it incredibly hard to find any way to contact them directly, but I have gleaned possible addresses from the Internet:

Disney’s Corporate Offices in Burbank: 1-818-560- 1000
Disney’s corporate address: 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California, 91521
Michael Eisner’s email address (possibly changed by now, but it still goes to Disney): meistb@go.com or michael.d.eisner@disney.com

Talk to them, and speak loudly!

Campaigning in Michigan, Bush told crowds of carefully filtered and vouched-for Republicans that “Peace and freedom depend upon this election. Prosperity for the people depend (sic) upon this election.”

In other words, Bush claimed that if Kerry becomes president, we will go to war, lose our freedoms, and have economic bad times.

Do I really need to spell out the burning irony here?

Salon.com has an excellent piece by Joe Conason about former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, entitled “I Accuse,” upon the release of Wilson’s new book, “The Politics of Truth.” The article, as with the book, deals with Wilson’s revealing the Bush administration’s willful untruthfulness regarding the “16 Words,” in effect, Bush’s lie to the American people about the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium hoax–and the following smear campaign against Wilson, in which his wife was outed by the Bush administration as a CIA operative. Which, of course, is a federal felony.

Wilson reports on having been provided with a great deal of information by many people close to power, working out a timeline of when the Bush administration planned to attack him. Interestingly, it goes back before he wrote his now famous July 8th New York Times piece which signaled the greater public outrage against Bush. Earlier, on March 8th, he had said on CNN, “I think it’s safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.” That apparently prompted Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, to start investigating Wilson so they could be ready to smear him when the time came:

Gleaned from all those crosscurrents of information, the most plausible scenario, and the one that I’ve heard most frequently from different sources, has been that there was a meeting in the middle of March 2003, chaired by either Scooter or the vice president — but more frequently I’ve heard chaired by Scooter — at which a decision was made to get a “work-up” on me. That meant getting as much information about me as they could: about my past, about my life, about my family. This, in and of itself, is abominable. Then that information was passed at the appropriate time to the White House Communications Office, and at some point a decision was made to go ahead and start to smear me, after my opinion piece appeared in the New York Times.

That smear campaign included the more-than-willing cooperation of well-known right-wing pundits and publications, for example Robert Novak and The Washington Times. If you look at the Washington Times article I just linked to, you’ll see how many of the smears were aimed at painting Wilson as a rabid left-wing Democrat with a partisan grudge–a common tactic used against most Republicans who formerly worked for Bush but later came out to tell the truth about him. But as with others in that group, such as Richard Clarke, the accusations of liberal affiliations are ludicrous–Wilson was a life-long Republican, from a long line of Republicans; Conason remarks on how Former Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker, Wilson’s superior in the Reagan administration, was “shocked” that Wilson was being painted as a leftist.

But just as the current Bush administration pushed Jim Jeffords out of the party, it–as well as Congressional Republicans–has made Joe Wilson doubt his party:

If you’re fiscally responsible, this is not your party. If you believe in a moderate foreign policy characterized by alliances, free trade and the ability to operate in an international environment, this is not your party. If you believe in limited federal government, this is not your party. If you believe that the government should stay out of your bedroom, this is very definitely not your party. In fact, I would argue that unless you believe in the American imperium, imposed on the world by force, or unless you believe in the literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, this is not your party.

Even at that, Wilson still does not harbor that great a grudge against Bush himself–rather he faults the people surrounding him. After all, Bush did say during the 2000 election that he would surround himself with people who would tell him what to do; Bush got into office with few if any Americans knowing any of the people who would truly be leading the country. And it has been evident from many sources of information that Bush is commonly led around by the nose by his senior staff, one example being his initial reaction to giving a third major tax giveaway to the wealthy: “Haven’t we already given money to rich people? This second tax cut’s gonna do it again.”

The only thing I can suggest is that this is a different crowd that surrounds this president. As most people know, the president is a captive of his team. People whom his father didn’t employ, or kept far away from the center of power, are now right at the center of power — including, of course, one of his father’s great rivals, Don Rumsfeld.

Another problem, of course, is the lapdog media. What isn’t right-wing and eagerly willing to help Bush, is apparently intimidated:

By and large the press, in reporting on this case, felt a genuine fear about this White House.

