The East Bay area of Northern California has a top notch weekly newspaper, East Bay Express, which I have to say takes on issues very fairly. As a result, they seem to anger those that cannot handle the idea that anyone doesn't agree with them. Case in point are the following letters, which I'm posted in context before I dissect them:

Both Sides Hide

So now your intrepid police beat reporter Anneli Rufus wants us to believe there was no police violence at the Feb. 22 protests in Berkeley, that those poor riot-gear-clad officers were provoked and threatened by a group of Berkeley High School students yelling at them. And Berkeley taxpayers paid how much in overtime for this farce!?!

I personally witnessed police shove one man to the ground in front of the police station, as I'm sure the dozens of others who were outraged that the cops started pushing students around also saw. This was after a youth was arrested and students and World Can't Wait folks gathered in front of the police station to call for the youth's release. Does poor old Police Chief Hambleton really expect us to believe that the police were afraid the students would try to storm the station to release their comrade? The students aren't that stupid, as BHS spokesperson Mark Coplan seems to think. He insults the intelligence of these thinking young people when he says they are "fourteen, fifteen – literally babies."

My fifteen-year-old son was among the protesters. He's a veteran of dozens of protests since he was a baby, including the first protest against the then-impending Iraq war in October 2002 in Washington, DC. He's lived almost half his young life under the shadow of George Bush's war; he and his fellow students know they are targets of the predators at the Marine recruiting station, and that the endless oil war/terror war is running out of willing cannon fodder. I was so proud of my son that he skipped school March 19 to protest again and chanted "Hell No! We Won't Go!" But Anneli Rufus is just outraged that students would commit the heinous crime of skipping classes, saying nothing about the war crimes these students refuse to be part of.

To suggest that these intelligent young students are stupidly following the World Can't Wait crowd because they are given free T-shirts and bandanas is ridiculous. They can think for themselves. I told my son to be careful and be aware that there are agents provocateur who do try to incite violence. I know from 25-plus years in leftist politics that the Revolutionary Communist Party has engaged in this before; their cult of personality around Chairman Avakian doesn't serve any useful purpose. It's certainly possible that World Can't Wait recruiters hide behind youth while screaming at police. It's certain that Marine recruiters hide behind police while lying to our youth.

Paul Burton, Oakland

Embedded Journalism Right Here in Berkeley

If you're looking for "embedded" journalism that lies in the service of an illegitimate war, you don't need to turn on Fox News. Just check out Anneli Rufus' article "Who Baited Whom at Berkeley Rallies?" Not only is Rufus' attack on antiwar protesters one-sided, quoting extensively from a police spokesperson and other pro-police sources without any commentary from World Can't Wait, but the article completely evades the substance and nature of the two sides that have been facing off in Berkeley. On one side are the protesters, tired of waiting (five years now) for their "elected representatives" to stop an illegal and immoral war that has already taken 1 million Iraqi lives and forced 5 million to flee their homes, and determined to bring it to a halt by stopping the lying recruiters from sucking more young people into it. In opposition, pro-war forces (bearing signs like "Waterboard the Liberals") are trying to intimidate and silence what they perceive as a real threat to the status quo.

Rufus quotes the school district's PR man, Mark Coplan, who accuses World Can't Wait activists of provoking police while "hiding behind" the youth (whom Coplan calls "literally babies"). This is false, condescending, and paternalistic. The youth have minds and opinions of their own. In fact, one of the best things to happen in Berkeley in a long time is that so many high school students have taken stopping the war into their own hands.

Who is really manipulating the youth? Antiwar activists who tell the truth about the war, or the recruiters with billions of dollars at their disposal to lie to the youth? Who lurks around grade schools in souped-up Hummers, telling kids that war is like a video game? Do recruiters mention that one-third of women soldiers report being raped in the service? Or that this war is based on 935 lies told by the Bush regime? Do they describe the war crimes that US troops are ordered to carry out every day, including torture, collective punishment, and targeting of innocent civilians? If the recruiters told the truth, no one would join. Nothing about this war and occupation is "honorable" and troops that carry out these orders should not be supported.

