If the media are America , we're dead

Early in April of this year, a reader sent me a note which included the observation that most of the people he knows seem to think the corporate media, collectively, “is America.”

That is, he explained, they believe “nobody cares about this” or “everybody's talking about that” based entirely on what they get from television, radio or newspapers. In that very common way of thinking, if the media giants ignore something, then it is not worth noticing. If they yak something up, then it is, per se, important and “everybody is talking about” whatever it is.

It is an astute assessment of how, and what, and who the American public sees.

In an essay a few days ago -– posted just below this one -– I suggested that Americans push our government to transport massive amounts of life-saving goods to the suffering citizens of Myanmar and Zimbabwe. I said we should do that even though the insane and vicious rulers of those countries prefer to let hundreds of thousands of people die of hunger, thirst and disease rather than allow anyone other than themselves credit for saving their people and perhaps gaining some measure of power or influence.

I never expected any sort of action, of course. Didn't expect even one person to send one note to one member of Congress. I don't imagine any such note was sent.

And that, really, was the point of what I wrote.

(Here, let me adopt Dan Rather's preference for calling news outlets collectively “the press.” Though now failing, newspapers remain –- at least in our collective memory -– the core of serious news distribution.)

When I wrote that piece, I intended to do at this juncture what I am now doing: pointing out that the press, acting in conjunction with and on behalf of the ruling minority of this country, has so ordered public thinking that while we can soberly discuss whether to rain death on countries that pose no threat to us, it is all but impossible to imagine a serious discussion on whether or not to displease some monstrous little dictators simply to save several hundred thousand human lives.

We do death. We commit mayhem. We don't save lives.

Not even in our own country: witness Hurricane Katrina, the first of many proofs established by our neocon government.

Unprovoked invasions of other countries are within the scope of American behavior. Bombing those who can do us no harm and slaughtering countless civilians for the sake of controlling oil fields and providing huge profits for a tiny group of “defense” contractors –- let us not at this stage, after all the evidence laid before us, pretend other motives –- is again under discussion.

True, many of us are against more such ventures, but obviously not enough against to act to prevent our ruling billionaires from committing the crimes.

It is a given that should anyone –- even, let's say, a couple of dozen members of Congress –- stand up and say that we must do something real to care for the people of Myanmar and Zimbabwe, even against the wishes of the murdering thugs who rule in those places, the press would ignore the move or nearly so. Bigger newspapers might do a single paragraph in a news roundup, television almost certainly would black out the attempt.

Most of the public would never know what was said in Congress, and those who did hear of it would dismiss it as trivial because that is how the press treated it.

Now someone is going to say I can't know that's what would happen.

Yes, I can, and do. So do you, if you're honest.

There are hundreds of precedents for just that kind of calculated dismissal of actions, opinions and people not approved by the ruling elite, and therefore by the press.

The most immediate example is the treatment of the move by Rep. Dennis Kucinich Monday, June 9, to impeach George W. Bush.

Most of television and radio simply failed to mention Kucinich's introduction of 35 articles of impeachment. The mighty New York Times “covered” it in one longish paragraph in the “National Briefing” roundup at the bottom of page 21 of its main news section on Wednesday. If my local newspaper made any mention of the story, I couldn't find it, although the rival newspaper had a very short piece in its on-line version.

CNN seems to have mentioned it only in a crawl which ran a few times at the bottom of the television screen -– but the crawl emphasized that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi again said she would not allow impeachment rather than saying anything about the articles introduced by Kucinich.

I suppose some of the haters of shout radio and Fox Propaganda took their shots, but they don't count, certainly not as news reports.

OK. So we all know that impeachment won't get off the ground. But why is that?

Millions of us, almost certainly a majority, also know there are legitimate grounds for impeaching Bush and removing him for office. Many of us think it would be a very good idea to bring out all the crimes and list them and show the proofs in the Congressional forum.

Dennis Kucinich is a brilliant and widely respected member of Congress. He was a candidate for his party's nomination for president.

But he is, in truth, a nonperson in most of the nation because the press has decreed it. He never had a chance at the presidential nomination because the press refused to acknowledge his existence. He deserved a shot, but the press and its masters didn't want him, and so it disappeared him, along with some other worthy candidates and some unworthy.

The press and its masters also do not want impeachment, and so it is a nonissue. Any coverage it receives will be dismissive and probably derisive.

The press decrees it, and the press is America.

On the other hand, the masters of the universe are building toward attacking Iran.