“Guantánamo” is now a metaphor for being cut off completely from access and sources. I’ve had any number of reporters who have talked to me about how even the most minor criticism of the administration led to phone calls to their editors from senior officials in the government. I think that’s a clear pattern of intimidation.

Overall, a very interesting interview, and a reminder that people very high up in the administration are not much more than immoral felons. The Plame affair may or may not come out before the election–it should, of course, as the administration should be judged by its actions, all of them. But it is also a reminder that Bush is not the only one wielding power in this administration; he is chiefly responsible, of course, but it is the people who surround him–Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Card, Rove, and their top staff who would also be “re-elected” in November. You vote for Bush, you vote for them as well.

Has anyone else out there been getting hammered with viral emails lately? I hardly ever used to get them, and then with the advent of the MyDoom virus, I got loads and loads of emails pretending to be mail-transaction-failed and message-sent-as-binary-attachment fake-outs. That lasted from late January to the end of February. Then some came in a flurry from late March to early April, then a few every week or so.

But now they’re coming hot and heavy again, three or four a day. Many come with the false disclaimer of “+++ Attachment: No Virus found,” as if they’d been checked already. I don’t know, maybe that’s fooling some people. But my guess is that these fakes are becoming the new Nigeria emails, in that everyone has gotten so many that only newbies could be caught by them.

Speaking of Nigeria, I rarely get any now–in my main account. But I’ve been getting interesting results from my spam experimentation for my Computer class next semester. I knew, for example, that posting your email address on a web page would get you picked up by the spammers–but not to the degree that I’m seeing. I put up a phony email address (a throwaway account) on my blog site’s main page–the address being invisible to the eye, but existing as text as part of the page. Sure enough, a few days later, I start getting spam–and it has been quickly accelerating. It’s been two weeks now, and the account has gathered 33 spams. What’s interesting is that fully 1/3 are not standard spams, but Nigeria “419” scam letters, fake lottery emails, and a virus posing as a love letter (complete with a photo).

Just as interesting is the ratio–fully 25% of all the emails to the account are Nigerian scams (“To show my preparedness and appreciation to conduct this business with you,I shall give you 20% of the total funds and 5% commission on any profit that we might realise in the process of investing the funds”). I did not expect the ratio to be so high, and in fact had thought the Nigerian thing had more or less died because of how much a joke it has become. But it seems that they have simply moved on to other pastures. Still, it is amusing to get emails offering me millions of dollars because they “got your contact from an email directory” just a few weeks after I made up the email address and hid it on my web site. Or that I was entered into a lottery “held on the 23th March 2004” with my “email address attached to the ticket number” when I created the email address in April. Now that’s an amazing lottery!

What has been most surprising, however, is the complete lack of spam from the opt-out sites. I entered a fake address into no fewer than 26 opt-out directories for major spam sites–and not a single email has come back. I’m almost disappointed, but if this comes through, I might even take the dive and enter my real email address into them, and see if they actually do stop sending me spam. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the rear?

Hardly a surprise, is it? But that’s what happened yesterday, according to this article. Kerry spoke at Westminster College, about a week after Dick Cheney appeared; Kerry, as you will remember, was invited to speak after Cheney gave a speech filled with partisan, election year attacks on Kerry despite his promise to give a major foreign policy address.

And Kerry’s speech was by far the better, leaving out campaign rhetoric, and instead focusing on the issues–and saying pretty much what I said in my last post, that we have to hand over real control of Iraq to the U.N.:

Mr. Kerry urged the appointment of a United Nations high commissioner to oversee Iraq’s reconstruction and political transformation. He said such a high commissioner, modeled on the role of the United Nations representative deployed to Bosnia, would be authorized by the Security Council to organize elections, draft a constitution and work with both Iraq’s interim government and the United States ambassador.

Kerry went on to point out that “This may be our last chance to get this right. We need to put pride aside to build a stable Iraq.” This could be an unpopular idea with many Americans, but it is the right and necessary tack to take.

