Steve, I would like to hear your opinion on the story by Horoko Tabuchi in today's NYT: "Victors in Japan Are Set to Abandon Market Reform".
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/asia/01japan.html?hp
Imho that's a quite one-sided view, because, after all, the LDP had 50 years to deregulate and de-bureauctratize the nation, and it looks like they weren't really achieving much in this regard. Why should anyone be afraid the DPJ would be even worse? What's your take on this story?

As the page closed on August, the deadliest month yet for US soldiers in Afghanistan, top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal admitted that the current strategy, which was itself a new strategy presented only five months ago to replace the previous new strategy, isn’t working at that yet another new strategy is needed.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Likening the US military to “a bull charging at a matador and getting weaker with each cut,”

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/31/gen-mcchrystal-calls-for-yet-another-new-strategy-in-afghanistan/

In war, humanity’s deadliest undertaking, the folks in charge of the Pentagon keep asking for another mulligan, and the president, Congress, and the news media keeping saying sure, tee it up again.

http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2009/08/31/mullens-mulligans/

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen appeared on the Aug. 23 edition of Meet the Press to sell the war in Afghanistan. He couldn’t have asked for a better straight man than David Gregory. Gregory pulsed Mullen "on the question of U.S. resolve." Gregory noted the recent Washington Post/ABC News poll that indicated 51 percent of Americans don’t think Afghanistan is "worth the fight," and he asked Mullen "have the American people lost that will to fight this war?"

"Well, I’m, I’m a Vietnam veteran myself," Mullen replied, and assured the American people that he was certainly aware of "the criticality" of their support. He mumbled and grumbled and said "the president’s given me and the American military a mission," and he went yakety-yak about the "new strategy" and wheezed that it "focuses on al-Qaeda" and blabbed yada, yada, yada about the "original 9/11 attacks" and sniffled that "they still plot against us" and blubbered "in that regard, we’re very focused on executing that mission."

It was a perfect non-answer to a perfect non-question.

Re the latest round of policy shift foreshadowing from the brass. Once again the Alfonse and Gaston routine where the military brass wring their hands and opine about facts on the ground, strategies, etc., that can only be seen as laying the groundwork for the political "leaders" to fall into line, if not fall over themselves to provide more "assets" in the field. All the while assuring us that there are metrics, contingencies, exigencies, and very good reasons why we need to keep throwing money and lives down the rat hole.

The line between civilian and military roles in the political decision-making process continues to blur. We continue to be manipulated, not really informed, to support the military-industrial complex.

world govts ought to be run by mothers who have many children and grandchildren who are forced to meet with other mothers from other nations who also have many children and grandchildren.

the bulldoodoo that passes for expertise and professionalism is rotten to the core.

Afghanistan is suddenly and magically considered to be failing, because the military and their merchants of death are doing their annual budget appropriations dance--"more money please." Sadly, no one calls them on it, because of their own vested interests.

And the military has been quite successful in their annual dance. The defense budget since 2000, though the country faces no significant threat. And their lavish expenditures have been financed by raiding the Social Security Trust Fund, borrowing from China, and co-opting any spare change that might be used to cover the 50 million without medical insurance. But shhhh--no one is supposed to know.

The defense budget [has doubled] since 2000 (not including the annual blank checks issued for the Occupations.)

johnh - sad reality with no one in sight who wants to challenge it in any big way....

Democracy Now, or rather Hypocrisy Now, sucks the $ out of a lot
of other independent media. This is a topic I truly do know well.

Steve, why don't you ask Democracy Now's host, Amy Goodman,
about why she didn't go to bat for the other indie TV news shows
on Free Speech TV?

Independent media, in terms of Democracy Now controlling the
news, is as bad as corporate media.

Steve, also please ask Amy where she gets her money from. Indie
news producers across this country would love to know why she
never mentions her funders to her audience.

outraged american - i have heard this said before about democracy now... anyone know of an article that covers this topic in more detail??? i would like to understand it better.

Do a search for "gatekeepers of the left"-Democracy Now should
come right up.

I jumped on the Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy by Walt and
Mearsheimer back when it was a paper published in the London
Review of Books. We had the editor on and then both Walt and
Mearsheimer a few times. As far as I know, Democracy Now has
not had Walt or Mearsheimer on yet, despite that their book
probably help change the course of history.

Democracy Now also refuses to touch on the official narrative of
9/11 except for one instance in my recollection when Demo
Now had on Chip Berlet (who's very good on other topics, but in
my opinion, completely wrong on this one) debating David Ray
Griffin.