The press has been hammered over and over because of its slavish catering to the Bush administration in the lie-filled leadup to the invasion of Iraq. Quite a few of those in the press who knelt before the king on that issue have sort of, kind of, almost admitted their guilt. But they're doing it again on Iran.

If Bush, or Cheney, or Rice or any of the neocons makes any accusation against Iran it is dutifully printed or read at the top of the news, with flags waving, bands playing and fireworks in the background, or nearly so. It is The Word, we are given to know. The placement of the articles says the claims are true, the headlines assume they are true and the writing says so.

“The president plans to highlight concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran during his final European trip,” said a New York Times sub-headline on Tuesday. And the writer of the article said that although Bush's jaunt might have the appearance of a farewell tour, “it's actually a high-stakes diplomatic mission, spurred by Bush's fear that Iran is an increasingly urgent threat and that Europe may not take it seriously enough.”

Parse that paragraph: The writer, Jennifer Loven, flat-out tells us this is a “high stakes...mission.” She's not quoting anybody. And she tells us that Bush fears that Iran poses an “urgent threat.”

Really? Bush also told us that he knew -– emphasis on knew -– that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” and chemical weapons and was getting set to produce nuclear weapons, and those aluminum tubes were for making such weapons, and on and on. And the press respectfully reported every claim. And we know it was a package of lies, and that most of the reporters had to have known that.

We knew, how could they not?

Is Loven sure that this time, unlike all the other times, Bush is telling the truth? By her phrasing, she tells us she is sure. Do you trust her?

And why does the story –- in fact, every story that reports administration tales of Iran's supposed nuclear threat -– not mention the fact that almost every major intelligence agency in the western world has stated that the country's nuclear weapons effort, which apparently wasn't much to begin with, ended in 2003?

If we believe what passes for news on television and in the once-were newspapers and magazines, if the press “is America,” this is a doomed country.

An alternative to bombing Iran

Let's have some fun today.

Let's all telephone and write the White House and tell Dick Cheney to bomb Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

If we can pull it off, it will be the biggest -- maybe the only -- win-win deal of the Bushcheney years.

I'm betting that even countries like France and Australia –- only recently come to its senses and out of Iraq –- will join us, and won't that be a hoot? Could be a great party.

Progressives and neocons alike would satisfy their basic desires. Liberals could support an action benefiting a large number of suffering human beings, and the Bushies would get to drop something out of airplanes onto people of tawny hue. With luck, they might even get to kill a few folks, though probably not many.

The only possible losers would be the bloody bastards who rule those two rotten and destitute countries, and not even Dick Cheney cares about them, really, even though they're his kind of people in a general sort of way. They recognize no law but themselves, and are perfectly comfortable with letting thousands of human beings suffer and die for the sake of maintaining their holds on power.

(Yes, I know. Cheney doesn't care about anyone, really, but he doesn't even need to coddle those butchers. Zimbabwe has no oil, and Myanmar produces barely enough to keep Blackwater's new Brazilian-made fighter plane in the air; it's 12,000 barrels of crude a day probably wouldn't pay the rent on Cheney's various secret hiding places.)

OK, I'll come clean. I'm not advocating that the American military drop explosives on the starving, parched, homeless and increasingly ill masses of Zimbabwe and Myanmar. I figure the neocons can live with the lack of explosive death and destruction, given the other goodies that undoubtedly would come their way.

What I am proposing is the biggest airlift in almost 60 years, maybe ever.

We could send cargo planes over Myanmar and Zimbabwe and drop huge quantities of drinking water, food, basic medicines, large tents, sleeping bags and whatever else international aid agencies say is necessary. To hell with the rulers and their refusal to let foreign help reach their suffering people.

We could keep it up until all of the Burmese and Zimbabweans are adequately cared for, until sufficient medical teams are on the ground and water supplies are adequate and safe and everyone has shelter.

It might even inspire the citizens of our two target nations and give them the strength to rise up against the tyrants and install democratic governments, and that is what we want for everybody, right?

Right George? Right Dick?

The Myanmar generals might send up a couple of fighter planes to threaten our cargo craft, but we could chase them off with war planes of our own. Maybe our pilots would even get to shoot down a couple of the generals' craft, thus giving the White House a taste of blood and a chance to strut in military fashion. George could haul out his flight suit for a press conference.

What's that, you say Mr. Minority Leader McConnell? It would cost too much and threaten our economy?

Ummmm.

