Advertising/Selling Intensification Versus Appeals to Voluntarism and Sacrifice
In its editorials and Commentaries the Inky has long been keen on voluntarism and individual sacrifice in the public interest. (See their latest, an editorial on "King Day: Be of service," Jan. 29th). It features helping others, by being “citizen servants.” This includes the necessity of voting in elections, and certainly has its real merits; but it does not include the need for organized grass roots activity to contest the powerful, reverse the trend toward inequality, and make it possible to solve problems through state policy. In short, this emphasis is very much in keeping with the spirit of neoliberalism and the notion that the individual, and individuals' benevolent actions, along with markets, can do much if not all, and that a shrinking state is desirable.
What also strikes me is how this emphasis on individual and voluntaristic action is in contradiction with the drive to sell, which is so important in a commercial media and is so dramatically evident in the Inky today, led by advertising executive Brian Tierney. The latest fashions, the newest goods to buy and the places where they may be acquired, the hottest restaurants—and featuring "Always time to shop" (Melissa Dribben, Jan. 27th). Gosh, if these goods and shopping are really all that important to our welfare will we have the resources and time to do volunteer work for the less fortunate?
Surge to Nowhere and Bombs Away
The Inky has followed the national party line in recently allowing the Iraq war to drop virtually out of sight, partly because the "surge" is allegedly working and U.S. casualties have dropped. But the surge is, as Andrew Bacevich points out in an op-ed column in the Washington Post, a "A Surge to Nowhere", solving no real problems and by arming fighting parties in Iraq contributing to intensifying civil war and further ethnic cleansing. As I've noted before, Bacevich, a conservative ex-military man as well as a scholar, has never been given commentary space or a book review in the Inky, although he towers over the Inky regulars in knowledge and sense.
Similarly, the Inky has failed to stress that the "surge" and dropoff in U.S. casualties has been associated with a great intensification of the U.S. bombing war, with almost certain enlarged civilian casualties among Iraqis. In fact, Reuters reported on Thursday that one of Britian's leading polling groups conducted a survey which found that more than a million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the illegal invasion and occupation that so many of the Inky's columnists supported and still support. These numbers support The Lancet Report (largely attacked by Washington and the mainstream media) which estimated that over 600,000 Iraqi's were killed as of July 2006. This has been featured in the writings of Patrick Cockburn, Dahr Jamail, and Tom Engelhardt, reporters and analysts whose work you won't find in the Inky. See Tom Engelhardt, "Bombs Away Over Iraq".
Bush Intends That the United States Will Stay in Iraq Indefinitely
The Inky editors and Trudy Rubin have long denied that the United States is in Iraq for the long term—they have accepted the official claim that we will stay only long enough to provide "stability"—although our stay there has been closely correlated with growing instability. But increasingly the political candidates and generals talk about a longer stay, some of them like McCain openly calling for a fight to victory. Bush has been negotiating with the U.S.-sponsored supposedly "sovereign" government of Iraq for a long stay in our bases, and he has recently declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill. Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued on January 28 after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
