I heard Lowell Bergman on Fresh Air tonight, which was interesting. But what was really interesting and perhaps frustrating about the interview was how insular the view of Washington he had was. There was some discussion about the Libby trial. Bergman’s biggest issue about the trial is how reporters are being asked to testify, and especially how Judith Miller went to prison protecting her source.

This was a discussion about the relationship between the White House and the media, but what was missing was a mention about how the White House absolutely played the press for chumps during the run up to war. Sure the administration has contempt for the press and certainly doesn’t trust them, but Bergman (at least in this interview) seems to be so smart and insightful but completely blind to the facts of this case. These sources wanted to be confidential not because of fear of losing their jobs. They were “off the record” so that they could get a hit piece in the press without looking bad. Before that the White House used the carrot of access and exclusives to get the press to uncritically print the absolute crap about Iraq that the White House wanted out there. This wasn’t the pentagon papers. Now the legal ramifications of the subpoenas is something that I can’t speak about, but the way the press completely abdicated there responsibility in the run up to war has to be a part of this discussion.

Are you sick of being exploited? Or, if you are capitalist, are you sick of exploiting others? Are you sick of war? If so, then join the lunaticleft bloggers in protesting against the G8 summit this summer, June 6-8th. It takes place in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Germany’s Baltic Sea. For ideas of how to get involved, check out dissent - a network of resistance.

My understanding of this protest is that its importance lies not so much in the demonstration of resistance against the capitalist pig-dogs (I mean it’s not like they’re going to say, oh shit, we didn’t know people thought we were such assholes), but rather in the constructive effects of the protest, both in planning it and carrying it out: the deepening and widening of feelings of solidarity and networks of communication amongst the different social movements (environmentalists, anti-capitalist globalization, feminists, socialists, anti-war activists, etc.) from all over the world. Through their coming together to work on this common project of stopping the G8 summit, they will set the groundwork for initiating further projects on which they can coordinate their efforts to best meet their common yet singular goals (my view here draws on Hardt and Negri’s Multitude). Come join the protest at Heiligendamm and participate in radical democracy!

I mean, it says safety right there in the name…

I mean, the only way I will feel safe is if my ISP has a nice, discoverable log of all my traffic (I assume they already due, but still). Because if they don’t have a log how will we make sure people aren’t committing thoughtcrimes?

Aj asks just how badly can we screw up the Middle East? . Short answer: a lot. I think we have seen that these people live in some kind of fantasy land where Cheney can claim, still, that we have made “a lot of progress in Iraq”. At that level of denial you can do serious damage. Its like losing a wheel on your car and refusing to accept that it is gone.

The latest and most bizarre criticism of Obama:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=79996

Apparently, political positions remain consistent over time and we can neatly divorce all positions from their historical context and assume that a democrat today is no different from 1950s dixiecrat or 1860s secessionist.