We maybe could reduce the payments to various Halliburton entities by the amounts they seem to have stolen from us and use that for the humanitarian aid. Ditto a bunch of other crooked contractors. We could cut off all government contracts with Blackwater, which perpetrates one criminal outrage after another, and let the military do the jobs that are rightfully theirs. (Cheney can pay his private army himself, if he insists on keeping it around.) We could stop preparing to bomb Iran.

Or we could haul our sorry behinds out of Iraq over the next few months and come out billions of dollars ahead.

Yes, of course the Cheney cohort, supported and nudged by Israel's right-wing leadership, wants to kill Iranians by the thousands. The neocons -- please, may the day come when they are just cons -- figure killing more Muslims will put Bush III in the White House so they can continue gathering power and the world's wealth to themselves.

They haven't thought it through yet.

If we come around all big-time humanitarian, most of the world will swing quickly from despising the Bushies and all they touch to praising them. Many Americans who won't touch John McCain because of his taint of Bush will feel free to vote for him. Think the the relief they'll experience in the South and places like Kansas and rural Ohio because they won't have to stretch for excuses not to vote for the black man.

For a brief period leading up to this fall's election -- before everybody notices that Americans still are going broke, lack decent health care and are losing their jobs and homes –- the neocons will have a chance to hold power without getting into another shooting war that even they must recognize they cannot sustain. (They aren't that stupid, are they? Are they?)

C'mon, gang. Let's make those calls and send those emails.

Another Big Lie campaign

In case you missed the two or three 12-second reports on the news: Shaul Mofaz, deputy prime minister of Israel, said Friday that an attack on Iran's nuclear sites is “unavoidable” if Tehran refuses to halt it's alleged nuclear weapons program.

He didn't say “alleged,” however. That's my word, a proper modifier, but not something he or the Bushies would use, any more than they talked about “alleged” WMDs in Iraq.

Mofaz failed to specify how Iran can now halt a program that all U.S. and European intelligence agencies and top scientists agree was halted in 2003.

(Stop your car right now. Never mind that it's been stored in a garage with the engine removed for five years. Stop it now or we'll kill you. By the way, have you stopped beating your wife?)

The Israel minister also said that the attack will occur if international diplomacy fails to make Iran stop that already stopped weapons program. But, of course, Israel and the Bush administration flatly refuse to engage in “international diplomacy” with Iran, although Iran has several times offered to negotiate without restrictions on topics.

In case you haven't quite got it: Israel, with timing almost certainly coordinated with the American White House, is pushing for an attack on Iran. If Israel attacks, we'll soon take over the major portion of the killing, of course.

Isn't it interesting to live in a very big and powerful country that allows a much smaller country to call the shots on key portions of its foreign policy?

OK, hard to tell who's manipulating whom sometimes, but that this country's politicians are frequently the intimidated stand-ins for Israel's right-wing government and its big-buck U.S. backers is not in question.

A little prayer, of sorts, for Obama

To whom it may concern:

Please, do not let Barack Obama be pressured or suckered into accepting Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

If you have any warm feelings at all for humanity, please do not even let him be conned into accepting her into his cabinet, should he be elected President of the United States.

Suicide is not a healthy action, nor is it an action a rational and physically healthy person should take. Neither is putting yourself needlessly into the position of requiring the services of a full-time food and drink taster – metaphorically speaking, of course.

It is obvious to all but the most passionate of Clinton supporters that her hubris is at least equal to that of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Combined.

There is no question but that she believes she has an absolute, divinely ordered, right to the presidency. She and her most ardent followers believe that anyone -– that is, Mr. Obama -- who stands in her way is somehow evil, a liar and a cheat surpassing even the aforementioned Bush and Cheney.

They cannot fathom that anyone could legitimately prefer another candidate, nor that she could lose in a fair contest, let alone one in which the nasty tricks and ugly innuendo were mostly on her side. (She made a blatant appeal to racists; he made no such appeal to sexists.)

There is no question that should she be named the vice presidential candidate, or should she be elected vice president, or even if she is placed in the presidential cabinet, she will use all of her skill, devote all of her energy and time to undermining Mr. Obama. Her life will be devoted to “proving” that it was she who should have been nominated and elected.

Whether subtly or obviously, she will try to foment opposition to his positions, to make him look weak and inept, to sell to other insiders and, especially to the public, the idea that she could do better. She will weaken an Obama presidency, and thereby do harm to the country and the world, for the sake of her own overweening ambition.

I plead, therefore, that you protect Barack Obama from what would be his greatest possible blunder, and keep him resolute against the wailing and gnashing of teeth and threats of the Clintonites.

I ask this for the sake of the United States of America and the world.

