'One should always support one's country. And its government too, when it deserves it.'
Mark Twain

Photo by Jeff Jacobson

I add these italicized words just before we go to 'press.' It's a warning of sorts. My view of world affairs is this: The more accepted anything is as 'conventional wisdom,' the more it's repeated over and over, the more likely it is to be a lie. If this premise makes you uncomfortable or for any other reason you don't want to hear it, go somewhere else in this magazine. There is lots of fun stuff and my main goal is to entertain you.

Alert the Media/Orwell as Optimist has its own little mission statement: Expose the lies and hypocrisies and crimes of those in power – plus their enablers, those who aid and abet the lies and hypocrisies and crimes of those in power -- no matter their "politics."

If you figure I'm talking about Cheney/Bush and Co., I am, but not limiting myself to them. I'll also be dealing with their supposed opposite numbers, the lefties and liberals – whose Big Lies are identical to the neocons.

But let's start light. Let's start with Al Gore, who cares so much about our planet, its health, its future. Or so he says.

I recently re-viewed An Inconvenient Truth -- an important film, one I hope you have seen and taken to heart. But while watching, I heard Gore claim that he's been "trying to tell this story for a long time."

Well, wait, I was thinking. Gore was vice president for eight years, wasn't he?

This is a metaphor of some sort.

While occupying arguably the second most visible, powerful political position on the planet (plus he was a congressman for 16 years), how well did he "tell the story"? Apart from some lip service, hardly at all. In fact, if you look at historical fact, you'll find that planet earth was in considerably worse shape at the end of the Clinton/Gore regime than when it started (external link -- opens a new window).

According to U.S. News and World Report:

"Gore's vivid language in describing environmental problems is almost never matched by equally passionate advocacy for a solution, particularly when powerful economic interests are at stake. Conservative critics who brand Gore an 'ozone man' have it wrong. On the environment, Gore favors extreme rhetoric but only incremental solutions."

As a U.S. congressman, Gore's environmental voting record confirms the above: The League of Conservation Voters accorded him a mere 60 percent rating for his tenure in the House. Like his father before him, he was beholden to big business agendas.

When then-Senator Al Gore turned up in Rio de Janeiro to criticize the (first) Bush administration's position on the global climate change treaty, Gore demanded tough global standards and strong American leadership in this area. Great, Al. Problem is, though, that under Clinton/Gore the United States refused to commit to a timetable for reduction of its own emissions; even declared that other countries' emissions targets were too ambitious. And this stuff is just the tip of many (melting) icebergs.

Which reminds me. Perhaps the most explosive claim in An Inconvenient Truth is that the rise in sea level due to global warming (and the concomitant melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice flows) will be over 20 feet, flooding areas of population of many tens of millions of people; a total catastrophe. Although Gore gives no time frame here, in subtext he was saying it will be pretty soon – within the lifetimes of kids in the audience -- if action is not taken. Fair enough. But what I noticed, and what bothered me, was that he said nothing about sea level rise in the last, say, 50 years. I use this time frame because I've lived at sea level for that length of time and have noticed no rise in sea level.

Where did all the water go?

Had there been a noticeable rise in sea level during the past half century (say), I'm sure Gore would have made mention of it, or more than that: Coupled with his (precipitously rising) greenhouse gas chart (the last 50 years), it would have been the strongest possible proof of the veracity of his 20 foot-rise prediction. If there has not been a noticeable rise, considering all the ice that's melted (Gore provided ample photographic evidence of this) in the past few decades, why not?

The HUYA! (Head Up
Your Ass) Syndrome.

Again: My skepticism about sea level rise does not mean I'm skeptical about global warming, or its implications. The point I'm trying to make is one of how to listen. Listening to Al Gore (in my first viewing) of An Inconvenient Truth, it jumped out at me that he did not mention sea level rise over the past few decades. Did it jump out at you? If not, you weren't paying sufficient attention.

By the way: It's now completely understood (but unacknowledged by the media enablers) that the 2000 election was outright stolen (external link). (So was the 2004 one but that's another subject.) Gore well knew this at the time (as did anyone paying attention) yet put up no fight; he allowed our democracy to be subverted. So you can add "gutless" as a modifier to hypocrite.

