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[ZNet Commentaries]Two tonight...
==================================
ZNet Commentary
Kissinger?
by Sean Gonsalves [url="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/05gonsalves.cfm"]http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/05gonsalves.cfm[/url]
You've got to be kidding?
And just when you though it couldn't get any more Orwellian Henry Kissinger is named chairman of the "independent" commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
What's next? Pete Rose being named chairman of a blue ribbon committee to investigate gambling in professional sports? Or how about Oliver North being appointed as head of a federal probe into the illegal arms trade?
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the Bush administration appointed OJ Simpson chairman of a new national task force on domestic violence, given No. 43's post-9/11 concern for women's lib, especially in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. (The Marines are now fighting the feminist cause?)
My mother used to tell me: "Sean, sometimes perception is everything." I'm sure former Securities Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt can relate.
Pitt resigned his chairmanship last month, realizing that with his record of meeting with the heads of companies under SEC investigation and with his close ties to the accounting industry at a time when the SEC is supposed to be cracking down on corporate accounting fraud, it was best that he step aside.
In a letter to President Bush, Pitt said he was resigning because of the "the turmoil surrounding my chairmanship...Rather than be a burden to you or the agency, I feel it is in everyone's best interest if I step aside now to allow the agency to continue the important efforts we have started."
Will Kissinger follow suit? Even though his international consulting firm client list has not been made public, "reports have been widely circulated that it includes Persian Gulf states, oil companies, and transportation firms," the Boston Globe reported.
The Globe also reported the reaction to Kissinger's appointment by National Security Archive founder and former staff member of the Senate Watergate committee, Scott Armstrong. "He laughed for a solid minute."
Perhaps Armstrong was laughing to keep from crying. Kissinger "has so many clients whose interests are so completely tied up in the results of this investigation," Armstrong told the Globe. "The minute you start talking about clerics in Saudi Arabia, it's in no way in the interests of his clients for the whole truth to be told."
Anyone with even slightest political consciousness knows of the war crimes Kissinger is alleged to have been involved with. But in case you are not familiar with some of the lowlights, you ought to read Christopher Hitchens book "The Trial of Henry Kissinger."
In it, you'll read about the esteemed statesmen's connection to the bombing of Cambodia and about his role in helping to set the stage for the 1973 coup in Chile that brought Pinochet to power.
Armstrong also told the Globe that when Kissinger left his government post in 1976, he took thousands of State Department documents to help him write his memoirs. Kissinger has yet to return them.
Kissinger, Armstrong said, is "a man with a private sense of history. He does not have a credible approach to assuring the public that he's interested in getting to the bottom of things or that we will do so through an open process."
President Bush urged Kissinger's commission to "follow the facts wherever they may lead." One thing the panel ought to get to the bottom of is the reports of two employees of the instant messenger service firm Odigo, which has offices in Israel and the World Trade Center (before the plane-bombings), having received warnings of the pending attack hours before it happened.
In the weeks following the attacks, one of Israel's leading daily's, Ha'aretz, quoted Odigo CEO Micha Macover as saying "two workers received the messages predicting the attack would happen."
And Odigo vice president of sales and marketing Alex Diamandis told Newsbytes reporter Brian McWilliams that Odigo workers in New York were warned prior to the attack but that the message did not identify the World Trade Center as the target of the attack.
According to Computerworld reporter George A. Chidi Jr., Odigo officials have been cooperating with the FBI in investigating exactly what transpired. Don't you think it's important to know if, in fact, Odigo employees had better intelligence than the FBI and CIA?
Frankly, I'd like to see Kissinger go before the International Criminal Court. Oh yeah, the Bush administration doesn't recognize that court as a legitimate authority.
But even if Kissinger is never put in the dock for his alleged war crimes, I'd feel a lot better if he weren't the chairman of 9-11 investigation commission but instead devoted the rest of his public life to performing deep voice duets with Barry White or being cast as the voice of cartoon characters in Disney animated movies.
ZNet commentator Sean Gonsalves is a syndicated columnist. E-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com.
ZNet Commentary
To Noam is to Love Him
by Mickey Z [url="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/07z.cfm"]http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/07z.cfm[/url]
"This is a dissident linguist Bono stole from the radicals. I'm stealing him back."