Memorial Day pride: Not so much

Memorial Day 2008 has come and gone. Some folks tended graves of their families' dead, politicians gave speeches that mostly insulted the intelligence of Americans who have some sense of reality and knowledge of facts about the state of the country and its wars.

Many people, though perhaps fewer than usual because of soaring gasoline prices, simply took a long weekend outing and tried to avoid any thought of the suffering and pointless violence in the Middle East.

George W. Bush, who drove us into a terrible war for profit, shamed us by going to Arlington National Cemetery and spouting jingoistic falsities about “those who gave everything to preserve our way of life.”

Of course, he shames us simply by his presence on the world and national stages.

Bush did not explain how sacrificing thousands of our young and destroying a country that never presented the slightest threat to us “preserves our way of life” -- unless, of course, he referred to the self-indulgent lives of what he has publicly designated as “my kind of people,” the economic elite who continue to suck immense wealth from the Iraq war.

Along with other “defense” contractors, Vice President Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton, has seen astounding profit growth since the U.S. invaded Iraq, and its stock price, despite recent downturns in the market, has created and enhanced Midas-like fortunes for its insiders. KBR, spun off from Halliburton in the spring of 2007, saw a 65 percent year-to-year gain in fourth quarter 2007 profits, and the trend coming into this year was upward.

A small percentage of Americans, my wife and some friends among them, mostly people who have suffered the loss of loved ones in war, went to ceremonies to honor their dead. A high percentage of those, including my wife, lost someone in Vietnam, another war that we should never have fought.

Those of you who saw our unelected president on television, and those of you who wept yet again for lives lost, did the speeches make you proud?

Other than those who mourn still for people who died in wars that really did have to be fought – World War II and even Korea – did the words make any of you proud?

My guess is that for most of us, the answer is, in current vernacular, not so much.

We don't see the “Proud to be American” bumper stickers much in my neck of the woods any more, and the “Freedom Isn't Free” bumper stickers also are much less numerous than they were up to a couple of years ago.

Even some of the ex-Marines who reflexively and loudly support whoever gets us into shooting and bombing dark-skinned people on foreign soil -– I know a few of them very well -– have gone strangely quiet. They hate it, but many have been forced to recognize that there is not and never was a legitimate reason for invading Iraq or for continuing the occupation of that ruined country. Reluctantly, a growing number admit that the invasion and occupation have nothing to do with maintaining our freedom.

Some even have begun to realize that the opposite is true, that using war and terrorism as an excuse, Bush & Co. have curtailed our freedoms and wiped their feet on our Constitution.

Such realizations have not come evenly or everywhere, of course. In places like West Virginia and Mississippi -- where substantial numbers of voters told television reporters that they would never vote for Barack Obama “because he's a Muslim” or, as one redneck West Virginia woman put it, “I ain't gonna vote for no Hussein; I don't want nothin' to do with no Hussein” -- reality is only an unacceptable rumor to many.

For a while on Memorial Day, I listened to Amy Goodman's radio program. The broadcast consisted of testimony of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans on what they saw and experienced in their wars.

The vets read their prepared statements in hauntingly flat voices, which did not change even when they talked of their post-homecoming suicide attempts, as at least two did. They spoke of mayhem and brutality that was as routine as tying one's boot laces, of deliberately and without reason shooting Iraq drivers as they came within range of the U.S. Army convoys, of taking Iraqi men who had been arrested and found innocent of any wrongdoing deep into the desert and beating them, throwing them out of trucks and stoning them “with softball-sized rocks.”

All of the U.S. veterans admitted to participating almost casually in such acts -– atrocities, we would call them if someone else did those things to Americans.

The few who were on Goodman's program are only a tiny fraction of the number of U.S. Iraq war veterans who have given such testimony. Some have spoken directly to Congressional committees. The American corporate-owned big media have refused to cover the veterans' appearances or to report their stories. The American propaganda machine, which includes even such supposedly liberal outlets as the New York Times, have put the veterans in a blackout, a no-touch, no hear zone.

Those vets who have chosen to tell the truth publicly call themselves the Winter Soldiers, and you can see and hear what some of them have to say if you use that term in whatever on-line search engine you prefer.

The blackout on the soldiers is only one aspect of the propaganda machine's current activity.

Much of America has chosen to tune out the wars. Don't ask, don't tell. Perhaps most people think there is nothing they can do to stop the madness, probably some are feeling guilty about having cheered the initial bombing of Iraq and the “Mission Accomplished” performance of our worst-ever president. And a great many of our entertainment-saturated public simply don't want to hear or see anything unpleasant. High gas prices are tragedy enough.