Military recruiters do not have any "right" to be in Berkeley or anywhere else, since their "right" to recruit conflicts with the right of the Iraqi people to live and to be free of an illegitimate war and occupation.

Giovanni Jackson, World Can't Wait Youth Organizer, Berkeley

First, let's look at some of Paul Burton's letter:

The students aren't that stupid, as BHS spokesperson Mark Coplan seems to think. He insults the intelligence of these thinking young people when he says they are "fourteen, fifteen – literally babies."

Teenagers aren't "stupid," as that insulting term usually describes someone with a permanent below average intelligence like Tom Hanks' character in Forrest Gump. However, teenagers don't know much of anything. The world is still new to them, and most of them are just starting to think politically. Naturally, they'll latch on to the first radical things they find and think they're the first ones to think that way. I did this myself when I read Malcolm X and protested the war in Iraq, not knowing very much about the more in depth aspects of the civil rights era or the conditions that precipitated the invasion of Iraq. I still don't know as much as older generations for what should be obvious, common sense reasons.

My fifteen-year-old son was among the protesters. He's a veteran of dozens of protests since he was a baby, including the first protest against the then-impending Iraq war in October 2002 in Washington, DC. He's lived almost half his young life under the shadow of George Bush's war; he and his fellow students know they are targets of the predators at the Marine recruiting station, and that the endless oil war/terror war is running out of willing cannon fodder. I was so proud of my son that he skipped school March 19 to protest again and chanted "Hell No! We Won't Go!" But Anneli Rufus is just outraged that students would commit the heinous crime of skipping classes, saying nothing about the war crimes these students refuse to be part of.

I feel so sorry for this man's son. If he is fifteen now, that means that he was ten or eleven years old when the case for war in Iraq was being presented. There is absolutely no way that he fully knew what he was protesting against at that age. All he knew was what his parents had told him, which is a bunch of leftist nonsense.

Now let's move on to Giovanni Jackson's letter.

On one side are the protesters, tired of waiting (five years now) for their "elected representatives" to stop an illegal and immoral war that has already taken 1 million Iraqi lives and forced 5 million to flee their homes, and determined to bring it to a halt by stopping the lying recruiters from sucking more young people into it. In opposition, pro-war forces (bearing signs like "Waterboard the Liberals") are trying to intimidate and silence what they perceive as a real threat to the status quo.

What the hell? Why did she put "elected representatives" in quotation marks? I can understand putting "representatives" in quotes if one is arguing that they are not doing a good job of representing their electorate, but it seems as if she is suggesting that because they don't agree with her, they must not have been fairly elected.

If there was a sign that said "Waterboard the Liberals," that's pretty disgusting. Frankly, much should not be expected of people representing either side that go out and demonstrate. In an era where anyone competent can make their voices heard much more eloquently, this seems like the environment for the more intellectually challenged. For the insinuation that the overweight middle aged women in pink that have a Woodstock in front of a Marine recruitment center pose a threat to anybody or anything anywhere, please come out of the Twilight Zone and tune into Sanity Radio. You're simply a nuisance. The Daily Show made fun of you, I'm making fun of you and you make fun of yourself without realizing it.

Do recruiters mention that one-third of women soldiers report being raped in the service?

One should be wise enough to cite their sources whilst criticizing a journalist.

Or that this war is based on 935 lies told by the Bush regime?

Do those lies all come in a waffle cone?

Do they describe the war crimes that US troops are ordered to carry out every day, including torture, collective punishment, and targeting of innocent civilians?

The insinuation that the military is being ordered to kill, torture and "punish" civilians is reprehensible and disgusting. It takes all there is in me not to resort to profanity. The ones doing that are the people that burn children, who are later treated by the military.