My feeling is that he didn’t go quite as far as I did, but he is absolutely in the right direction. This is a feeling that many Democrats have in regard to Kerry’s public positions–many of us feel he should be taking a much bolder stance–but it also must be understood that this election could stand on the edge of a knife, and as distasteful as it might be sometimes, candidates cannot always go too far out on a limb.

Of course, there is a difference between going out on a limb and being a complete weenie. Which, naturally, Bush was up to today. It was the one-year anniversary of Bush’s aircraft carrier PR stunt. They wanted to get him out there in a jet so he could wear the suit and look like he was a military man. They made the claim that the carrier was too far out for the helicopter to reach, and even turned the carrier around so that none of the media’s cameras would be able to see the San Diego skyline close by. They also claimed that another reason Bush went by plane was because they did not want to “wait until the ship was in helicopter range to avoid delaying the troops’ homecoming,” which is not only the opposite of the truth–Bush delayed their homecoming by turning the ship–but doesn’t even make any sense, when you look at the statement carefully. And then there was the “Mission Accomplished” banner, which Bush later tried to blame the carrier’s sailors for, but later had to fess up was his own people’s work.

Well, those were the lies of a year ago. Today, he tried to smooth things over with a whole new batch of lies and obfuscations. “A year ago,” he said, “I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we had accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein.” Um, yeah, right. Actually, what he said was, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” But I guess he has no choice but to lie about it, with more Americans dying now at a much faster rate than before. But perhaps we can cut him some slack on that one, as he might not have foreseen how horribly he would botch the occupation so as to create an even greater combat situation than was experienced in the actual invasion.

Bush went on: “As a result, there are no longer torture chambers or mass graves or rape rooms in Iraq.” Holy moley, George, can you not go ten seconds without putting your foot in your mouth? Bush made this statement even as the top story was how American soldiers had run torture chambers and rape rooms in Iraq! He may be right about “mass graves,” but is it really so much better that we bury them individually instead?

Correction: There are mass graves. My mistake.

It’s hard to decide whether and how much to blog about the photos exposed on 60 Minutes II about the Iraqi prisoners humiliated and tortured by U.S. troops guarding them. The reason not to would be the fact that the actions taken by the soldiers involved do not reflect on the conduct or behavior of the vast majority of our troops there, and if presented the wrong way, would make people believe that it is representative.

However, the reasons for passing on this information are even more important, the most relevant reasons being the effect the war is having on our troops, and the effect that images like this will have on Iraqis. Not to mention, of course, the moral high ground we may or may not have to be there at all.

First, some of the details of how the prisoners were treated:

Some pictures show Americans, men and women in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners. There are shots of the prisoners stacked in a pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In some, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other.

According to the Army, one Iraqi prisoner was told to stand on a box with his head covered, wires attached to his hands. He was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted.

Another picture shows a detainee with wires attached to his genitals. Another shows a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. There is also a picture of an Iraqi man who appears to be dead — and badly beaten. In most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up.

That’s part of the report–the full story is here.

Despite the fact that far greater harm has been done to far greater people in the past year in Iraq, the details of this report may be more damaging to the American occupation of Iraq than anything else so far. The U.S. and British governments are fiercely denouncing the actions, but that may not matter at all in the end. The Arab world is seeing these images, and though there are few reports so far, the expected reaction would be one of outrage. Consider, for example, that “one photo is of a female US soldier standing by a naked prisoner, also hooded. The soldier is pointing at his genitals and grinning at the camera.” That, to put it lightly, will not play well in the Middle East.

The soldiers accused of the crimes seem now to be pointing the finger at the military establishment, blaming it for not training the soldiers how to treat prisoners. Now, I’d be the first to blame the current administration for not seeing to the necessary details, and to stand up for soldiers I thought were being unfairly accused. But on this one, I cannot–I simply can’t accept the idea that the people involved didn’t know, with or without training, that what they were doing was unacceptable.