Really, Al? How about lies by omission? I'll get back to you on this, list some of yours, like the stuff you always forget to mention about Bill Clinton (I'm not referring to blowjobs).

And that other liberal Al, dear Al Franken, whose lie exposures of sociopaths like Ann Colter and Bill O'Reilly are FIAB (fish-in-a-barrel) time: I love Al's wit; he makes me laugh. But his hypocrisies do not. Al warrants an essay of his own, which I'm working on.

Michael Moore. Get a load of this: While on book tour flogging Big Corporate America for its environmental sins, Moore did so using the Time/Warner corporate jet: a private jet is hands down the most fossil fuel-inefficient way a human can move across our beloved planet.

No, this isn't Michael Moore minus 130 pounds. It's me, in 1978, but I had an excuse: I was high as a kite and on a roll.

When quizzed about this, Moore claimed to see "the irony." Irony? Michael, I know there is a line somewhere between irony and hypocrisy: I think you've redrawn it. (But keep making those movies, Mikey; I do like them.)

This sort of thing is so relentless that it breaks on through to humor. For me, at least. It has to. Otherwise I might blow my brains out.

I have no intention of blowing my brains out.

Bob and Chris and friend. Right: Toadies all.

Plenty more is coming on Bob, plus that other shitball toady of the powers-that-be, Christopher Hitchens.

And I'm working on an examination of Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer Prize winning 'nonfiction' book, The Looming Tower, the supposed history of al Qaeda and "the road to 9/11." Speaking of Orwell's optimism.

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
Paul Keating

HOW WELL INFORMED ARE YOU?

a pop quiz

Question: Back in September of 2005, in a press conference George W. Bush was asked his view on Roe vs. Wade. His answer was:

1. "I believe in the sanctity of life."
2. "It should be overturned by an amendment to the Constitution."
3. "I don't care how they get out of New Orleans."

Don't get irate on me, please

A NOTE TO THE POTENTIALLY IRATE

I am apolitical, have no politics, and this site, this section, will reflect that, if you pay attention.

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A SMALL LIE

If you keep abreast of world affairs via the mainstream media you've likely heard (scores of times) that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wants to "wipe Israel off the map" and that he denies that the Holocaust happened. The Cheney/Bush regime has used these statements -- made in a letter written to Bush by Ahmadinejad in October of 2005 -- over and over in speeches and news conferences as examples of Ahmadinejad's fanaticism.

Problem is, Ahmadinejad never made either of these statements. You can read a translation (two, actually) of the letter, plus an analysis of it, but I'll sum up: In the most accurate (literal) translation, Ahmadinejad never said anything about wiping anything off the map, let alone the country of Israel. In the New York Times translation he was purported to use this phrase but he was referring to the regime in Israel. (The correct translation reads that the regime should be "erased from the pages of history.") He compares the regime in Israel with other regimes that have fallen -- Saddam, the Shah, and that of the Soviet Union.

World leaders talk about regime change all the time. Cheney/Bush not only talk about it, but affect it pretty much whenever they feel like it, using military force. Talking about regime change means nothing. Cheney/Bush are actively planning violent regime change regarding Ahmadinejad himself (among others) – if you don't see the monumental hypocrisy here… well, there may not be much hope for you and me.

And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reference to the Holocaust was this: he berated the West for using the memory of the Holocaust to rationalize the subjugation of the Palestinian people. Again, you can go to the above link for the translation.

So he was actually verifying that the Holocaust did take place; the opposite of denying it.

I'll not mince here: Cheney/Bush lied to us about what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. They did this, of course, for the same reason they lied about Iraq and WMD/ties to al Qaeda and 9/11, i.e., to justify military action against another country. Supposedly to protect us from blah blah blah. The real reason, of course, was/is to seize oil reserves and empire-build.

...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...

But we need not deal with the "improbability" that the Cheney/Bush regime is lying about their motives and agenda, since they outright stated them (external link), well before even taking power. (The above link is a brief summation of one small piece of evidence.)

Postscipt to the above: I write on September 24th, and have just listened to every broadcast and cable channel newscaster and pundit repeat that Ahmadinejad -- who is currently visiting the U.S. -- has called for the destruction of the country of Israel and has denied that the Holocaust happened. Over and over I listened to this lie. It is a lie that has been repeated so many times that I suspect that you are incapable of seeing it as a lie. Is this the case? If so, do yourself and your ability to process information a favor, and go to the above link and read the translations of Ahmadinejad's words.

