Being expats, some of you will be missing Jon Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central, and have had to rely on the Comedy Central website for your fix. And, every once in a while, the website earns its keep, and throws up a tasty morcel such as this clip on Conventional Wisdom (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love GOP Talking Points).
You may have heard about Outfoxed, the documentary about the Fox News Channel that said news channel are trying to block or at least discredit. Fresh on the heels of the controversy, the makers of said documentary have released to DC gossip blog Wonkette a nice selection of the memos that were sent out from the top levels of Fox News to the troops, guiding them on the editorial slant they should take. Some of these have been seen before, but some of them are new - and make hard reading:
The president is doing something that few of his predecessors dared undertake: putting the US case for mideast peace to an Arab summit. It's a distinctly skeptical crowd that Bush faces. His political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting through the day.Hogwash. Bush has made nothing more than a token effort towards peace in the Middle East, unlike most of his predecessors. It's obscene to claim that he is to be patted on the back for his "efforts." I mean, before the abortive "roadmap" last year he basically ignored the issue for two years.
The so-called 9/11 commission has already been meeting. In fact, this is the eighth session. The fact that former Clinton and both frmer and current Bush administration officials are testifying gives it a certain tension, but this is not "what did he know and when did he know it" stuff. Do not turn this into Watergate. Remember the fleeting sense of national unity that emerged from this tragedy. Let's not desecrate that.Right. Let's not trouble our post-9/11 patriotic feelgood hug-a-thon with examining what went wrong or how we could prevent it next time.
Thursday update: the pictures from Abu Graeb prison are disturbing. They have rightly provoked outrage. Today we have a picture -- aired on Al Arabiya -- of an American hostage being held with a scarf over his eyes, clearly against his will. Who's outraged on his behalf?Well we've been through this argument time and again on this site... Nobody expects terrorists to play nice. People expect better from us. Remember? We're the good guys.
A freelance journalist recently contacted me about doing some interviews in relation to a couple of pieces he's doing about American expats in the UK. Specifically, he's looking for experiences you have had dealing with the NHS, especially concerning major health problems / procedures, and your opinions of how this compares with your experience of the American medical system. I imagine he could be tapping into a rich vein here, no pun intended.
If you're willing to be interviewed, the journalist's name is Kabir Chhibber and he can be reached here.
Our old friends Bloggerheads have come up with a brilliant new campaign in response to the Hutton Report's blasting of the BBC and the ensuing shakeup that has left the Corporation's future in doubt:
This is one initiative I support fully. The BBC is a venerable institution providing a service to the world, and to have it crippled or eliminated on the basis of an increasingly-questionable government investigation would be a travesty.
Just when the Stop Bush march was starting to seem like ancient history (was it really only two weeks ago?) here comes, of all places, the Philadelphia City Paper with a story on the protests and our role in them. A decent little article, in my highly unbiased opinion:
Traditionally, expats have been regarded as having chosen to remove themselves from the domestic political life of the U.S. in favor of living and paying tax elsewhere. However, Expats Against Bush, with no official political affiliation, is maneuvering its way through international protests, preaching to expats, while having the inadvertent effect of influencing how foreign electorates regard their leaders.Well, I think that might be slightly overstating things, but I like to think we're able to at least make our presence felt.
Richard Cohen writes:
[A]bout the only way to find out what really happened is through the political process. This is especially the case because the Senate has gone from being the world's greatest deliberative body to the world's greatest rubber stamp. Naturally and predictably, the White House would like to avoid any accounting whatever and is likely to respond to criticism with demagogic appeals to patriotism. I hope it doesn't work. I love my country and I love the truth and I always thought the best thing about being an American is that you don't have to choose.
Krugman strikes again for the NYT, this time laying into the new RNC ad which equates being critical of Bush with being "soft on terror". As Mr Krugman so eloquently points out, and as we've said here till we're blue in the face, nobody has an issue with the general idea of combating terrorism - but we have a real issue with the way that Bush is going about it - ergo diverting attention away from the real centers of terror (i.e. Afghanistan) and destabilizing areas that were previously well-contained (i.e. Iraq):
What the critics say is that this loss of focus seriously damaged the campaign against terrorism. Strategic assets in limited supply, like Special Forces soldiers and Predator drone aircraft, were shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq, while intelligence resources, including translators, were shifted from the pursuit of Al Qaeda to the coming invasion. This probably allowed Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden, to get away, and definitely helped the Taliban stage its ominous comeback. And the Iraq war has, by all accounts, done wonders for Qaeda recruiting. Is saying all this attacking the president for attacking the terrorists?The challenge for the Democrats now will be to counter this sort of ad effectively in a way which reaches your everyday voter without shooting themselves in the foot.
Isn't the GOP supposed to be the party of small goverment? Reining in spending, fiscal discipline, that sort of thing?
