This week Lionel and I had the pleasure of having our friend Cyrus Nowrasteh as our guest on Poliwood. Cyrus is the co-writer (with his wife Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh) and director of the recently-released controversial (isn’t that the word I’m supposed to use?) film The Stoning of Soraya M. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, that’s the movie based on the non-fiction account by Freidoune Sahebjam of a stoning for adultery in rural Iran in the eighties - only the adultery had not taken place. It’s an indictment of sharia law that is remarkably timely, fortunately for the filmmaker if not so much (thus far) for the Iranian protesters. It’s a very powerful movie and obviously worth supporting under the circumstances as well. Go and see it.
Our interview with Cyrus, who also wrote The Path to 9-11, is here. All other Poliwoods here. As always, we welcome your feedback.
I just got off Skype video with Chris Burgard - documentarian of Border and currently PJTV’s Man in Honduras. (Video here.) Chris just arrived in Tegucigalpa last night after a stormy ride from San Pedro Sula. He had to fly into Honduras’ second city because the airport in the capital was closed after the recent attempt by former president (or president - depending on your leanings) Mel Zelaya to land the other day. Zelaya says he is the victim of a coup and has considerable sympathy in our media
But, apparently, things are not what they seem from that media in the Central American country where, Chris tells me, everything is upside down. But let’s begin with something that is more like the same old, same old: According to Chris, the campesino-on- the-ground refers to CNN Español as the Chavez News Network. I am not surprised, having read this post from La Gringa’s Blogcito: “As crazy as this may sound, CNN is using feeds from Hugo Chávez’s Telesur network. Telesur have stooped to using a Zelaya impostor in a supposed phone-in interview with the Telesur reporter.”
Meanwhile, Burgard is hearing one of CNN’s major commentators from Honduras is the daughter of two leading Nicaraugan Sandinistas. Chris is in the process of checking this out, but CNN’s record in the Middle East (remember Eason Jordan) indeed raises suspicions. Chris further told me that Honduras’ El Heraldo is headlining Chavez’s heavy military involvement in their country. An online interview in El Heraldo with lawyer and security expert Mario Barrios details the Venezuelan strongman’s battle plan, which Chavez called “enjambre de abejas” or bee swarm.
That same campesino-in-the-street, Chris informs PJTV, is resolutely opposed to “communismo” à la Nicaragua and Venezuela and will resist violently if it is imposed from the outside. The Obama administration, however, is evidently taking a different tack. Just as it has in Iran, our government is pushing negotiation with the leftist Zelaya and his “continuismo.”
I was wondering how long it would take, but it seems rumblings are beginning to surface: The MSM is no longer treating Obama as God. John the Baptist maybe, but not the Supreme Being.
Reason: Reporters have 401Ks too. They also work in a shrinking business that has been as hard hit as any by the dismal economy. Unemployment in media-related industries must easily surpass the already distressing 9.5%
So you have the New York Times coming forth with articles like today’s Doubts About Obama’s Economic Recovery Plan Rise Along With Unemployment. Even that most liberal of professional sneerers John Stewart has turned his sneer on the President with That’s Great Now Fix the Economy. (ht: Glenn)
Not that Obama seemed to have had a real plan in the first place - not one any of us could discern anyway. Everything felt and feels ad hoc, policies swerving almost daily just as they did under Roosevelt in the Thirties - and we all know how that went. Today there’s going to be a second stimulus plan, tomorrow there isn’t. Today the stimulus money is supposed to be in the economy, tomorrow it’s not. Congress is supposed to read its programs, only it doesn’t. The cap-and-trade and medical reform bills are supposed to save us, but they may bankrupt us. And on and on.
So naturally the press folks are getting nervous, not that any of these people seem the slightest embarrassed they are the ones who devoted every corpuscle in their bodies to getting this man elected in the first place, vetting him not one whit. [Are you gloating?-ed. I wish I could, but I have a 401K too.]
Okay, smart guy, I hear you saying (or maybe you’re not), what’s your plan? Well, I don’t have one. In fact, I don’t even have close to a theory about how to revive the economy. But I do remember this: Back in the early days of the stimulus plan, every time the first giant appropriation seemed about to pass, the stock market would tank. Every time it looked to be hanging fire, the market would shoot up. It’s clear where the traders stood. As for me, if pressed, I would stand with Hippocrates. “First do no harm.”