Military recruiters do not have any "right" to be in Berkeley or anywhere else,

Sorry, but they do as long as Berkeley remains part of the United States of America. That's how the laws of this country work. You don't get the roads, the financial aid and the infrastructure for free. I hate to resort to being a token conservative, but if you don't like it there are several other countries to live in where the eyesore of US Marines will not haunt you. Ever try Sudan?

Mark Steyn's latest column is a work of art. The problem of sociopaths running American public schools, something I know all too well, seems to finally be cracking into mainstream media coverage and with it is understandable outrage on the part of people who care about the well being of children. My favorite part of Steyn's column comes when he illustrates that the standards for "school officials"' behavior is actually lower than that of a four year old student:

So who does get a little breast and butt action in American schools these days? Obviously not your four-year-old gropers and six-year-old predators: The system’s doing an admirable job of cracking down on those perverts. No, if you want to get up close and personal with body parts you’ve got to be a “school official.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recently heard oral arguments in the case of Savana Redding. Back in 2003, Savana was an Eighth Grader at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, when the vice principal, Kerry Wilson, “acting on a tip,” discovered a fellow student to have a handful of ibuprofen tablets in her pocket. The other girl said she got them from Savana, who denied it. She had no tablets in her own pockets or in her backpack. Vice Principal Wilson, whose mind works in interesting ways, then decided that Savana might be hiding the ibuprofen in her cleavage or her crotch. So, without contacting the girl’s parents, he ordered a school official to strip-search Savana. She was obliged to expose her breasts and “her pelvic area.” If Vice Principal Wilson were a four-year old pre-schooler who’d been involved in a stunt like that, he’d now be a registered sex offender for life. But fortunately he’s a “school official” so if he decides to apply search techniques associated with international narcotics traffic he pretty much has a free hand to do so. After all, ibuprofen is serious stuff. As Reason’s Jacob Sullum put it, “It’s a good thing the school took swift action, before anyone got unauthorized relief from menstrual cramps.”

If you are a parent of a child, I really do beg of you that you exhaust every single possible option before you even consider sending your child to a public school. Your children will thank you with a lack of psychiatrist's bills.

There is some really bad news in the area of American public schools:

WASHINGTON — Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report, issued by America's Promise Alliance, found that about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation's largest cities receive diplomas. Students in suburban and rural public high schools were more likely to graduate than their counterparts in urban public high schools, the researchers said.

Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually.

"When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it's more than a problem, it's a catastrophe," said former Secretary of State Colin Powell, founding chair of the alliance.

His wife, Alma Powell, the chair of the alliance, said students need to graduate with skills that will help them in higher education and beyond. "We must invest in the whole child, and that means finding solutions that involve the family, the school and the community." The Powell's organization was beginning a national campaign to cut high school dropout rates.

I don't know much about the educational situations in Cleveland, Indianapolis or Detroit, three American cities I have never even visited, but from seeing the situation in Seattle I don't think the problem is a lack of investing. We have been throwing money at failing schools for decades and seen them often only continue to fail. We need to make sure that money is spent right and only in a way that benefits students, not bureaucrats. Treating each student as an individual capable of great things must be grilled into staff, and those that fail to do so should be fired. Not reprimanded, cut in salary but fired. Students must see that the adults that are supposed to lead them are held to as high of behavioral standards as they are. We need to promote charter schools and voucher programs so that urban students have a choice in where they get their education and control their own future, instead of being forced to have their lives controlled by compassionless bureaucrats who've never even met them.

We can't accomplish any of these things until we at least start treating education of American youths as a top campaign issue. The immediate importancy of this issue is so great that it should be at the top of the list of issues, and we should know each candidates' positions. 

Very good news comes from the BBC, which reports that troops from the United Arab Emirates have been participating as part of US led coalition in Afghanistan: 

It has emerged that Muslim troops from an Arab country have been involved in full-scale military operations in Afghanistan as part of the United States-led coalition.

Troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been operating in Afghanistan for five years, mainly in a humanitarian aid role.

But they have also been involved in clashes with the Taliban.

