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“Sacco and Vanzetti were committed anarchists who had been active in many workers’ struggles. In 1916, Sacco was arrested for taking part in a demonstration in solidarity with workers on strike in Minnesota. In the same year he took part in a strike in a factory in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was here that he met Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who was one of the principal organisers of that strike. Like most anarchists, the two were also active in their opposition to the First World War.

Severe poverty in the post-war years meant that many workers were dissatisfied with the status quo. The authorities were terrified that workers might follow the example of the Russian Revolution, and were doing everything in their power to portray communism and anarchism as ‘un-American’, and to frighten workers way from ‘red’ propaganda.”

Time focuses on Giuliani’s terror record: Behind Giuliani’s Tough Talk.

“The evidence also shows great, gaping weaknesses. Giuliani’s penchant for secrecy, his tendency to value loyalty over merit and his hyperbolic rhetoric are exactly the kinds of instincts that counterterrorism experts say the U.S. can least afford right now.

Giuliani’s limitations are in fact remarkably similar to those of another man who has led the nation into a war without end.” 

If we work hard, together we can keep this guy from working for us.

“Here I must reveal a trade secret and risk puncturing the mystique of intelligence analysis. Generally speaking, 80 percent of the information one needs to form judgments on key intelligence targets or issues is available in open media. It helps to have been trained—as my contemporaries and I had the good fortune to be trained—by past masters of the discipline of media analysis, which began in a structured way in targeting Japanese and German media in the 1940s. But, truth be told, anyone with a high school education can do it. It is not rocket science.”

When I used to argue with pro-war, pro-bush Americans about how the bush doctrine would play out, one point I always made was that you cannot apply a western template to a Mesopotamian theater. Further, you cannot impose democracy from without, it can only come from within the heart of a people. Moreover, you cannot expect democracy to make sense to a theistic people. Democracy posits that the people are the power, but theists believe the deity is. Our ways can never and really should never make sense to them.

I said that in the end only another Saddam would work, only a dictator can cobble together the type of security needed in an ethnically divided, makeshift state.

Now, five years later, the former war drum beater CNN pens this hed and lede:

U.S. Officials Rethink Hopes For Iraqi Democracy

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.

↔

In other words, essentially they want the Baathist party, which we just spent thousands of lives and a trillion dollars killing, dispersing, and converting into terrorists, back the way they were on or about September of 2001.

“The ongoing hand-wringing in Congress by the newly empowered Democrats over what to do about the war in Iraq speaks volumes about the level of concern (or lack thereof) these “representatives of the people” have toward the men and women who honor us all by serving in the armed forces of the United States of America.  The inability to reach consensus concerning the level of funding required or how to exercise effective oversight of the war, both constitutionally mandated responsibilities, is more a reflection of congressional cowardice and impotence than a byproduct of any heartfelt introspection over troop welfare and national security.”

Scott Ritter: Calling Out Idiot America

Connect the Dots:
Karl Rove’s Politics Über Alles Strategy and the Utah Mine Disaster

“Invoking the tragedy of Vietnam to defend the failed policy in Iraq is as irresponsible as it is ignorant of the realities of both of those wars. Half of the soldiers whose names are on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after the politicians knew our strategy would not work. The lesson is to change the strategy not just to change the rhetoric. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our brave soldiers can’t bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq’s leaders are unable or unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their sectarian and political differences.

It is unfortunate that President Bush would want to invoke a false comparison of Vietnam to Iraq, but not surprising that he would oversimplify the differences and overlook the tragic similarities. As in Vietnam, we engaged militarily in Iraq based on official deception. As in Vietnam, more American soldiers are being sent to fight and die in a civil war we can’t stop and an insurgency we can’t bomb into submission. If the President wants to heed the lessons of Vietnam, he should change course and change course now.”

~ John Kerry ~

This was a ripe one, early in the a.m. no less. Guess nobody told him Haji don’t surf.

 WASHINGTON — National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.

McConnell’s comments—made in an interview with the El Paso (Texas) Times last week and posted as a transcript on the newspaper’s Web site Wednesday—raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Among the disclosures:

McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector assisted with President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. “Now if you play out the suits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies,” McConnell said, arguing that they deserve immunity for their help.

Notes from the Underground.

Rudy “pens” foreign policy screed: Worse Than bush.

White House Policy Illegally Silences Americans Critical of Bush

Our sound bite per minute Emp-TV culture has already long forgotten Advisor Rove, though you are paying his salary for another ten days, and paying for him for another ten decades.

Reports of his death, moreover, may be exaggerated.

Here’s a roundup so that we may keep a vigilant watch on all matters Turd Blossom, and for once learn from our mistakes of the past in order that we have a better than worst-case outcome next November.

♦

Bill Moyers: My Fellow Texan [with video]

The Atlantic: The World According To Rove [new issue, pre-Turdquit]

Washington Post: How Rove Directed Federal Assets For GOP Gains

Juan Cole: The Poisonous Rhetorical Legacy Of Karl Rove

John Judis, The New Republic: Karl Rove’s Dreams Go Down The Toilet

Sidney Blumenthal: Fantasy Island 

Sidney Blumenthal:  We’ll Go No More A-Rove-ing

Michael Gerson: What History Taught Karl Rove

Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker: Rovian Ways 

Marty Kaplan: The Truths Rove Told 

Garrison Keillor: No Wonder They Called Him Turd Blossom 

Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report: Off To Another Criminal Mission

Alexander Cockburn: Exit Karl Rove, Everyone’s Useful Demon

Dan Froomkin: Another Rove Fake-Out?

Harold Meyerson: Rove’s Blind Spot 

Congressman Henry Waxman [Iraq War Voter]:
More Information On Rove’s Asset Deployment Team

Tuscaloosa News: Rove Makes Disgraceful Exit 

Hartford Courant: Rove Leaves Long Trail Of Dirty Tricks

Atlanta Journal Constitution:
One Last Time: Karl Rove On Max Cleland And The 2002 Race

Time: Rove’s Final Retreat

Dean To Dems On Rove: Don’t Get Too Cocky Over It

Observe constantly that all things take place by change,
and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe
loves nothing so much as to change the things which are,
and to make new things like them.

~ Marcus Aurelius ~

 Latest battle in The War On Freedom Of Information.

 Mas aqui.