A team of independant journalists gets to the truth about the Iraqi insurgency...

THE IRAN LIES GET BIGGER

But hold on! Iran is trying to get The Bomb! We gotta prevent that! If Iran didn't have a nuclear weapons program, we wouldn't be threatening to blow up the shit hole! I mean, right?

U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter

Here's Scott Ritter on the Iranian "nuclear weapons program." (Ritter was a UN weapons inspector in the Middle East for most of the 1990s and probably knows more about nuclear proliferation in that part of the world than anyone else. He's written two excellent books on the subject, Iraqi Confidential and Target Iran. He has no agenda; he merely wishes to tell the truth, which is why you'll rarely see him in the mainstream media (I'll heretofore refer to it as simply "the media"). Here, in 2006, he's interviewed by Democracy's Now's Amy Goodman (external link).

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about similarities or differences you see between the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and what's happening now with Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: The biggest similarity that we need to point out is that in both cases no evidence was put forward to sustain the allegations that are being made. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction programs, reconstituting chemical, biological, nuclear, long-range ballistic missile programs. There was an inspection process in place that had access, full access to the facilities in question, and no data was derived from these inspections that backed up the Bush administration's allegations. And yet, Iraq was told, it's not up to the inspectors to find the weapons. It's up to Iraq to prove they don't exist. Iraq had to prove a negative. And they couldn't. We now know that in 1991, Saddam Hussein had destroyed the totality of his weapons programs. There weren't any left to find, discover. There was no threat.

Guess how many nuclear warheads and bombs the U.S. has built since 1945?

We now have Iran. It's alleged to have a nuclear weapons program. And yet the International Atomic Energy Agency, the inspectors who have had full access to the sites in Iran, have come out and said, "Well, we can't say that there isn't a secret program that we don't know about. What we can say, as a direct result of our investigations, there is no data whatsoever to sustain the Bush administration's claims that there is a nuclear weapons program." And yet, the Bush administration once again is putting the onus on Iran, saying, "It's not up to the inspectors to find the nuclear weapons program. It's up to the Iranians to prove that one doesn't exist." Why do we go down this path? Because you can't prove a negative. There's nothing Iran can do that will satisfy the Bush administration, because the policy at the end of the day is not about nonproliferation, it's not about disarmament. It's about regime change. And all the Bush administration wants to do is to create the conditions that support their ultimate objective of military intervention.

"Israel has 200 – 500 of these and the means to deliver them

If something in the above did not jump out at you, you may not be paying sufficient attention. In fact, if you're a statistically "average" American -- one who gets his world affairs information from the media -- you should be feeling a bit weird right now. A little disoriented.

"…there is no data whatsoever to sustain the Bush administration's claims that (Iran has) a nuclear weapons program."

Like the spreading democracy Big Lie, we have been told so many times that Iran has a nuclear weapons program that it's become… a given.

One more time: "…there is no data whatsoever to sustain the Bush administration's claims that (Iran has) a nuclear weapons program."

Notice the whatsoever.

Check up further on Scott Ritter, see who he is, his background and so forth. He uses a word like whatsoever, it means something (external link).

What Cheney/Bush/the Media fails to mention is that uranium enrichment for peaceful atomic energy production is absolutely legal. Agreeing with the CIA (see above link), the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- the world's watchdog regarding nuclear weapons -- says it has found no evidence that Iran's program is other than peaceful.

Unlike Israel, Iran signed the nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty. (A simple-minded question: Why didn't the U.S. complain when Israel refused to sign the NPT?)

Guess how many U.S. nuclear warheads have been lost in accidents and never recovered.

But what does all this Iran/The Bomb stuff mean? This: They are doing it again.

Lying. This lie is a bit bigger than the mistranslation one, isn't it? Not big enough to warrant a capital L, like the spreading democracy Lie, but close. It's in the ball park.

Here's a thought: Confiscate Israel's 200 – 500 nuclear weapons, then get all irate about Iran's desire (real or not) for one of the motherfuckers.

Anyone have a problem with this concept?

