How I Became A Socialist

 In High School I was, as I put it, transitioning towards being a socialist. In Jr. High, if I was political at all I think that I was probably pretty close to being a neoconservative (I’m not sure if Tom Clancy was a neocon or not, but I think he may have been close to one and in Jr. High probably 25% of the political material I read (fiction and non-fiction) were books by him; I also was, without doing any research, vaguely zionistic). The Summer after 12th grade I went to a protest rally against the “Promise Keepers,” a conservative Christian thing. One of the groups listed as a sponsor of the rally was the (local) Democratic Socialists of America. That might be why, when I saw flyers on the CU-Boulder campus (where I went to school starting in the Fall of 1994) for the campus chapter, I got involved.

About two months later the National Director of DSA visited Boulder (or at the very least the CU-Boulder DSA, but maybe the local one as well) and at a small gathering in a classroom we went around the table and briefly described how we each became a socialist. Probably about 1/4 of what I said was about reading novels by Clancy and people like him- Stephen Coonts, Frederick Forsyth, Larry Bond, Nelson DeMille, Payne Harrison, and Harold Coyle (I’m not sure when I started reading these authors, but I include them in what I call either the national security genre or the Tom Clancy genre). I am pretty sure I gave people the wrong idea, although it is a little mixed. I believe that what I was trying to do by referring to those authors was describe how I became INTERESTED IN POLITICS. On the other hand, some of those books DID make me a little curious about socialism (in HS one day I briefly checked DAS KAPITAL by Marx out of the school library but read almost none of it) and some of them actually said a few left-wing things here and there (see this).                           

This essay is kind of meant to undo any damage to my reputation that earlier conversation did (I DO realize that probably not a single person remembers that conversation, but I wanted to do this essay for a lot of other reasons as well).

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I grew up at least kind of if not VERY middle-class. I am also white, a cisgendered male, a heterosexual, and some kind of Christian (I am just starting something kind of formal where I might convert from being a Catholic to being a Protestant). For various reasons that I don’t think should be held against me, I have spent practically all of my life in Boulder and until college I did not interact much with people of color or with poor people. My parents were more or less liberal but not progressive or very politically active- I wasn’t exposed to liberal Democratic politics as a child.

The first thing that got me thinking like a socialist was when I read, around the age of 11, the Children’s Bible THREE TIMES. I can’t remember much and I have never read the entire Bible (the regular one). But I know that there was at least some material about poverty and wealth, about loving your brothers and sisters, etc. I believe that is why, when I was about 12 or 13 I remember telling a kid I was briefly friends with that I thought everyone should just automatically get all the food they need.

I don’t think I made any left-ward progress in Jr. High. I DID start listening to rap music in Jr. High- it was “soft-core” non-political stuff by The Beastie Boys, RUN DMC and The Fresh Prince. I have no idea how I started listening to rap in Jr. High, but I think that is why I started listening to Public Enemy and Ice-T at the beginning of 10th grade. Below is a section of this essay about the role that MUSIC played in my High School transition to being a socialist. It’s copied and pasted, with a little editing, from a post here.                         

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The High School Years: Becoming A Socialist

So, a focus on music and my political development.

One aspect of this that I think about is, why did I come to focus more on racism than other symptoms of capitalism and get an Ethnic Studies degree instead of a Women’s Studies degree? I have no idea how I found myself listening to rap music in Jr. High. I wasn’t watching MTV and my parents were no more than moderately anti-racist. I didn’t have older siblings who listened to rap (actually, I might have been watching a LITTLE MTV because I have memories of watching 1-2 music videos by The Fresh Prince). On one hand, as far as I can remember, the rap I was listening to in Jr. High was non-political but It probably contributed to how I started listening to Public Enemy and Ice-T in late 1991.

I think that listening to that “Hard Core” rap is a huge part of why I did my first political act (and that may have been AFTER the Ice-T/Body Count concert I went to). In the Spring semester of 10th grade, in early 1992, I walked out of my 4th period class (I think it was 4th period) and joined about 50 of my peers walking around Boulder protesting the not-guilty verdict in a California trial of the racist white police officers who beat Rodney King a year earlier. That night I went to a march and rally for the community in general and/or the CU-Boulder campus and I was actually on the front page of the paper the next day (next to me was someone who later was the first or second person to get an Ethnic Studies degree at CU-Boulder, and there was someone wearing a Primus shirt and one person wearing a Body Count shirt).

This is a little embarrassing because I have heard things here and there indicating they’re not progressive, but I think some political stuff by Megadeth and Metallica nudged me towards the left in High School. Those songs are:

Metallica
“Fight Fire With Fire” is about the need to avoid nuclear war.
“Ride the Lightning” is in opposition to the death penalty.
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” could almost be mistaken for an anti-fascist song because it is indirectly inspired by an anti-fascist novel by Ernest Hemingway. The thing is, the MOVIE based on that book retained the anti-war message but not the ANTI-FASCIST message of the book.
“Disposal Heroes” is anti-war.
“Blackened” is about nuclear war.
“…And Justice for All” is basically about politics and power in this country, but I am very unsure about what EXACTLY is it saying. This one may have had no affect on me becoming a socialist.
“One” is anti-war.

Megadeth
“Set The World Afire” is about nuclear war.
“Holy Wars…. The Punishment Due.” The first half I’ve heard might be about international conflicts like Israel and the Palestinians and/or (possibly more specifically) Northern Ireland. Beyond that I’m not sure what to say about it.
“Take No Prisoners” is anti-war.
“Rust in Peace” is about nuclear war.
“Symphony of Destruction” is about politics but I can’t figure out what they’re trying to say.
“Architecture of Aggression” is sort of the same- it probably IS anti-war, but I am less certain than I am when it comes to “Take no Prisoners.” Megadeth just wasn’t consistently and explicitly progressive.
“Foreclosure of a Dream” is I BELIEVE about US federal farm policy in the 1980s. I am just not familiar with farm policy. I DO like the license plates in Colorado that say “No Farms, No Food” but I just don’t know anywhere near enough to comment on this song.

I think that is a pretty complete list of the relevant Megadeth and Metallica songs I listened to in High School that may have nudged me towards the left.

The hard-core rap I listened to, including three Ice-T albums, and 3-4 Public Enemy albums probably had a better effect on me than the Metallica and Megadeth stuff I just referred to. And then there was the (hardcore punk) Dead Kennedys stuff- some of their songs might not inspire progressive politics but about half of them do. And there was at least a couple that were about economic injustice- “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” and “Kill the Poor.” There were several other political DK songs whose lyrics I’m too lazy to confirm- with the exceptions of “Police Truck” (police brutality), “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” and “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now” (about Ronald Reagan), which I definitely remember (I believe that in High School I listened to 3/4 or 4/4 of the Jello Biafra DK studio albums).

There were a handful of songs by Suicidal Tendencies that contributed to me becoming   progressive:

“Two Sided Politics” is basically contrasting the life of a rich person with that of a working-class person, and there’s some anti-Reagan stuff, etc. One thing I think is noteworthy is that there’s one line that says “I’m not anti-government, government is anti-me.” I like to think that might be in part an anti-anarchist statement.
“Fascist Pig” could be a little more political (that is, deeper) but Mexican-Americans criticizing the police may have pushed me a bit to the left.
“I Want More” is about the class conflict with some references to the minimum wage.
“Give It Revolution” was a little vague but probably nudged me in the right direction.

There were a handful of songs by a thrash-metal band called Nuclear Assault that pushed me to the left in High School. Although I have listened to their other stuff in recent years, in HS pretty much the only album I listened to was “Handle with Care.”
“New Song” which was a fairly good anti-racist song.
“Critical Mass” is a pretty good environmentalist song.
“Inherited Hell” is also like that.
“When Freedom Dies” Although I’m not sure what it’s saying about US foreign policy during the Cold War, it IS saying that freedom and civil liberties, etc. shouldn’t be weakened in the name of national security.
“Search and Seizure” is sort of similar, but basically about law enforcement harassing metal-heads (I’m not sure whether or how the lyrics-writer would generalize that statement to include punks, hippies, etc.)

Another band that influenced me in High School was a “cross-over” hard-core punk/thrash-metal band called DRI (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles). In HS I saw them play live twice and listened to three of their albums.

First there was the album “Definition” which included the following songs:
“Acid Rain” was about the environment.
“The Application” is about multiple forms of employment discrimination and DOES include a line about racism and a line about homophobia, and one about religion and one that is probably about being HIV+.

The album “Thrash Zone” has several political songs.
“Labelled Incurable” might be about AIDS (as far as I can tell DRI were probably anti-homophobic).
“Kill the Words” is sort of generally about censorship and dictatorship but seems to be at least partly if not totally about that sort of thing in the Muslim world; I have no idea if they’re anti-Muslim or just consistently opposing fundamentalism, censorship, and dictatorship (there IS another song where they condemn religious discrimination in employment, so they probably aren’t anti-Muslim)
“Worker Bee” although it’s not written as a socialist song, I think it’s basically about economic justice and is by a band that I’m pretty sure is in favor of social justice as well (I’m suspicious of bands, people, etc. who are economically progressive but not socially liberal).

There was one Soundgarden song about the environment called “Hands All Over.” Although I don’t feel like looking at the lyrics, I believe that there were at least a few L7 songs I liked politically (one example is “Pretend We’re Dead”).