Well, maybe not. I like the alliteration, but the words of Barack Obama and Joe Biden are (for once) not so far apart as they seem, regarding how the US would view an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Obama said: “We can’t dictate to other countries what their security interests are.” Biden said: The US “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.” Sounds pretty similar to me, despite all the caveats added, particularly by Obama, of course. Even the State Dept’s Ian Kelly said: “We’re not going to dictate its [Israel's] actions…” (You can bet the US would have sharp words for Israel on this matter if they wanted. They certainly don’t hesitate on the settlements.)
Coordinated? I wouldn’t bet against it. A message is being sent to the mullahs. I would add into the mix the recent Timesonline release that the Israelis are working with the Saudis regarding fly-over rights for the IAF?
Will the mullahs listen to this muffled saber-rattling? Well, as we know, they are not normal, so it is hard to say. One thing I will predict: if the Israelis decide they have to act, those fly-over rights won’t be the issue.
PJTV is sending filmmaker Chris Burgard (”Border“) to Honduras just as the Obama administration seems to be more fully backing Manuel Zelaya. Hillary Clinton meets the ousted Honduran president tomorrow in Washington DC.
Conflicting though reports may be, it’s certainly odd - or, on second thought, may be not that odd - that the current administration seems much more eager to jump on the Zelaya bandwagon (con sus amigos Chavez y Ortega) than they were to back the Iranian demonstrators - all this even though, as the WSJ points out: Mr. Zelaya’s violations of the rule of law in recent months were numerous. But the tipping point came 10 days ago, when he led a violent mob that stormed a military base to seize and distribute Venezuelan-printed ballots for an illegal referendum.
Nevertheless, our administration of “democracy” - or at least their definition of it. Burgard heads out tomorrow as well to cover the story for PJTV. As always, we’ll try to look in corners the mainstream media seems to ignore or avoid.
As per the suggestion below, here is the first graph of the Wikipedia entry on the Honduran coup and its reasons. I cannot speak for its accuracy: The 2009 Honduran coup d’état or 2009 Honduran political crisis began on June 28, 2009, after President Manuel Zelaya decreed a referendum be held on drafting a new constitution the previous March. Zelaya’s referendum was ruled illegal by Honduras’ Supreme Court, attorney general, top electoral body, and human-rights ombudsman.[1] Zelaya nonetheless directed the Army Chief to distribute ballots in accordance with its role of assisting the Government of Honduras in conducting elections. After Army chief Romeo Vásquez Velásquez refused to distribute the ballots, Zelaya dismissed him from office; the dismissal was ruled illegal by courts and the Parliament. A detention order, signed June 26 by a Supreme Court judge, ordered the armed forces to detain the president, identified by his full name of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at his home in the Tres Caminos area of the capital. It cited him for treason and abuse of authority, among other charges.[2] On June 28, 2009, shortly before polls were due to open, Honduran military forces seized Zelaya, and forced him into exile.[3]
To be continued, as they say.
UPDATE: Fauxtography in Honduras. (Yes, it’s Reuters again.)
I don’t blog about tennis, although it is the only sport I play and have since about the age of seven. I still get out there about three times a week. So I woke up this early this morning for the Wimbledon finals, about six AM Pacific.
WHAT A MATCH! It’s now 12-12 in the fifth set. Neither of these guys deserves to lose. They should just call it a draw and give both the trophy. The level of tennis is extraordinary. It’s the longest finals in Wimbledon history in games played. Wow!
UPDATE: Well, someone has to lose - and it was Roddick. I’d love to see Andy win it some day. He played magnificently. I’ve been a special fan of his since earlier this year he chose not to defend his title in Dubai when the racists who run that tournament refused to grant a visa to Israeli player Shahar Pe’er. Stand up guy.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my country so divided and depressed on the Fourth of July in my lifetime and - no matter what Bob Dylan dreamed up - I’m not young, forever or otherwise. That includes the Vietnam War period when both sides at least had some conviction and excitement for the future, even if wrong. Not so now. The current situation is grim.
