the golden age of antifa comics

who can forget these four-color classics from a time when no one declared that anti-fascists were "terrorists" or that tiki-torch-waving nazis were "very fine people" ...

fast forward ...

(see also: "those were the days")

domino theory

the young person's guide to net neutrality

a public service brought to you by henry rollins of the independent film channel's the henry rollins show:

freedom is under attack — under attack by hysterical and well-funded christian psychotics. intellectually undernourished leaders who lie and manipulate information. overfed baby huey coward bitch motherfuckers like karl rove and their suck-up weakling apologists like sean hannity. to question authority is to be somehow unpatriotic, un-american and in league with terrorists worldwide? fuck you! with even election results becoming more and more questionable, the constitution a thing to be manipulated, ignored and frivolously amended, even democracy itself seems to be on the run. so where's the one place you can go and tell your version of the truth, rail against liars, fakes and propagandists with your own unique propaganda, sign your name to it and let the whole world know how you feel? that's right. the internet. perhaps responsible for the most substantial shifts in culture in the last several decades. there's so much freedom and potential on the worldwide web that one is barely able to get one's head around it. who in their right mind would dare to regulate or charge websites to be on the internet? who would dare to rain on a parade so fantastic that many of us would not know what to do without our high-speed connection and our lives on the internet? actually, some very powerful forces. telco companies want to make you pay for your site to be carried on the internet. if you can't afford to pay, guess what? that's right, you're cyber-history, pal! the bush administration wants major internet and phone companies to keep track of where their customers surf, all in the name of the "war on terror", don't you know. how much do you wanna bet they want the internet regulated, contained and thrown into a cell at guantanamo bay? for a country that talks so much about freedom being on the march, seems to me that some people want anything but! if they come for your freedom, you must not only resist, you must strike back with a vengeance that will stun them. on this front, if your anger and outrage are not at the forefront, then you're already dead! dead to me, anyway. fuck these cowards! these traitors! these ENEMIES of democracy! thanks for watching the show this season. never relent.

note: in an otherwise solid introduction to the developing struggle over net neutrality, henry mistakely mischaracterizes the telcos' plan as wanting to burden the end user with excess access fees.

what the telcos really want is to get their fees directly from the access providers, who in response would create segregated tiers of access, rewarding the affluent with state-of-the-art high speed high bandwidth content while relegating the rest of the population to the equivalent of the internet ghetto.

today msnbc.com competes for your attention on the same playing field as glad-you-asked.blogspot.com, but the telcos want to apply the corporate television model to the internet, which rewards institutional media outlets with disproportionate impact, benefits and profits relative to their resource-starved public-access brethen.

punked by putin

when president bush was asked at the end of today's joint presser with russia's president vladimir putin — in prelude to the weekend g8 summit in st. petersberg, russia — about his "concerns about russian democracy", bush responded:

... i talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and i told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that russia would do the same thing ...

um, nice setup, dubya. his iraq comparison allowed putin to deftly close the session with this quip:

we certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in iraq, i will tell you quite honestly.

heh.

all dubya could do amid the laughter was helplessly blurt: "just wait — !"

but i have a feeling no one, especially putin, will be holding their breath.

man, that vladimir can be a tough act to follow ... especially when you try to pretend iraq isn't an ungovernable disaster.

turn, turn, turn

yes, folks, you've heard this song before. it's sung to the tune of "the light at the end of the tunnel". ¹

from today's remarks at the white house, on the third anniversary of bush's "mission accomplished" speech:

bush: a new iraqi government represents a strategic opportunity for america — and the whole world, for that matter. this nation of ours and our coalition partners are going to work with the new leadership to strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve success, a victory in this war on terror. this is a — we believe this is a turning point for the iraqi citizens, and it's a new chapter in our partnership. (may 1, 2006)

after the nomination of the prime minister:

cheney: i think we'll look back several years from now and see that 2005 was really a turning point, in the sense the progress we made both in terms of training iraqi forces, because we've now got a large number of iraqis taking the lead various places around the country from a security and military standpoint, but also because of the political milestones that were achieved ... i think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, i'll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was, in fact, a turning point; that putting in place a democratic government in iraq was the — sort of the cornerstone, if you will, of victory against the insurgents. (february 7, 2006)

after the iraqi elections ...

cheney: the basic point, and one i've made already that i believe that the elections were the turning point. and we had that election in january — first free election in iraq in decades — and that we will be able to look back from the perspective of time, and see that 2005 was the turning point, was the watershed year, and that establishment of a legitimate government in iraq, which is what that whole political process is about, means the end of the insurgency, ultimately. (december 18, 2005)

before the elections ...

