WEEKEND READING

Some interesting articles from the past week:

Homecoming: Lovely writing from former Time/Newsweek writer Hal Crowther in the Progressive Populist, describing how the conservative agenda is turning America’s heartland into a wasteland, and why its inhabitants can’t see what they have wrought on themselves. [Thanks to Doc Searls via Jon Husband for the link]
Turn Your Back on Bush: A clever, subtle plan for street theatre during the next Bush coronation… er… inauguration. [Thanks to Jet of assesofevil for the link]
Collecting Proof of Election Fraud in Florida & Ohio: For conspiracy enthusiasts from Black Box Voting — evidence that the vote was rigged in the two states that made the difference in last week’s elections. I put this in the same category as the evidence that the World Trade Centre Towers could not have collapsed simply by being struck by airplanes, and the evidence that Bush knew in advance of the attacks and did nothing — far-fetched, but just plausible, and fascinating reading, with staggering implications if they’re true. [for more of the same, read Greg Palast’s column]
Let Them Drink Coke: In Atlanta, per the NYT, if you don’t pay your water bill, you get your water shut off. Sounds reasonable, until you actually talk to the people affected, discover why they can’t afford to pay, and realize what cruel hardship such action produces. Only in America, where the ultimate crime is being poor.
The Power of Nightmares: The BBC is running a 3-part series on how fear-mongering works, and how the strategy of the US neocons and the strategy of Al Qaida are indistinguishable: Exaggerate the problem, oversimplify the cause, set up a straw man enemy, inflate that enemy to terrifying proportions, blame moderates for the enemy’s success, and grab enormous power and authority from the fear-struck populace. Viewers in most of Europe and North America can get the BBC — keep an eye out for the series. [Thanks to Ahmed at WorkingPlanet for the link]
World Council of Churches abhors US churches’ political interference: The international group seems to appreciate two things that American politicans and religious zealots don’t: (a) why the founding fathers of most democracies, religious men to a fault, insisted on the clear separation of church and state in their constitutions, and (b) that when a few religious groups interfere in a strongly partisan way in the political process, it compromises the credibility of all religious groups everywhere, and in particular puts the lives of brave humanitarian workers who toil under horrendous circumstance in the world’s trouble-spots, working under the auspices of the world’s churches, in grave peril.

3 Responses to WEEKEND READING

Ken Hirsch says:

November 7, 2004 at 02:32

“Only in America” are people expected to pay their water bill???? You just made that up.
gbreez says:

November 7, 2004 at 06:15

I am having nightmares. Worse, I am waking to find myself in an endless daylight nightmare. I am afraid the Dems don’t have the balls to fight the Neocons in Congress and America is headed into the dark ages. Here’s hoping that the FBI takes it upon themselves to do something. They have done it before.
Rebecca says:

November 7, 2004 at 07:17

No wonder you’re so much more productive than me… My weekend reading? Catch-22 (finishing) and Nicholas Nickleby (starting). Well, we all have our own lives to lead and roles to play, I’ll try not to apologize for mine. I used to subscribe to the New Yorker because I really enjoy that magazine. But I just let my subscription lapse because I was finding weeks and weeks worth of magazines left stranded on the back of the toilet unread, after years of almost inhaling it as soon as it came out of the mailbox. Why? Because I recently moved and finally got all my books out of storage – it was like having a brand new library! I became absorbed by literature again and my other reading has definitely suffered for it.All this is to say: Good going, you amaze me! Not even the fact that you read all that stuff, but that you digest it well enough to be able to distill, comment, expand, critique it all.