This will require at least one paragraph. Although I’m not real familiar with this, I have gotten the impression that Rage Against The Machine were a bit to my left politically. One social-dem critic told me that the political forces RATM admired either would have told RATM to fuck off, or alternately, should be killed (I think that may have been a reference to the Peruvian leftist army/terror organization called Shining Path). I sort of stumbled onto RATM a little earlier than most of their fans. Somehow I knew that their performance at a small club in Boulder around late 1992 or early 1993 would inspire moshing, so I showed up. I don’t remember thinking about it much but I guess I liked the music enough and the general vibe and bought their album shortly after the show. At some point at least a couple months later they came to Denver with House of Pain and it was great listening and moshing KNOWING that they were promoting dissent in this country. At that concert I learned about Leonard Peltier, and generally drifted towards the Left. (Right before House of Pain came on stage they played the music sans vocals of a song I mention below called “Just Look Around” by Sick of it All). Yes, RATM was alternately politically vague and/or leaning towards the hard-left. But they contributed to me becoming a dissident of some sort and it’s slightly possible that wouldn’t have happened if not for them. And musically they were pretty cool.

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Probably the main thing that contributed to me drifting towards the left is material that I learned in 11th grade when I took Advanced Placement US History. On one hand, I remember saying something inconsistent with what I’m saying here- in one debate I took some kind of bizarre LIBERTARIAN stance and criticized one of my peers because they were pro-government for some things but anti-government for other things. I also made one or another mistake with the two research papers we were assigned during the year. On the other hand, I got a 5 out 5 score on the final Exam, and I was pushed further to the left when I learned something about the Great Depression, something that might not have been covered in a regular 11th grade History class. At the very beginning of that period the (Republican) administration tried to fix things by lowering taxes on the rich and corporations which they thought would stimulate expansion (building new factories, etc.). The thing is, there was no increase in stimulus spending by corporate America and the Depression got worse. I got the strong impression that the New Deal alleviated a lot of suffering and empowered workers and probably kept the nation from sliding into such a deep socio-economic/political abyss that we wouldn’t be able to climb out of it when WWII started.

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As I mentioned above there were some novels that played one or another role in my voyage to the left.

The main one is a book called “Vortex” which had some serious progressive elements as I explain here.                                

“Fire Lance” is summarized here.

I think it was in High School that I first read a book by Harold Coyle called “Trial By Fire.” It’s about two things. First, a pilot program in the US Army involving four female Lieutenants (I know there are two kinds of Lieutenants in Army, but I can’t remember which one leads a platoon) leading ground combat units (platoons and in the case the story focuses on, a Mechanized Infantry platoon). I am, to one moderate degree or another hostile to the US military, but in this paragraph I need to explain that as long as we HAVE an institution, it should involve equity for women. Part of why I say this is that I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a large chunk of the male American population who get the wrong idea about equity for women when they see that the US military doesn’t HAVE EQUITY FOR WOMEN. The book is simultaneously also about a conflict between Mexico and the US. I haven’t read this novel for about 5-10 years now but I could swear that I remember Coyle making the pro-war people look stupid- it might even be progressive. I think I will read it again soon and I might publish an essay about it on this blog.

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There was one TV show I should mention. I think that in Jr. High and High School I watched about 75% of all the episodes of Roseanne (see this). As you may know, poverty and/or the working-class was a pervasive theme and from a relatively (or in some cases VERY) left-wing perspective. It was overall fairly if not very anti-racist and even more so, feminist. 

1-3 different TV shows that should be here but aren't. Although I LOVE watching almost anything Star Trek (and that started 27 years ago), I didn't start watching the TV shows until 1998. So, I missed The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine (which is probably the most left-wing of all Star Trek series). On the other hand, I am  sort of working on something about how progressives in America could use ST to advance their agenda, and if I come up with some ideas that are worth your time, I'll publish them here and/or email them to some political friends of mine.

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That is about it as far as what changed my thinking. On a related note, I am proud of the fact that I was kind of politically active in High School. Below is a list of political stuff I did:

The very first political action I took was in early 1992 when I walked out of 4th period (Spanish) and joined about 50 peers marching around Boulder to protest the acquittal in California of some racist LAPD cops who savagely beat a black man (Rodney King) a year earlier. We even went up to the CU-Boulder campus to show them how it’s done : ).That night I went to a community/CU-Boulder march and rally about the same problem.

In 11th grade my best friend James (of Oregon) and I did a “‘Zine” (a small and unprofessionally written and edited magaZINE). James’ stuff was definitely more creative than mine, and may have been almost as political as my stuff. I did one article (in this case I tried to be as unbiased as possible) about an incident of job discrimination against a gay man in Boulder. IN THE SAME ISSUE I wrote an editorial criticizing Amendment Two (in 1992’s election in Colorado a ballot issue was approved by voters that outlawed gay rights anti-discrimination measures in CO).

In one issue, I did something that was far from creative and maybe even illegal, but I published the lyrics for an an incredibly anti-racist song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers called “The Power of Equality” (it’s close to the only RHCP song I listen to, but it’s AMAZING).

That’s pretty much all the relevant stuff I remember writing in the ‘zine.

I also was transitioning towards being pro-choice, and I wrote a Letter to the local paper (the Daily Camera) in which I expressed some degree of support for a woman’s right to choose.

I joined the Rocky Mountain Peace (and Justice) Center when I was 16 and wrote a letter to the Camera that was sort of pro-Persian Gulf War, but was also critical of the sanctions that had been applied to Iraq. Although that letter was not totally progressive, in response to it the Peace Center invited me to join them at a meeting with the Congressperson for that part of Colorado.

I probably had about 5-10 t-shirts of music groups I liked that were also political. I had a Body Count shirt, a Fishbone shirt that said “FUCK RACISM” (It’s possible it was “RACISM SUCKS” or maybe I had both??), at least one Rage Against The Machine t-shirt, a Public Enemy shirt and probably 1-2 Dead Kennedys shirts.

I think that’s about it. I might type up something about my thoughts about socialism- no, it won’t be very philosophical.

My Review of Larry Bond's 1991 Anti-Apartheid Novel "Vortex"

In a book report (it wasn’t very analytical) I did in 2022 about a sort of sci-fi/sort of techno-thriller novel with a left-wing message, I admitted that a big chunk of the fiction I read is by Tom Clancy or authors like Tom Clancy (1989-2009 it was about 70% and since 2009 it’s been about 25% (hopefully I won’t go to Socialist Hell)). As far as I can tell, the author of the book I just referred to (David Mace) is progressive. If you look at the books I’ve read in the Tom Clancy genre there’s a handful with some stuff that is liberal or even progressive. It’s usually a small island of progressive viewpoints (by characters you’re supposed to like) with an ocean of center/center-right politics. There is one book which is written by someone much more right-wing than left-wing but which can nonetheless be greatly enjoyed politically by progressives, if you think about it the right way. I’m talking about Larry Bond’s 1991 novel “Vortex.”

“Vortex” is about Apartheid South Africa, and a “last gasp” attempt by hardliners to maintain Apartheid and Afrikaner colonialism. I believe the story starts in May of 1992, although it’s not clear what the year is. I am not sure how much or how little progress was made in the Peace Process between Mandela’s release and May of 1992 (in reality). Towards the very beginning of the book the President of SA talks about significant progress being made, which prompts the main villain (Karl Vorster, a Cabinet member) to carry out something which is basically a coup, but which appears to be the ANC’s military wing (MK) assassinating the rest of the cabinet (although this is known by almost no one until the last 1/3 of the book, the MK operation was manipulated by Vorster and the Intelligence agency he runs). He then reverses the small number of reforms that had been made to Apartheid, invades neighboring Namibia, and turns the security forces loose against Blacks and any dissent by whites.

The situation becomes chaotic. The leader of the Zulu population (who, in reality, may not have been as militant as the ANC was during the anti-Apartheid struggle) calls for the rest of the world to take action against the new regime and his people take up armed struggle. A large chunk of the military in Cape Town refuses to massacre white civilian protestors and rebels against the government.

Things also start to fall apart for Vorster in Namibia, whose government asks the Cuban Army in Angola to help repel the invasion. Although this is more complicated, to one extent or another during most of the book you can root for the Cuban Army. The head of the Cuban Army in Africa (General Antonio Vega) convinces Castro that Cuba should resolve the conflict by invading South Africa and overthrowing Apartheid. With some help from other “anti-Imperialist” countries (including three Libyan units probably the size of battalions) three columns (probably around 2,000-3,000 men in each) enter SA from the east, north and west. Because the Cubans hid their preparations for the invasion the SA military is still focused on Namibia and rapid progress is made, especially the column approaching Pretoria from the West. Because it is a desert and a sparely populated area (and because he is psychotic) Vorster eradicates that column with a nuclear bomb. SA is on the verge of using two more nukes to attack strategic targets when the US military captures them and removes them from the country in a massive airborne operation. Shortly after that the US military lands something like a division on the east coast of SA (at Durban) and starts fighting the SA Army on it’s way to Pretoria. Naval aircraft start attacking the East column of Cubans.

As you might guess, the US military stops the Cubans from reaching Pretoria until they (the US) can get there first. The aftermath of this victory for the US is largely a GOP fantasy. Because of some significant friction with the Cubans (see below), the ANC abandons it’s commitment to socialism. There IS something about recognition of the trade-unions, something proposed by the occupying US military, but I think we’re talking about something that is probably engineered to foster a pretty centrist labor movement.