I bring up these Iran-lies because Iran appears in another context in this issue of The Bandito Browser: Eric Blehm's snowboarding adventure there, which you'll find in The Sporting Life section. I'm gonna try to connect The Sporting Life with the fact that Orwell was an optimist, a sort of symmetry which has never been done before anywhere on the planet.

But first a little perspective. Let's take a quick look at a fellow who is not worried about any of this shit, God bless him. A happier guy than I am right now. Watch the video...

...Back? Isn't it great that there are human beings who do that, as opposed to lying and then killing tens of thousands of other human beings? Which is as good a segue as any to my commentary on Eric Blehm's snowboarding piece…

ANOTHER SMALL lie OR A BIG ONE?

Check out the FBI's Wanted page on Osama bin Laden (external link).

Back? Did you notice that of the crimes bin Laden is wanted for, the 9/11 attacks are not mentioned? I noticed, so I called the FBI's Washington office and asked why this is so. The media relations guy there told me that the FBI does not list on its wanted posters crimes for which an individual has not been criminally indicted. When I then asked why bin Laden has not been indicted for 9/11, he suggested I talk to the Department of Justice (DOJ). During our short conversation the FBI guy repeated three times that there's "plenty of evidence" against bin Laden. I hadn't asked him anything about evidence.

So I called the DOJ. Their media guy, after I asked him why there was no bin Laden indictment for 9/11, said he'd call me back on it. (The way it went: After I asked the question there was a three or four second silence after which he asked me for my name. Then my phone number. Another silence. I asked if he was going to call me back. Another silence. Then he said "Yes." Then he hung up.)

Godwin, another bad guy, according to the FBI.(Hey, add a beard and doesn't he look like... never mind.)

While waiting for the call from the DOJ I wondered how it could be that there is no criminal indictment against an individual who murdered some 3,000 American citizens. While wondering about that I perused the Ten Most Wanted posters on the FBI website. Here's a passage from one (external link):

GODWIN WAS ARRESTED FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING IN PUERTA VALLARTA, MEXICO. AFTER BEING CONVICTED, HE WAS SENT TO A PRISON IN GUADALAJARA. IN APRIL OF 1991, GODWIN ALLEGEDLY MURDERED A FELLOW INMATE AND THEN ESCAPED FIVE MONTHS LATER.

It's starting to look like the FBI guy told me an untruth when he said there has to be an indictment for a crime to be mentioned on a wanted poster, since it's unlikely that Godwin was indicted (in the U.S.) for a crime committed in Mexico. Maybe it was more than an untruth. Maybe it was an untruth told purposefully, i.e., maybe I was lied to, and maybe about more than the indictment rule: The repetitions of "there's plenty of evidence against bin Laden" was on my mind here.

Me, getting some perspective

I get suspicious whenever I hear something repeated over and over. ("You've ruined me for other men!" comes to mind, on a personal level.)

Did I mention I don't like being lied to, especially by someone who is working for me?

I called the FBI's New York office, got a machine, and left a message asking about indictments against bin Laden and why there were none for 9/11. I left my name and phone number.

I really want to know why there is no indictment against bin Laden for 9/11.

Neither the FBI nor the DOJ called me back.

I'm going down to Washington and talk to some people face to face, find out why Osama bin Laden has not been indicted for 9/11, maybe find out whether he's been indicted for anything (I Googled and he apparently has been (external link)), and if so, what sort of evidence exists. If I'm maybe going to get lied to, I prefer have it done that way, face to face.

I'll get back to you on how this goes.

LIES BY OMISSION

Although the real whoppers we're relentlessly subjected to by Cheney/Bush/the media are usually outright and in our faces, like "We had no advance warning about the terrorist attacks of 9/11" (google 'advance warning + 9/11' and take your pick), the most prevalent are lies by omission.

Keith Olbermann.

It's difficult not to like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann; his "Countdown" (8 PM Eastern) appears to be exactly what we need (assuming an informed citizenry is a good thing in a democracy) -- an "adversarial" media viewpoint.

Close but no cigar.

As with liberals like Al Franken (and funnier and more caustic types like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert), close but no cigar is the danger Olbermann poses.

Olbermann is so literate and smart and passionate and seems to hit so many adversarial nails so squarely that one might assume that there is no need to dig deeper.