bush: there's still a lot of difficult work to be done in iraq, but thanks to the courage of the iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of iraq, the history of the middle east, and the history of freedom. (december 12, 2005)

after the january elections ...

mrs. bush: people in the middle east and commentators around the world are beginning to wonder whether recent elections may mark a turning point as significant as the fall of the berlin wall. (march 8, 2005)

mcclellan: it marks a turning point in iraq's history and a great advance toward a brighter future for all iraqis, one that stands in stark contrast to the brutality and oppression of the past. the election also represents a body blow to the terrorists and their ideology of hatred and oppression. (january 31, 2005)

before the january elections ...

bush: tomorrow the world will witness a turning point in the history of iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom, and a crucial advance in the war on terror. (january 29, 2005)

before the transfer of sovereignity ...

bush: a turning point will come two weeks from today. on june the 30th, governing authority will be transferred to a fully sovereign interim government, the coalition provisional authority will cease to exist, an american embassy will open in baghdad. (june 16, 2004)

bush: and this is a turning point in history. it's a — it's an important moment. and one of the reasons why i'm proud to stand here with [italian prime minister berlusconi] is he understands the stakes, he understands the importance. and like me, he shares a great sense of optimism about the future. (june 5, 2004)

at the first anniversary of the invasion ...

bush: one year ago, military forces of a strong coalition entered iraq to enforce united nations demands, to defend our security, and to liberate that country from the rule of a tyrant. for iraq, it was a day of deliverance. for the nations of our coalition, it was the moment when years of demands and pledges turned to decisive action. today, as iraqis join the free peoples of the world, we mark a turning point for the middle east, and a crucial advance for human liberty. (march 19, 2004)

after the mideast summit (and subsequent violence):

rice: the events of the last few months make clear that the middle east is living through a time of great change. and despite the tragic events of the past few days, it is also a time of great hope. president bush believes that the region is at a true turning point. he believes that the people of the middle east have a real chance to build a future of peace and freedom and opportunity. (june 12, 2003)

turning point, new chapter, milestone, cornerstone, watershed, body blow (!) — call it what you will, but a quagmire by any other name would smell just as rank.

---

¹ a popular hit from the vietnam era:

a year ago none of us could see victory. there wasn't a prayer. now we can see it clearly — like a light at the end of a tunnel. (september 28, 1953) — lt. gen. henri-eugene navarre, french commander-in-chief

at last there is a light at the end of a tunnel. (september 13, 1965) — joseph alsop, syndicated columnist

i believe there is a light at the end of what has been a long and lonely tunnel. (september 21, 1966) — president lyndon johnson

their casualties are going up at a rate they cannot sustain ... i see light at the end of the tunnel. (december 12, 1967) — walt rostow, state department policy planning chairman

come see the light at the end of the tunnel. (december 1967) — new year's eve party invitation, u.s. embassy, saigon

from "the experts speak: the definitive compendium of authoritative misinformation", by christopher cerf and victor navasky, 1984

elegy

all good things, it is said, must come to an end.

it is now entirely possible that within your lifetime and mine a historian will one day record:

on friday, march 24, 2006, democracy in the united states passed into oblivion, escorted not with the blast of an explosive but only the hush of a smothered breath.

but what happened on friday, march 24, 2006, such that the founding principles which had carried the nation, at times lurching, but never completely collapsing, through almost 230 years of blood and sweat and toil, should so quietly vanish?

on friday, march 24, 2006, the united states department of justice delivered its answer to the house judiciary committee regarding its basis in law for conducting domestic surveillance on american citizens without judicial writ.

by way of background our historian will write, perhaps with a wistful sigh, that the united states:

was once based on a quaint system of checks and balances, now obsolete, designed to distribute the three primary functions of government among three interdependent and complementary bodies. the congress was created to write and enact the law. the judicial branch was created to interpret the law and ensure its conformance to the constitution. the executive branch was created to enforce the law. and no citizen of that nation was considered exempt from the law. james madison, destined to become the fourth president, writing in the federalist papers, in his argument for ratification of the fledging constitution, claimed that "there can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates," or, "if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers".

on friday, march 24, 2006, the forty-third president and chief executive, one george walker bush, speaking through the department of justice, the enforcement arm of the executive branch, in his answer to the house judiciary committee, assumed sole authority and expanded his "unitary" claim to power over the whole of government, limited only by his "special and unique competence" alone.

his words were like the seal on a tomb:

the constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statutes inconsistent with the constitution must yield. the basic principle of our system of government means that no president, merely by assenting to a piece of legislation, can diminish the scope of the president's constitutional power. ... just as one president may not, through signing legislation, eliminate the executive branch's inherent constitutional powers, congress may not renounce inherent presidential authority. the constitution grants the president the inherent power to protect the nation from foreign attack, and congress may not impede the president's ability to perform his constitutional duty. ... in order to execute the laws and defend the constitution, the president must be able to interpret them. the interpretation of law, both statutory and constitutional, is therefore an indispensable and well established government function. ... the president's power to interpret the law is particularly important when he is engaged in a task — such as the direction of the operations of an armed conflict — that falls within the special and unique competence of the executive branch.