There are two large aspects of this story relevant to how close it is to being a progressive book.

First, the US government moves very slowly at each stage of the crisis and are usually far behind Cuba. And they (characters who are officials of the US government) are pretty honest about why they are initially very slow and behind Cuba, and they’re also very honest about why they DO send their own invasion force after Cuba invades- they don’t want Cuba to get credit for overthrowing Apartheid. I will add a lot of details to this in about a year when I read this book (for the 6th or 7th time) and take some notes, but in general, Cuba looks better than the US government.

On the other hand, there are some things Bond has the Cubans do that A) usually involve quite a bit of imagination on Bond’s part and B) make Cuba look bad. After one of his columns is wiped out by a nuke, Vega decides to compensate for that by using chemical weapons. In all fairness to Vega and in all fairness to Bond who was probably tempted to really slander Cuba at this point, they use NON-PERSISTENT chemical weapons which become impotent pretty quickly after they are released into the air. This means they’re not quite as indiscriminate as they would be if they were persistent. We don’t know how many battles involved Cuban chemical weapons, but there was at least one. And some small part of the nearby black population was affected, with some deaths.

Those black deaths contribute to the erosion of congeniality between the Cuban Army and the ANC’s military wing, Spear of the Nation. There is one bizarre incident that was a pretty good example of Bond trying to reassure most of his readers that he did not go commie while writing this book. The Cubans ask the black population in one town to help them make an airfield they took over functional again. There weren’t enough volunteers so a small number of Blacks were forced to help. This of course contributes to the conflict developing between the Cubans and the ANC. Bond does sort zig-zag a bit and quotes Vega’s thoughts, pointing out that he has Black officers on his staff- who he describes as brave and competent.

There is something I really need to say about Bond. Vortex is his second book. His first and third books are politically fairly centrist overall. His fourth and fifth books, I thought were racist towards Muslims and I will never read them again and I haven’t read anything he wrote after book five. (see this and this (and look for my name)). (I lost track of those two novels in my collection for several years but in the end I made a decision about 5 years ago to throw them away instead of taking them to a thrift store (I’m not totally okay with that, because it resembles book burning, but throwing them away was probably the right thing to do))

There is one last thing I need to get out of the way. In the very first sentence of the book, in a section that includes maybe 500 words, it sounds like Bond is saying that rural, uneducated Zimbabweans think that helicopters flying at night are “demons.”  There’s a bit more to that short first section, and I also think after I explain this next part, progressive readers will feel comfortable assuming that Bond is not racist towards Black people. In his first book (about a second Korean War), one of the main characters is an Air Force pilot who gets shot down behind enemy lines, and is rescued at night by a helicopter. This character does say that the helicopter appears like a demon.

It’s a massive book- 896 pages in paperback. If you’re not totally against anything military and you hate Apartheid, you will probably like this book. In about a year I will probably read it again and take some notes and have more to say.

Law and Order Reviews F

I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here. In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.

Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.

“The Corporate Veil” Season 3. See this for a plot summary.

This is a good one where a corporation is the criminal. There’s also a brief positive reference to Ralph Nader.

“Wedded Bliss” Season 3. See this for a plot summary.

This is about sweatshop labor. It’s pretty damning.

“Mother Love” Season 3. See this for a plot summary.

One of the detectives says that crack cocaine should be legalized, and his partner doesn’t seem to strongly disagree. I support ending the war on drugs, at least in relation to some and maybe all drugs. I think marijuana legalization is great. To one degree or another, I believe other drugs should be either legalized or decriminalized- that is decriminalization of possession of a small amount (this approach would probably not change the law as far as people who sell drugs). Decriminalization would involve treating addiction as a medical problem instead of a criminal one. I think that this would be an appropriate way to deal with crack.

“Jurisdiction” Season 3. See this for a plot summary.

Although he’s alone and pretty junior, a corrupt cop is stopped.

“Conduct Unbecoming” Season 3. For a plot summary see this.

In general, it’s almost critical of the US military. The plot includes the Navy trying to bury the scandal by sacrificing a low-ranking officer in a court-martial but on the other hand the Navy apparently had come down slightly hard on the senior officer who had engaged in “conduct unbecoming.”
Then there's the time that one detective mentions that the tax-payers paid for the massive party the Navy crew had at an NYC hotel. The other detective says: “nice to know my tax dollars aren’t being wasted on school books.”

Mutually Assured Destruction: My Review of David Mace's "Fire Lance"

 I somehow stumbled onto the sci-fi novel “Fire Lance” in High School. It may have played a small role in me moving towards the left during those years (when I was 16 I became a member of the Rocky Mountain Peace (and Justice) Center at least partly because of their position on nuclear weapons). I’ve read it 2-3 times since then, most recently a couple of weeks before this post was published.

It was written in 1986 by a British sci-fi writer named David Mace. I read one of his other books but I didn’t like it very much (Fire Lance is one of my favorite books). It’s one of my favorite books because it’s both politically progressive and reminds me of the centrist/centre-right author Tom Clancy who often wrote about the military (I might go into more detail about this in a future post, but between 1989 and 2009 about 70% of the fiction I read was by Clancy and people like him- since 2009 it has gone down to about 1/4 of the novels I read).

Fire Lance is about a nuclear war between the USSR and the US. It’s not clear when in the future it takes place, but I think maybe it’s supposed to be about 10-20 years in the future from the author’s perspective in 1986. It’s pretty vague about the political situation that became a shooting war. It started with satellites in space going down and then there was some conventional action in Europe, and then it went nuclear. Some large majority of each side’s nuclear arsenal is used before they stop.  Around the same time they stop, nuclear winter sets in. Although almost the entire book takes place on a US naval vessel where they have no idea what it’s like on land outside the underground American command centers (i.e. Cheyenne Mountain), at one point a soldier who spent weeks at the beginning of the war outside those command centers talks about what that was like in the aftermath of such a total nuclear war. The breakdown of society and the freezing conditions that would be part of a nuclear winter are well illustrated.

Both the President and Vice-President are killed and the “government” is made up of the military and national security bureaucrats, all unelected. After the conventional war is over and the nuclear war winds down, they spend their time debating whether or not to start things up again with the Soviets. Before the story starts the “soft-liners” or “‘no more war’ people” in the places like Cheyenne Mountain are eliminated and the debate shits to those who want to wait and see what the Soviets do, and on the other side those who want to start the war again immediately. One of the only significant military units still capable of attacking the USSR is the Vindicator, a futuristic surface ship with a small number of offensive jets and Anti-Submarine Warfare helicopters and the Fire Lance system- hundreds of nuclear armed cruise missiles.

One of the two main characters is David Drexel, a British national working for the US government on national security matters. Although he’s primarily a survivor and bounces between the two factions in the US “Government,” he also has some good progressive commentary about American politics and foreign policy. He criticizes us for supporting totalitarian anti-Communist governments and on a related note for enforcing a foreign policy that is pro-life when it comes to abortion.

The other main character is the Vindicator’s Commanding Officer Captain Richard Bedford. He’s pretty non-political and doesn’t side with either faction. But after learning that the Fire Lance attacks his ship is making on the USSR are not in response to recent nuclear attacks by  the Soviets, he tries to stop the series of missile launches after the first third are launched. A hardliner shoots him for this. The second in command takes over and finishes the three-part series of launches partly because he's a technocrat and partly because the hardliner brought a squad of elite Army soldiers with him and the new CO wants to avoid further bloodshed on the ship. Bedford has some good thoughts about the need to stop the nuclear war.

There’s some interesting scientific commentary about whether or not life on Earth will survive a nuclear winter. Drexel says that the radioactive dust in the atmosphere that blocks out the sun won’t go away but at some point will come down- which I assume means human survivors would be breathing it and it would get into our water. If what Mace has Drexel say is accurate, that can’t be good. I’m also uncertain of this next thing, but it might be true. Drexel says that the radioactive dust in the atmosphere will also destroy the Ozone Layer and that means that undiluted UV rays will get through and destroy almost all life on Earth.

At the end, the Vindicator, once thought to be unstoppable, is stopped by various Soviet attacks and is abandoned. At the very end, as the survivors use life rafts to get to a frozen island nearby, it’s clear that they’re all going to die. If what Drexel said about the ozone is right, everyone is going to die. Overall it’s meant as a very damning illustration of nuclear war.

Three other things I like about it:

1) As I sort of already said, I like the stuff about how the military works and how the Soviets try to stop them.
2) At one point the ship is very close to Ireland and the Captain considers as likely the idea that the Irish would be very hostile to his ship. He thinks- “It wasn’t Ireland’s war. It was Ireland’s planet.”
3) At one point when US military spending is described by the author, the defunding of social programs is mentioned as something that allowed that military spending to be increased.

It’s 314 pages long. I do recommend it for any progressive who enjoys stuff about the military.  You might be able to find it at a used book store but your best chance is probably a library or Amazon (if it becomes ethical to buy from Amazon).

**********

I wanted to offer some thoughts about nuclear war.

Although I believe that any movement towards a nuke-free world is positive, I DO focus mostly on the US. We started it, and I’m an American. For multiple reasons I would like to see the US change it’s foreign policy in a progressive way and gradually reduce it’s conventional military. It should, at the very beginning of this process begin getting rid of it’s nukes. As that process is going on, they should negotiate with almost every country on Earth to form a new global alliance. This global alliance should be about a global response to any use of nuclear weapons, where the guilty party will be shunned. I would support getting rid of American nukes right away but I think it would be very difficult for a majority of politicians here to support that outside the context I just described.

