Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Summitry

Time was, a “summit conference” had world-shaking implications:  Eisenhower-Khrushchev at Camp David (1959), Kennedy-Khrushchev in Vienna (1961), Johnson-Kosygin in Glassboro (1967), Nixon-Mao in Beijing (1972), Reagan-Gorbachev in Geneva (1985) and Reykjavik (1986).  Real meetings, real tensions, real controversies, real meaning.

Bad enough that four men meeting in the Azores a few weeks ago, for just a couple of hours, to confirm what had already been decided before they got together was universally called a summit (googling on azores summit resulted in this, this, and this, among others, just on the first page of links).  This morning, I heard an NPR newsreader use the S-word in reference to the Bush-Blair meeting in Belfast, in which Dubya and Tony are just meeting face-to-face rather than their usual daily teleconferences on their war plans and preparations for the next campaign.

Talk about cheapening of the language…

Saturday, April 05, 2003

If I were paranoid...

... I would be extremely concerned about the comments of J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Speaker of the House of Representatives, in reference to the recent “regime change” remarks by Senator John Kerry (D-MA).  Here’s what Mr. Hastert had to say, as quoted in Friday’s New York Times:

"Equating regime change in Iraq with regime change in the United States, is not what we need at this time,” Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said in a statement. “Once this war is over, there will be plenty of time for the next election."

The implication that could be drawn from Hastert’s remark—if one were paranoid, that is—is that if the war isn’t over, then there wouldn’t be time for the next election.

Now, I don’t believe for a moment that Hastert actually means that which can be inferred from his statement.  And in their cold-blooded and/or mechanically-enhanced hearts, not even Karl Rove and Dick Cheney could actually be entertaining the idea of cancelling the next election (really, they couldn’t possibly be contemplating that, could they?).  No, they believe their puppet will sweep to an overwhelming victory based on his offensive (in so many senses of the word) policies against “evildoers” around the world and at home.

Friday, April 04, 2003

Michael Kelly

An accident in a Humvee, somewhere in Iraq, has taken the life of Michael Kelly.  Mr. Kelly was a columnist for the Washington Post, former editor of The New Republic, and former editor and current editor-at-large of The Atlantic.  He is the first American journalist, and the first embedded reporter of any nationality, to die in Bush’s War.  My condolences to his widow and his two young children.

As a longtime reader of The Atlantic and an occasional reader of his WaPo columns (when they were reprinted in the Seattle Times), I admit to surprise and astonishment when I learned that it was the same Michael Kelly who was involved with both.  Kelly’s magazine was thought-provoking, contemplative, wide-ranging, even-handed.  His newspaper columns were, in sharp contrast, vituperative warmongering.  The disconnect was so acute that I once actually googled on “michael-kelly”, in vain search of evidence that there were two journalists with the same name.

I’m not the only person who observed the sharp separation between Kelly-as-editor and Kelly-as-columnist.  For example, here is the reaction of Josh Marshall.  The statement released by David Bradley, John Fox Sullivan, and Cullen Murphy of The Atlantic also makes note of the different impressions conveyed by Kelly the fair-minded and open editor and Kelly the take-no-prisoners conservative columnist.

Kelly didn’t have to go to Iraq to report on the war, but he did.  He filed stories that described what he saw and what he found out ... war, warts and all.  Yes, he supported going to war, and yes, he believed it was the right thing to do.  But no matter what his own thoughts and beliefs might have been, when he was an editor he was eager to encourage those who wrote for his magazines to call things as they saw them.  For all that, the late Michael Kelly deserves our respect as well as our sorrow.

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Tonight's discussion

One of the activities of the S.N.O.W. Coalition ([Puget] Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War) involves contextualizing Dubya’s War as part of his administration’s thuggish takeover and takedown of American society.  In that regard, the S.N.O.W. Coalition’s group in the Seattle neighborhood of Magnolia is sponsoring a discussion forum tonight.

The topic of this meeting is:

Democracy AND Security
Do we have to choose?

A town meeting on the Patriot Act

We’ll have three speakers at the meeting—the Special Agent in Charge of Seattle’s FBI office, a member of Seattle’s City Council, and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Washington office.  The discussion will be moderated by a host/producer from KUOW-FM, one of the Puget Sound’s NPR stations.  Magnolia Lutheran Church was kind enough to offer to hold this discussion at its facilities.

I think tonight’s meeting/discussion could well be really fascinating.  I’m told that the FBI man, a neighbor and friend of my sister and her husband, is a real straight-shooter, so it will be very interesting to hear his “on the ground” thoughts about his uber-boss Ashcroft and the programs that the AG and his henchmen are attempting to impose.  He’ll have his work cut out for him, as the participating City Council member is probably the most progressive member of that legislative body.  That makes the panel essentially two-on-one, reflective of the overall spectrum of Seattle political orientations.

I’ll be a minor part of the program, possibly as timekeeper for the speakers, as a facilitator for small-group discussions, or (if the attendance is too high for breaking up in that manner) as a collector of questions on index cards.  I hope I’ll have few enough responsibilities to be able to jot down notes, so that I can report back in a future blog entry.

Full information about the event can be viewed here.

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Wellstone.org

Had he survived the tragic plane crash just before the election, Paul Wellstone would today be the senior senator from Minnesota, railing against the actions of the president, the Pentagon, the attorney general, and the rest of the whole sick crew running our country into the ground.

Through a posting today on the extremely valuable and highly informative Atrios site, I learned of the continuing political movement in Paul Wellstone’s name, organized by his two remaining children, David and Mark.

I just made a donation to Wellstone Action!, and I recommend strongly that anyone who reads this do so as well.  Wellstone was an extraordinarily successful grassroots politician, and he demonstrated convincingly that a committed progressive could organize a winning campaign.  It’s a lesson that all of us, and all of the Democrats running for office in the crucial 2004 election cycle, need to take to heart.

Political action starts at home.  It builds from the bottom up.  We must start immediately, in the hope that it’s not already too late.