Some years ago, I remember reading an article in The Nation about rock stars "idolizing" Noam Chomsky and attempting to bring him into the fold, so to speak. I learned that music producer Don Was not only had a "large portrait" of Chomsky hanging over his drum kit, he named his studio "The Chomsky Ranch." The Nation reported that Was had just begun work on a series of rock videos in which the recorded words of the "dissident linguist" (as the nation's oldest weekly oddly chose to identify Chomsky) would be combined with original music by "top" rockers like R.E.M. and Pearl Jam. In fact, I discovered those noted millionaire subversives in Pearl Jam were playing Chomsky selections on the 75-watt "pirate" radio stations they set up in each town while on tour.
Surely, the end of predatory capitalism was finally in sight now that the MTV generation had joined the fray. How long before we see bell hooks on "Survivor"?
As was inevitable, rock stars awash in capital were using the only internal reference point they know: their massive ego. The highest form of praise they can muster is to elevate another human being to the same level of blind adoration they wallow in (I can see it now:
Noam stage-diving at his next lecture). The only possible result of such self-centered drivel is the personalization of Chomsky as a youth "hero" with very few of his ideas coming along for the ride. With most anti-corporate tyranny tenets being checked at the door by the pop music elite, members of the well-bred gentry class can now welcome a "dissident linguist" with open arms, conveniently leaving the rest of us behind.
It's class war for the polite crowd.
Around the same time as The Nation article, I read the liner notes for a Chomsky spoken word CD and spied a blurb from none other than Bono Vox, full-time lead singer of U2 and part-time saver of the world. Calling Chomsky the "Elvis of academia," Bono bemoaned the fact that a man of Chomsky's age had usurped rock and roll's place at the table of rebellion.
When exactly was it, I wondered, that rock and roll did anything more than pose, preen, and earn billions for large entertainment conglomerates? So-called activists like Bono have the money and the influence to help finance progressive publications, websites, rebel radio stations, and maybe even a third (second?) party. Instead, they sell more CDs by singing at a charity concert and using Chomsky's reputation when name-dropping.
Which brings me to the new Chomsky documentary currently making the rounds.
"Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times" (which ironically opens with a quote from Bono calling Chomsky a "rebel without a pause") has very little in common with R.E.M.'s supposedly clever song lyrics, Pearl Jam's well-choreographed angst, or Bono's high profile hobnobbing with Paul O'Neill and Jeffrey Sachs.
I saw this short, sparse film in late November at a very crowded showing at the Film Forum in the West Village. It was sharing a theater with another dissident doc: "The Trials of Henry Kissinger." As a result, the sign above the theater door read suspiciously like a septuagenarian prizefight of sorts: Kissinger-Chomsky.
In "Power and Terror," Prof. Chomsky succinctly lays out the post 9/11 geo-political realities of the day in language that would have most rock stars regurgitating their pâté into their kidney-shaped pool. This is information we all need to hear; information that goes far beyond fashionable poses or indecipherable theories. As usual, our favorite dissident linguist has done the tedious work of compiling the statistics, the quotes, and the headlines. From there, as always, it's up to us.
Besides urging you to see this movie and spreading the word long and far, I'd also like to encourage music fans to demand more from your chosen idols. If Bono and others want to wear the hat of political rebel, let's get more for our entertainment dollar.
Instead of just whining about the disappearing rain forest, why not educate the masses about the role corporate America, the U.S. government, and the meat-based diet plays in the domestic affairs of Brazil? Why just write a song for starving Somalis when you have the influence to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to examine the social conditions that allow for poverty in a world of plenty? If not, we can simply stop buying their music, going to their concerts, and wearing their overpriced, sweatshop-produced t-shirts
Imagine that: Legions of music consumers mobilized in the name of peace, justice, and solidarity. There's a birthday gift (December 7) for you, Noam.
Mickey Z. is the author of Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War" (www.softskull.com) and the upcoming book, The Murdering of My Years: Artists & Activists Making Ends Meet (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-1887128786-0). He can be reached at mzx2@earthlink.net.[/ZNet Commentaries]
------------------
[url="http://www.zmag.org"][i]Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.[/i][/url]
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 12-11-2002).]