Tom

 

************

 UPDATE 6/30/22

A friend suggested I read some stuff by a CU-Boulder scientist named Brian Toon. I read a CPR article about his work on nuclear winter and watched a TED Talk he did on the same topic. I then exchanged a few emails with him. I read another article about his work on nuclear winter.

The CPR article is here. The TED Talk is here.

 

As far as the ozone layer, here's what I read in the novel: "Now Ozone is particularly susceptible to chemical degradation, especially by nitrogen containing compounds- and there'll be an awful lot of those in the dust veil, because you get such nitrogen compounds in the smoke produced by combustion.”

Above I wrote: "I’m also uncertain of this next thing, but it might be true. Drexel says that the radioactive dust in the atmosphere will also destroy the Ozone Layer and that means that undiluted UV rays will get through and destroy almost all life on Earth."

I am not sure how much I screwed up (the "dust veil" is the radioactive dust in the atmosphere (actually, although I confirmed that the book says the veil is radioactive, Toon sounded less sure about that, like maybe it's not radioactive)).

Although I wasn't going to ignore that part of the book (the part about humans surviving nuclear winter), I also tried to make it clear that I and the book are not great sources of scientific information (some of what Toon wrote in his emails I didn't totally understand). But Brian Toon IS a great source of scientific information. If you read the two items above and want more, he forwarded to me two articles as attachments that I can forward to you. Let me know.

I'm not saying I have done a great job of this so far, but the more I think about it, the more I think we need to encourage awareness about this issue.

Tom

 **********

UPDATE 7/1/22

One last thing from Prof. Toon:

There are 4 sorts of radioactivity in a nuclear war.  There is prompt radiation released when the bomb goes off.  This would kill a lot of people near ground zero, but they likely die first from blast and fire.  Second if there is a ground burst radioactive isotopes will attach to dust lifted from the ground.  The dust is relatively large and so it falls out fast (hence the name fallout).  This fallout can make a  strip of radiation hundreds of miles long downwind of the explosion.  Anyone in that who doesn't shelter for a week or so is potentially in trouble.  Ground bursts go after things like missile silos so most bombs are air bursts.  The isotopes from these will not attach to large dust particles so they will float around in the air until they get rained out, likely in a week or two.  By the time they reach the ground the radioactivity level will have fallen and so exposure will not be very dangerous.  For instance this happened from a Nevada test, which resulted in a radiation dump in a rain storm in upstate New York.  No one has looked at the rainfall frequency and the deposition of the radiation on the ground so the odds of radiation poisoning are not clear.  Generally the military says don't worry, no one will be hurt.  The forth type of radiation is long lived isotopes that can take decades to decay.   These isotopes explain the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty.  Kids teeth and bones were picking up this radiation.  Generally however, it is believed that this radiation is not much above the natural levels.  So again the military says don't worry.

 

Law and Order: SVU Reviews GG

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

“Military Justice” Season 15. See this for a plot summary.          

Although it’s a pretty limited criticism of the Coast Guard, it does suggest that there are more than a few “bad apples” in the Coast Guard (and, significantly, one of them is a senior officer). It also illustrates how the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of homophobia would have silenced any gay members of the military who were victims of hate crimes (a gay Coast Guard member who aided and abetted the rape was told to remain silent about it or he would be outed and expelled from the Coast Guard).

“Jersey Breakdown” Season 15. See this for a plot summary.         

There’s a lot about two aspects of private prisons. First, in this episode there’s a lot of corruption surrounding a private prison; there’s also a lot of stuff about how poorly in-mates at that private prison are treated.

“Betrayal’s Climax” Season 15. See this for a plot summary.  

The rape survivor is a white teenage girl in an inter-racial relationship with a Latino teenage boy.

“Girls Disappeared” Season 16. See this for a plot summary.   

There’s one bit that’s in conflict with anti-immigrant forces. Two detectives are talking about trafficked teenage minor girls and one says: “And these idiots in D.C. wanna send them back because they’re ‘terrorists bringing over Ebola’” (of the group that SVU freed in this episode at least one is an immigrant).

“American Disgrace” Season 16. See this for a plot summary.   

This is kind of about how a lot of white people react to black men hooking up with white women. Although the bad guy is identified as such only near the very end, he is a racist, so it is basically an anti-racist episode.

Law and Order: SVU Reviews Z

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

“PTSD” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “Benson and Tutuola get a first-hand look at how women in the military are treated when they respond to the murder of a pregnant marine who was raped by one of her fellow marines in Iraq. The two find a suspect (Ryan Kwanten) and become convinced of his guilt, but Greylek faces difficulties when the Navy Commander (Frank Whaley) threatens to shut down their investigation. Benson discovers new evidence and the real rapist (Dominic Fumusa) is identified along with his wife (Amy Spanger) who committed the murder. During the proceedings, Benson's prior sexual assault stirs up painful memories.”

First, there’s one brief anti-death penalty statement by the ADA.

It’s generally about sexual assault in the US military. About 5-15 years ago I read 1-2 articles about that and got the impression that the military doesn’t handle the issue very well. In this episode a military officer says that the national average rate of conviction for rape is 13% and it’s 10% in the military. This episode also highlights the fact that a service member who accuses a superior officer without evidence will be court-martialed. With that in mind I can only imagine how often a woman in the military is raped by a superior officer who gets away with it.

At one point a military officer asks detective Benson if she likes the military and she says she doesn’t because of the problem of rape in the military.  I’m going to keep this fairly brief but I have mixed and mostly negative thoughts about the military. I feel pretty good about what they did during the Civil War and during WWII and I used to be sort of positive about what they did in Somalia in the early 1990s. I imagine a small majority of people in the US military are good people. I believe it’s possible that they can do something good in the future. More of my thoughts about the US military are scattered throughout posts here.                               

“Hothouse” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When the body of a fourteen-year-old girl (Juliet Brett) is found floating in the Hudson River, Benson and Stabler think she was smuggled into the country by sex traffickers. Tutuola discovers her exceptional academic success and suspects that this had something to do with her murder. The detectives find out that the girl's father (George Tasudis) uses violence to coerce their other daughter (Aya Cash) into non-stop studying, and their mother (Funda Duval) is afraid to stop him. The killer turns out to be a high school student (Sarah Hyland) who obsesses over impressing her mother (Enid Graham). Mitigating circumstances come into play when the SVU discovers that she suffered from sleep deprivation and overdosed on drugs used to treat ADD.”

The Medical Examiner, who is a main character in some seasons and recurring in other seasons, says that sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

“Transitions” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When a man (Frank Grillo) is found badly beaten in a strip club parking lot, a fake fingernail leads the detectives to believe that the attacker is female. The victim awakes in the hospital with no memory of what happened, but brings the attention to his ex-wife (Wendy Makkena) and their thirteen-year-old transgender daughter (Bridger Zadina). She makes it no secret that she hated her father for not accepting her as a girl, causing the detectives to suspect her as well as her transgender boyfriend (Daniela Sea). The perpetrator is eventually revealed to be a guidance counsellor (Aisha Hinds) who has her own painful memories regarding gender identity.”

This is an episode about transphobia. It’s about a teenage transgendered girl named 
Hailey transitioning to being female. I get the impression that there are often state laws in this country that prevent minors from going through that transition. At one point the viewer thinks Hailey has tried to kill herself and that reminded me of something. In the Republic of Ireland, if a female is diagnosed as suicidal by two psychiatrists, she can have an abortion (abortion law sucks there). The LGBTQ+ community and their allies might demand something similar if there’s no way that a state will allow minors to transition- allow them to transition if the state’s refusal makes them suicidal. If it’s either that or nothing, I think what I’m suggesting as a compromise is better than nothing.

Two other notes:
1) The transgender teacher who supports Hailey is Black.
2) The bouncer at a strip bar seems to be a gay woman.

“Selfish” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When a woman (Gail O'Grady) reports the disappearance of her 11-month-old granddaughter, the detectives suspect the girl's mother (Hilary Duff) of killing her daughter. The detectives however find out that the baby actually died of measles because another mother (Anastasia Barzee) refused to vaccinate her son. After Cabot puts the evangelical mother on trial, she is found not guilty of manslaughter, prompting the baby's grandfather (Mike Pniewski) to take the law into his own hands.”

 

About halfway through the issue in this episode switches from a murdered baby to the issue vaccinations. I want to say a few things about vaccines. I think that they should be optional in a lot of cases, maybe all of them. But I think there should be an effort to encourage people to get them. That’s basically how I feel about the COVID-19 vaccines. Although I’m worried that they were rushed because of Trump putting pressure on the medical science industry (because he thought his elections chances would go up with vaccines being ready for use) and there might be problems with them, Dr. Fauci has said that they’re good and I really want to see America return to normal as soon as possible, and I encourage people to get them and I’m going to get one as soon as I can.

