Happy Birthday, Scallion!

July 15, 2003. The Scallion hereby celebrates its first birthday—apparently, John Ashcroft either hasn't caught up with us yet or has decided that we're small potatoes and don't pose a significant threat to his beloved, neo-fascist regime. All we can say is, “He don't know me very well, do he?” Perhaps, by this time next year, the U.S. government, corporations, and people will have been soundly whacked upside the head with a do-no-evil-and-be-happy-not-greedy stick, and the services of this august publication will no longer be required. Since, while finite, the probability of that happening are infinitesimally, vanishingly small, we expect to see our usual—perhaps grown?—crop of faithful, thoughtful readers back here, same Scallion-time, next year. Many happy returns to all of you until then.

Ari Fleischer Calls It Quits, Strikes Off on Own

July 15, 2003. Ari Fleischer stepped down from his position as Bush administration mouthpiece after his three-hundredth press so-called conference. In today's conference, he actually allowed questions with “unlimited” follow-ups from “difficult” reporters—those who report on corporate crime and other populist issues—in a stunning deviation from his usual practice of fielding questions only from friendly journalists, like those for Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other corporate media. He plans to go on the lucrative lecture circuit, telling America's corporations how to deal with the press—including, ostensibly, to repeat a lie ad infinitum no matter how many times it has been proven false.

Fleischer's softening of the no-questions-from-liberals-or-progressives rule that has been in place since his appointment surprised but pleased reporters like Russell Mokhiber, a corporate crime reporter who has frequently been excluded from press conferences or simply ignored when he does attend. That sort of censorship does not constitute free speech or free journalism, he complains, and rightly so. Perhaps the larger issue is the dogged evasion of those difficult questions when they do come up—a tactic not likely to be altered by Fleischer's successor, the new White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan.

(For a sample exchange between Fleischer and Mokhiber, see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0714-10.htm)

British P.M. Blair Up for U.S. Congressional Gold Medal

July 15, 2003. For his valuable service to the U.S. crown—oops, we meant White House—supporting Washington’s recent hostile corporate take-over of Iraq, British Prime Minister Toady Blair has been nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal. The highest award in the country for civilians, the gold medal is second only to its military cousin, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Local Washingtonians are mixed in their views of the nomination. Those residents who applaud the award at face value labor under the impression that Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda (despite lack of proof and copious historical evidence to the contrary) and had a stockpile of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons poised to strike the U.S. (despite lack of proof and recent admissions by the Bush administration to the contrary, including revisional statements that the U.S. government feared Iraq’s weapons “programs,” not weapons themselves). One observer noted that the award has been postponed due to congressional backpedaling—if the award were truly appropriate, he observed, there would be no need to back down from presenting or receiving the award. Many others see the congressional award as a congressional “reward” for sucking up to Bush and selling out the non-ruling classes of the U.S., the U.K., and Iraq. Still others see a silver lining: given the grilling that Blair is receiving in his own local media, the gold medal is a rude reminder of Blair’s sycophantic relationship with Bush—if the Great British public learns to perceive Blair as a failed Tory and as Bush’s lackey cum lap poodle, it may spur them to replace the dysfunctional Labour party with something more progressive, more populist, and more favorable to the tenets that founded the Labour party in the first place. Many other Washingtonians are simply outraged by the award: they feel that not only do Blair and Bush not deserve awards for sinking the planet into an unnecessary, basically unilateral war that has already cost billions of taxpayer dollars and upwards of ten thousand lives, but the nomination deprecates all those who have received the award in the past for truly noble causes. In addition to these local residents, an Iraqi woman offered to decorate the award with the blood of her baby who was bombed in the war. Her remarks sparked a chorus acknowledging the blood of all who have been slain so far in Iraq—innocent civilian men, women, and children and soldiers on both sides—as well as the American soldiers who are dying at the rate of one per day.

Toady Blair, however, was unalloyed in his reaction to the gold medal.

“Ooh, I can’t believe it!” squealed Blair as he hopped gleefully up and down while clapping his hands. “I mean, first, I really went to bat for George to scrounge up those phone documents about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. I even coughed up the one about their going to Niger for fissile material. And, even though those documents had been actively denounced as fabrications long ago when they were new, I vocally presented them as God’s own truth to the British people as I gave them to George to do likewise. I went all the way for George. Whatever he asked, I gave.