When we were on air, which we're obviously not anymore given
all the time I seem to have on my hands, we had on experts
from many different fields, talking about the discrepancies in
the official 9/11 narrative.

Why? Because 9/11 AKA the "Day That Changed Everything" has
led to the destruction of our cherished Bill of Rights and endless
war against this nebulous enemy called "Terror."

And in real terms, the deaths of at least 1.2 million Iraqis,
countless Afghans, who knows how many Pakistanis, and US
suckers, I mean soldiers.

I lost a friend in the WTC, which is when I went back into news.
Corporate media in the US cannot be trusted, and I've worked in
it, so I went into independent media.

The saying "The left eats its own" could never ring truer when
applied to independent media in the US. Democracy Now, while
it does a lot of good work, ate a lot of other news shows in its
path.

A free country must have a free press. Democracy Now now has
a monopoly on independent TV news. Not healthy.

http://www.media-criticism.com/Amy_Goodman_03_2004.html

You should hear some Pacifica producers talk about Democracy
Now. So many shows went off the air, really good ones, after
Democracy Now became a juggernaut.

I just know my own experience. We had a staff of five, plus a few
interns and depended completely on viewer donations. Democracy
Now had a staff of between 30-40 and has foundation funding.
Nevertheless, I will match my rolodex and what the show I worked
on accomplished with theirs any day.

Both Pacifica and Free Speech TV put all their eggs in Democracy
Now's basket. This led to a shutdown of true "free speech" in this
country, because, in terms of reaching a wide audience, Democracy
Now has a monopoly, and sometimes it doesn't use it wisely.

Democracy Now has seemed to me, for some time now, to be a trojan entity, much like MSNBC. While presenting themselves as alternatives to the RW propaganda machines such as Fox News, they actually represent the same interests. MSNBC's absolute avoidance of any reporting having to do with the Israel/Palestinian issue completely robs MSNBC, and its commentators of any credibility. Democracy Now is not far behind MSNBC in its obvious failure to report key current issues.

Speaking of MSNBC, its ironic watching Maddow run her mouth in an attempt to appear to be a responsible member of the Fourth Estate, only to see the station break go to an advertisement for NewsMax.

Pacifica lost a lot of great work because of Democracy Now.
Ditto with Free Speech TV. KPFA is a Pacifica station BTW, or
used to be.

What amazes and really annoys me is when Amy Goodman
prattles on about "supporting independent news" when in truth
she does very little if anything.

She cuts good deals, or rather that guy who made her, whose
name I can't spell, cuts good deals in terms of % of fundraising
Democracy Now gets from their various outlets.

That shuts out a lot of Pacifica and Free Speech news shows, and
a lack of non-corporate news is truly unhealthy for this country,
and by extension the world.

Some of the former producers at KPFK (Pacfica in LA) really hate
Amy Goodman because of their perception of her leaching their
funds. One calls her "Witchie-poo" I need to call him today. He
makes me laugh.

It's a real tragedy that this country now has only one
independent TV news show broadcast each weekday. If the
folks behind Democracy Now really cared they would have
helped other shows out, but they didn't.

I think that Democracy Now does some excellent work, and I
don't think that they represent "right wing" interests. If anything
they're too far to the left. Practically Bolsheviks.

We had Ron Paul, Barr, Gravel and Kucinich on multiple times.
Our goal was a transpartisan dialogue that would attempt to
unite Americans on issues of grave concern like the destruction
of the Bill of Rights and the horror of endless war. Or any war.

As far as I know, Demo Now never had Paul or Barr on. We had
on a lot of true conservatives, the ones who believe in minding
our own business (antiwar) and individual liberty. Small federal
budget, states' rights, etc.

Democracy Now doesn't touch anyone if that person is
considered a conservative, even if it's on an issue they agree on.
And I think that's so bad for this country.

You have the Kos Kids hating whatever a GOPer does, even if
they agree with it, just because the person is Republican. Then
you have the Free Republic types, ditto for Democrats.

In this crucial time it is so important for Americans to be united
and see "our" government for what it is. We "average" people
have more in common than we think we do, we just need to sit
down and talk to each other.

I swear I think that the uniparty system -- the Dems and the
GOP are One Party Under Israel, because war is the health of the
state and UsRael is about to launch another one -- is designed
to divide and conquer us peons.

http://www.uggboot4you.com/