Law and Order: SVU Reviews T

 This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

(I’m temporarily skipping the publication of 4 reviews from Seasons 4 and 6 that I’ll come back to in about a week)

“Blood” Season 6. Wikipedia summary is: “A young woman (Lauren Hodges) reports that her baby has been tossed out of a car. Benson and Stabler learn that she is addicted to prescription pain killers and this leads them to an elderly woman (Melinda Dillon) who lives with her son (Matt Schulze) and daughter-in-law (Christine Elise). The young woman identifies the daughter-in-law as the one who sold her the drugs, but when the detectives go to confront her, they find the drug dealer dead. Stabler uses his influence as a police officer when his daughter, Kathleen, is arrested for drunk driving.”

Although I generally like the character Eliot Stabler, in this episode he uses his position as a cop to help his daughter when she gets arrested for DUI. His superior officer criticizes him for this and he argues back, defending what he did. I agree with Captain Cragen, who asks Stabler, “is that the message you wanna send your kids? That the law only applies to certain people?”



“Goliath” Season 6. Wikipedia summary is: “After the wife (Amy Landecker) of a police officer (R. E. Rodgers) claims her husband raped her, Benson and Stabler arrest the man and come close to believing his version of events when he attacks his captain (Ronni Lieberman). When another officer (Brian Hutchison) murders his wife and attempts to kill himself that same night, the whole force gets involved and soon realizes that the two men both recently returned home from Afghanistan, where they were given the drug Quinium, an anti-malarial. With the reluctant help of a reporter (Jon Bernthal) and a base doctor with an attack of conscience (John Dossett), Novak takes on the U.S. Army.”

I’m commenting on this episode because it illustrates corruption in the military, in this case forcing an officer to lie on the witness stand. Both the drugmaker and the military look pretty stupid manufacturing and prescribing (respectively) a medication that’s has extremely serious side effects for one of every 140 people who take it when a much safer drug just has to be taken more often than once a week.

This is based on a scandal in the real world with at least one suicide I heard about.

“911” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “Benson is on her way out for the evening when a call comes in from a little girl named Maria (Jeanine Monterroza and Rachel Diaz-Stand), who says she is all alone in a locked room. While trying to draw the girl out, Benson is drawn deeper into the little girl's life. Although the other officers begin to suspect that the whole thing is some sick joke, Benson is convinced that the little girl is telling the truth. By talking to Maria, Benson is able to ferret enough information to get a place to start, but Maria's captor (Christopher Evan Welch) has an affinity for electronics and has done everything he can to make sure that no one can find the little girl he bought and paid for.”

It wasn’t real clear that a coyote (someone who, for money, helps undocumented immigrants cross the US-Mexico border) was involved, but since she was sold to a pedophile after she crossed the border without documents, it occurred to me that this is another reason we need regulated but unlimited immigration into this country (I mean, there should be paperwork and some criminals should be kept out, but there shouldn’t be limits on how many people can come here, that way something like 99% of immigration will be legal and not in the shadows where things like selling children to pedophiles can happen).

“Ripped” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “When the teenage son (Paul Wesley) of Stabler's old partner (Noah Emmerich) comes under suspicion for attacking a classmate, Stabler is caught between his boss, who thinks he is cutting the kid too many breaks, and his friend, who thinks he is not doing enough to help. Stabler seeks counselling from another friend (Mary Stuart Masterson) when the case starts to bring out the worst in him.”

In this episode, Captain Cragen has to again come down on Elliot pretty hard when he (Elliot) goes real easy on a suspect who is the son of his old partner. Benson is also unhappy with Stabler about it.

“Strain” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “Police discover the bodies of two young gay men who were both methamphetamine addicts as well as victims of a new strain of HIV that can kill its victims in less than a year. Tutuola learns that his son Ken (Ernest Waddell) is gay, and has difficulty accepting it. Ken helps Benson and Tutuola infiltrate an anti-meth group and they learn that the leader (Brian Bloom) killed people who were spreading the virus. The father (Bill Smitrovich) of one of the victims realizes that this crime saved lives and asks that it be punished with a lenient sentence.”

The gay community is a major theme of this episode. First, one of the detectives learns that his son is gay. Straight drug dealers who steal drugs from gay men say that they target gay men because they (gay men) won’t go to the police because they’d be outing themselves. To whatever degree that happens in reality, it’s just one more reason to fight homophobia.

The US, Afghanistan and the War on Terror

 Before he lost the 2020 election, Trump was close to ending the US military presence in Afghanistan. He had promised to do so, referring to it as an endless war. I had mixed feelings about it. In the first two years after 9/11 I supported our presence there, even while I actively and solidly opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq (I describe that work here).          

I was influenced by a minority statement from members of the national leadership of the Young Democratic Socialists and believed that it was a time, like WWII, when the progressive thing to do was to support an American-led multi-lateral effort against fascist forces who were a threat to justice and peace in the world. 9/11 was largely about killing as many Americans as possible and it’s easier to kill civilians than it is to kill members of the military, so Al-Qaeda primarily went after civilians. Even the plane that DID target the military had civilians on board. And, not everyone working in the World Trade Center was a “little Eichman” as Ward Churchill said (Ward was my faculty advisor and in general I am proud of that, but he was wrong about somewhere around 99% of the people who were working in the WTC). Although it would have been a crucial part of successfully defeating Al-Qaeda, I don’t think that changing America’s foreign policy to address the complaints of Al-Qaeda would have been enough by itself to stop them. A successful and progressive war on terror would have involved an armed conflict with Al-Qaeda and that’s partly because America’s imperialistic foreign policy (and crucially it’s support for Israel) is not the only thing that motivates Al-Qaeda and it’s supporters to want conflict with the US. It’s relevant that we are a relatively liberal society and they are religious fundamentalists who see most Americans as infidels. In short, Al-Qaeda are religious fundamentalist fascist terrorists who had carried out an attack aimed at killing as many American civilians as possible and who were sheltered by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

I believe that if we had done the following, we would have been victorious against Al-Qaeda:
1. Changed American foreign policy, especially when it comes to the Middle-East. Looking beyond the Middle-East, I think that a lot of progressive and non-aligned/independent people and groups and nations in this world would have been more interested in helping America defeat Al-Qaeda if we were pursuing a better foreign policy aimed at reversing the transfer of wealth between the global “North” and the global “South” and democratizing the global economy and generally pursuing global justice. Looking at the Mid-East specifically, we shouldn’t be supporting Israel for a whole range of reasons that have nothing to do with Al-Qaeda (I make a pretty good argument against Zionism here) but forcing Israel to negotiate seriously and respectfully with the Palestinians would also dry up a lot of Al-Qaeda’s support in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
2. Made the War on Terror very multi-lateral. Although I’ll concede that NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan hasn’t seemed to help, the effort against Al-Qaeda would have been even less successful if it were just the US. In the very early months after 9/11 Germany offered ground forces and the US declined the offer. It would have been more multi-lateral and if other things on this list had happened there would have also been some Muslim nations prominently involved in Afghanistan.
3. The US had purged itself of bigotry towards muslims. Instead we had popular commentators and politicians spewing anti-muslim bigotry which affected how the Muslim world reacted to 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan.
4. Had a better set of domestic policies. Going back to part of #2, we would have had more allies globally if American DOMESTIC policy was better. A lot of progressive and non-aligned/independent individuals and groups and nations aren’t enthusiastic about helping the US government when they consider how much poverty and inequality there is in America.
5. Stayed out of Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11 and Saddam was hostile to Al-Qaeda. The invasion meant shifting resources from Afghanistan to Iraq and angered a large part of the Muslim world.
6. Treated Al-Qaeda and Taliban members captured in Afghanistan as POWs. We would have been doing the right thing and we wouldn’t have been heavily criticized as we were by almost the entire world. I’m obviously not a fan of either group but I believe strongly that when combatants are captured, they should be treated as POWs. Whether they were allied airmen during WWII, or IRA members in N. Ireland, or American pilots in Vietnam, or the German SS or Islamic State members, they deserve(d) to be treated as POWs.
7. Abstained from torture. We not only tortured, many American politicians like Peter King of NY, praised the Bush administration for it’s use of torture (I’m thinking primarily of waterboarding and what happened at Abu Ghraib in Iraq; see this). This turned a huge chunk of the world’s population against us.

So, that’s pretty much why the War on Terror has not been won and why we briefly faced something close to a state (in the north of Syria) based on a version of Islam even worse than the one that Al-Qaeda embraces.

Returning to Trump’s idea of pulling out of Afghanistan, a large chunk of the US military and many civilian commentators don’t believe the Taliban has been following through on their part of the peace deal they agreed with Washington. It seems likely that they will continue with their war against Kabul and when the US and NATO are gone, they will probably win. And they will probably be a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and/or the Islamic State. And one or both of those two will attack America at some point. I doubt that America will change its Israel policy anytime soon. In general I don’t think Biden will have a consistently progressive foreign policy.

Although I have difficulty saying this, I am more in favor of than against us withdrawing from Afghanistan. What do I think we should do when we leave, the Taliban win, and there’s an Al-Qaeda or IS attack on America? What I referred to positively in the list above, and once that’s done, a multi-national invasion of Afghanistan (unless the Taliban hand Al-Qaeda and IS over to some appropriate authority (possibly the US, possibly someone else)).