and thus, on friday, march 24, 2006, the president so declared himself not answerable to the other two bodies of government.

and thus, on friday, march 24, 2006, the president so usurped their powers and claimed them for his own.

and thus, on friday, march 24, 2006, democracy did die its quiet death.

however — it is yet possible to avert that future and stay our historian's hand.

because the events he will ultimately record shall depend upon the other two branches of government and their willingness to assert their respective inherent authorities to write and interpret the law.

will they claim the powers rightly granted them by the constitution?

or will they bow in craven bondage to their newborn king?

the future is now and history awaits us.

the architects of human destiny

dreams die hard when you're a neocon. it's just that the rest of us do the suffering.

in francis fukuyama's recent eulogy to neoconservatism, the newly repentant and newly retired acolyte laments that "the idealistic effort to use american power to promote democracy and human rights abroad that may suffer the greatest setback." "The problem with neoconservatism's agenda," he has come to realize, "lies not in its ends, which are as american as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them."

it would be snide to suggest that fukuyama and his shadowy braintrust neither appreciated nor calculated, in their machiavellian way, the negative consequences of unleashing upon the planet yet another series of ideological wars, with their attendant destruction, mayhem, atrocities and moments of brazen television horror.

nonetheless we are forced to wonder if they also anticipated the renunciation of long-established international legal norms, the kidnappings, the secret gulags, the extra-legal detentions and last but never least the torture. did the constriction at home of civil freedoms that are "as american as apple pie" in order to expand them abroad enter into their cold calculus? how much of the neocons' original thought went into the actual implementation of american strategic policy, the so called "bush doctrine"?

while we may not know for decades the bush administration's real goal for intervention in the middle east, for the sake of this discussion let us temporarily put aside dark murmurs of oil and schemes of american hegemony. let us for the time being grant the administration its stated mission of furthering the development of freedom and democracy across the globe, even so far as to grant the terms "freedom" and "democracy" with the best possible meanings and all the visible blessings that go with them. are not these goals in themselves worth the price?

"imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death one tiny creature — that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance — and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?" — fyodor dostoevsky, the brothers karamazov, 1880

in the 2001 action film swordfish, john travolta's super-slick and super-glib super-spook starkly justifies himself by citing the classic theologic defense of god's apparent tolerance of evil, which defines evil as a necessary means towards a greater good. his character's name suggests, despite the hellish and high-casualty havok his plots unleash, that gabriel the spook, like his namesake the archangel, is in the service of a force for benevolence:

"[you're] not lookin' at the big picture, stan. here's a scenario: you have the power to cure all the world's diseases but the price for this is that you must kill a single innocent child. could you kill that child, stanley? no? you disappoint me. it's the greatest good."

neither dostoevsky nor poor stanley could take that step, but for others, like gabriel and the neocons, the question proves too compelling and the logic seems inescapable: indeed, how could one deny peace to the long-suffering billions of earth for the sake of only a single life, one child?

however, the logic is inescapable only if one presumes the power of a god: that one has perfect control over events and perfect knowledge that the intended outcome is absolutely guaranteed. since mere mortals, even neocons, are blessed with neither omnipotence or omniscience (much less omnibenevolence), that any human should answer such a question with not simply "yes, i would kill that child" but righteously "yes, i would kill untold thousands of children" demonstrates the epitome of arrogance and the source of the hubris only now admitted to by neocons like fukuyama:

"... successful pre-emption depends on the ability to predict the future accurately and on good intelligence, which was not forthcoming, while america's perceived unilateralism has isolated it as never before. it is not surprising that in its second term, the administration has been distancing itself from these policies and is in the process of rewriting the national security strategy document."

so without any guarantee that our goal, the spread of freedom and democracy, is achievable, can we still justify these machiavellian visions, the failures of the bush administration nonwithstanding? after all, though repentant he may be, fukuyama still sees, as quoted above, the failure of the neocon dream as a failure only of implementation:

"the problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as american as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them."

so long as men like fukuyama continue to believe that even though the execution be flawed, the neocon dream remains worthwhile, the rest of us shall remain the pawns of the would-be architects of human destiny.

to the architects then let us honestly restate dostoevsky's conundrum, and ask them to take into account the limits of human knowledge, power, competence and will:

if you believed that you might be able to make some men somewhat happier by torturing to death thousands of tiny creatures — those babies beating their breast with their fist, for instance — would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?