Whatever the case, the big, false news outfits, broadcast and print, consciously aid the willful amnesia.

As the New York Times itself reported Monday, May 26, Memorial Day, coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is diminishing rapidly. Fewer reporters cover the wars than at any time since they began, and those who remain are more deeply embedded than ever, which means they seldom learn or report anything that is not approved by the military.

David Carr, the Times writer, said the Pentagon and the Bush administration continue to impose “increasingly onerous rules of engagement for the news media and the military" and to "make it difficult for the few remaining reporters and photographers to do their job: showing soldiers doing theirs.”

The dead still arrive back in this country in their flag-draped coffins in the middle of the night, and photographs still are not allowed.

The owners of the big media outfits do not fight the rules; they're on the same side, Bush's kind of people.

Carr noted that the Project for Excellence in Journalism's coverage index shows that coverage of the Afghani and Iraq wars was just 3 percent of all print and broadcast news coverage last week, down from 25 percent as recently as last fall. He also noted that it isn't because the wars are any less deadly; 2007 was the bloodiest year for American soldiers in Iraq, with 900 killed and many more maimed.

“There is a cold and sad calculation that readers/viewers aren't that interested in the war, whether because they are preoccupied with paying $4 for a gallon of gas and avoiding foreclosure, or because they have Iraq fatigue,” Carr quoted the Times' executive editor, Bill Keller.

So, if you don't want to know, they won't tell you. We can all hide from the truth.

But the big boys of the so-called news media –- they're all part of the propaganda machine now -– are falling all over themselves to help the Bush/neocon gang bring us to acceptance of yet another military adventure.

Every time the Bush crowd, or some organization under its thumb, makes an unsubstantiated claim about Iran's supposed threat to us, or Iraq, or Israel, it gets major story treatment, and no one in the propaganda media ever thinks, or dares, to ask for evidence that the claims are true.

Tuesday's New York Times (May 27, 2008), had at the top of its front page a story saying that the International Atomic Energy Agency has accused Iran of “a willful lack of cooperation, particularly in answering allegations that its nuclear program may be pointed less at energy generation than at military use.”

The story hints, and suggests, and assumes, but offers no evidence that Iran “may” be producing enriched uranium “which can be used to make electricity or to fuel bombs” faster “than expected.”

It's all innuendo; the story contains no demonstrable facts other than that Iran denied members of the agency access to some sites where, it is assumed, centrifuge components are being manufactured and where research on uranium enrichment may -– may -- be taking place.

A couple of points: Israel, which fairly openly nudges this country toward attacking Iran, is loaded with nuclear weapons -– outside of international rules, but the official pretension is that we don't know that the weapons exist -– and there have been calls from the Israeli right and its supporters to use them on Iran.

Yet imagine what Israel, let alone this country, would say if the same agency demanded full access to its nuclear program.

Oh, by the way: There is general agreement among intelligence agencies that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

But that New York Times front page story is how the propaganda machine works these days. The neocons make no secret of the fact that they want to bomb Iran, and that takes at least some public support in this country, and so you have to con a sizable portion of the public.

So. Memorial Day:

My chest used to fill with admiration –- I could physically feel it -– when speakers recalled the courage and sacrifice of those who captured Guadalcanal and fought desperately for other tiny Pacific islands. As recently as April of last year, I stood on Omaha Beach in Normandy with tears running down my cheeks as I pictured the horror and almost unimaginable courage of those who fought there in June of 1944.

But 2008, a criminally needless war designed primarily to further enrich a tiny clique of the already immensely wealthy? A president who cares nothing for “our troops” or the American people? A cowardly Congress that won't act to stop the horrors for fear of losing the votes of the terminally ignorant?

George Bush stood in Arlington Cemetery Monday and said he was proud.

But most of the rest of us: Not so much.

Lebanon through the looking glass

Hello? Red Queen? Hatter? Rabbit? Alice? Anyone?

Reading about the recent hostilities in Lebanon and growing ever sadder, it suddenly hit me like a two-by-four to the head that all of the reporting and all the pundit blathering on the situation, at least in this country, has a surreal, Wonderland quality.

A major, elephant-in-the-room piece of the story -– Israel's invasion of Lebanon less than two years ago -- has been entirely absent from the so-called "mainstream media" coverage of the battles and political maneuvering and the further suffering of the Lebanese people. Not so much as a whisper have we heard, not so much as a single line of agate type have we seen on that essential piece of the story.

