But Iran Doesn't Like Us

Remember the three American "hikers" that had inadvertently hiked into Iran whilst they were attempting to hike along the Iran-Iraq border? And remember how they were taken into custody by the Iranians? And remember Iran released the girl but the other two have been in custody ever since because Iran says that they were spies? Well, if you didn't remember, consider yourself caught up.

Before I continue, I just need to say a few things about the situation that put those three folks in the position that they are/were in. First of all, if you're in the Middle East and you want to go "hiking", I cannot for the life of me figure out why you wouldn't be either more cognizant of where the borders were or wouldn't just hike really far away from the borders to begin with. Hiking so close to Iran's borders seems to be just asking for trouble if you're asking me.

Second, I find myself conflicted as to how Iran is dealing with this situation. On the one hand, I am fairly certain that these folks were not and are not spies. On that same hand, I really have absolutely nothing to base that on other than the fact that they don't seem like they would be spies. This ideology is based loosely on watching the Pink Panther when I was a child. Oh, and Scooby Doo. Thus, if I am Iran, what do I do? I have to say that I will lend a certain degree of respect to a country that protects its borders. I'm not even so sure that I'm concerned with how a country protects its borders, as long as it does so.

Those perspectives that I have are the reasons why I'm not overly sympathetic to the hikers. Sure, people make mistakes. But, come on! How delusional are you if you think you'll be just fine if you accidentally hike into Iran? You should be wearing a helmet at all times if that's how your mind works. And then I read an opinion piece by Sarah Shourd, the freed female American hiker, over there at CNN. And her logic in the piece is a bit surprising. It's as if she has no clue as to the history between the United States and Iran. Then again, this is the same person who was doing all of the border hiking, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Sarah states in her piece that "At a very personal level, I never would have been kept in jail for 14 months if Iran and the United States had a better relationship." I'm not so sure that I believe that to be accurate. It sounds nice, but I doubt it. The United States has pretty good relationships with other countries whose citizens have been caught spying. We don't just let them go. Again, you have to go on the basis that Iran is using, that being that they were spies or doing something that would harm Iran, in order to justify them keeping them in custody. Then again, they were not in the country lawfully, so I guess you don't even really need to justify it with anything other than that.

She goes on to say that "How different our situation would have been if the United States had an embassy in Iran when Shane, Josh and I were arrested on the border with Kurdistan, where we had gone hiking." Um, is she kidding me?! The United States did have an embassy in Iran. Perhaps she is unaware of the little disturbance that took place in that embassy in 1979 when Sixty-six Americans were taken captive when Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Perhaps she is also unaware that 52 of those hostages were held for a total of 444 days. And if that's the case, I guess she also didn't hear about the eight American servicemen who lost their lives during a rescue mission. And she thinks that we need an embassy in Iran? Are you dry shaving me?

Allow me to show you a picture of what the former US embassy in Iran looked like after the hostages were taken. Picture is courtesy of Wikipedia.

Oh, sure. They just loooooove us. She also has the nerve to say "I hope our leaders find the courage to begin to break from our nations' hostile past..." Do you now? Our leaders? Plural? Explain to me what the United States is supposed to be doing when I'm A Dinner Jacket (Ahmadinejad) continues with his nuclear program against everyone's wishes? Explain to me what we're supposed to do with a guy, who wants to blow Israel off of the map, who is intent on making his country a nuclear power? It's not a hostile past that is all of the problem. It's the hostile present, cupcake. I should also note that there are some former hostages who believe that Ahmadinejad was actually one of their captors and have identified him as such. If that's the case and he's now the President of Iran, I'm not so sure that the "courage" is going to be "found" by him to "break from our nations' hostile past".

