Advantage: Tiny Revolution

I'm very happy to see this on Keith Olbermann's show:

—Jonathan Schwarz

No One Could Have Predicted That, While Lamenting How No One Could Have Predicted What Happened to Iraq, John Burns Would Still Not Know What Happened to Iraq

Via Glenn Greenwald, here's a "reflection" from John Burns of the New York Times (their Baghdad bureau chief from 2003-7) about how everything that's happened to Iraq was a terrible surprise:

...there were few, if any, who foresaw the extent of the violence that would follow or the political convulsion it would cause in Iraq, America and elsewhere.

We could not know then, though if we had been wiser we might have guessed, the scale of the toll the invasion would unleash: the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who would die; the nearly 4,500 American soldiers who would be killed; the nearly 35,000 soldiers who would return home wounded; the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who would flee abroad as refugees...

I suppose that if you're feeling generous, you could give John Burns "the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who would die." According to Iraq Body Count, the number of dead Iraqi civilians is 97,000-106,000. Of course, the number is surely higher, given IBC's methodology. And in any case it's sketchy to call 100,000 "tens of thousands." But as I say, let's be generous.

But "hundreds of thousands" of Iraqis who fled abroad? HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS? According to the UN, there are currently 1.8 million Iraqi refugees outside the country. (There are also 1.5 million people displaced from their homes but still in Iraq.)

And John Burns wouldn't have to go to the effort of visiting the UN website to find this out. He could have just read the New York Times in 2007, when he was the Baghdad bureau chief:

...an estimated 2 million...have fled Iraq...

We should be grateful, though. By 2100, the New York Times will surely be talking about the "dozens" of Iraqis who died when the U.S. invaded.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Help, I'm Drowning

I realize this isn't breaking news, but...listening to Glenn Beck is the mental equivalent of falling into a vat of Karo syrup. You thrash around, can't get out, and feel like you're going to die in the most insipid way possible.

Here's the beginning of his speech at his Lincoln Memorial rally on Sunday:

BECK: We have a choice today .... We can either look at our scars, look at the scars of the nation...we concentrate on the bad instead of learning from the bad and repairing the bad, and then looking to the good...

We have a choice today, to either let those scars crush us, or redeem us. We are gathered here today, in a hallowed spot. Here, Abraham Lincoln, a giant of an American, casting a shadow on all of us. We look, to a giant for answers. Behind you, in front of me, the Washington—alone, tall, straight—if you look at the Washington Monument, you might notice its scars. But nobody talks about that...but a quarter of the way up it changes color. Did you know that it did? Look at it. Look at its scars.

How did the scar get there? They stopped building it in the Civil War. And when the war was over, they began again. No one sees the scars of the Washington memorial, the Washington Monument. We see what it stands for. No one also talks about what's on top, facing east. Just two words, "Laus Deo," "Praise be to God."

So this means...what, exactly? I think it's that we shouldn't dwell on America's flaws, just like, uh, we don't pay any attention to the way the color of the Washington Monument changes? But instead we pay attention to what it stands for? Which is an inscription telling us to praise god? Except...no one talks about the inscription either? Help me out here.

Of course, this makes no sense at all. If you've ever been on an elementary school field trip to the Washington Monument, you know that EVERY FOURTH GRADER talks about the way it changes color. Why wouldn't they? It's incredibly obvious. However, no one pays attention to what it "stands for," because no one has any idea. (Beck's right that no one talks about the inscription at the top, though.)

Beyond engulfing us in this unpleasantly sticky metaphor, Beck is also wrong about the Washington Monument's history—which I learned about on one of those elementary school field trips. The construction didn't stop because of the Civil War. As the National Park Service's website will tell you, it had already stopped years earlier:

Why does the color change on the outside of the monument?

When the monument was under construction in 1854, the Washington National Monument Society ran out of money and the project ground to a halt. Twenty-five years later, the U.S. Government took over and completed the upper two-thirds of the structure by 1884 using marble from a different quarry.

There's actually a little more to the story, which you can find in a 1999 Washington Post article. One interesting part is that after the original, private organization running things ran out of money in 1854, it was taken over by the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party. They were particularly outraged by the fact the Vatican, like many other organizations, had donated a stone. So they destroyed it. Then they screwed around for two more years but finally gave up too.

So...I guess you could argue that Beck is within shouting distance of reality. I mean, it probably was harder to raise money as the war approached. And construction probably would have stopped during the Civil War...if it had been going on when the Civil War started. Which it, uh, wasn't.

Finally, the actual history is bad news for Beck's ideology: the private effort to build the monument puttered out, and then was derailed for a long time by cranks with a worldview strikingly similar to Beck & co. (Don't you hate immigrants with weird foreign religions? Did you know Abraham Lincoln is a secret apostate Catholic?!?) It was only the government's money and organization that finally made it happen.

Help!

—Jonathan Schwarz

The Non-Crazy Left

In 2000 I founded what I consider to be the most important political organization in the United States: the Non-Crazy Left. The NCL currently has five members, of which only three are aware that they belong.

One of the non-aware members is Doug Henwood. Henwood doesn't just decry Wall Street, he actually understands how Wall Street functions, and why some of the favorite left-wing remedies for its evils won't work.

Here's Henwood in a three-part video from the Real News, which you should support by giving them money. Someday soon the Real News will be receiving a month's worth of Five Dollar Fridays.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Five Dollar Friday, Always Late

Explanation of Five Dollar Friday here. Follow who else is giving on twitter.

Clearly I need to get my act together and actually give out $5 Friday money on Fridays. Since this is a day late for the third week in a row, the amount is again $10. This week it goes to treasured weirdo Dennis Perrin to support the pursuit of his Nameless Mission.

What is Dennis's Nameless Mission? Here, let the Church of the Subgenius explain:

You want to know, "JUST EXACTLY WHAT IS THIS...?" That question is asked a thousand times a day, every day, somewhere. And it's a good thing, because that's the most pertinent question to ask in this modern age.

There is no description. Words do not suffice; one must "SEE." We let you see a little at a time until you are led gradually to TOTAL CLARITY. It is the Nameless Mission. The true mission is always nameless. To name it is to doom it....and alert the enemy.

You can find a little more detail about it here and here and even (NSFW) here:

—Jonathan Schwarz

Thank You for Your Interest in USA Today

Can you remember what happened during the six months before the U.S. invaded Iraq? Yes? I'm sorry to hear that—I'm afraid there's no way we can hire you for a reporting job at USA Today.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Jim Henley, Right Again

I still have a few more posts to write about Jeffrey Goldberg's Iran article. But the final one was always going to make the point that Goldberg, without being conscious of it, presents Israel's leaders as completely insane. However, Jim Henley has already written this and hence saved me the work:

...in Goldberg’s article, all on its own, Israel’s policy-makers condemn themselves out of their own mouth. If all you had was “The Point of No Return” and a brain, you would have everything you need to judge Israel’s case for bombing Iran as unjustified and immoral...

It adds up to a devastating case for mens rea regarding a prospective war crime. You don’t need to “fisk” Goldberg’s article with links to other sources making the above points. They are all in Goldberg’s article.

Read it all.

—Jonathan Schwarz