Yes, it's true. The American corporate news organizations have blacked out an enormously significant piece of the Lebanon puzzle, an act for which I can find no reason other than to actively support the machinations of Israel and the White House.

I was so disoriented by that realization, I had to go back and check 2006 news coverage to make sure I wasn't suffering from false memory, possibly from some sort of pollution-induced delusion.

Nope. It's there in the on-line archives and in my files: Israel, with full support and hush-hush collusion of the Bushcheney administration, did invade Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and keep it's troops there for about two months.

During that time, as many observers such as Human Rights Watch attested, Israeli troops fired indiscriminately on civilians as well as opposing combatants, and in one highly memorable event, deliberately blasted a clearly identified United Nations observer outpost, killing all of the occupants. Lots of entirely innocent men, women and children were successfully slaughtered, in fact. Some reports suggest cluster bombs left in Lebanon still are killing and maiming people, in fact.

As world conflicts go, the war was brief, but up to the highest standards for brutality. And down to the lowest standards for organizational control and lack of legitimate purpose.

The dissatisfaction of Israeli citizens with the action -– mostly because a large portion of the public wanted their army to essentially destroy Lebanon then and there, or at least Hezbollah in Lebanon -– caused political upheaval in Israel. A minority of the Israeli population protested the action because they believed it was wrong. (Americans generally forget that there is a large, rational peace contingent within Israel.)

The purported motivation for the July 2006 invasion was the capture of two Israeli soldiers in a raid into Israel by Hezbollah guerrillas. (Or Hizbullah, as everyone but the U.S. press and officials spell it.)

In fact, U.S. officials gave their approval for the Israeli attack about two months before it began, according to Seymour Hersh, the master reporter who has broken many of the big stories on Bush administration and Pentagon misconduct and illegal activities in Iraq. White House approval was sought and granted before the two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped, Hersh and others reported not long after the invasion.

The kidnapping was just an excuse, and an exceptionally weak one at that.

Reason leads to the conclusion that the real Israeli motivation for the invasion was to weaken Hezbollah and prevent its retaliation against Israel if the United States should attack Iran -– an attack the Israeli government was (and is) pushing. As are some of the White House neocons.

A number of people who know the territory suggested that some in the Israeli hierarchy were hoping the attack on Lebanon would stir things up enough to give Bushcheney an excuse to move against Iran.

This is relevant today because at the time, a few people who actually know something about Lebanon and its history predicted that the ultimate result of the Israeli invasion would be to halt any shakey progress the country was making toward renewed stability and democratic government. Their knowledge was strong, their assessments based on deep understanding of the situation, and their voices were largely ignored by our government and the big “news” outfits.

(Stability and a democratic government in Lebanon is something the Bush crowd claims it wants; its actions prove it ain't necessarily so.)

Lebanon, once the most enlightened spot in the region, was ripped to shreds by a terrible civil war that went on and on, from 1975 to 1990. There were many causes, including an unsettling large influx of Palestinian refugees who mostly were driven out of their homes in what is now Israel. Interference and power-grabbing by Iran and, especially, Syria also were major factors.

At long last, Syria was forced out, and for a decade, Lebanon made slow but steady progress toward becoming what it once was.

That does not suit the purposes of those who rule Israel.

It is true, of course, that Hezbollah, a nasty ally of Iran and Syria, still wielded considerable power in large sections of Lebanon and, in fact, did conduct small but sometimes deadly raids into Israel. But the Israeli invasion of Lebanon predictably strengthened Hezbollah's position in Lebanon. People who had stood aside from the organization now look to it as a protector from Israel's brutality.

As someone I heard somewhere said in a wider context: The “war on terrorism has become terrorism.”

So Israel pulled the still wobbly legs from under Lebanon's struggling government and, they no doubt hope, have created another excuse for Bushcheney to drop explosives on Iran.

You can get a sense of the propaganda to come in this country from the column by Thomas L. Friedman – one of Israel's most aggressive shills in the American press – in the New York Times of Wednesday, May 14.

Friedman has concocted, or someone has concocted, a theory that we are entering a new cold war, a “struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbolla.”

There's more, designed to instill in his readers a fear of that insidious cabal and anger that the United States isn't being tough and smart and bullying those damned A-Rabs into doing exactly what we (and Israel) want at any given time. Essentially, Israel and the Bushies want to call the shots in Lebanon.

But, of course, “The outrage of the week is the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah attempt to take over Lebanon,” says Friedman, who goes on to rant about Bushcheney stupidity and cowardice that has led to the United States being “not liked, not feared and not respected” in the Middle East. The key word, as I read it is “feared.”