Look, I totally understand that her two friends are still being imprisoned over there in Iran and she wants to have them freed. Therefore, I can understand why she wouldn't write anything that would be overly critical or take a harsh tone with the Iranian government. But I can't understand why she would write anything like what she did in the first place. Does she really think that it's going to matter what she says? I don't think that it is. Then again, this woman does seems to have a fairly delusional way of thinking when it comes to international relations, so I guess it's to be expected.

Sunday TV News FAIL + New Animation(s)

Why on earth do I waste any time watching the Sunday morning and afternoon TV political shows?  If the definition of madness is doing something you know to be wrong again and again--

To give just one example, I stomached about two segments of Candy Crowley's CNN show State of the Union, by which I mean I was able to stomach two consecutive doses of hard-right-wing propaganda before I started commenting loudly back at the screen, and C suggested I turn it off. In the first, billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman and multimillionaire Steve Forbes represented the ideological range and diversity of opinions on the current economic crisis. As you might imagine, their responses to Crowley's non-sequiturs-as-questions had little to do with the reality of the world most of us live in. Zuckerman, on a "deficit" hysteria high, ranted about business leaders being very unhappy with (business-friendly) President Obama and the failure of the stimulus, and suggested that we needed fewer regulations so that businesses would be happy, and lower taxes for the "middle class" to turn things around, while Forbes suggested that we needed a three-year "moratorium" on the new health insurance reform bill and financial regulations, and of course, a continuation of the massive deficit-increasing W. Bush tax cuts, and like magic, the economy would be booming again. Oh, and both slammed Obama for the 9.5% unemployment rate, which resulted in part from businesses' "uncertainty," and not the fact that they were sitting on cash, that bailed out banks weren't lending, or that the vicious cycle of unemployment, tightened credit and financial distress meant no return to the consumerism of the last decade and a half.

Crowley noted that from her (wrong) understanding of economics, "raising taxes" (i.e., allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire) on the wealthiest Americans during a tough economic period like this would be the worst thing we could do, in line with and to the approval of Forbes, but Zuckerman, to his credit, disagreed with her and noted that in fact, the slightly increased tax burden on the rich wouldn't be that much of a burden, really, before quickly returning to his mantra of cutting the deficit and having fewer regulations. After several rounds of this, with Crowley offering no serious challenges to anything they were saying, including Zuckerman's non-response on rising foreclosures--he went on about the "bubble" and the failure of people to buy houses--she effusively thanked them for their expertise (!?), and then proceeded to her next guest, former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden, who, when questioned tepidly by Crowley about the host of deeply troubling allegations in the recent multipart Washington Post series by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, "Top Secret America," on the dangerously secretive, inefficient and possibly unconstitutional National Security-Military Industrial complex, graciously responded by emphasizing that an attack on Iran was "inexorable"....

I'm aware that quite a few people no longer watch these shows, and that they exist primarily to reinforce the echo chamber in Washington, but I guess that's what disturbs me most, that echo chamber effect and its ramifications on the policies that emanate from the White House and Congress. It's not enough that corporations, their lobbyists, and the megarich have the ears (and pockets and throats) of those in power, but they also have this self-reinforcing medium to propound and pound, day in, day out, their propaganda. One might argue that it does offer a window directly into what their aims and preoccupations are--more wars; more secrecy; more corporate socialism and wealth transfers to the rich; more shredding of the already threadbare social safety net; etc.--but the cynical and frustrating aspects of this include the inability to directly challenge them or force them to change course. And speaking of courses they're on, high among their priorities is slashing Social Security, with this President's and Congress's direct help.

And speaking about the successes of disaster capitalism, in Detroit, they're getting skilled labor for a song. Now, I ask you, did any of the GM or Chrysler executives pay back any of those bonuses or the compensation they received during the years they were running these companies into the ground?  Were they forced to, by the government, the courts or anyone else?

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Shifting gears, here're two newer animations, the first on soccer (I created it the night Spain won the 2010 FIFA World Cup), the second on the theme of art. And speaking of soccer, welcome Thierry Henry!

Golazo!


Art