(one last thing is that there needs to be a change in the US military (especially the Army and Marines), where they make more effort to avoid civilian casualties. It’s estimated that in Iraq tens of, or a couple hundred thousand(s) of Iraqi civilians were killed by the US military. I learned from an interview on the radio of a political acquaintance that when his son was being trained for deployment to Iraq with the US Army Corps of Engineers, he was told to fire at gunmen even if there were civilians in the way who could easily be shot by accident. The US military needs to understand that when they do stuff like that, they are not increasing their odds of surviving the war, because the relatives and friends of civilians killed by the US military are likely to support or become anti-US combatants)

 

(UPDATE 5/9/21 I forgot to mention something. About a week before I wrote this post I wrote a brief note on the same subject in a post of reviews of Law and Order: SVU:

I’m going to keep this pretty brief. Sometime around 2000 I signed at least one if not two email petitions criticizing the Taliban BEFORE 9/11. The first two years of the US invasion of Afghanistan I supported it, partly because of how offensive the Taliban are. I got the impression that Afghan women didn’t support the invasion, but I also supported it because of 9/11 (Al-Qaeda was based there), so it wasn’t just the misogyny of the Taliban (which, by itself wouldn’t justify an invasion considering the opposition of the Afghan feminists). After two years I realized that under George W. Bush’s leadership the War on Terror was a disaster and in that context the war in Afghanistan was not going to help and was just going to make things worse. But I also can’t imagine a successful War on Terror that doesn’t include defeating Al-Qaeda. I’ll take that thought a little further in another post that I’ll work on soon and publish soon.

 

I AM concerned about what a Taliban victory would mean for girls and women in Afghanistan. An article sort of about that is here) 

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UPDATE 10/24/23 A little more on why a progressive and successful response to 9/11 would have involved taking down Al Qaeda. In 1998, a few months after the Good Friday peace agreement in N. Ireland was ratified by the voters, a splinter group from the IRA detonated a bomb in Omagh, N. Ireland, and killed 29 civilians. The thing is, at that time maybe about 1% of the Catholic population supported armed struggle, and yet the splinter group (the "Real IRA") was able to carry out attacks. Even if all seven things on that list above were done, it would not have 100% ended Al Qaeda's willingness and ability to carry out attacks on western targets.

********

 

UPDATE 7/3/24 I believe that there are a bunch of progressives who seem to think that the American civilian population just has to take hit after hit after hit until they stop voting for ass-holes. I don't think American civilians deserve to die.

Law and Order: SVU Reviews J

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

“Making a Rapist” Season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “When a DNA rape kit is tested 16 years later, the man originally convicted of the crime, Sean Roberts (Henry Thomas), is released from prison. He befriends the victim and her daughter (Alexis Collins), being invited to the daughter's wedding. One month after Roberts' release, the daughter is found raped and murdered with evidence pointing to him. Meanwhile, Fin Tutuola is accused of framing Roberts as payback for tarnishing his arrest record, having been the original arresting officer. Vice President Joe Biden makes a cameo appearance in the cold open.”

Biden’s cameo is worth noting. He’s a pretty good Dem, what I would call a moderate liberal (see this for my thoughts on the word “liberal”). I am going to vote for him in the fairly solid Dem state of Colorado. As I wrote in most of a post here, I think he might be guilty of sexually assaulting Tara Reade. I’m going to vote for him anyway because A) CO is not too far from being a swing state (and I would like him to do well in the popular vote), B) he might be innocent, and C) even if he's guilty, he is still better than Trump in every way, including when it comes to sexual assault, (Trump has been accused of assaulting several women and has even bragged about it).

“Broken Rhymes” Season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “After a transgender individual (Sabel Gonzales) is assaulted in a public bathroom, SVU questions the CEO of a record label (Wyclef Jean) who may be linked to the assault. The case is initially believed to be a hate crime, but things take a twist when the prime suspect reveals his connection to the victim and several people are found brutally murdered. With the victim's life on the line, things eventually become very intense for both the detectives and the suspects.”

 

My Record On Transphobia

This is about transphobia. It is almost the first time I have touched on that on this blog and I need to get some things off my chest. Until about 5-10 years ago I frequently laughed at the the relatively harmless but still offensive jokes about transgender people that pepper popular culture in this country. In 2001, while helping to lead a coalition of student groups that were helping faculty and staff at the University of Colorado get domestic partner benefits, I didn’t value the importance of getting CU to offer equality to transgender staff and faculty. That was influenced by the fact that we (the coalition) were not steering events- we were formed the day before the Regents started discussing a measure to add sexual orientation to CU’s non-discrimination policy and were scrambling to organize support for that on the CU-Boulder campus. Some of our partners in the student LGBTQ+ community attacked me over this but it was partly a misunderstanding and partly, in hind-sight, that I simply didn’t value that issue very much- a third element is that we probably couldn’t have gotten the Regent who sponsored the measure to add the TQ+ in LGBTQ+ to his measure and if we had, it probably would have failed. To some extent the broad movement for LGBTQ+ equality had to decide if the LGB had to wait for equality until the TQ+ was also going to be included. As embarrassed as I am by my past failure as an ally to reject transphobia, I also don’t think that the LGB should wait. Supporting the measure the Regents were discussing was the right thing to do.

In early 2002 I started to educate myself. I learned that the unemployment rate for transgender people was something like 80%. Sometime around 2010 I learned, from this TV show, more about how much lethal violence there is directed towards transgender people. Around 2010 or 2015 I started to become sensitive to to transphobia in popular culture. In 2003 I included pro-transgender language in a political statement for the group Students for Justice in N. Ireland but I probably did a bad job of it and left out certain words or something. In the last 10 years I have had a few acquaintances who are transgender and once I spoke out against a mildly anti-transgender statement.

“Chasing Theo” Season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “A six-year-old boy is abducted from his bedroom after his mother (Rachelle Lefevre) throws a wild party with drugs involved. The case brings forward several suspects and the detectives are led to multiple locations and tip-offs. The case becomes distressing for Rollins and Benson, both mothers. As hours go by, the squad becomes desperate to find the boy, which makes the mother and her ex-girlfriend fret. Meanwhile, Benson breaks up with Tucker after several days of thinking, breaking both her and Tucker's hearts.”

The child’s mother is a woman who is a white lesbian dating an Asian-American woman.

“No Surrender” season 18. Wikipedia summary is: “Fin revisits his military roots when a fellow Army Ranger (Sarah Booth) is the victim of sexual assault and does not handle it well. SVU is soon called in to assist and it is revealed that the woman was sexually assaulted after a party she threw. The case becomes difficult when the victim refuses to cooperate and Olivia and Fin become convinced that the rapist is someone against her being a Ranger, but the rapist turns out to be someone unexpected after a secret is revealed.”

 

Women In The Military

This is partly about women in the military. Although I’m not a fan of the US military (I almost always politically object to the missions they’re given and I think there is a casual attitude about civilian death) I also believe that in at least two cases the US military did a good thing (the Civil War and World War II), and that they’re capable of doing the right thing, and that there are a lot of good people in the US military. With that in mind, I am concerned about equality for women in the military. I think that they should have it and that means integrating them fully into all units of the Army and Marines. I don’t know how many women will meet the physical requirements that the men have to in order to be, for example, in the infantry, but those who do should be made to feel welcome.

Three New Poems

Three new poems. For more about how I write my poems, see this. To read the rest of the poems click on the lyrics label at the bottom.

1. Bush is a Fool. About the Iraq War.
2. Remember Bobby Sands. About the IRA Hunger-Striker.
3. Smash Internment. About the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during WWII in America.

“Bush is a Fool” based on “Fools No More” by Skrewdriver. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the Iraq War.
2. An Improvised Explosive Device was the US military term for bombs.
3. I don’t think that Bush was honest about some of his many reasons for invading Iraq, and wasn’t honest about other things like Enron. His reasons for invading Iraq I described elsewhere in posts about anti-Semitism:

Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

4. This is not ABOUT the Iraq Veterans Against the War (now, About Face) and hasn’t been endorsed by them.
5. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed and I’m sure many of them were killed when weapons were aimed at them and triggers were pulled. See the last part of a music video for a David Rovics song here.
6. My theory is that the average member of the military was less enthusiastic about the invasion of Iraq than the vast majority of GOPers.
7. Although Bush was less racist as President than Trump is, he DID express support for displaying the Confederate flag and the vast majority of his supporters are okay with that flag. Even the late GOP moderate John McCain in 2000 said he was okay with it.
8. I think one reason for invading Iraq is that it provided multiple opportunities to give money to corporations. Besides arms contractors and those doing privatized work for the military, corporations getting money for reconstruction spent about half of what they got doing actual reconstruction (often a contractor would keep half and give the rest to a subcontractor and sometimes THAT corporation would keep half and give the rest to another subcontractor).
9. Although only about 5,000 soldiers and marines were killed, because they had advanced body armor (despite Donald Rumsfeld’s best efforts) I’m sure that the wounded were in the tens of thousands.

10. I don’t care if the term MASH (a term for a kind of Army hospital in the Korean War) is technically inaccurate when it comes to the Iraq War, it rhymes.
11. I imagine that soldiers and marines who opposed the war were called hippies and were spoken to as if they didn’t have substantive and non-pacifist concerns about what was being done in Iraq.
12. In a post here I describe what I did to oppose the invasion.
13. Although some white supremacists are anti-intervention, A) they’re fine with racial homicide, and B) in the Iraq War it was reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center that a LOT of Nazis joined the military hoping to get combat experience in Iraq.
13. **46% of this poem is me, 54% is the original.
14. UPDATE 5/17/20 I just changed "your" to "America's" in the 7th line of the first verse. I could argue that the way it was written originally should have been interpreted as referring to the Bush Administration, but this makes it clearer. UPDATE 5/27/20 "May not be" almost works but I just changed it to "aren't."