In other words, we aren't brutal enough in forcing Middle Eastern nations (other than Israel, of course) to knuckle under.

Is that Israel talking or what? It's an amazing formulation that ignores reality almost entirely.

We're disliked and certainly not respected in the region, and it's obviously true that the Arab and Palestinian populations don't tremble in fear of us, as Bush and Israel would like, but the reasons for that are many degrees from what Friedman claims.

And aside from the nonsense of suggesting that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are acting together like a well-designed machine, nowhere does he make mention of the fact that the conditions that led to current instability in Lebanon were created, deliberately, by Israel with the blessing of the Bush White House.

Hello?

Oh, what a tangled web...

It's shameful, I know, but I enjoy the stories of “family-values,” law-n-order rich-guy politicians who get caught with their pants down – the more so if it's pretty much literally true.

Generally speaking, I believe in cutting people much slack for human failings, and I strongly believe that the news people should stay the hell away from stories about politicians' personal lives unless their actions are directly and clearly relevant to their job performance.

However...

Pols who rant and rave about the immorality of others, build their careers on those rants, and demand purity of all others deserve anything they get when their hypocrisy is exposed.

In that mean spirit, then, I am enjoying the information I just picked up from the New York Times about New York Republican Congressman Vito Fossella, New York City's only Republican congressman, who represents an enclave of the rich on Staten Island. He's mentioned in the essay just below this about the economic “stimulus” package.

Seems that Vito got caught driving drunk –- his blood alcohol content was double the legal limit –- after a little party at the White House that may have been continued elsewhere.

Because of a false excuse he gave to the arresting officer, it came out that the professionally moral, upright and hard-law-enforcement boy has, in addition to his wife and three kids on Staten Island, a mistress and daughter in Alexandria, Va., and lives with them while defending righteousness in Congress. Officially, he has no Washington area address.

No further comment needed.

Economic stimulus or just another con job?

Most of us haven't yet received our tax rebates -- our shares of the bipartisan boondoggle designed to make us believe that Congress and the White House are doing something about the gawdawful economic mess they've created for us.

Same old, same old.

The money will come fairly soon, and I'll bet I can predict what you're going to do with your little piece of the action. And make no mistake; it is a little piece.

You will buy something you were going to buy anyway with some portion of the money -– less than a third of it in most cases. For me, it will be a new computer monitor to replace an elderly model that is fading quickly. Like me, you'll use the rest of it to pay down debt and/or to bolster your savings.

Several polling outfits did quick surveys after the panderers in Washington passed the bribe package for the inattentive cops on the street -– that's us -– and they all came up with the same answers for the majority of taxpayers. Those answers are as stated above.

Poorer folks, of course, get less than the rest of us, and the very poor get nothing, even though they are the ones who can be relied upon to spend whatever they get for the simple reason that they have no choice. They're trying to survive from day to day.

But this thing isn't about reviving the economy; it's about appearances and votes. Once the package got rolling, no American pol would dare to speak against it.

As an economic stimulus, folks, the rebate program is somewhat less effective than laying a length of worn out garden hose across a high-traffic road and calling it a speed bump.

The other pieces of the scam –- the ones the broadcasters and corporate newspapers have either ignored or barely mentioned -– are of no more use to the economy as a whole, but they please a select group of beneficiaries who mostly ain't you and me.

Here are some facts that you probably won't have seen in a newspaper or on television:

* This one made it into one news cycle in some places, but was given a pass by many nooz purveyors. It's relatively minor, but interesting: Remember that one-page letter you got from the IRS a couple of weeks ago? The one that told you in the language of a corporate public relations agent that you were going to get an “economic stimulus payment?”

That letter cost us, the taxpayers, $42 million.

* Newspapers and broadcasters keep telling us about how much we're going to get. They don't tell us what the charade costs the country as a whole. The total cost has been figured by a number of agencies, public and private. The degree of difference among them is almost nonexistent.

Some I've read say total cost will be $168 billion, some say $167 billion. That's before any “stimulus” benefits that will be claimed.

The Congressional Budget Office says the package will decrease federal revenues by a total of $114 billion this year, but projects that the stimulus payments to citizens will result in $80 billion in direct spending during this year and next.

Uh, yup. We're throwing out $114 billion in order to get people to spend $80 billion, much of which would be spent anyway. And that's if the estimate isn't overly optimistic, as I believe it is.

Of course, not much of that $80 billion, even if the money is spent, will revert to the U.S. government. The White House will say we have to cut more from health care programs for children and the elderly to make up the loss.

