Disinformation in Austria

Happened to be in Vienna recently, and picked up a local paper. Came across the figure that 80,000 civiliams have died in Iraq. Where did that number came from?

The LANCET report gave us 100,000 dead, and that's probably an underestimate--and that was a while ago now.... More recently, I've readthat using the same methods as the Lancet authors the number would now go from 300,000 to 500,000.

(I note in passing that a local Slovak paper also featured an incorrect figure in an article which occurred on the anniversary of the invasion....)

And let's be clear: these people are dying because of the US air war.

Please insert here your favorite sarcastic comment about how Bush is a so-called pro-life president because he is discouraging research on embryos.....

At the same time, we've got Condoleeza Rice telling us that a cease-fire in Lebanon is not a good idea. They don't want to be back here negotiating again in six months, she says.
Even if that possible world turned out to be actual, how many lives would be saved in the meantime, that's what I want to knowl

Well, plainly, it doesn't have to be like that; getting a cease-fire doesn't mean that you've given up on a permanet solution--for example, a solution that involved actually talking about the fact of the Israeli OCCUPATION....

But, then the death of innocents never did mean much to the sort of people who are in the White House..... oh, and let's not forget what C. Rice said about nuclear explosions when she was trying to justify the invasion of Iraq: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
Good Job Doctor Rice! Nothing like scaring a population into submission.

Is she really competent to be bring peace to the Middle East--as the BBC, for example, might seem to want us to believe? That's the sort of world we live in.

I am on vacation, and I do have work to do! But, I can't help but comment on something very ugly I've seen in recent days--no, not the hordes of drunk British tourists... oh, yes, they are not all drunk... No, it's not the number of times of heard someone comment on the physical attractiveness of women here.....not that, but something related.

On two separate occassions I've seen muscular, not particularly well-mannered men in black hassling beggars. Bratislava's beggars don't look healthy. yet the men in black looked "pumped up" and more than a little aggressive......Chasing them out of the center where tourists might see them.

Shame

But not surprising. If you're poor, you must either disappear or die.....

It reminds me of another fascistic trend..... the tendency for the security guards at one local shopping palace to monitor foto-snaps. I'm pretty sick of the idea that everyone has a camera and anyone who wants can take your picture, but all that is irrelevant. We're talking about a shopping mall once owned by a French Canadian company (possibly still owned for all I know)
where the security guards won't let you take pictures. it might be bad for the image of the shopping palace, or so they say.

Now more than ever, capitalism is not a system that encourages happiness or freedom or democracy.

SHAME all around: at the BBC and in Slovakia

I am on vacation; so, this will be short.

But yesterday I heard such stuff and nonsense on the BBc that I have to say something.
A voice was interviewing a former CIA agent. I don't expect seriously probing questions, but the timidity of the questioner deserves mention.

At the one point a little bit of questioning occurred, as in (my paraphrase from memory) some people might think that your activities are not moral....
The CIA Man replied by invoking words like "moral" and "principle"--and he did this repeatedly during the interview. He said it was his moral principle to defend the US. end of story.

Now, the BBC man missed a chance to make several elementary points which I will now make:
Just because you say it's a moral principle, that doesn't make it morality. Morality is not simply whatever you say it is--even if you are being interviewed by the BBC.

Secondly, does that principle justify unethical actions? Do the ends justify the means?

A more telling question is who really benefits from this so-called protection. CIA activities have rightly created great antipathy toward the US.

The CIA man (ex-CIA man) did, however, make one remark worth repeating: The US government is lying when it tells people it wants to spread democracy. US foreign policy serves US self-interest. (And, of course, not the self-interest of most Americans...)

SHAME IN SLOVAKIA

I want to recommend an article by Edward Chmelar ("a" should be long) about the recent election. It is shameful for someone who calls himself a "leftist" to be in a coalition with nationalists who feel no shame over cooperating with Nazis. Secondly, it's bad insofar it creates God knows what kind of ideas among people about what leftism is.... (my best answer is Ted Honderich's book "Conservatism")

As Chmelar points out, it's clear that Fico is not true leftist because he has no interest in such things as social support--no real interest that is...... uvidime....
Here's the link:
http://www.noveslovo.sk/clanok.asp?id=14262&cislo=27/2006