Patrolling in the streets, choppers in the sky.
You’re waiting for the IED, you’re waiting to die.
You’re looking all around, with fear in your eyes,
Looking for the enemy and you start to wonder why.
Obey all your orders, and you do what they say,
but you’re a pawn in Bush's imperialistic game.
And America's leaders aren't all that they seem
Your bravery’s exploited by a crooked regime.

Chorus
Be the fools no more.
Contact the IVAW and find out the score.

Thousands of men and women are dying because of Bush’s plans,
And it’s not for the good of the American working-woman or man
They’re dying for profit and political greed,
but it’s always the soldiers not the politicians who bleed.
With few exceptions most of the GOP are total scum
who lie to the people whilst they beat on their drums
and they plead to the people to heed national pride,
But their idea of patriotism involves anti-Arab homicide

Chorus

It’s rarely been those with the flags in their hands
who have fought and have died out in the hot dessert sand.
While the leaders stay home with their massive cigars
They’re supported by those who fly the Stars and Bars
They take all the credit, and their pals take all the cash
whilst tens of thousands of working-class soldiers end up in a MASH
And if you dare to object and ask them to cease,
you’ll be accused of valuing nothing but peace

*********

“Remember Bobby Sands” based on “Farewell Ian Stuart” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about Bobby Sands, the first of 10 Irish republican hunger-strikers to die in 1981. They were demanding to be treated as Prisoners of War instead of criminals. There’s more about that here, here, and in the middle third of this.
2. The red, white and blue are the colors of the British flag.
3. Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
4. In addition to the ten who died, there were 13 more who went on hunger-strike before it was called off, and/or their relative had them taken off medically.
5. David Rovics is a progressive American singer/song-writer who has done at least two songs about Irish resistance to British rule.
6. Provos is an old term for Sinn Fein and the IRA.
7. Che is Che Guevara, Mandela is of course Nelson Mandela, and Connolly is James Connolly, Ireland’s greatest republican-socialist (a large train station in Dublin is named after him).
8. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it's a place where warriors go after they die, although there seems to be some debate about exactly who gets in- only people who die in combat? Anyway, the fascists love it and have sort of taken over the concept, but a friend told me that he likes the idea of the left claiming it and specifically said that if such a place exists, Che and others like him are probably there. (Do I believe in Valhalla? You could say I’m sort of an agnostic on that question and am sort of solidly a Christian. The way I see it, this is pretty flexible, don't take it too seriously, and one way to think about it is that if you believe in Heaven and would rather these people went there instead of Valhalla, maybe they can do both, spend some time in Valhalla and some time in Heaven; but my friend and I do like the idea of reclaiming it from the fash).
9. An ASU is an Active Service Unit, a component of the IRA’s structure, probably comparable to a squad. I don’t know if he was a leader of one, but if he was the POWs leader in the few months before he went on hunger-strike, he was probably a leader outside prison as well, and I am trying to get an answer from the Bobby Sands Trust, but I don’t know when they’ll get back to me.
10. An estate is a neighborhood.
11. Sands was a singer/song-writer and guitarist.
12. Sands wrote a poem about oppression throughout the world and throughout history, including one reference to what was done to American Indians.
13. The Catholic Church considered involvement with the IRA to be a sin.
14. I decided at some point to refer to Sands in the third person because I didn’t know him, and I have mixed feelings about how I should refer him to (2nd or 3rd) so it’s a little uneven in that sense, but I’m just going to leave it like that.
15. Based on a fairly scientific approach, I have estimated that only .3% of the IRA’s operations resulted in civilian death.
16. **54% of this poem is me, 46% is the original, and that ignore the last two lines that I left out entirely.
17. No Remorse were British and supported the unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

Bobby Sands, your comrades really miss you

You gave your life in defiance of the red, white and blue

You were a Volunteer, a hero, an inspiration to them all

there were dozens of men, that heeded to your call

Nine resisted by your example, and took that short hard road

Unmatched in dedication, and hearts that knew no cold


When you took on the system, you set it on fire

By attacking the Brits you turned the North into a quagmire

So with David Rovics in ears and the Provos in mind, this poem I'll write

To honor Bobby Sands, and remember the anti-British fight


Sands is missed by comrades, and remembered by friends

He did the best, he shone above the rest

He was an Irishman 'till the end

With Che and Mandela and Connolly he resides

He lives on in Valhalla because true heroes never die


His ASU, said “we look to you,” to lead them and defend the estate

His republican songs, could never be wrong

He spent years in prison because he fought to liberate

Through all the years, with all the Provo Volunteers

And the comrades he met on the way

The times in the cell, when they gave him hell

From the course never did he stray

Against the police and the Brits, with his index finger and wits

he stood up for the oppressed of the world

on the offensive and defensive,

So proudly the flags he unfurled


And they carried on, with the hope in his songs
To turn back would have been the real sin

Inspired by him they fought, when arrested they never talked

Because of his sacrifice they knew they would win


The POWs said farewell to a comrade, one who wouldn’t bend

He did the best, he shone above the rest

He was an Irishman 'till the end

Bobby Sands was a man they held so high
He lives on in Valhalla because true heroes never die

************

“Smash Internment” based on “Smash the IRA” by Skrewdriver. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the WWII Internment of Japanese people in America, which included many American citizens. It's written from the perspective of a non-Japanese American in about early 1944. I'm not sure when the fighting was in Italy and when the internment camps were closed, but there must have been several months when there was fighting in Italy and the camps were open.
2. The 3rd line might sound a little weird, but it rhymed and makes sense and although they contributed in many ways (as workers for example), they also made our society richer culturally.
3. Although unemployment was above zero (so there wasn’t a shortage of workers) I’m sure that many of those interned would have been, for example, better on airplane assembly lines than some of the non-Japanese-Americans doing that job. In general, some should have been kept out of the Defense industry, but there should have been an assumption of innocence until they were proven to be sympathetic to Japan. If that were done with high standards in the the following cases, the US could have recruited many more native or at least fluent Japanese speakers for things like intelligence, interrogating prisoners, etc. I doubt they had 100% of the people they needed for that. And those that would have been kept out of certain jobs could have been surveilled and those who were serious security risks could have been interned like a handful of Germans and Italians were with good reason. But the indiscriminate wholesale internment of Japanese and Japanese-American people was very wrong and counter-productive.
4. Those who advocated for internment were in conflict with, for example, the FBI who said they had the situation under control and that internment wasn’t needed. I think the military also didn’t request internment. Also, in Hawaii, where there was a small but actual threat of a Japanese attack, hardly any  members of the Japanese community were interned, because if they had been interned wholesale, the economy and society of those islands would have collapsed. The Japanese community wasn’t, with some exceptions, a threat to the security of the US.
5. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a segregated Japanese-American unit of the US Army. I think some of the officers were white but I think a lot of them were Japanese-American. They fought in Europe and saw more combat than any other similarly sized unit of the US Army in Europe during the war. After the war, it was the most decorated Army unit its size in all US military history up to that point. There’s more information about them and a poem I wrote here.     
6. My thoughts about FDR are found in note #2 of the first poem here, in a post with two poems about the Allied effort during WWII, something I have positive thoughts about. My posts that are partly about WWII are here.
7. Although the original lyrics are about the IRA, Skrewdriver was a Nazi skinhead band. So, this version is in conflict with what the authors of the original lyrics believe.
8. **80% of this poem is me, which ignores the last line of the chorus, which I ignored. Also, in the last verse, I switched the first two lines with the last two lines and remembered that when calculating what % is me.

On the West Coast, because of America’s racist syndrome
Japanese people were taken away from their homes.
They contribute to our nation and society beautifully
Gotta stand with them, support the Japanese community

Smash. Smash. Smash Internment.
Smash. Smash. Smash Internment.
Smash. Smash. Smash Internment.

Gotta end internment and release the Japanese
Let them help our nation defeat the Axis disease
Stupid politicians and sniveling racist scum
Justify Internment with bullshit analyses
 

Come on America!

Are we gonna continue disgracing our country?
Are we gonna listen to racists spreading nativist lies?
Japanese-Americans in the 442nd are marching on the Axis in Italy.
Are we gonna intern their families while they fight and die?
 

Come on America!

Fuck George W. Bush: Three New Poems

Below are three more poems. For an explanation of how I write my poems, see this. The last one is based on lyrics I agree with, the others are NOT.

For the rest of the lyrics, click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

1. Smash the Klan II. What you think it's about.
2. From Out of the Ashes. The birth of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland.
3. Surf the Euphrates. About the Iraq War.

