Russia joins France, Germany in US snub

Russia on Friday joined France and Germany in stating that Washington’s proposal for a new UN resolution on Iraq needed a lot more work.

Which is a diplomatically-phrased way of saying NO. The Bushies are getting desperate, why just a few months ago they were insulting the UN for not wholeheartedly endorsing their war. Now they’re back, saying the UN must help clean up the mess.

A Canadian politician recently said, Does the US ever apologize for anything? Were Bush to tell the UN, yes we screwed up and need help, then help might come. But instead as usual, the Bushies want it their way and their way only, with UN forces under the complete control of the US.

And it won’t happen that way. Why should any country volunteer when told they will have no control over what happens and the country who made the mess insists on remaining in charge?

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Israel’s assassination policy triggers latest suicide bombings

Electronic Intifada details how suicide bombings are often a response to assassinations of Palestinian leaders by Israel, and that Israel must know this.

Palestinian suicide bombings are vicious and grave abuses, clearly war crimes under international law for intentionally killing civilians. They have also been a strategic disaster for Palestinian national aspirations, souring the Israeli public on peace and damaging the Palestinian cause in the court of world opinion.

Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to avoid concluding that the current Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has either deliberately provoked a number of them or at least undertaken actions that would clearly risk them. Either way, it is complicit in the deaths of scores of Israeli citizens.

For how else can one explain the Israeli decision to assassinate senior military and political leaders from militant Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad during the past three months when it is well documented that such actions frequently result in a suicide bombing, usually within a week?

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Facing the truth about Iraq

From the Boston Globe:

The Bush administration’s hubristic foreign policy has been efficiently exposed as based on nothing more than hallucination. High-tech weaponry can kill unwilling human beings, but it cannot force them to embrace an unwanted idea. As rekindled North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs prove, Washington’s rhetoric of “evil” is as self-defeating as it is self-delusional. No one could have predicted a year ago that the fall from the Bush high horse of American Empire would come so hard and so quickly.

Um, the ANSWER coalition did! As did many others in the antiwar movement. And now, what just a few short months ago were considered radical ideas, are mainstream. The war is lunacy. Bush is delusional. The swift ascendancy of Howard Dean could only happen with a US public who thinks the war was a terrible mistake, and that Bush is an extremist.

So many newspapers are now printing news from unhappy / pissed off soldiers in Iraq that the trade publications are taking note:

Papers cover discontent among soldiers in Iraq

As U.S. military casualties in Iraq continue to mount, newspapers find themselves thrust into a new area of coverage: the growing discontent among soldiers who have to remain in the war-torn country, and the angry protests of some of their families back home.

Newspapers have used everything from a column by an angry spouse to the publication of an anonymous e-mail dispatch purported to be from a soldier in Iraq.

And here’s the names of US soldiers killed in Iraq this year…

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The great lie of rock and roll

From Wayne Kramer of the MC5, who has been there:

As time goes on, I find myself further distanced from, and acutely aware of, The Great Lie of Rock and Roll.

There is no job category for “Rock Star.” This is because it doesn’t exist. It’s not a job. The number of people who reach the level of “Rock Star” is so small that the odds are far worse than reaching the NBA or NFL or professional baseball. I put it at a million to one.

This is one component in the Great Lie. The other is that if you have a hit (fill in the blank record/book/movie/TV show) you will be delivered and your life will be ok. That somehow fame and success and money will fix whatever is wrong with you. It just ain’t so. Not only will it not fix you, but it will make whatever is wrong with you worse.

This has been my experience. I see it over and over again in the lives of young folks who get some recognition in their chosen field of music, TV, sports or movies. They lose their minds. The ego gets inflated and they don’t even know it’s happening. I have great empathy for folks who get into trouble with drugs and booze and sex and who try to get help. The problem is, they are surrounded by a world that tells them You are special! and The rules don’t apply to you! Rules? They’re for the little people.

But the lie is very powerful. It’s sold to the public in very seductive ways and it’s believed wholesale. Every day at LAX, hundreds of new hopefuls arrive here to chase that dream. Problem is, they don’t have a clue of what is involved in the business of being a self-employed artist. But sure, they’re going to “make it,” whatever that might mean to them. It would be funny if the results weren’t so tragic. The trail of dead is as long as the trail of damage.

But it doesn’t matter what I say about it, or what anyone else says based on their own real life experience, because the dream is too strong. The lie is too powerful, the lure of deliverance too great for understanding.

This business of show is something to do only because you can’t not do it. You do this because you love the actual work involved. It can be a living, but it’s a tough living. Don’t do it for security, or a steady paycheck, because those things are not here. Most of all, don’t do it for stardom. That price is too high. There is nothing wrong with wanting–or getting–the respect of your peers, but to exceed that is inviting trouble.

Do this because you love music and you love to write songs or you love playing your instrument or you get a kick out of singing and dancing and making a complete fool out of yourself in front of everybody. Do it because you’re a natural born show-off.

But don’t think it’s any more than what it is. There are moments of transcendence and beauty. There are instants of joy. But those things are gifts to the artist, as they are gifts to the audience. They are fleeting. Beware of the lie.

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