Antiwar.com Blog

*Two great articles to be read in tandem: David Isenberg on the militarization of civil society, and historian Edmund Morgan on Gore Vidal’s America. Includes this definition of “democracy” from Vidal:

[A] word that appears nowhere in the American Constitution, or, indeed in our lives except as an occasional rhetorical flourish when we are up to mischief in foreign lands.

*The Cato Institute makes itself useful for a change: Jim Powell rebuts neocon plutocrat Conrad Black’s coddling of FDR.

*Justin has more on the Neal Boortz/Libertarian convention fiasco. It’s not too late to write Nancy Neale at convention@hq.LP.org or torchess@austin.rr.com and protest, even if you’re not a Libertarian. In fact, since Boortz’s inclusion seems to be based entirely upon his perceived ability to reach a wider audience, a backlash by non-Libertarians might do some good.

Promoting genocide through mass media is suddenly a war crime. As a free-speech extremist, I’m none too keen on this, so I’ll go ahead and warn Ben Shapiro (bitchin’ new photo, Ben), Ann Coulter, and Rich Lowry to hire an attorney. Maybe Alan Dershowitz?

Laurie Mylroie, darling of National Review and its sorority sister, The American Spectator, officially stands corrected. Of course, Antiwar.com has been warning you about this moonbeam for two years now.

That’s the yin-yang of U.S. imperialism David Brooks celebrates in this asinine op-ed. Tell us more of this schizophrenic hermaphrodite and what it’s doing in Iraq, oh Oracle of Official Conservatism:

[Capt. John Prior] was inside a gas station when a commotion erupted outside. A mob of people was furiously accusing a man of butting in line and stealing gasoline. Prior established that the man was merely a government inspector checking the quality of the fuel. Frazzled and exhausted, Prior took the chance to teach the mob a broader lesson: “The problem is that you people accuse each other without proof! That’s the problem!”

Another soldier, who keeps a Weblog, collects toys and passes them out to Iraqi children. He brought a pile of toys to an orphanage, but the paid staff at the place rushed the pile to grab the toys for themselves — “like sharks in a feeding frenzy,” he writes. He has learned that if he stations himself with an M-16 over the toys, things go smoothly.

We’re the U.S.A., and we’re here to make sure no one cuts in line! And you had better start sharing!

Oh, dear.

So there I was, wasting time while waiting for that little elf Jeremy to post this column, surfing around until I wandered over to Matt Drudge, and clicked on a story headlined:

AMAZON: DRUDGE SURPASSES MAJOR NEWS OUTLETS IN WEB TRAFFIC…

This took me to Alexa, the popular site-rating service, and sure enough there was good old Matt at number 8, just below Google.com and ahead of the Washington Post. Way to go, Matt! I looked down the rest of the list: USA Today, CBS News, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, until my gaze fixed on number 36 – Antiwar.com!

We’re just below the Chicago Tribune, beating out Time magazine, Newsday, the Associated Press, National Geographic, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the Houston Chronicle, among others.

Wow. I’m impressed, and — believe it or not — humbled.

LewRockwell.com, always a useful site when it comes to libertarian views on politics, economics and philosophy, has a very interesting link today. It doesn’t mention the Balkans at all – in fact, it’s about French fast food. But it contains an interesting examination of corporate/government propaganda. Something to think about…

Continue reading “Power and propaganda”