The Good and the Bad

History as it unfolds is odd.
A federal judge sends a reporter to jail for not disclosing her source.
Bad.
That reporter is Judith Miller, a NY Times reporter who did as much as anyone to hype the war with faulty reporting. In fact, when the Times "apologized" some time back for their coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq war, they were surely referring to Miller's bad journalism (although it went unsaid).
Good.
It seems quite clear that the source being protected is Karl Rove, one of the most dangerous and evil men ever to roam the halls of the White House. This "patriot" told reporters that a certain U.S. diplomate working overseas was actually a CIA agent. This was the inimitable Karl's way of punishing a dissident among the ranks of chickenhawks leading the Christian soldiers on to war. The federal inquiry is now closer to nailing Rove thanks to the judge's heavy-handed tactics. This horrible character will surely (??) have to resign.
Good.
But...jailing a reporter for not revealing a source?
Clearly bad.

nationalism

If it rides on nationalism...it's shit.

Period.

The Religious

Given their addiction to a mystical explanation for human phenomena, and to a metaphysical basis for morality (effectively blinding them to real-life experience as a moral guide), the religious are capable of all forms of horror…and given their psychological need to reaffirm their self-esteem through the literal “truth” of the particular metaphysical belief structure they choose, the religious are in a perfect position to be manipulated into any sort of crime.

Just look around.

Paul Harvey

This is priceless:

Paul Harvey's Tribute to Slavery, Nukes, Genocide
Hateful rant shows Disney's double standard on speech

7/1/05

Disney/ABC radio personality Paul Harvey, one of the most widely listened to commentators in the United States, presented his listeners on June 23 with an endorsement of genocide and racism that would have been right at home on a white supremacist shortwave broadcast.

Harvey's commentary began by lamenting the decline of American wartime aggression. "We're standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive because we've declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies--more moral, more civilized," he said. Drawing a contrast with what he cast as the praiseworthy nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Harvey lamented that "we sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq and kept our best weapons in their silos"--suggesting that America should have used its nuclear arsenal in its invasions of both countries.

Harvey concluded - "We didn't come this far because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.

"And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy."

Harvey's evident approval of slavery, genocide and nuclear and biological warfare would seem to put him at odds with Disney's family-friendly image. The media conglomerate syndicates Harvey to more than 1,000 radio stations, where he reaches an estimated 18 million listeners. Disney recently signed a 10-year, $100 million contract with the 86-year-old Harvey.

In 2004, Disney forbid its Miramax subsidiary to distribute Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, even though Miramax was the principal investor in the film. A Disney executive told the New York Times (5/5/04) that it was declining to distribute the film because, in the paper's words, "Disney caters to families of all political stripes and believes Mr. Moore's film...could alienate many."

One wonders whether Disney executives are worried about alienating families who oppose slavery, nuclear war and Native American genocide...

-from FAIR: http://www.fair.org/index.php

That last part makes for lovely irony.

I grew up hearing that silly man's voice on the radio. Nice, father-knows-best, homey kind of fascist. As Dmitri says of his terrible father in The Brothers Karamazov: "Why must such men exist??"