Perhaps if they weren't so inclined to help certain folks out at the expense of others, then they could start to grab hold of the "solvency issue".
Between you and me, I have always been really suspect as soon as people start carping on about "corporate cronyism" and the like - it usually sets off my liberal rant filter and I make my excuses. But I'm starting to think there's something to the idea that big business have really got a hold on this administration to a degree that we haven't seen before, and it's not a good thing.
There's an interesting article in Time this week about how Bush has polarized Americans to an amazing extent - he's changed the equation from 40/40/20 Dems/Repubs/Undecided to 45/45/10 - meaning that there's an ever-shrinking pool of neutral or "swing" voters.
The article is also very illuminating regarding the tactics that Bush's folks have been using when he's been stumping on behalf of candidates in various elections this year - tactics that will be used again when things heat up next year.
The Democratic Party, and indeed all of us, will really have to to out-think and out-maneuver the Republicans in order to win this one. I hope that we can get all our ducks in a row in time, and avoid shooting ourselves in the foot through infighting and indecision.
I say "we" knowing full well that it's not just Democrats opposed to a Bush reelection. There are Republicans abroad who have written to me to tell me they abhor Bush, as well as Green Party members who've come on board. Everybody is welcome. But we have to be honest here.
The Republican candidate for President next year will be Bush.
Nader.... Well I hope that people are more sensible this year. Throwing away votes doesn't help anyone, and Nader is downright unelectable.
The only candidate capable of beating Bush next year will come from the Democratic Party. But we won't know who that candidate will be until the Democratic National Convention next year.
Thus, we will have a much shorter relative amount of time to unite behind the chosen candidate - and we need to be ready to put on a full-court-press when that candidate is chosen. We need to have people already signed up as Democrats or committed to voting Democratic when the day comes.
We need to start now. Later today I will post details on how you can sign up to join Democrats Abroad, and get yourself and your friends and family involved as the election year kicks off properly.
For the record again, Expats Against Bush is candidate-neutral until a candidate is chosen at the Convention. We will not be endorsing any one candidate at the expense of any other until the proper time.
A last thank you to those of you complimenting us on the interview on Newsweek.Com.
We've had no end of complimentary emails, and we're all in favor. Heads are swelling as we speak.
But on the other side, a special thank you must go out to those of you who have managed to cobble together such erudite, well-informed and obviously hard-thought critiques of the site, our plans, and indeed our supposed heritage (or lack thereof). It's emails like these that keep us going. If you can't laugh, you have nothing.
Hi all, going to be posting a bit this afternoon, but just quickly I was on the BBC World Service Newshour (MP3, 3mb) last night, facing off against Clifford May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based right wing think tank. I'm glad I hadn't read this biography before I went on or else I might have worked myself into a lather. I was a bit surprised that he didn't go after me or EAB a bit more, but I think he was expecting to confront a stereotypical "raving loony" and instead got a normal-sounding guy.
Also, FT.com has just posted a short article mentioning us.
PS I would have linked to the RealAudio file but I think it's already been taken down.
Some stories that Courtney's come across recently, that you guys might be interested in:
US and UK officials dread presidential trip (Guardian)
Bush pulls out of Parliament speech (Mirror) - Followed by messages of support for the protesters, mostly from Americans
Puff piece by the Sun - Bush interview where protesters are dismissed as traffic nuisance
American media articles completely about the protests:
MSNBC
CBS
Washington Post
If you happen to read this before setting off to watch the rugby, you might want to pick up a copy of this morning's Independent. There's a couple of good articles about the upcoming protests, including this one about American involvement in the protests in which we are mentioned.
Luke's sister Sally here. For reasons I'm sure he'll later regret, Luke's given me rights to post to this blog. As my header suggests, I have not yet expatriated. I hail from New York City, which although, geographically confined within United States boundaries, is considered by many (New Yorkers) to be the capital of the world.
Take that with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, we do sport a surprisingly diverse spectrum of ethnicities. This everyone knows. It is natural that this should be the collecting pool of many of the country's newest immigrants, who may find a larger population of their own kind here than in other states. Up until September 11th, New York, with its Statue of Liberty, welcoming the poor and huddled masses, represented Lady Liberty's lifted lamp. But then the WTC tragedy, and the Bush administration (with its Bush 1 cronies having already prepared to invade Iraq) began one of the most radical attacks on immigrants in America and the Constitution that this country has ever seen.
Right after 9/11, approximately 1,000 men of Arab and South Asian descent were hauled off to Guantanamo, Cuba. Only one of those thousand men was ever charged in connection with the terrorist attacks. Later, these detainments were denounced by the Office of the Inspector General (of the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT!). Many of those men are still being detained, without bail, and without being charged with a crime.
Never before, except during World War II, when Japanese Americans were rounded up and locked into detainment camps, has there been such a vicious, radical attack on civil liberties. For info on the current status of the detainess, I refer you to this New York Times article.
