When the Bush administration disrespects U.S. allies, eventually they stop being diplomatic about it. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the Bush administration had little confidence in the Iraqi Prime Minister. What surprises me is the leak of a classified memo from the national security adviser saying,

the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.

That isn’t even the worst leak of the week. Everyone knew that Margaret Thatcher made Britain Ronald Reagan’s dog. Tony Blair would have learned that lesson, right? In an oops-did-I-say-that-out-loud, a State Department analyst said this week that he was “a little ashamed” of the one-sided relationship between the US and the UK.

[W]e typically ignore them and take no notice — it’s a sad business.

Blair really needs his moment giving a speak like UK Prime Minister Hugh Grant in Love Actually, when he stood up to the menacing US President Billy Bob Thornton.

Prime Minister [Hugh Grant]: I love that word “relationship”. Covers all manner of sins, doesn’t it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship. A relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm… Britain. We may be a small country but we’re a great one, too. . . . a friend who is a bully is no longer a friend. . . . since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that.

At some point, standing up and calling George Bush a devil is going to be the rule rather than the exception.

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News is just pouring in and overwhelming today. I think an important story is getting lost. I’m not saying it is more important than civil war in Iraq or deterioration in Darfur. No. Those stories rip my heart out every day. The days of Colin Powell’s acceptance of Pottery Barn foreign policy are over. (He says it’s a civil war.) I think more time is being spent on the vocabulary of uncontrolled violence than on the violence itself. Death and suffering are difficult to face, but they are there. We need to SEE it without allowing ourselves to turn away.

But what are we missing while the world suffers? While we look away, the nasty authoritarians still play.

When Newt Gingrich spoke at a First Amendment Award Dinner about how and why first the first amendment should be reexamined. What? Keith Olbermann interviewed a George Washington University law professor about the implications.

Newt Gingrich called for a reexamination of free speech at the Loeb First Amendment Award Dinner in New Hampshire this week, saying a “different set of rules to prevent terrorism” are necessary.

Gingrich’s call to restrict free speech is mainly focused on the Internet.

Keep your eyes on these people. Call your Representatives and Senators to ask them whether they think the first amendment needs to be reexamined.

Update 12/2: Love it when Keith Olbermann goes after a subject like Newt Gingrich’s desire to suppress free speech on the internet.

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I’m just too blissed out on fish oil to raise the blood pressure today. So, rather than talk about the indictment of George Bush or discuss why George Bush can’t say the words “civil war” (even if Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart can), I’ll just give you Mark Fiore’s animated Still Deciding at Mother Jones. I can’t even get too bothered out how insubstantial the video is, but I am wondering why Pat Bagley hasn’t created an animated Clueless George series.

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Jim Webb, the Virginia Senator-elect who narrowly defeated George Allen, wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal this week on “Class Struggle.”

As one of the commentors when the story was posted at Buzz Flash wrote:

Think of it: a former Republican, and a Naval officer to boot, writing and speaking out for the working class!

It is clear from the piece that he doesn’t mean class struggle in the Marxist sense but a less violent and not particularly revolutionary need to deal with economic disparity in the U.S. He writes that class is becoming an issue like it hasn’t been since the 19th century. My knowledge of history tells me that class had not gone away during that period in U.S. society. What we can read here is a dawning realization of the simple fact of the existence of class in U.S. society. Class is obvious to many. I personally can’t see how it wouldn’t be, but some just don’t realize it is there even as they see its evidence all around them. Webb is saying, “HEY! Look at this or you’ll see the consequences.”

In general, I have found that people in the U.S. like to deny class. I found strong evidence for this in the years I spent teaching about class at university level. Based on polls conducted among them, most of my students called themselves “middle class” from families making $100,000+ / year. At the beginning of semesters, they told me class was not an issue in the U.S. A few students, sometimes those from the rare ~$20,000 / year families, rolled their eyes at this. Even fewer students openly dissented from the prevailing opinion. For the most part, they were the beneficiaries of the system. Denial worked well for them.

So, I did my best to introduce them to the world of diversity they hadn’t yet met. One of the resources I used often was the PBS site for the film “People Like Us,” a 2001 documentary shown on public television. The games and graphics gave me a way to approach the subject safely before jumping into the depths of poverty, corporate greed, income disparity, marketing of the middle class, and so on.

The book I read in college, the book that shocked me into awareness, was Paul Fussell’s Class, A Guide Through the American Status System, which is still in print in several formats.

It isn’t like class is out of the mainstream entirely. Last summer, the New York Times published an interesting series of articles on Class Matters. Minus the Flash graphics, the articles were then published as a book. It’s a place to start.

What Webb wrote is a short opinion piece. He points out that it is the elites who need to be educated about class and fairness or American workers will rise to demand fairness. I’m sure a few paragraphs can’t put a fine point on a topic so many have spent lifetimes and epics discussing. Still, I’m glad to see this new Senator implying that he intends to confront the issue.

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Paste this at the bottom of your emails.

NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.

• Impeach Bush
• Impeach Bush
• “The Case for Impeachment,” Harper’s
• “The Impeachment of George W. Bush,” The Nation
• Impeach PAC
• “Impeach Bush,” Garrison Keillor
• Impeach Bush Meet Up
• So you think you want to impeach?

At the Salt Lake County Democratic Convention this past Spring, I was giving out “Impeach Bush” stickers at the Progressive Caucus table. A certain candidate for federal office (whose numbers ended up in the 30% range), leaned in and said, “I agree with you, but I can’t wear that.”

UPDATE: After the article on Alternet (last link above), readers responded, then Alternet responded inviting more discussion.  You know, like a real conversation.  Amazing to see such a thing in the U.S. political scene.

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