Walter C Uhler » Archive
Put on the Spot, Our Punk President Lies Yet Again
Whenever I hear President Bush tell another lie (or read that he has told another lie) I’m reminded of the Liar-in-Chief’s former professor at the Harvard Business School, Yoshi Tsurumi, and his spot-on recollection of this president’s punk past. According to Professor Tsurumi, Bush “showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him.” [Mary Jacoby, "The Dunce," Salon.com, 16 September 2004] Tsurumi concluded: “Behind his smile and his smirk…he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy.” “He was just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bush Administration, Iraq War
The South Continues to “Make” Race: Will the Supreme Court Follow?
How Race is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses, by Mark M. Smith University of North Carolina Press, 2006, 200 pp. A few years ago, in exasperation over pre-invasion polls indicating that a large majority of Americans erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on 9/11, I was forced to return to Walter Lippmann’s classics about Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, along with other books explaining why Americans were so highly susceptible to political manipulation. Ultimately, that reading led to the article, “Democracy or dominion?” written for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [ Jan/Feb. 2004] Although the general response to that article was quite positive, a highly esteemed professor insisted that I overlooked the obvious: “Most … Read entire article »
Filed under: African-American History, Book Reviews, Race/Racism
The Times Continues to Understate the Influence of Feith’s “Gestapo Office” in the Run-up to War
In his ground-breaking April 28, 2004, New York Times article about Douglas Feith’s Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCEG) — which Secretary of State Colin Powell privately called “Feith’s Gestapo office” — James Risen detailed the Group’s efforts to find links connecting Saddam Hussein with al Qeada’s terrorists, in order to make a clearer case for the invasion of Iraq. As Mr. Risen notes, both the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA discounted (had already examined and dismissed) the so-called evidence that the Gestapo office was “uncovering.” But rather than demonstrating that the Gestapo office actually prevailed over the legitimate and ultimately correct Intelligence Community, and thus provided a central justification for war, Risen then undercut his reporting by erroneously … Read entire article »
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Iraq War
Neocon Militarist Joshua Muravchik: Stoking the Conflagration in the Middle East
Viewers of the November 15, 2006 airing of Democracy Now were given the treat of seeing Amy Goodman’s interview with former Senator George McGovern, current Congressman Dennis Kucinich and the American Enterprise Institute’s Joshua Muravchik. The subject under discussion was titled: “Out of Iraq or More Troops?” A “treat?” Yes, viewers (or readers of the transcript) were able to see Mr. Muravchik, an acerbic-tongued neoconservative militarist, in action. Mr. McGovern started the debate by recommending a gradual withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, commencing in December and ending in June 2007. Congressman Kucinich supported Mr. McGovern’s gradual withdrawal, but proposed to give it teeth by having Congress cut off all future funding for the war. Mr. Muravchik advocated sending … Read entire article »
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Iraq War
Giving Thanks? Yes, Thanking God that I’m Not Like Them!
While immersing myself in Russian literature during the 1970s, I was struck by the age-old Russian tradition of “kissing the earth.” Russian women would kiss the earth as prisoners commenced their long trek into Siberian exile. Not only were they acknowledging the first step in the prisoners’ redemption, but also acknowledging: “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” Also implicit in their actions was the recognition that they were, in a small way, complicit in the prisoner’s transgressions. Dostoyevsky’s famous anti-hero, Raskolnikov, — having separated himself from the human family by committing murder — eventually kissed the earth in belated recognition of his kinship with other human beings. There, but for the grace of God, go I: … Read entire article »
Filed under: Cultural Criticism
Saddam’s Conviction: One War Criminal Down, Three to Go (Bush, Cheney and Blair)
Regardless of whether the “fix” was in — both in its predetermined outcome or its timing (just two days before Americans go to the polls) — justice prevailed today in, of all places, Iraq, when a court convicted Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity for the revenge killings of 148 people in the Shiite city of Dujail in 1982. As reported by Hamza Hendawi of the Associated Press, “The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicized and heavily reported trials of its kind since the Nuremberg tribunals for members of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and its slaughter of 6 million Jews in the World War II Holocaust.” Yet, few Americas probably know … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bush Administration, Iraq War
The Privilege of Unaccountable Elitism: The Real Insult to Our Troops
In this topsy-turvy “Bizarro” United States under the regime of Bush and Cheney, nothing is as it seems. Thanks to the American genius for advertising, the lazy and obsequious stenographers in the mainstream news media and the abysmally poor education of so many Americans, a cowardly Vietnam era draft-dodging alcoholic son of privilege became “born again” President of the United States and, in the name of “moral clarity,” sent other parents’ children – but not his own — to kill and be killed in support of the most egregiously illegal and immoral war ever to besmirch America’s world reputation. Yet, how does our “Bring ‘em on” blundering Commander-in-Chief respond when Senator Kerry — a decorated hero of the very Vietnam War … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bush Administration, Cultural Criticism, Media, Politics
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