Major Ghanem al-Mazouri says his troops try to win the hearts and minds of Afghanis.

"We go to the elders in this area, and we try to convince the people about the US, About British," he said.

"They came here to give you peace."

There is a far longer report as the second story in the March 29 edition of the BBC Radio podcast "From Our Foreign Correspondent."

On Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday, he broadcast several clips of an audiobook adaptation of Barack Obama's 1994 book Dreams from My Father wherein he used alot of profanity and epithets (some racial) that were mostly quoted from other people. Hewitt really tried to nail it in that this would be a campaign issue:

I have written and broadcast on the subject of Senator Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father. It has to be the most unusual book ever by a presidential aspirant, and much of what he writes cannot be classified as mainstream, and some of what he wrote would shock the average American, including his causal use of profanity and his admission concerning past cocaine use. The book was first published in 1995, before Senator Obama could have imagined a presidential run and perhaps before he could imagine anything more than the Congressional seat he unsuccessfully sought in 2000.

I did not learn until today that Senator Obama actually recorded the audio book, and I suspect that it won't be long until the most controversial parts of that audio book are broadcast. I broadcast one excerpt from Chapter 4 today, from pp. 72-74, and asked the audience for their reactions. Some callers shrugged it off, but many were deeply offended. I pointed out that past profanity cases like Nixon's "expletive deleteds," Bush's description of a New York Times' reporter and Dick Cheney's response to Pat Leahy have generated enormous headlines, but never has a presidential candidate ever purposefully recorded himself swearing so profusely or with such variety. I think the audiobook tape will matter a great deal, even if only used in context, and that of course the YouTube generation will begin manipulating the tape as soon as it is known to be available.

UPDATE: When a caller accused me of cherry-picking one profanity-laced segment of the book, I broadened the selection of excerpts to include Obama's own profanity --not that of his friends which he recorded-- as well as some samples of other controversial passages. You can listen to the first five clips I used in the third hour of the program when it is posted later tonight here.

I just don't see this, and to be honest it seemed pretty pathetic and a veiled attempt to grab something on Obama on the part of Hewitt, who I do respect. There was a female conservative caller who called in in the middle of the hour where Hewitt interviewed David Drier who had the view that hearing him speak his mind in such a way would make them like him more, as it showed that he had been through a redemptive and self-reflective evolution in his life. There are a great deal of people who don't have a sense of self-reflection, and the ability to hang out all (or even just some) of your dirty laundry is quite commendable. If either the Hillary camp or the Republicans try to use this against Obama, I think it'll be more likely that it will result in increased sales of Obama's book than anything else.

Another note: This may be one of the first elections in a good while pitting two candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, against each other that are both accomplished authors. Strangely enough, the two both have memoirs with extremely similiar titles: Faith of my Fathers and Dreams from My Father.

CNN's Kyra Phillips asks some Iraqi students who they hope wins the presidential election in the United States and finds nearly all of the students in attendance want one thing: security. I liked what the female student towards the end of the video had to say the most when she said that "someone is benefitting" from the inner turmoil in Iraq. With Shiite Iran pushing for power in Iraq and Sunni terrorists coming from other countries, it seems that it is more outsiders who are feeding off of chaos than Iraqis.

To watch the video, follow the link at Hot Air.

An added note: A discussion of the kind seen in the above video, with various and differing viewpoints expressed freely in front of a foreign camera crew, would never be occurring in Iraq if it were not for the actions of President George W. Bush. Just something to think about.

From Politico, B/W of Mary Katherine Ham at Townhall.com:

“People are not happy with Obama,” Gill said. “It’s the race stuff.”

“He lied to Anderson Cooper,” said Rodica Mitrea, an aesthetician and immigrant from Romania, referring to an Obama interview Friday with the CNN anchor.

“The speech plays only among the elites,” Ceisler said. “The average person on the street cares about the economy and the war and everyday life.”