Obama is already over. In six short months the now-spattered bumper stickers with “Hope and Change” seem like pathetic remnants from the days of “23 Skidoo,” the echoes of “Yes, we can” more nauseating than ever in their cliché-ridden evasiveness. Although they may pretend otherwise, even Obama’s choir in the mainstream media seems to know he’s finished, their defenses of his wildly over-priced medical and cap-and-trade schemes perfunctory at best. Everyone knows we can’t afford them. His stimulus plan - if you could call it his, maybe it’s Geithner’s, maybe it’s someone else’s, maybe it’s not a plan at all - has produced absolutely nothing. In fact, I have met not one person of any ideology who evinces genuine confidence in it.
On the foreign policy front, it’s more embarrassing. He switches positions every day, such as they are, while acting like a petit-bourgeois snob with our allies and then, when people with genuine passion for democracy emerge on the scene (the courageous Iranian protestors), behaves like a cringeworthy, equivocating creep. Enough of Obama.
Only the Republicans are barely any better. We have yet to hear any original ideas from them and there isn’t a real leader on the horizon, mostly retreads like Gingrich and Romney and disappointments, to put it mildly, like Mark Sanford. I write this only hours after Sarah Palin’s announcement of her resignation as Alaska governor and don’t know yet what to make of that. I certainly agree with those who say the attacks on her were unconscionable, but I challenge her most staunch defenders to say that this is really the kind of person to lead us out of our Twenty-First Century malaise.
CNN wins the prize this morning with their lead headline: “Michael Jackson shared bond with ‘very dear friend Diana Ross’”.
Talk about ‘Dog bites man!” - that’s more like ‘Grass is green!’ or ‘Rain in Seattle!’ Well, scratch the latter because I hear they’re having a dry summer up there.
How long will this continue? This millennium? Next? Who knows? And to make matters worse, the MSM has no sense of humor about it. Why not brighten things up with heds like ‘Threesome! Jackson, Sanford and Edwards in secret tryst’ or ‘Jacko’s corpse stalks Elvis imitators on Hollywood Boulevard”? Oh, well, look on the bright side. Those of us who are news junkies and secretly suspect we have been wasting our time now have incentive to go elsewhere. Brush up your Shakespeare anyone? Or what about those dusty Mandarin flash cards?
MEANWHILE: Some non-Jacko news.
Of course, that is NOT Time Magazine’s headline for this week. It’s “The Battle Over Michael Jackson’s Legacy.” Yawn. Meanwhile, the unemployment level is hitting 9.5%, highest since 1983.
For July 6, Time’s cover blares: What Barack Obama Can Learn from FDR. Earth to Time: Roosevelt did not get us out of the Depression. Indeed, he may have made things worse. The market crash of ‘37 was worse than ‘29. His economic policies varied almost daily, according to some recent reports. Yes, he may have improved some things for the future. But it’s hard to know what would or wouldn’t have been.
In any case, this coming July 4 may be prove to be a watershed. Cap-and-trade and health care reform may have already stalled with an unemployed skeptical public. Now what?
I don’t know much about Honduras, but I do know something about Iran. And Obama’s bizarre behavior, taking days to come to the conclusion any decent person knew immediately, indeed other world leaders like Merkel and Sarkozy had demonstrated as much - that there were very clear good and evil sides in the Iranian election, even though the good wasn’t perfect. (Is it ever?) So when I heard that our President had joined Chavez and Castro in condemnation of the supposed coup in Honduras, this time with immediacy, I felt a tightening in the gut. Chavez particularly was on the side of Ahmadinejad in the recent Iranian brutality.
This was a side I didn’t want to be on, didn’t want our country on. I heard many suspicious things about Zelaya, the booted Honduran president, including allegations of drug ties. Also, he was running for succor to the UN, the very organization just weeks ago I had personally seen embrace Ahmadinejad in Geneva. So when I read this message from a Honduran on The Corner, I wasn’t surprised.
Obama has strange friends. He equivocates and equalizes in disturbing ways. Is he “objectively pro-fascist” as George Orwell memorably wrote in his famous essay “Pacifism and the War“?
I give you Eric Arthur Blair. Make of it what you will. For me, the word “pacifism” could be replaced by some coinage (it’s too late here in LA for me to come up with one, if I could anyway) that encapsulates Obamaism in its supposedly even-handed international policy: “Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other.”
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh points out that Orwell changed his mind on this matter - something most of us do at one time or another. The question is when were we right?
