A framework for future peaceful negotiations with Iran has now gone past, albeit not way past, the "size and shape of the table" phase which so often derails things. It also benefits from the support of nuclear proliferation experts and has provoked an international chorus of job well done, which anything involving America hasn't heard in a long time.
The Senate almost super-majority, which is intent on chucking ample spanners to halt the work so far, will be blowing up the only thing around with a chance to keep us from actually blowing things up.
The war lust is strong again.
Douglas Feith's new boss (same as the old boss but with a more camera-beguiling evil) is Tom Cotton (he of letter to the Ayatollah from forty-seven senators fame).
Cut from the same pile of crap, but in a different sized suit and with a young, strong heart.
God help the republic.
The teetering almost veto-proof majority, one day up, one day down (and we might see another week of grandstanding in Casablanca - I'm shocked!), is aided and abetted by a media culture which is about as far removed from the five "w"s and the sometimes "h" as the Congressional Tea Party Caucus is from self-awareness.
This opposition on Capitol Hill to peace talks, or nuclear stabilization talks, or however you categorize the Lausanne results, might be explained by the principle of self-fulfilling premises. Repeating an old story, my congressman once responded to an e-mail of mine in support of GITMO detainees' habeas corpus by scolding me for wanting to extend it to terrorists. Similarly, the push back here implies "how dare you defuse contentious relations with a country we have labelled evil and which is all but a Republican president away from regime change?" Peace must surely give them a rash.
Ideologues can be forgiven the traits which add up to their label. Trying to change that is like yelling at paint. Though evidence is growing ever rarer, there is still a theater in which objectivity prevails, the good of the country is free to be just that, and people of good faith attempt to do the job they promised by affirmation or with one hand on a holy book.
The guarantee of this good news about reality (that it remains reportable), falls to the fourth estate. (Such as.) No small irony using a moniker which reminds us of the church-monarchy-commoners paradigm of the days before The Enlightenment and all that liberalism down the road since. No more to do lists like "must ask archduke to ask archbishop if it's okay (and here's a sack of gold coins) to install solar panels and be reimbursed for excess generation by the holy grid."
Turning politics into spectator sport was ratings genius! Dose 'em with the penis pills and flush out their cash over and over for cars with no credit check and invitations to day trade like pros, which they're not. Of a piece, call everything "breaking news" which it isn't.
And so it has gone. Relentlessly. Enterinfomedia chug along like NASCAR; their fumes may differ but that's quibbling. They're similar in that each has a sufficient fan base to render attempts at mockery on anyone's part pointless and moot, so one needs to sincerely wish the drivers and crew a long, healthy life of chelation and grandchildren and let it go at that. And look, you won the morning, Politico. Your brand of mind reading and future telling hit the spot for so many today. A hearty woot!
People will rail against the representation they get in Congress but return their particular representative over and over. As puzzling as NASCAR popularity is to me, so is putting up with a so-called representative who spends 50% or more of the calendar fund raising and dining well, only to fall back on some twenty-five year old Atwater sputem to game and gain the constituency one more time. Choosing to let go of "the way it's done" or plodding along with "my money's bigger than your money" doesn't strike me as a hard choice.
Like being smacked with a very spiny fish, what the hell is going on when a reputable brand name news personality says into the camera "Hillary will have a hard time being the candidate of the future when her very presence reminds everyone of those past dark days?" ::thud:: That level of framing contains more tension than an augmented major seventh played with nails on a chalkboard and it gets fresh legs like a bagpipe with each blow.
There's a word for creative scripting of things which haven't happened, save for in the mind of an author, and I'm pretty sure it's not journalism. Has there ever been a greater miscarriage of semantics than "breaking news?"
This Lausanne framework has, rather than showing color gradations for acidity through alkalinity, been like a test strip for honest reporting.
What we once called "The Papers" handles the "w"s on Iran this way.
Who? Hailong Wu of China, Laurent Fabius of France, Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Federica Mogherini of the European Union, Javad Zarif of Iran, Sergei Lavrov of Russia, Philip Hammond of the United Kingdom, and John Kerry of the United States.
What? "Iran agreed in principle to accept significant restrictions on its nuclear facilities for at least a decade and submit to international inspections under a framework deal announced Thursday after months of contentious negotiations with the United States and other world powers. In return, international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy would be lifted in phases if it meets its commitments, meaning it could take a year or less for relief from the penalties to kick in." - washington post -
When? April 2, 2015.
Where? Rolex Forum auditorium of the EPFL Learning Centre, Écublens-Lausanne, Switzerland.
Why? The Lausanne framework has the potential to change the direction in the Middle East away from conflict and towards peaceful coexistence.
The reactionary right, which stooge pimps™ for the plutocracy and barks the language of war for the billion dollar bean counters with their private islands and stuff, has a decidedly proprietary take on Iran-surrender-treason-gate. (But first, a musical interlude.)
Who? Obama and Kerry send money.
What? A "Surrender To Tehran" send money.
When? Before every last chance at legacy for the anti-colonial, Marxist, community organizer, foreign national, fascist, imperialist dictator is gone tick tock send money.
Where? Behind closed doors without running any of it by Congress, or even people who know about these things send money.
Why? Embracing Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons while purposefully diminishing the power and influence of the United States send money.
The color on the test strip for any source of news which gives its platform up to this kind of framing is a dried blood almost black. Some say.
You can't offer habeas corpus to detainees because dot dot dot freedom and I expected no less from my right wing congressman. You can't give Iranians the moral equivilancy to enter into honorable agreements, no matter how many built in safeguards the international diplomatic and scientific communities are telling you are in there because dot dot dot axis.
And we should expect no less from a neo-con, borderline really extremo-con press release, but why it gets frequent rotation like a payola assisted 45 in the early days of rock & roll is baffling. Unless it really is payola assisted; then it would all make sense. How does anyone from supposedly lefty Andrea Mitchell at NBC to not at all about personal aggrandizement Sean Hannity at FoxNews get off asking any guest to comment on what everyone is talking about as the reason for it to be worthy of talking about?
What brand of journalism, even taking into account changes which render unto the Michael Isikoff's of this world bylines at Yahoo! News and which have slowly diminished the importance of the long form essay and the open ended round table, still, what brand of journalism prefers the ill-gotten attaboys of winning the morning over kudos for including foreign officials to flesh out the story when addressing Lausanne, or any from among the thousands of experts who've figured out Skype and can speak to the science, not the emotion of the deal? What: boring? Not enough story? Tink, tink, anyone in there? Events make the news, not producers and directors.
Like that Emerson piece of crap you didn't know somebody in the third world had bought the naming rights to, and which blew up the day after the warranty expired, the enterinfomedia have mastered the worst of the hidden persuader's arts.
- Who did that?
- What happened?
- Where did it take place?
- When did it take place?
- Why did that happen?
A dried blood, almost black. If I were to yell at paint, that would be the color.