“Then, he had the nerve to say I was ‘unreliable’ and that America was willing to go into Baghdad alone. What a blow that was! I cried day and night for a week. I mean, I had given George everything I had—more than I ever sanely should have—and he runs off to go chasing after Saddam without so much as a nice bouquet of flowers or a nice box of chocs. My goodness me, even a note or a phone call would have done.

“I really thought it was over between us—it sure looked like George had used me and dumped me for someone new. I was really depressed about it, even though he did eventually relent and let me send my troops to Iraq to help his. But I hadn’t heard as much as a peep of thanks since George declared the hostilities over back in May.”

“The American Congressional Gold Medal is such a lovely surprise that I take back every nasty thing I ever said about George. He can even keep the ‘Nuke Saddam’ sweater I knitted for him. Oh, I’m so excited, I’m in a total snit! I don’t know what to do with myself! This is almost as exciting as it was when George and I were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize! Heavens, I don’t know what I’ll do if we win—I might go spare. But not too spare to pull out and dust off that cheeky little pink chiffon frock with all the frills …”

Fetuses Back Bush's Measures to Give Them Rights Over Their Mothers

July 14, 2003. Fetuses following the issue of White House resident Mr. Bush's efforts to give them rights of citizenship recently applauded Mr. Bush and recent initiatives. “I agree with Bush—I deserve more rights than my mother because I have a penis and she doesn't,” one fetus remarked in an interview today. A female fetus concurred: “I want my chance in life to be beaten, treated like dirt, and legally sodomized by every male that walks into and out of my unmarried mother's life. I want to be uneducated and have a demeaning, demoralizing job and to die young from heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. I want my chance to be the crack baby I'll be born to be.” A third fetus added his remarks: “I want to force my mother to have me so that she can give me up for adoption. Because I'm Black, and because I have some developmental and physical problems, I'm looking forward to not ever being adopted and being cast out onto the street to fend for myself the minute I turn eighteen. I plan to be shot down by gunfire from gangs of street fighters, thanks to the gun freedoms secured for criminals by the NRA.”

Ph.D. philosopher and author of such introspectively religious books as “Jesus Holy Christ Almighty” Zoe Owens offered her remarks on the occasion. “Frankly, while I find most of the fetuses' remarks to be a depressing reminder of life in America's under-culture, I think they're more immaterial than not. While both mothers and fetuses have natural universal rights, the mother's right to continue or abort the pregnancy outweigh the fetus's right to be born because—let's face it—she is the one who has to deal with the physical, emotional, and financial ramifications of having a baby. Even if babies were born able to take care of themselves, this would still be the case because, while in utero, a baby must depend and impose upon its mother. In the vast majority of cases, even the most involved fathers invest far less emotional energy in the upbringing of a child, so it is appropriate to discuss the issue solely from the mother's point of view. And, while I personally would never have an abortion, I take strenuous issue with those anti-abortion Americans who would force their decision whether or not to continue a pregnancy on me or any other woman, American or not. This is why the opposition to 'anti-abortion' is known as 'pro-choice,' not 'pro-abortion.' Americans need to wake up and smell the coffee that this is not about fetuses' rights or saving lives—if the so-called pro-lifers were truly interested in saving lives, they'd support sensible gun controls, organ donation, smoking cessation, and so on. It's about controlling women and keeping them from having even the most reasonable control over their own lives. And it sucks.”