So, while many like to link Bush to his conservative Republican supporters, with the way he's been attacking the core principles upon which America was founded as documented in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (attacking due process, free speech, and our country's special system of checks and balances with his unprecendented executive power grab), I say he's a radical, and maybe even...a rogue!
Well, that's all for now. Good luck to all of you Americans in the UK supporting our country and the preservation of our country's democratic principles!
I never thought I'd say this, but the press are having a field day with our organization and this website. I'll link to it as we go along, and I'll start off with last night's live interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News (starts at about 29:30) - I think this link will only work until tonight's broadcast at 7PM GMT, so hurry if you want to see it online.
BBC London did a small feature on us, that will be shown between 6:30 and 7PM on Monday the 17th.
We're also mentioned in this week's New Statesman here in Britain, and there should be heaps more articles and broadcast features leading up to next week's protests. If I'm getting all this attention I can only imagine the chaos that the Stop the War people must be experiencing.
By the way, posting is going to be a bit irregular for the next few days; I'm devoting all my energy to making sure that people know about this march and our place in it.
Quite a few of you have written to me pointing out this article on Yahoo! about the rise of "Anti-Bushism" in the UK:
[A]fter wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where British and Americans fought side by side, [American expats] face a wave not of anti-Americanism but anti-Bushism.Speaking for myself, it never takes very long for someone to figure out that I'm not Bush's biggest fan, and, aside from the odd drunk or Little Englander, most of the non-Americans I run into are willing to be reasonable about things.
I'm interested to know, though, what are your experiences? Do you get collared just because you're American, and forced to apologize for your country?
Haven't got much time to post as I'm running out the door, but here's EAB's first attributed quote, in this article in the Baltimore Sun. I wonder how this will be received Stateside, though I've already had a couple of good complimentary emails from it.
A nice reporter from The Star-Ledger of New Jersey would like to hear from any New Jersey expats who are planning on joining in the march next Thursday. She can be reached at this address.
Also some of you might have heard me speak about the group on Radio 5 Live with Matthew Bannister last night. I was a bit nervous at first due to the size of the audience, and the fact that my opposite in the debate was the chair of Republicans Abroad, but I was really enjoying myself by the time we said our goodbyes. I got in a plug for the group, and an OK soundbite: "I don't care how Bush talks, I care how he walks."
Hi all,
BBC London are coming to film Expats Against Bush preparing for the November 20th march this Thursday night, and I need 7 or 8 of you to come over and spend about an hour being filmed for a report which will go out on Monday November 17th. If you're happy being filmed and possibly interviewed for TV, and can be in Shepherd's Bush between 8-10PM, let me know! First come, first served. If you contact me now you could be in amongst the lucky few! There will of course be a debriefing in the pub afterwards.
It's getting too easy these days to go and point out when Bush administration people are caught telling porkies; it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
First from today's Ocala Star-Banner (me neither) - this article which pulls no punches and goes straight for the jugular attacking Donald Rumsfeld on his flagrant attempts to deny he ever said A) we'd be welcomed as heroes in Iraq or B) that we'd find "extensive" weapons caches.
Next, what has to be my favorite headline of the week in the Independent: 'No President has lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably'. That pretty much speaks for itself.
And in the final insult, the White House is getting so wary of those irksome questions about its plans that it has now decided de facto to not accept any questions from congressional Democrats. Well, that's one way to handle things. Stick your fingers in your ears and all your troubles will be gone.
Expats Against Bush has gotten its first (albeit brief) press coverage in The Observer in relation of the protests against Bush's visit. More to come....
Hmmm. I've just had another look at the article. Everything's great... except the bit about the "huge march" taking place on the 19th of November. Uh, guys... it's the next day.
Update
I spoke slightly too soon. While EAB did rate a mention in the online article as linked above, the article in some print versions of the Observer is significantly shorter and we didn't make the cut - I think the late-breaking story about the Saudi bombing crowded out stories in the later editions that go out to London. However, the online version is certainly good enough for my needs, as it has a potential for reaching a much larger expat audience than the print version. A silver lining to the cloud is that the erroneous date has been left out of the print version.
In a spot of criticism from an unlikely source, The Economist pulls no punches when it says that America's economy is a ticking time bomb:
Contrary to the Bush team's rhetoric, America does not have a small, temporary fiscal problem. It has a large and growing one. [...] The numbers are mindboggling. According to Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters, in a study for the American Enterprise Institute, the gap between America's future tax revenues and future spending commitments for Social Security and Medicare is $44 trillion, or four times America's GDP. Put another way, government spending on entitlements is set to soar from around 7% of GDP today to 11% in 2020 and 15% in 2040
Please see the comments thread at Metafilter for more discussion, including links to three more, supposedly conservative, attacks on Bush's stewardship.
