Antiwar.com Blog

I just finished reading Charlton Heston’s autobiography — one of two he’s written, I think — In the Arena. Unlike some of my friends, I don’t mind his guns rights work nor his anti-Ice T Cop Killer agitation. I wanted to know more about two of my favorite dystopian movies, Planet of the Apes & Soylent Green. Why did a right-wing hawk make an antiwar film (based on a French sci-fi novel) during the Vietnam War? I also liked Touch of Evil. Turns out Heston was in a bunch of other movies that I haven’t seen, & some plays. He marched for civil rights but hates affirmative action racial preferences.

In my unscientific sample, Heston’s book is better than sleeping pills when recited to very pregnant person.

Heston was stationed in Alaska during WWII & just when he was about to go help invade Japan, the nukes fell, & Heston got to go home. So it’s sorta understandable that he would be in favor the mass destruction. It saved a million Japanese lives, blah blah blah. Fine. But then he comes back to it chapters later & it’s rah-rah-rah for Enola Gay. Here’s the real deal on Hiroshima, a p.o.v. that Heston doesn’t even mention: http://antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=9443. Regardless, Heston’s ends-justify-the-means enthusiastic support for the destruction of cities full of civilians is terroristic.

So that was enough reading of every word for me. I skipped forward to the parts I was interested in. And he never did explain the whole Apes thing.

~ Sam

I see David Weigel has a response to my column, posted on Andrew Sullivan’s blog: he, Michael Totten, and the blogger formerly known as Wonkette are filling in for Candy Andy while he takes yet another vacation.

I don’t really have that much of a bone to pick with David: as I said in my original post, he’s one of the Good Guys, a critic of the War Party, a reasonable person, and, by the way, an interesting writer. Which is why I don’t get his rather odd objection to a button handed to John J. Mearsheimer at the CAIR forum [.pdf], which read: “”Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby.”

Weigel finds this button “weird” — but why so? Surely Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt deserve all the adulation they can get, especially in view of their continuing vilification at the hands of the Lobby. And, speaking of which, why not fight the Lobby? This isn’t a debate over abstractions: it’s a political battle, and there is nothing “weird” about wanting to recapture American foreign policy from a well-funded, well-organized, and single-minded foreign lobby.

What’s weird, however, is that I was originally responding to Weigel’s post at Reason‘s “Hit and Run” blog: he’s cross-posting at Sullivan’s blog. The only post that doesn’t appear on both blogs is his response to me.

Could it be that there is a “No Raimondo” rule at Reason? Hilarious, if true… Poor Nick Gillespie: is he really that humorless? Probably.

The Future of Freedom Foundation today posted online the full text of my Freedom Daily article on “Killing in the Name of Democracy.”

The parallels between the rhetoric of Presidents McKinley, Wilson, and others  and Bush’s recent doggerel is stunning.  America has been commiting righteous slaughter in the name of democracy for far longer than most people realize.

Here’s the lead & finish of the piece (which is largely an excerpt from Attention Deficit Democracy):

President George W. Bush perpetually invokes the goal of spreading democracy to sanctify his foreign policy. Unfortunately, he is only the latest in a string of presidents who cloaked aggression in idealistic rhetoric. Killing in the name of democracy has a long and sordid history. …

The greatest gift the United States could give the world is an example that serves as a shining city on a hill. As University of Pennsylvania professor Walter McDougall observed, “The best way to promote our institutions and values abroad is to strengthen them at home.” But there is scant glory for politicians in restraining their urge to “save humanity.” The ignorance of the average American has provided no check on “run amok” politicians and bureaucrats.    ****

Full text of the piece is at http://jimbovard.com/blog/2006/08/30/bush-killing-in-the-name-of-democracy/  where comments & condemnations are welcome
 

Click here for a larger PDF to check Bush’s vision.

John J. Mearsheimer and Steven M. Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy made an appearence on C-SPAN Monday to discuss those very things.

Watch it here.

The Los Angeles Times ran a piece of mine today that advocates using the same coercive interrogation methods on congressmen that Congress approve for Bush’s military tribunals.

Full text of the piece is at the LATimes here (registration required?) and at my website here.

Comments welcome at http://jimbovard.com/blog/2006/08/27/how-to-pry-the-truth-out-of-congressmen/