AlterNet Readers' 10 Best Comments of the Week!

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted September 22, 2007.

It's your turn to tell us what's what.

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The message boards were humming with conversation about articles on MoveOn's ad, "General Betray Us?," Chris Hedges' takedown of Bill Clinton's new book Giving, outrage over the Jena Six case, Jewish dissent regarding the state of Israel, and other hot-button issues. Without further ado, here are your comments of the week:

Thoughtcriminal tut-tutted the mainstream media for failing to critique the real reasons for the occupation of Iraq in response to "MoveOn Ad Exposes the True Betrayers."

Why won't the Democratic leadership mention the oil factor?

Behind the endless talk about "benchmarks" and "success" and "our interests in the region" are the two central factors: control of Middle East oil and the establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq as the method of control.

Really, that's the geopolitical-economic plan. As oil grows more scarce and dear, the political-economic leadership of the United States -- the ones who buy elections and own the corporate press, as well as all the oil corporations -- have decided they can no longer rely on puppet dictators of questionable loyalty to control the oil reserves and the region, and that's why the permanent military bases are being built in the region.

Neither the oil nor the base construction are topics that any politician, Democratic or Republican, will touch. They're not even in the frame -- they are not acceptable topics for domestic political consumption.

Read Hersh at the New Yorker:

"Where Is the Iraq War Headed Next? 2005."

One Pentagon adviser told me, "There are always contingency plans, but why withdraw and take a chance? I don't think the president will go for it" until the insurgency is broken. "He's not going to back off. This is bigger than domestic politics."

Odd, isn't it, that U.S. foreign policy is deemed to be "bigger than domestic politics" by the military-industrial complex?

What happened to the notion of government of the people, by the people and for the people? Just a quaint, old-fashioned notion? Now it's all for big finance, big pharma, and big oil … Corporato Uber Alles …

Even the oil issue is too touchy. The New York Times is trying to spin the story into "What Greenspan really meant to say is that Saddam was a serious threat to the region and had to be removed!"

Mr. Greenspan also spelled out his own views about the war in Iraq: he supported the invasion, he says, not because Saddam Hussein might have had weapons of mass destruction, but because Saddam had shown a clear desire to capture the Middle East's oil fields.

"I supported taking out Saddam, because he was moving inexorably toward taking the world's oil resources," he said. "Iraq was a far greater threat than Iran to the world scene.

Yeah -- he was about to invade Saudia Arabia and Iran and Kuwait! We stopped him just in time! His armies were massing on the border! With nukes and stuff! Really!

I will never, ever take that rotten rag seriously again. What a farce! What a total betrayal of journalistic integrity! What a collection of propaganda monkeys!

The lies surrounding Iraq also extend to military recruiting. Poster soulerbeljc added some personal experience to the piece "Top Military Recruitment Lies"

Patriot Act Section 9528 …

I'm surprised the article didn't mention this, though the book probably does. This is a little known clause in the (un)Patriot Act that ties federal funding for schools to giving student personal info to military recruiters. I have been a HS teacher for nine years, and each year this has been in effect, I tell my students about it first day of school, because school districts DO NOT adequately inform students and parents of the law -- and that students have a right to OPT OUT. Of course they can't opt out if they don't know the law …

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If not Capitalism, What? [Report this comment] Posted by: brab on Sep 22, 2007 4:18 AM Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] Commenting on Naomi Klein's Latest Book - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism: When Moses stumbled down the hill a few thousand years ago lugging the “Ten Amendments to the Golden Rule,” he found that in his absence his people had heeded their glib politicians, melted down their nose rings and fashioned a golden idol they christened Baal the Bountiful. Ever since, they’ve been led by the nose to seek ever more gold. The fat little idol is now called Capitalism or Free Enterprise and is worshipped six days a week by most corporate altar boys. On the seventh day they genuflect and worship sports and miscellaneous celebrities. It’s all about aggression and damn little to do with compassion … a strange religion that puts atheism to shame. In a “turn around is fair play” genre, Jesus was thrown out of the temple and banished to the never-never land of Democratic Socialism. Ayn Rand held that the only moral social system is laissez-faire capitalism – no holds barred free enterprise. A cliché today is that America is the world’s best place to live. Considering our social climate, infant mortality rate and inmate population, if that stereotype is true, the world is chin deep in guano. If America represents the best that mankind can come up with, the cliché may pat America’s back but it isn’t too kind to mankind. Every year, 400,000 copies of Ayn Rand’s novels are offered free to Advanced Placement high school programs. The books are paid for by the Ayn Rand Institute. That’s called perpetuating the myth of freedom. Gotta make sure those gold nose rings remain tethered to the stock exchange trough. Democratic Socialism may fatten the swarming masses but that social system would cause malnutrition in the elite, so don’t even talk about it. William F. Brabenec brab@tir.com [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5] Check out the comments about the NAIS story [Report this comment] Posted by: hagwind on Sep 22, 2007 5:11 AM Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] I'm sorry not to see any of the comments on Jim Hightower's story on NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, featured here. It's probably because though the overall quality of the comments was high, none stood out as "top ten" caliber. The weekly "top ten" roundup alerts me to featured stories I missed the first time around, so for all of you who come here looking for a heads-up or two: check out Hightower's story. Not only is it very well told, it includes a really inspiring example of how grassroots organizing is making a serious difference. Maybe AlterNet could occasionally single out comment threads where the signal:noise ratio is especially high -- meaning that posters don't get sidetracked into insulting each other, and you don't have to wade through a lot of drivel to get to the good stuff. [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5] "tut-tutted the mainstream media" - I must object. [Report this comment] Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Sep 22, 2007 11:23 AM Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] First of all, it's the corporate media, not the mainstream media. That's the publicly owned press which is NOT controlled by independent editors who worked their way up from reporters and who are dedicated to getting the story straight, and covering the issues that really matter. Secondly, I wasn't "tut-tutting', I was condemning. I was pointing out that the corporate media has betrayed the American public in the worst way possible, and has been doing so for some time. Without the shameless repetition of the lies put out by BushCo about WMDs in Iraq, there would have been no justification for the war and thus no war. Thirdly, Alternet's coverage this weekend is really low-quality. Let's see: pornography, video games, "slut chick", a not too bad article about the Pentagon, and Rather's lawsuit against CBS. That would be Rather, "When my President says march I march," correct? The real key issues facing the United States are the pump up for a new war with Iran, the ongoing domestic spying carried out with the aid of Verizon and AT&T and a compliant Congress, the endless corruption in government contracting processes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and also Katrina (and everywhere else), the expansion of NAFTA under Bush's SPP, the corporate money pouring into the 2008 Presidential Election Race, the fact that the voting system in this country is still completely unreliable and will likely result in yet another seriously flawed election in 2008 - to name a few. If you're going to have a 'reader's best comments' section, spare the editorializing about them. Just print them and leave it at that, is my advice. Ciao! (and on to my next espresso) [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

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