Glenn Peter, 54, a patron at Rauchut’s Tavern, said he heard finger pointing, not reconciliation. He took issue with Obama’s explanation that Wright’s observations of a racist America were reflecting the racial scars of his past.

“I don’t want to hear that you are blaming us for him saying this,” said Peter, who is white and worked at an auto parts factory until it was shuttered several years ago. Cutting ties with the church “would have been the best way to do it. That way, I could have been able to listen to him again.”

“It was a great speech,” one man said. “But what concerns me is that on the website for his church, they say they are unabashedly Afro-centric. … The underlying message is they are perpetual victims and they enjoy the victim status and by proxy, me as a white person is their victimizer. And as long as we perpetuate these divisions, we will never heal.”

“Now I am 100 percent for Clinton and zero percent for Obama,” Mitrea said.

This is going to be the predominant talking point of the Democrats from now until Election Day, and should provide good contrast with the voices on the Right that claim McCain is a liberal. McCain sees abandoning Iraq as highly irresponsible and inviting disaster, which it is, but aside from that McCain's approach is very different than Bush's. Whereas Bush felt no need to explain his policies at times, McCain is a diplomat who prides himself on going across the aisle to work with Democrats.

The New York Times ran a piece about the upcoming biopic of 1990s rapper The Notorious B.I.G., who will be portrayed by rapper Gravy. From some parts of the article, there is some reason to worry that Biggie will be portrayed as something he wasn't:

Mr. Tillman said that the movie’s Notorious B.I.G. would sharply differ from that rapper’s harsh public image. “The major theme we’re working toward is family, being a man, what it takes to be a man,” he said. The movie follows Mr. Wallace from childhood in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn through his death, and various scenes will “capture the spirit and reason for certain things” without making detailed accusations, Mr. Tillman said.

Over the years Mr. Wallace’s killing has been attributed to vendettas and conspiracies. In lawsuits still being contested in federal court here his family has sought at least $700 million from the City of Los Angeles and others, based on claims that members of the police force were complicit in the crime.

Mr. Wallace’s mother, Voletta Wallace, who is a producer of the film — along with his former associates Wayne Barrow, Mark Pitts, Sean Combs and others, who have various producing credits — said the project would deliberately steer clear of the controversy. “That’s going to be another movie,” Ms. Wallace said.

Ray, Walk the Line and 8 Mile all portrayed the flaws and tendencies of the main characters towards womanizing, drug addiction and/or violence. A great deal of Biggie's songs were about how "gangsta" he was and what sort of guns he was carrying and it won't be very convincing if he is portrayed as a good guy who was killed tragically but without any warning. If you live the life of a thug, that's likely how you will die. Nevertheless, I will probably see it.

It's been said by the like of Mark Steyn that William F. Buckley was instrumental in ridding American conservatism of the likes of racists, isolationists and reactionaries. I tended to swallow that pill as I lean right and haven't lived through the 1960s and 70s to see the political transitions for myself. From a little bit of my own research, I'm beginning to doubt that Buckley was always the source of progression he's made out to be.

There was a letter in the San Francisco Examiner today that attacked Buckley's legacy. It cited a piece by Buckley entitled "Why The South Must Prevail" from the late 1950s. Here is the letter in question, written by a Ted Uberoi:

Contrary to the media's gushing commentaries on William Buckley as the architect of modern conservatism, he was an unapologetic racist bigot. He likened Dr. Martin Luther King with Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell. In numerous articles in his National Review he vigorously supported white supremacy, especially in a 1957 editorial, "Why the South Must Prevail." Unmoved by the lynch-mob mentality of the South, Buckley argued that there exists, "a median cultural superiority of white over Negro ... that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and and anthropologists."

I found these quotes intriguing, as there were at a length and content level that if true was inexcusable. It is easy now to be politically correct, as society has deemed it totally inappropriate to spout racial superiority, at least if you are white. (Hopefully we will progress to the point where all racial superiority is frowned upon.) The true test is what you said during the time when the question of black civil rights was still a question. If Buckley was on the side of the segregationists, and he had never apologized for them, that puts in doubt his very character.