“Smash the Klan II” based on “Aryan Pride” by Final War. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about slightly militant opposition to the KKK among white people. It’s sort of inspired by the time that I joined around 100-300 people in 1995 protesting a “rally” by the Klan in Boulder. At the end we surrounded the building they had rallied in front of and trapped them there for about an hour or two until the police tried something sneaky that involved getting them out in an ambulance.
2. Instead of “crossing the border,” many Mexican-Americans are partly or totally descended from Mexicans who lived in what was Mexico until it became CA, NV and the South-West of the US (and TX).
3. The 54th Mass was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the segregated Black unit that fought in the American Civil War and whose story is told, accurately or otherwise, in the movie “Glory.”
4. Racists have a greatly exaggerated sense of how much anti-white bigotry there is. In a paragraph more than half-way from the top of this post that starts with “Even without that…” I explain why I think anti-white bigotry is a very small problem.
5. I exaggerate how easy it is for white people to get a job, although if we focus on times when it’s a white person and a person of color, it IS pretty easy for the white person to get the job. Affirmative Action helps a lot, but “Hispanics” and Blacks still have an unemployment rate fairly close to twice that of white people (it’s a bit higher for Blacks than for “Hispanics” and the gap fluctuates a bit, but it’s around twice; see this). Racists think that white people are discriminated against and have more trouble getting a job. Of course, that’s probably because they think that the natural order of things should involve full employment in good jobs for white people and see anything else as unfair.
6. My thoughts about the white identity and European-American ethnic identities are in the first 2/5 of this (you should also read the conclusion, which is the second to last section) (I realize that BEFORE they read that many anti-Klan white people might not like what I say, but I think that after they read it, they will).
7. The St. Patrick Battalion was a group of American soldiers, most Irish and almost all Catholics, who deserted the US Army during the US-Mexico War and joined the Mexican Army. I’m sure it varied from individual to individual, but to one degree or another they thought that what the US was doing to Mexico was unjust (they were also alienated by anti-Catholic bigotry in the US Army (and of course Catholics *used to be* on the Klan’s list as well)).
8. After I started altering stuff, I switched the first verse with the chorus. Also, there were only three verses in the original, and the fourth verse is totally mine.
9. **70% of this poem is me, 30% is the original. I don’t know if the 3rd line of the second verse in the original lyrics I found on-line is what was actually written by the original lyricist.

Many people hate the Klan for spreading prejudice
Gay people, Muslims, and Jews are on their fucking list
Black people aren’t criminals like you see on your TV
The border crossed Mexican-Americans, its a fact of history

Chorus
Brothers and sisters, join together as one.
We’ve got the fucking KKK totally on the run
in memory of the brave 54th Mass soldiers who died
Fuck the Nazis, and fuck the Klan and fuck Aryan Pride!

Racists cry “Black man, yeah Black man full of hate”
Widespread anti-White bigotry is the bullshit story they narrate
Its fucked up how white people can secure any job by race
It’s funny how the Klan deny that that’s totally the case.

Chorus

Our solidarity won't be broken, and we won’t hide from an affray
We will keep on working until we asphyxiate the KKK
Our message will be spread. Our voices loud and clear
Inform the youth, of the truth, the Klan’s greatest fear.

Chorus

We’ll never be proud of being white, it’s an artificial identity
It’s totally steeped in privilege, hate and inequality
We’re proud of being Irish, Scottish and German, Greek, Polish and Italian
We’re in solidarity with the oppressed, just like the St. Pat’s Battalion

*********

“From Out of the Ashes” based on “After the Fire” by Skrewdriver. original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the aftermath of the anti-Catholic pogrom in the Lower Falls Nationalist/Republican area of Belfast in Aug. of 1969 (it wasn’t INCREDIBLY Republican BEFORE that month, but not long afterwards it certainly was). In July, August, and September, and mostly during a period of 2-3 days, in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). In one night alone 650 families were burnt, or at least forced, out of their homes.
2. The DUBLIN-BASED LEADERSHIP OF THE IRA had demilitarized it in the years before Aug. 1969 and only a few IRA weapons were available to help defend the area, a defense that was largely unsuccessful.
3. The Civil Rights Movement that started in mid- and late 1968 was overwhelmingly committed to non-violence and had hoped to democratize N. Ireland.
4. Provos refers to what we call in recent decades Sinn Fein and the IRA. They broke off from SF and the IRA (what became known as Official SF and Official IRA) partly because of the leadership’s decision to demilitarize the IRA.
6. Initially the British Army kind of saved the Catholics from police-led loyalist mobs and were welcomed for about 9 months, but they became increasingly like the notorious Black and Tans unit of the British Army that served in Ireland during the War of Independence 1919-1921.
7. Squaddie is a term for British soldier.
8. On the night of June 27th 1970, the Church of an isolated Catholic enclave in East Belfast was attacked by a loyalist mob. The British Army wouldn’t defend the area but members of the PIRA did. It was their first major action.
9. I like calling The Troubles the Second Anglo-Irish War, the first being the War of Independence.
10. There is or was a T-Shirt designed by either SF or their old American support organization Irish Northern Aid, that said: “From Out Of The Ashes Arose The Provisionals.” It was referring to the ashes of the mythical bird, the Phoenix (in this case representing the IRA they split off from (actually, I used to think it was the ashes of the burned out homes, and I kind of prefer that interpretation because there were some good people in the Officials in the early 1970s and I don't believe in speaking positively about the feud between the two groups)).
11. Skrewdriver were British and supported the British and Unionist causes in Northern Ireland.
12. Based on a fairly scientific look, only .3% of the PIRA’s operations resulted in civilian death.
13. **62% of this poem is me, 38% is the original.

The fires burned for hours, it was a time of terror.
Dublin had ordered the IRA disarmed but they were totally in error
Those nights there were burnt out homes, our community was battered
Non-violence had been our people’s hope, but now that hope was shattered

Chorus
After the fire, the ruins there did lay.
After the Provo victory there will come a brand new day.

The Falls stood in misery, and initially welcomed the British Army Man
But increasingly the Squaddies acted just like the old Black and Tans
Then, on the night of June 27th, it was known the Provos had come alive-
Seeds of resistance once sown, now had grown, new life that would not die.

Chorus

The new Anglo-Irish War is approaching, and with the Provos we shall be.
They rose from the ashes of August ’69 and they will fight for you and me.

*************

“Surf the Euphrates” based on “Surf Nicaragua” by Sacred Reich (despite their name, their politics are very progressive- I'm fairly familiar with all of their music and at least some of it is more or less socially liberal and it's also economically progressive and it's anti-war). Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the Occupation of Iraq.
2. The Euphrates is a major river going through Iraq.
3. One of the MANY reasons Bush had for invading Iraq was that it has a lot of oil.
4. A major argument in favor of invading was that Iraq was connected to Al-Qaeda. In fact, shortly after the war began a poll found that about 70-75% of Americans thought Iraq was responsible for 9/11. It was such bullshit that Tony Blair didn’t use that argument when trying to convince the British people and Parliament to invade. It’s also been strongly suggested that the % of the anti-US forces that were foreign Islamists was very tiny.
5. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction found, and that was predictable based on what the UN weapons inspectors were saying just before the invasion and what former Marine and former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter said around 2000.
6. Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense.
7. Based on multiple pieces of anecdotal evidence and the existence of Iraq Veterans Against the War (now, About Face), and how unpopular Bush became shortly after the 2004 election, I imagine a lot of American soldiers who voted for Bush in 2000 or 2004 wished they hadn’t after they did one or more tours there.
8. I think another reason for invading Iraq is that it provided multiple opportunities to give money to corporations. Besides arms contractors and those doing privatized work for the military, corporations getting money for reconstruction spent about half of what they got doing actual reconstruction (often a contractor would keep half and give the rest to a subcontractor and sometimes THAT corporation would keep half and give the rest to another subcontractor).
9. This poem is not pro-insurgency. It was reasonable and natural that a large majority of Iraqis wanted the US out, but my favorite slogan of the anti-war movement was “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home.” Also, some group at some point, and they may have been anti-war, was raising money to send men and women serving there body armor, and I would have supported that (it’s different than giving them extra ammunition with which to kill Iraqi civilians). (it’s also not pro-Saddam- it would be great if Saddam had been pushed out of power in a better way, but the methods that the US and UK used were bad)
10. Besides the insurgency, there was other instability caused by the invasion and occupation- Al-Qaeda attacks on Shiite neighborhoods, ethnic cleansing by Shiites and possibly some by Sunnis, and tension between some of the Shiite population and the Occupation forces. At one point it came close to a full-blown Sunni-Shiite Civil War.
11. The Surge was a brief but dramatic increase in the number of soldiers and Marines in Iraq.
12. Between 1991 and 2003 Iraq was frequently bombed by the US and UK.
13. I think that Bush supporters enjoyed the political dimension of the war, where they tangled with anti-war groups. We were in a time of a “New McCarthyism,” where disagreeing with Bush was seen by a lot of people as politically taboo. As I said, at the beginning of the war, the vast majority of Americans blamed Iraq for 9/11.
14. As far as Bush’s reasons for invading Iraq, here is something I included in two posts about anti-Semitism:

Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

15. Bush liked the idea of being a popular war-time president the people would rally around.
16. **46% of this version is me, 54% is the original.
17. In a post here I describe what I did to oppose the invasion.

I know a place Where you're all going to go
They'll pay you to kill for oil If You're eighteen years old
First You'll need a haircut And then some new clothes
They'll stick you in Baghdad To play G.I. Joe

CHORUS:
You think you’re fighting Al Qaeda and that you’ll find WMD
But it’s total bullshit, concocted by Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
But now it's too late You're entering Iraq
You voted for Bush, you’ll soon wish you could take it back

What is this we're fighting for and What are our goals
To create a cash cow for US corporations and improve Bush’s polls
Instability  and Sunni resistance grow deeper everyday
The situation worsens, the Surge is on it's the way

CHORUS:

Lessons we have learned Are easy to forget
Hints of Vietnam How soon we all forget
First we used sanctions and bombs, now go in the troops
Another chance for the Right to slander anti-war groups