==================================
ZNet Commentary
Kissinger?
by Sean Gonsalves [url="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/05gonsalves.cfm"]http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/05gonsalves.cfm[/url]
You've got to be kidding?
And just when you though it couldn't get any more Orwellian Henry Kissinger is named chairman of the "independent" commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
What's next? Pete Rose being named chairman of a blue ribbon committee to investigate gambling in professional sports? Or how about Oliver North being appointed as head of a federal probe into the illegal arms trade?
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the Bush administration appointed OJ Simpson chairman of a new national task force on domestic violence, given No. 43's post-9/11 concern for women's lib, especially in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. (The Marines are now fighting the feminist cause?)
My mother used to tell me: "Sean, sometimes perception is everything." I'm sure former Securities Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt can relate.
Pitt resigned his chairmanship last month, realizing that with his record of meeting with the heads of companies under SEC investigation and with his close ties to the accounting industry at a time when the SEC is supposed to be cracking down on corporate accounting fraud, it was best that he step aside.
In a letter to President Bush, Pitt said he was resigning because of the "the turmoil surrounding my chairmanship...Rather than be a burden to you or the agency, I feel it is in everyone's best interest if I step aside now to allow the agency to continue the important efforts we have started."
Will Kissinger follow suit? Even though his international consulting firm client list has not been made public, "reports have been widely circulated that it includes Persian Gulf states, oil companies, and transportation firms," the Boston Globe reported.
The Globe also reported the reaction to Kissinger's appointment by National Security Archive founder and former staff member of the Senate Watergate committee, Scott Armstrong. "He laughed for a solid minute."
Perhaps Armstrong was laughing to keep from crying. Kissinger "has so many clients whose interests are so completely tied up in the results of this investigation," Armstrong told the Globe. "The minute you start talking about clerics in Saudi Arabia, it's in no way in the interests of his clients for the whole truth to be told."
Anyone with even slightest political consciousness knows of the war crimes Kissinger is alleged to have been involved with. But in case you are not familiar with some of the lowlights, you ought to read Christopher Hitchens book "The Trial of Henry Kissinger."
In it, you'll read about the esteemed statesmen's connection to the bombing of Cambodia and about his role in helping to set the stage for the 1973 coup in Chile that brought Pinochet to power.
Armstrong also told the Globe that when Kissinger left his government post in 1976, he took thousands of State Department documents to help him write his memoirs. Kissinger has yet to return them.
Kissinger, Armstrong said, is "a man with a private sense of history. He does not have a credible approach to assuring the public that he's interested in getting to the bottom of things or that we will do so through an open process."
President Bush urged Kissinger's commission to "follow the facts wherever they may lead." One thing the panel ought to get to the bottom of is the reports of two employees of the instant messenger service firm Odigo, which has offices in Israel and the World Trade Center (before the plane-bombings), having received warnings of the pending attack hours before it happened.
In the weeks following the attacks, one of Israel's leading daily's, Ha'aretz, quoted Odigo CEO Micha Macover as saying "two workers received the messages predicting the attack would happen."
And Odigo vice president of sales and marketing Alex Diamandis told Newsbytes reporter Brian McWilliams that Odigo workers in New York were warned prior to the attack but that the message did not identify the World Trade Center as the target of the attack.
According to Computerworld reporter George A. Chidi Jr., Odigo officials have been cooperating with the FBI in investigating exactly what transpired. Don't you think it's important to know if, in fact, Odigo employees had better intelligence than the FBI and CIA?
Frankly, I'd like to see Kissinger go before the International Criminal Court. Oh yeah, the Bush administration doesn't recognize that court as a legitimate authority.
But even if Kissinger is never put in the dock for his alleged war crimes, I'd feel a lot better if he weren't the chairman of 9-11 investigation commission but instead devoted the rest of his public life to performing deep voice duets with Barry White or being cast as the voice of cartoon characters in Disney animated movies.
ZNet commentator Sean Gonsalves is a syndicated columnist. E-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com.
ZNet Commentary
To Noam is to Love Him
by Mickey Z [url="http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/07z.cfm"]http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-12/07z.cfm[/url]
"This is a dissident linguist Bono stole from the radicals. I'm stealing him back."