After doing some Googling, I found an article from a white supremacist magazine called the American Renaissance, which believes in "race realism" as they called it, entitled "The Decline of National Review." The article showed various illustrations of racist demagoguery on the part of National Review, not to tear down NR but instead to illustrate how it deviated from its past by ceasing to publish white supremacist articles. AR cited this Buckley piece, which is filled with white supremacist rhetoric:

“The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.”

“National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.”

“The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. . . . Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.”

That is disgusting stuff. It's not the product of someone saying something rash and throwing in a few racial slurs. Buckley actually prepared an editorial for his own publication promoting this sort of filth, at a time when the fate of black Americans could still turn either way.

National Review editor Jonah Goldberg has written a book, Liberal Fascism, that has documented the disturbing trend of the political Left in America flirting with totalitarian ideologies. I wonder if he will address this equally disturbing flirtation with white supremacy within his own magazine?

Economist Thomas Sowell wrote a column entitled "The Double Life of Barack Obama," which compares Obama's ideological doublespeak with the hypocrisy of Eliot Spitzer. It's been most satisfying to hear black intellectuals such as Sowell and Juan Williams attack the empty-suit candidacy of Barack Obama, as it illustrates that the desire to transcend race by having a black president in office is not strong enough to cast a blind eye on the holes in Barack Obama's rhetoric.

I'm not sure I really like the idea of holding Barack Obama's pastor up as a symbol of what he believes and thinks, but given the fact Obama has a short history as a public figure there is still alot to find out about him. We don't know him as well as we do Hillary Clinton or John McCain, both of which had some of the most tumultuous times in their lives occur in the public light. I don't think we live in stable enough times to take a risk on Obama.

Obama's paster, Jeremiah Wright, who reportedly preceded over the Obama marriage, subscribes to the most insane far left positions. You can not take seriously a man who believes that the U.S. government created AIDS. While watching videos of his oratory, I felt like I was watching a modern day version of Malcolm X, but not the heroic Malcolm who was murdered by the Nation of Islam but instead the Malcolm X that was the mouthpiece of the Nation, spouting anti-white, black nationalist hate. That's not something that America needs more of.

Of all the coverage of Eliot Spitzer's sex gaffe, the most interesting article I've found came from writer Omar Wasow with the black magazine "The Root:"

March 11, 2008--When a self-righteous crusader like Eliot Spitzer is caught with his pants down, a lot of onlookers might feel a tinge of glee to see such hypocrisy revealed.  But the law under which he may be prosecuted, the Mann Act, is a relic that should give pause to anyone looking to hold Spitzer accountable in court on counts of prostitution.

Spitzer, the former TIME magazine "Crusader of the Year," who has previously directed his righteous fury at "high-end prostitution rings" and "sex tourism," now looks to be another law-breaking John stung by wiretaps, bank disclosures, and his own hubris and stupidity. Two big questions loom: will he resign and will he serve time?

On the latter question,The New York Times reported that Spitzer might be charged, like the four "ringleaders" of Emperors Club VIP, under the Mann Act. The nearly century-old law prohibits transporting across state lines "a woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose."

The history of the Mann Act raises serious questions about the use of federal law enforcement to investigate the private lives of consenting adults. Amid early twentieth century media hysteria and a moral panic about white farm girls being lured into cities and forced into prostitution, progressive Illinois Congressman James Robert Mann sponsored the White-Slave Traffic Act. Against the wishes of states' rights advocates, the legislation federalized vice crimes that had previously been the purview of local law enforcement.

Though primarily intended to fight prostitution, the Act substantially expanded the scope of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and soon became the starting point for a wide-range of cases, including many against consenting but unmarried couples. The first person prosecuted under the law was legendary boxer Jack Johnson.

Long before special prosecutors like Ken Starr came along, the Mann Act made fishing expeditions into private sex lives a common and controversial part of federal law enforcement.