There are other factors at play in the so-called stimulus package that complicate the figuring, but over-all the Budget Office estimates, the package will increase federal budget deficits by $152 billion in 2008. It estimates that certain benefits from the package will reduce the size of increase in our budget deficit to $124 billion by 2018. Yeah, sure, you betcha, as we say in Minnesota.

* There are a few other numbers that don't seem to have been included in the Budget Office stats that I found, although I could be wrong about that; clear, complete and candid reporting on the situation is scarce to nonexistent.

Among the apparently missing numbers, as stated in another federal report, is the $767 million it is costing us just to administer the stimulus program.

That number includes the cost of moving staff around to get people in position to perform such tasks as answering telephone calls from taxpayers and other routine administrative jobs. It also includes an unspecified amount of lost revenue that will result because people whose job it is to track down unpaid taxes have been taken off tax law enforcement to do routine administrative work on the stimulus program.

* In a newsletter to constituents, Republican Congressman Vito Fossella of New York (Staten Island, and hold the jokes about how he might be connected; I thought of them, too) bragged to his high-roller supporters that one of the big benefits of the stimulus program is the part that gives substantial breaks on mortgages to people who buy costly homes in places such as his district.

If you're the sort whose home requires what the trade calls a jumbo loan, Fossella is correct. You probably didn't catch it on TV or your local newspaper, but the stimulus package includes a provision to increase mortgage loan limits in certain high-buck areas (such as Staten Island) -– on loans of between $417,000 and $729,500 –- and give “qualified buyers” in that price range an interest rate break of one full percentage point on loans issued under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs.

Trying to buy a house, but need a loan of only, say, $90,000 or even $350,000? This stimulus is not for you.

* This one isn't for you, either, oh mighty consumer: It's the almost unreported piece of the package giving very large tax breaks to “small” businesses that invest in new equipment. The New York Times had one story back in mid-February, when the package was still under discussion in Congress, but I haven't seen anything in the corporate media since.

(I emphasize the “small,” by the way, because so far I have found no definition of that under the stimulus law, and the business world and government tend these days to define “small” as any business with annual revenues of less than several billion dollars a year.)

Now it is a fact that business –- some business –- investment in new equipment and property is good for the over-all economy. As with public infrastructure such as roads, bridges and natural gas lines, it's a lousy idea to let your plant and equipment deteriorate; you lose business in the long run, and the jobs you provide disappear when you fail.

And, yes, many businesses must update periodically to remain competitive.

But I'm skeptical about this package, folks. The business investment stimulus in the package gives those “small” businesses big tax breaks for investing in equipment -– 50 percent additional deduction on any new equipment purchased. It also greatly extends the amount small businesses can deduct from annual income, up to a total of $800,000 per business.

Several little smells set my BS detector twitching.

Small business, real small business, as in locally owned restaurants, shops, small trucking companies, small specialty manufacturers and all the rest, are so far doing better than the rest of the economy. I've seen no evidence, however, that there's a widespread need for new equipment.

Also, with the public finally backing off unnecessary spending, it would seem the wrong time for most small businesses to put substantial amounts of money into new equipment, tax breaks or no. Even with those tax breaks, you have to pay substantial sums for new equipment, and if business is dragging you don't get much use from that equipment. It works if you need to replace something worn out, of course, but it's unlikely that a majority of small businesses across the country will suddenly have to replace substantial pieces of their equipment.

So invest to expand? In a recession? Only if you have so much money you can afford to dump big sums into equipment you don't need now but might want some day. In my experience, few small businesses have that kind of capital lying around unused.

Nope. The phony stimulus will get lots of sycophantic praise from the myriad trade associations and Chambers of Commerce and such, and so it will do the politicians -– especially Republicans -– some good, but the value to the economy is suspect. In fact, it may even do some businesses some harm by leading less than clear thinking small business owners to spend money they can't afford.

So somebody is bound to ask: What would you do?

Well, folks, a stimulus package could be useful, but it would have to be totally different from the one we have here.

One thing that actually would help revive our sicker-than-you-think economy is job creation. We've been losing jobs steadily, and all signs point to that continuing if the pols go on doing what they're doing.

What we need, what this country badly needs, is government incentives and direct government spending ala Franklin Roosevelt's programs to both create jobs and rebuild the infrastructure that is falling quickly to third-world levels under the continuing rule of “no new taxes” Republicans and Republicrats.

And let's not even get started on the ridiculous McCain/Clinton idea of a "vacation" from the federal gasoline tax...