the facts, nothing but the facts

[pynchonoid]

Mackin, credulous:
>I have the A1 section of  yesterday's (10-27)
>Washington Post  here in 
>front of me. What it says is, ORGANIZERS ESTIMATED
>more than 100,000.

Yeah, the San Francisco Police reported 40,000 in SF
Saturday, the SF Comical published that number, but
credible observers report twice that number.

If it's in the Post, it's got to be true? I've got a
bridge you may be interested in purchasing, a fabulous
money-making opportunity...

The Post seems more like Bush Spin City these days:

"Hawks at the Washington Post
by Michael Massing
In August 27, Richard Holbrooke, in an article on the
Washington Post's Op-Ed page, endorsed President
Bush's policy of regime change in Iraq but asserted
that his case would be strengthened if he took it to
the United Nations. "The road to Baghdad runs through
the United Nations Security Council," the former
ambassador to the UN wrote. Two days later Alexander
Haig, appearing on the same page, announced his
unqualified support for the President's policy.
"Ultimately," he wrote, a US foreign policy "that
allows a country such as Iraq to acquire weapons of
mass destruction while violating solemn agreements is
a guarantee of a world on the edge of greater terrors
to come." Three days after that, it was Bob Dole's
turn. Calling Iraq a "runaway freight train loaded
with explosives barreling toward us," Dole wrote that
"we can act to derail it or wait for the crash and
deal with the resulting damage." 

Over the next two-plus weeks, the Post would run
articles by former Secretaries of State George Shultz,
James Baker and--need I add?--Henry Kissinger, whose
article "Consult and Control" took up the top third of
the page and marked his second appearance on the page
in a month. In early September Holbrooke showed up
again to expand on his earlier point about the
importance of going to the UN. And in early October,
Sandy Berger contributed an article that--building on
a piece he had written for the Post in August--made
much the same point as Holbrooke's. 

Readers who found this diet of pronouncements from
former US officials too bland and unnourishing could,
of course, have sampled the Post's regular columnists.
They include Jim Hoagland, who since the summer has
written about Iraq nearly every week, and always in
full-throated support of military intervention there.
On September 15, for instance, he congratulated
President Bush for his "rigorously honest speech" to
the UN, which, he said, "more than lived up to his
responsibilities to 'make the case' for urgent and
forceful action to end Iraq's open defiance of
international law." There's also George Will, who
weekly toasts the Republicans for their fortitude and
taunts the Democrats for their vacillation. "All
military disasters" can be summed up in two
words--"too late," Will wrote in mid-September,
summing up his own position on Iraq. Also contributing
regularly are Charles Krauthammer, Robert Novak and
Michael Kelly, all staunch supporters of the
Administration's position. 

What about the editorial page? Since mid-August the
Post has been running editorials on Iraq about once a
week, and they have unwaveringly supported military
action there. "President Bush yesterday put the case
of Iraq before the United Nations and challenged the
institution to act," a typical editorial stated on
September 13. "It was the right way to go.... The
president compellingly spelled out one set of
indisputable facts." The only time the Post faults the
President is when he doesn't make the case for
invasion persuasively enough. 

A survey of the Post's opinion pages over the past two
months reveals a remarkable imbalance on the subject
of Iraq, the great issue of the day. Collectively, its
editorials, columns and Op-Eds have served mainly to
reinforce, amplify and promote the Administration's
case for regime change. And, as the house organ for
America's political class, the paper has helped push
the debate in the Administration's favor."
...continues at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021111&s=massing




By the way, some of you will like this:
http://www.publici.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=469&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0
"The Business of War"

Unless maybe you own stock in companies that sell to
the military, or think Pynchon is just joking about
multinationals profiting from the War that never ends,
or whatever else it is that leads you to accept Bush
propaganda and try to marginalize the people who don't
automatically accept it as gospel. 

and this just in, (I guess it sounded like a great
idea until the Moscow tragedy)...


US weapons secrets exposed 
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday October 29, 2002
The Guardian 
Respected scientists on both sides of the Atlantic
warned yesterday that the US is developing a new
generation of weapons that undermine and possibly
violate international treaties on biological and
chemical warfare. 

The scientists, specialists in bio-warfare and
chemical weapons, say the Pentagon, with the help of
the British military, is also working on "non-lethal"
weapons similar to the narcotic gas used by Russian
forces to end last week's siege in Moscow. 

They also point to the paradox of the US developing
such weapons at a time when it is proposing military
action against Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein
is breaking international treaties. 

Malcolm Dando, professor of international security at
the University of Bradford, and Mark Wheelis, a
lecturer in microbiology at the University of
California, say that the US is encouraging a breakdown
in arms control by its research into biological
cluster bombs, anthrax and non-lethal weapons for use
against hostile crowds, and by the secrecy under which
these programmes are being conducted. 

"There can be disagreement over whether what the
United States is doing represents violations of
treaties," Mr Wheelis told the Guardian. "But what is
happening is at least so close to the borderline as to
be destabilising." 

In a paper to be published soon in the scientific
journal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the two
academics focus on recent US actions that have served
to undermine the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
In a move that stunned the international community
last July, the US blocked an attempt to give the
convention some teeth with inspections, so that member
countries could check if others were keeping the
agreement. "
...continues at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,821306,00.html


Regime change now!
In the US.



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