We're safe with Keith Olbermann keeping an eye on the bastards, right?

Case in point are Keith's "Special Commentaries," wherein he goes off on superbly wrought diatribes – by God he's good -- invariably targeting Bush and Co.'s various lies, hypocrisies, and almost exposing their outright crimes.

Here's Keith's take on Homeland Security shithead Michael Chertoff's recent statement that he has a "gut feeling" that a terrorist attack on "The Homeland" is imminent. (Watch the video....)

Good stuff: how much more "adversarial" a viewpoint can we expect or hope for?

Again: We're safe with Keith Olbermann keeping an eye on the bastards, right?

Well, Keith left out the most sinister and dangerous – and therefore most important -- interpretation of Chertoff's blurt.

I'll cut and paste here, get to the point of Paul Roberts's take on the same subject. Or you can read it in its entirety (external link) on the Information Clearing House website ("News You Won't Find on CNN")

If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations [perpetrate "terrorist" acts itself] that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" [martial law]. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance.

A series of staged or permitted attacks would be spun by the captive media as a vindication of the neoconsevatives' Islamophobic policy, the intention of which is to destroy all Middle Eastern governments that are not American puppet states (and) would give the US control over oil…

…If another 9/11-type "security failure" were not in the works, why would Homeland Security czar Chertoff go to the trouble of convincing the Chicago Tribune that Americans have become complacent about terrorist threats and that he has "a gut feeling" that America will soon be hit hard?

Throughout its existence the US government has staged incidents that the government then used in behalf of purposes that it could not otherwise have pursued. False flag operations (external link) are a common tool of governments.

Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working very hard to lie us into a third (Iran) shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?

The American constitutional system is near to being overthrown. Are coming "terrorist" events of which Chertoff warns… the means for overthrowing our constitutional democracy?

What happened?

Whaddya think? Another nutcase conspiracy theorist? If so, the nutcases are coming from some unexpected quarters, since…

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Roberts's prediction that Bush and Co. will soon stage a terrorist incident is not my real point, which is this: Keith Olbermann listed five possible 'agendas' behind Chertoff's blurt.

Why didn't Olbermann include the false flag op possibility in his Special Commentary? (Chertoff knows it's coming and is either covering his ass or 'couldn't help himself' and just blurted it out.)

Think a guy as smart as Olbermann doesn't know?

Think maybe he meant to mention it, but then just forgot?

Right. None of the above. There are certain areas that the media will just not go near. Olbermann occasionally tap dances near the line separating acceptable and unacceptable debate, but never crosses it.

Why hasn't Keith mentioned the possibility that the invasion of Iraq was about seizing oil reserves and empire building?

I mean, Keith, my man, couldn't you just maybe mention that possibility? I mean since Cheney/Bush and Co. outright said that that was their goal back in 2000, via the manifesto called The Project for a New American Century, in which they yearned for a "new Pearl Harbor" to get the empire building rolling. (Google "PNAC" and take your pick.)

And why hasn't Keith told us about Bush's Executive Order of July 17th, (external link).

Or this, a real fucking beaut to go with the Patriot Act.

Referring to the above real beaut:

With all their cleverness they [The State] had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking.
George Orwell, 1984

So here we have still another example of Georgie's optimism…

That perennial optimist, Georgie O.

Hold On.

ENOUGH!

It's just too… relentless…

If you've hung in this far with me you'll recall that the last time I got discouraged and depressed I showed you some tits, for perspective.

(If you missed the tits, click here.)

I don't really think that tits are going to save the world, or even that they offer much in the way of perspective. Showing you some tits is just… my way.

But I want to somehow end on an up note, a real one, no sarcasm, no wry (or offensive) wit involved.

You've experienced this song a hundred times, but never like this. Listen to the words… again.

(Or click the photo at right -- for some Bliss, Chris, that is.)

As long as humans can make and interpret music like this, I figure there is hope.

Got thoughts on all this? Air them out in the forum.

Although there are several good "alternative media" websites out there, for now I'll recommend this one, which truthfully claims, "For news you won't find on CNN": http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

--- © Allan Weisbecker, September 2007

• Keith Olbermann's Blurt
• Why Bob Woodward Is Going To Rot In Writer Hell

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Lost Chapter Keith Olbermann's Blurt