Bush Shocked: Africans Not as Stupid as He Thought

July 9, 2003. As he began his stay in Africa, Mr. Bush was stunned to find that the African people are not the brainless sheep he expected them to be. He was shocked to find that his presence on the continent was widely protested by an intelligent, informed populace that denounce his invasion of Iraq and his self-serving politics-for-the-rich. He was less than pleased to see posters bearing large pictures showing him with a Hitleresque mustache and giving a hand gesture very similar to the Nazi salute. He refused to address questions about his adminstration's fabrications of Iraq seeking to buy fissile material from Niger, despite the fact that his handlers had already admitted the deception in an effort to do some pre-trip damage control. He was pleased, however, that ordinary Africans were prohibited from attending the vapid “public” speeches he made for his campaign video diary. (For more details, see http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/09/1342222)

When asked how he liked Africa so far, Mr. Bush remarked, “Well, I haven't talked to any of the important people yet. Y'know, the leader, the president—the white guy who's in charge of all of this. And I'm confused about something, too. I mean, Liberia, Niger, and all—I know they're just states in the nation of Africa, but Laura and them keep telling me they're whole countries and that Africa is a continent. I don't know how Africa could be a continent because I don't see how it could possibly wear diapers. I guess I'll just hafta set Laura and them straight when I get home—I don't want to embarrass them in public by showing off how much smarter than them I am.

“Karl told me to act interested in this trip, but how can I when Africa is full of so many Black people? Who cares about them? And that Nelson Mandelbaum guy, he's been publicly criticizing me—and, therefore, the U.S. and all its people—so I don't care how badly he wants to meet me, he's not gonna.

“The AIDS stuff is going pretty well, I guess. We're 'promising' them $15B of old money earmarked by Bill Clinton to loan Africa to buy American AIDS drugs at full world market price. What they tell me that means is that, for one thing, the money is not a gift. Africa has to pay it all back—as if they have the money now or would in the future. But the cool part is that, if they bit the bait, it keeps them from buying cheaper AIDS drugs from Argentina, Brazil, and them. I've even appointed the Eli Lily ex-CEO guy or whatever to be the AIDS ambassador to Africa on all of this. We're all hoping that they're desperate enough to turn off their brains long enough to grab our generous deal. And here I was thinking that only Republicans care enough to protect the vulnerable big drug companies from the scary, overbearing poor people, but it turns out that Bill Clinton cared, too. I guess he wasn't as bad a guy as we all thought. But, of course, we still hafta talk about him like he was the great Satan. Gotta make ourself look as good as possible, y'know. And it goes without saying that I wouldn't be picking up this li'l project where the evil B.C. left off if it were widely known that he started it. But—oops!—I've already said too much about that.

“I'm not all that pleased with the Black people here. I mean, I think they were expecting me to apologize on America's behalf for slavery. Get real! It's because of slavery that people like me are so rich and America's Blacks are so poor. It's the natural order. It's not my fault that we either did slavery or stopped it, so I'm not apologizing for anything—fuck 'em. I don't know who those uppity Blacks think they are anyway. They should know their place by now.

“Speaking of uppity Blacks who don't know their rightful place serving Whites, I couldn't believe the protests these people had up when I got here. They were protesting me—and, therefore, the U.S. and all its people. Who do they think they are to come ask us for help with AIDS and Liberia and then disagree with the great nation of America? I figure it must be a problem with the media around here—it must not be corporate enough. No matter—we'll fix that once we take over in our bid for world domination. Y'know, Project for a New American Century and all of that. And, like every other country we imperialize, Africa's leaders will sell their people out for the promise of a piece of our big fat juicy American pie. Some day, Africa and the rest of the world will hear only the news that we feed our corporate media to feed them—and, thanks to Bill Clinton deregulating radio in 1996, we have fine establishments like ClearChannel to do it. And nobody anywhere will hafta think any more. Karl says the world will be a much nicer, better, Godlier place then. I'm looking forward to it.”

(For the real story on American big oil's exploitation of Africa, see “Drilling and Killing” at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/11/2326226)

Bush Stonewalls Investigations—Again!

July 9, 2003. As the Bush administration has so assiduously stonewalled the 9/11 investigation, including the suppression of already-public information stating that Bush personally knew that al Qaeda had plans to attack high-profile U.S. targets and that those plans involved hijacking airplanes, so it intends to prevent and/or stonewall an investigation into the administration's egregious deception of the Congress, the American People, the United Nations, and the world at large regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Isn't it ironic that the Bushies denied and ignored actual information regarding 9/11 while they fabricated information to “justify” invading Iraq? Either way, it's lying. And it costs lives.

For more of Bush's lies, see this article in Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/2085689/