Some years ago, I remember reading an article in The Nation about rock stars "idolizing" Noam Chomsky and attempting to bring him into the fold, so to speak. I learned that music producer Don Was not only had a "large portrait" of Chomsky hanging over his drum kit, he named his studio "The Chomsky Ranch." The Nation reported that Was had just begun work on a series of rock videos in which the recorded words of the "dissident linguist" (as the nation's oldest weekly oddly chose to identify Chomsky) would be combined with original music by "top" rockers like R.E.M. and Pearl Jam. In fact, I discovered those noted millionaire subversives in Pearl Jam were playing Chomsky selections on the 75-watt "pirate" radio stations they set up in each town while on tour.
Surely, the end of predatory capitalism was finally in sight now that the MTV generation had joined the fray. How long before we see bell hooks on "Survivor"?
As was inevitable, rock stars awash in capital were using the only internal reference point they know: their massive ego. The highest form of praise they can muster is to elevate another human being to the same level of blind adoration they wallow in (I can see it now:
Noam stage-diving at his next lecture). The only possible result of such self-centered drivel is the personalization of Chomsky as a youth "hero" with very few of his ideas coming along for the ride. With most anti-corporate tyranny tenets being checked at the door by the pop music elite, members of the well-bred gentry class can now welcome a "dissident linguist" with open arms, conveniently leaving the rest of us behind.
It's class war for the polite crowd.
Around the same time as The Nation article, I read the liner notes for a Chomsky spoken word CD and spied a blurb from none other than Bono Vox, full-time lead singer of U2 and part-time saver of the world. Calling Chomsky the "Elvis of academia," Bono bemoaned the fact that a man of Chomsky's age had usurped rock and roll's place at the table of rebellion.
When exactly was it, I wondered, that rock and roll did anything more than pose, preen, and earn billions for large entertainment conglomerates? So-called activists like Bono have the money and the influence to help finance progressive publications, websites, rebel radio stations, and maybe even a third (second?) party. Instead, they sell more CDs by singing at a charity concert and using Chomsky's reputation when name-dropping.
Which brings me to the new Chomsky documentary currently making the rounds.
"Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times" (which ironically opens with a quote from Bono calling Chomsky a "rebel without a pause") has very little in common with R.E.M.'s supposedly clever song lyrics, Pearl Jam's well-choreographed angst, or Bono's high profile hobnobbing with Paul O'Neill and Jeffrey Sachs.
I saw this short, sparse film in late November at a very crowded showing at the Film Forum in the West Village. It was sharing a theater with another dissident doc: "The Trials of Henry Kissinger." As a result, the sign above the theater door read suspiciously like a septuagenarian prizefight of sorts: Kissinger-Chomsky.
In "Power and Terror," Prof. Chomsky succinctly lays out the post 9/11 geo-political realities of the day in language that would have most rock stars regurgitating their pâté into their kidney-shaped pool. This is information we all need to hear; information that goes far beyond fashionable poses or indecipherable theories. As usual, our favorite dissident linguist has done the tedious work of compiling the statistics, the quotes, and the headlines. From there, as always, it's up to us.
Besides urging you to see this movie and spreading the word long and far, I'd also like to encourage music fans to demand more from your chosen idols. If Bono and others want to wear the hat of political rebel, let's get more for our entertainment dollar.
Instead of just whining about the disappearing rain forest, why not educate the masses about the role corporate America, the U.S. government, and the meat-based diet plays in the domestic affairs of Brazil? Why just write a song for starving Somalis when you have the influence to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to examine the social conditions that allow for poverty in a world of plenty? If not, we can simply stop buying their music, going to their concerts, and wearing their overpriced, sweatshop-produced t-shirts
Imagine that: Legions of music consumers mobilized in the name of peace, justice, and solidarity. There's a birthday gift (December 7) for you, Noam.
Mickey Z. is the author of Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War" (www.softskull.com) and the upcoming book, The Murdering of My Years: Artists & Activists Making Ends Meet (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-1887128786-0). He can be reached at mzx2@earthlink.net.[/ZNet Commentaries]
------------------
[url="http://www.zmag.org"][i]Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.[/i][/url]
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 12-11-2002).]