Nevertheless, there may be one mitigating factor: the war itself, and what effect it has on people. Witness this video aired on CNN of a wounded Iraqi crawling away from American forces, only to have the soldiers patiently take aim and kill the man–at which point the marines cheer. Not exactly the clean fight we usually imagine, nor the behavior we expect from our people fighting there. But then again, we have to remember that these people are living in a world of death, as evidenced by these photos (warning–some are highly graphic and disturbing) posted by an American soldier in Iraq. When this is your daily routine, the word “desensitized” doesn’t seem to do the effect justice. The atmosphere of war thus contributes to the inhumanity. The only reason we see so much more of this is because of the advent of digital photography–cheap and easy to publish–in the hands of the troops there. I’ll give you good odds that by the next war there will be new military regs forbidding soldiers from possessing unauthorized cameras in a war zone.

But the effect is still real, and it is not helping the effort in Iraq. It makes any American attempt to pacify the region into a situation where we take one step forward and two steps back.

Finally, there is the damage to the moral high ground we have occupied only tenuously. And I say this not as one who claimed we had it, but simply as an objective report of what the Bush administration claimed. After all, Saddam tortured all those people for his enjoyment, and that’s what made him bad, right? But now Americans have been doing the same thing–kinda hard to point the finger quite so vociferously.

It’s getting messier. At this time, 143 coalition soldiers (138 American) have been killed in Iraq in April, making this month the bloodiest for Americans in the entire war so far. Nearly five Americans are being killed daily. That number only stands to rise. As time goes by, it becomes more and more clear that the current effort simply cannot work.

What needs to be done, the only action that has even the slightest hope of bringing some order to Iraq, is to start from scratch. We need to be able to go to the U.N. and tell them, “this isn’t working.” We have to work out a plan that can be agreed upon by many nations, especially Arab nations, Egypt and Jordan to be sure, but others as well. And then the majority of U.S. troops need to be pulled out and replaced with a broad–and non-fictional–coalition of forces from dozens of countries. And the U.S. and England must stand back and take only a secondary role at best. I doubt that the Iraqis will ever accept anything else.

It is time for Americans to stop listening to the stream of bullshit that has been coming out of Bush and Cheney, to let go of the lucrative oil industry and reconstruction contracts which we so covetously deny to countries we currently do not like, admit to the failure that is the present in Iraq, and let the world community give its aura of legitimacy to the new Iraq. The fake and pathetic attempts to pretend we are doing this are not fooling anyone. To do this for real is the only chance we have of salvaging the situation.

And we all know that Bush and Cheney would sooner have Iraq burn than to do this. Which, of course, leaves us with only one recourse.

Sorry, I’ve been a bit low-key on the political stuff lately–part of my vacation, trying to relax here. But I will be coming back with that soon, to delve into the Reasons to Not Vote for Bush series, and adding the brand-new Reasons to Vote for Kerry category.

In the meantime, enjoy a few more photos of the beautiful sunrises and sunsets I’ve been enjoying lately.

Well, Dick Cheney was being his regular obnoxious self again. In mid-May, Cheney’s staff approached Westminster College President Fletcher Lamkin about giving a “major foreign policy address” at his university. Obviously, any college would be greatly interested in having such a speaker, and Lamkin approved.

When Cheney showed up, however, he delivered no such address. Instead, he used the opportunity to bash and smear John Kerry for most of the speech.

Lamkin, a former administrator at West Point, describes himself as independent, and a little bit right of center. “I must admit that I was surprised and disappointed that Mr. Cheney chose to step off the high ground and resort to Kerry-bashing,” and that the second half of the speech “was all about politics and a political stump speech and in that respect it was disappointing.” Lamkin claims that Cheney’s people misled him about the content of Cheney’s address: “Nothing was said about a stump speech.”

Wishing to maintain a balanced set of viewpoints on campus, Lamkin has invited Kerry to come and speak at the university as well. Kerry has accepted the offer and will speak there on Friday.

During vacations my sleep schedule gets shot to hell. One advantage of this is that I see a lot more sunrises. I really should aim towards waking up to them and not going to sleep by them, though…

The three Japanese people initially taken hostage in Iraq may have thought that they were having the worst experience of their lives. Apparently, Japanese politicians and right-wing organizations are making it even more unpleasant for them now that they are back home. The way these people have been treated in their home country is cruel, heartless–and highly politically motivated.