Sidney Blumenthal, he of The Clinton Wars fame, has started writing a joint column for both Salon.com and The Guardian. In his brilliant inaugural column, he takes massive issue with the Bush administration's claims that they've been taken by surprise with all the post-war resistance coming from the Iraqis, despite the ease with which it can be demonstrated that their own government had concluded that this would happen in the immediate aftermath of the war - back in April.
In yet another "betrayal" of the intelligence community, the Bush administration seems hell-bent on revising history as they go along whereever convenient.
Having already decided upon its course in Iraq, the Bush administration demanded the fabrication of evidence to fit into an imminent threat. Then, fulfilling the driven logic of the Bush doctrine, preemptive action could be taken. Policy a priori dictated intelligence รก la carte.In Bush's Washington, politics is the extension of war by other means. Rather than seeking to reform any abuse of intelligence, the Bush administration, through the Republican-dominated senate intelligence committee, is producing a report that will accuse the CIA of giving faulty information.
Meanwhile in the White House....
Administration: "Why didn't you tell us there were no weapons?"
CIA: "We did. If you'll just have a look at this-"
Administration: "I mean, heads are going to have to roll here, can you provide me the names of the people who failed to mention there were no weapons?"
CIA: "Er, well I think that's missing the point, according to this report which you signed off on-"
Administration: "Also, what about this rebel activity? Nobody told us this would happen? What, did you guys fall asleep at the wheel again? This is damned sloppy, really."
CIA: "Well again if I could just show you this report...."
Administration: "What's this? Why are you showing me this now? Where were you back in April?"
CIA: "In your office, when I gave you this report."
Administration: "I don't think so. I would have remembered something like this. I mean, who'd have thought they'd start shooting at us? We liberated them, and this is the thanks we get?"
CIA: "Well you said you agreed with it back in April."
Administration: "Don't be ridiculous, I did nothing of the sort."
CIA: "Your signature is on the front page."
Administration: "Anyway, this report is insignificant and didn't say anything about resistance. I'm sure of it. You should have warned us. I want heads on platters. Damned sloppy."
Meanwhile, the New York Times is pulling no punches on postwar Iraq....
It is becoming painfully clear that the American plan (if it can even be dignified with the name) for dealing with postwar Iraq was flawed in its conception and ineptly carried out. At the very least, the bulk of the evidence suggests that what was probably bound to be a difficult aftermath to the war was made far more difficult by blinkered vision and overoptimistic assumptions on the part of the war's greatest partisans within the Bush administration.
Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, has a little confession to make to Guardian readers: Not all of us Americans are evil.
My thoughts exactly.
Although I have to be honest, aside from an occasional blip, I've had nothing but good vibes from the Brits I know. Then again, it's been a long time since I've been fresh off the boat - I don't know how a newly-arrived Yank, complete with sharp twang and bright clothing, is received by John Bull.
In Paul Krugman's new NYT piece A Willful Ignorance, he talks about the national state of delusion that the Bush administration has actively encouraged throughout the government, the press, and, by extension, the public consciousness, and the routine extinguishing of any meaningful debate or even discussion on the root causes of terrorism.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the major reasons we have to get together to throw Bush out on his ear. He lives in a fantasy world. If, as claimed in this piece:
President Bush was genuinely surprised to learn from moderate Islamic leaders that they had become deeply distrustful of American intentions.
I don't believe Bush is a bad man; I believe he is simply in way over his head, and constantly fighting to stay above water. He flails around wildly (you can see the panic in his eyes sometimes) and will grab onto anything and climb up on it to stay afloat, never noticing even then that he is drowning that which is aiding him. But this behaviour is clearly inexcusable in a national leader. We need someone who has thought 5 moves ahead in the chess game of international politics, not someone who is surprised that his pieces are not where he thought he left them.
Hooray for Roy Hattersley in yesterday's Guardian who is a bit puzzled as to the reasoning behind Bush's visit next month:
Has anyone yet explained why President George W Bush is about to make a state visit to the United Kingdom? In my time at the Foreign Office, the supreme accolade of an invitation from Her Majesty was only awarded after long deliberation had convinced the prime minister and foreign secretary that Britain's national interest would be served by arranging for the king, queen or president in question to perform a number of meaningless ceremonies and eat numerous mediocre meals in the company of the royal family. What do we have to gain by feting President Bush?
Interesting. Whilst parsing Google I came across this article on al Jazeera's website which discusses the various ways in which Dubya's visit in November is being scaled back in anticipation of the protests which are spiralling into legendary status.
I know that al Jazeera are probably not Dubya's biggest fans (who is?) but it is interesting to see that they're cottoning on to Bush's PR problems four weeks before he even gets here. I hadn't realised the Ramadan angle either. That's got to have potential for additional bad feeling amongst the Brit Muslim contingent.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Recent Comments