Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.
Obama should try reading intelligence reports, like 2007's National Intelligence Estimate (the combined consensus report by all sixteen known U.S. intelligence agencies), which stated quite clearly that there is no concrete evidence of a weapons program in Iran. In July and August of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the lack of evidence although it refuses to state anything definitively. Yet still Obama, the D.C. political establishment, and the corporate media continue to lie to the contrary.
We've already been lied into one failed war, lied into ramping up another failed war, are so hurting for fresh soldiers that the Pentagon is now actively accepting white supremacists, yet still the establishment seeks to lie us into another conflict. And some people have wondered why my signature now has an image of Obama and Bush morphed into one unholy beast. Now you know.
I saw this excellent entry over at Docudharma and just HAD to share. Specifically, I want to hightlight a couple of paragraphs, because they relate very much to how the left has been thoroughly brainwashed by the right into adopting a permanently defensive, always-ask-for-crumbs mindset.
If you can change the way people THINK about an issue you can...and Rove did...change the way people talk about it and act on it. And it worked.
...
Somewhere in the back of our mind a nagging little voice cries out to us..."What will the Republicans think."
"How will the Republicans react?"
And the meaning of that voice is...."How can we PRE-compromise to the Republicans?"
In the Dem politicians mind, that translates into mental, almost unthought about, nearly unconscious phrases like... We have to GIVE THIS to the Republicans or they will be mad."
In bloggers minds that translates into mental, almost unthought about, nearly unconscious phrases like.... "We can't have Single Payer or a strong Public Option."
"We can't call for an end in Afghanistan."
"We have to compromise on Coal."
"We have to use the (demonizing) phrase illegal alien."
And of course the worst one, the grand daddy of them all, used by both the Polilticians and the Bloggers.....
"We don't have the votes."
When Mr. Bowers urges people here to throw everything we have into pushing a "public option" that really won't do the job of reforming health care and certainly won't lead to anything like single-payer, or when Mr. Rosenberg harps on the evils of the sellout Democratic Party yet always steps up to beat down any notion of actually leaving the Republican-wannabes to their political party of choice, what are they doing if not writing from the very frame of mind right-wingers want them to?
It's worth pondering. Anyway, read the full entry. It's quite eye-opening, for those willing to have their eyes opened.
Reading through David Sirota's righteous entry, I was at once both encouraged by his passion for defending Van Jones and dismayed by the casual, utterly condescending Kos-like dismissals of those who seek the truth behind 9/11 as mere quacks. Most of these dismissals came from readers who posted comments, but even Mr. Sirota's entry contained at least one.
For the record, there is no single "9/11 Truther" movement of which I am aware. There are those who choose to engage in the worst forms of speculation, trying to bolster their ideas about what really happened with hypotheses that simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Yet there are those of us who believe that, if nothing else, criminal negligence was the main thing that allowed the attacks to occur on that terrible day eight years ago this Friday. The latter group deserves, if nothing else, serious consideration and support from the left if for no other reason than a a full and honest accounting of what allowed the attack may finally be put on the public record (as opposed to the whitewash we were saddled with).
Part of the reason the left is so weak against the far right is that it refuses to support its own - even when doing so has little or no political risk. Van Jones signed a petition by people who honestly seem to believe, if nothing else, that the Bush-Cheney regime had more than enough time and information with which to take some sort of preventive action to stop the attack from being carried out. It's part of a pattern of criminal negligence in the previous regime, one proven so disastrously in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It's not such an extreme question for any sensible American to ask. Yet it is lumped in with the people who, for better or worse, think that there was more active involvement and who have chosen to subscribe to unprovable notions. As a result, a sane, progressive voice of reason in the White House has been forced to leave because he asked questions. It is only coincidence that those questions happened to be ones the powerful - in their zeal to protect their own at any cost (so long as the rest of us pay it) - would rather not be asked at all.
And so, for that reason, yet another lesson was reiterated about Obama and his inner circle: far right crazies will always be given deferential treatment, while progressives - no matter how rational, competent, effective, and passionate - are expendable. That is the larger hurt in all of this mess over Van Jones. Legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers, and the left is supposed to be about (among other things) welcoming both. When we don't do that, when we dismiss even the most rational of questions and treat the people asking them like pariahs, what do we gain? Nothing. But as Van Jones' dismissal from the White House demonstrates, we do have plenty to lose.