Usually these people would not be treated like this. In America, we greet returning victims of kidnapping with yellow ribbons. Japan does not have that custom, but usually it treats with high regard those sons and daughters of Japan who have shown strength overseas, representing Japan well.

These three should have been such heroes of Japan. Nahoko Takato, 34, was helping Iraqi street children, an act of selfless charity at her own great personal risk. Even after her ordeal in Iraq, she did not want to stop helping people in the war-torn country. The kidnappers, she said, “did things to me that I did not like. But I cannot hate the Iraqi people.”

Soichiro Koriyama, 32, is a freelance photographer, and sees it as his job to document what is happening in Iraq. He has photographed people who have suffered from war and disease in developing countries like Thailand; this is no money-seeker, but a man who wants to publicize the suffering of people in an attempt to stir awareness of their plights, to make people aware of what is happening in the world so they can help. Koriyama, a former soldier in Japan’s self-defense forces, labored as a construction worker in Japan to raise the money to go to Iraq.

The third, Noriaki Imai, is a man concerned with depleted uranium shells used in wars; these shells are left behind in war zones, and create a radioactive hazard, contaminating the landscape; Imai planned a picture book about Iraqi children poisoned by the shells.

These were no seekers of fame, they were not there for the money or the glory. All three of them wanted nothing more than to help others who could not fend or speak for themselves. The three are humanitarians all. And two of them, Takato and Koriyama, wanted to keep on doing their work, despite the great risks involved. And that dedication to the welfare of others was their downfall.

Once Koizumi and the right-wing politicians heard that at least two of the three former hostages wanted to stay on, the attacks began. Koizumi said publicly, “It doesn’t matter how good their intentions are. After this ordeal and having had so many officials working without sleep or food to help them, they still talk that way. They should be aware of their actions.” Another politician said, “If they really hate to return to Japan, I want them to defect to Iraq. Since we’ve paid so much from the state coffers, I feel they should compensate us for it.”

Why such icy hatred? Well, the three humanitarian heroes had become inconvenient to a conservative government that is intent on dismantling a vital part of Japan’s constitution, the part that says Japan should militarize only for self-defense, and never for offense. Japan’s participation in Iraq, no matter how small and tenuous, is the first fragile step towards bringing Japan back onto the world stage as a military power. It embarrassed Koizumi and his party, with a bellwether election just a few weeks away to test how the public reacted to the new role of the military. The hostages screwed up that mission for them because Japanese citizens started asking why the troops were really there, and perhaps they should be removed. Japanese friends I have spoken to about this say that they would prefer the troops come home, especially if it puts Japanese into harm’s way.

The government could not stand this. So as soon as the Japanese government (some say by bribing the hostage takers) successfully got the hostages released, they wasted no time in vilifying them. They called the reckless, irresponsible, trouble-makers, self-righteous, nuisances, even “Japan’s shame,” and attacked them for going into harm’s way. They whined about how government workers sacrificed so much, and the government spent so much time and money to help them, and they want to stay in Iraq?! Ultra-right-wingers–a nasty group here in Japan–showed up at the airport to insult and harass them.

Then the real smear campaign began. Takato, the woman who helps street children, was featured in the gossip rags and right-leaning newspaper editorials as a juvenile smoker and drug addict who had connections with terrorist organizations. Noriaki Imai was accused of coming from a Marxist home and was called a “communist sympathizer,” however that could possibly have any relationship to his work to help children in Iraq.

To add insult to injury, the Japanese government plans to bill them at least $6000 for air fare and medical checkups.

Having returned home, they have been so hopelessly smeared by the right-wing establishment in this country that neither they nor their families can show themselves in public. Nahoko Takato had to be calmed with tranquilizers, and doctors have announced that their treatment here in Japan has been far worse in many ways than their captivity in Iraq:

Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three former hostages twice since their return, said the stress they were enduring now was “much heavier” than what they experienced during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name their three most stressful moments, the former hostages told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show the morning after their return here and realized Japan’s anger with them.

“Let’s say the knife incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level,” Dr. Saito said in an interview at his clinic on Thursday. “After they came back to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level ranked 12.”

Well, Koizumi’s tactics worked. They won the elections.

And three selfless Japanese heroes have been ground into the dirt. Job well done.