Testicles + Truth = Hope

On Tuesday, British MP George Galloway came before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to deny his alleged involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. Instead of meekly defending his honor to the big bad senators, in his opening statement Galloway delivered perhaps the most powerful, eloquent and concise condemnation of the Iraq War that any group of war lovin’ American politicians has ever had to sit through. (Excluding the floor speeches of Robert Byrd, who may be eloquent and powerful but is rarely concise)

Someday, when this ghoulish administration and their policies are ancient history, people will wonder who stood up to the bastards. It’s a good bet that Galloway’s name will be mentioned. Not only did he rip Chairmen Norm Coleman a new orifice, Galloway also smoked a big stinky Havana stogie right in the Capitol Building just for fun.

Read his opening statement here, download the an mp3 of it here (attention deprived listeners can download an mp3 of just his ending crescendo), or watch a murky realvideo of his entire appearance in front of the committee with this link.

And speaking of standing up to the bastards, NPR and PBS have been the only major radio & TV networks left where a few reporters and commentators still have the guts to occasionally report on the lies, distortions and diversions of the Bush machine. We can’t have that can we?

So, while the Republicans are working real hard to end any dissent left in the judicial system, they’re also tweaking these two American public broadcasting institutions into more obedient entities as well. To that end, Bush appointed former Reader’s Digest Editor-In-Chief Kenneth Tomlinson as Chairman of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting to clean things up.

Mr. Tomlinson has some big ideas. NPR needs to cut back on all that annoying news. And the PBS muckraking public affairs program NOW is not nearly as right wing as it could or should be. It should be more.... you know, fair and balanced.

While Bill Moyers has officially retired as the host of the excellent and brave NOW program, he still has something to say about the possibility of turning PBS & NPR into Republican propaganda outlets. On Sunday, Moyers gave a rousing speech on the subject at the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis. Read it here, download an mp3 here, and you can stream the real video here.

I hope Harry Reid can muster a smidgen of the courage shown this week by Galloway and Moyers when he soon goes head to head against the Republican majority in the Senate as they attempt to take away the last vestige of real minority party power in our government, the judicial filibuster.

Comments

[matty]

Galloway's testimony was pretty incredible, but this is the same guy who ran what many considered a campaign exploiting racial tensions for the MP position in Bethnal Green & Bow. He was also charged with carpetbagging.

Galloway is also very religious and is both pro-life AND anti-death penalty, a position one would expect American Christian radicals to have if only it wouldn't make their brains explode by disagreeing with the GOP (in regards to the death-penalty, Iraq war, etc. etc.)

Still, it's always nice to see Norm Coleman look like a complete fool...

[matthew]

aww, come on professor, Galloway is a creepy windbag who politically supported and praised Saddam, the man who killed thousands of socialists, trade unionists, and kurds. when fascist thugs now kill trade unionists he describes the victims as "collaborators." Galloway's Respect party is a coalition of muslim extremists and stalinists. i'm no fan of the war, and i'm a huge fan of audio kitchen, but I don't know why you waste your time praising this Pat Buchanan of the left.

[The Professor]

First of all Matthew, I did NOT write a piece about the Respect party and I didn’t say that Galloway hadn’t said or done anything stupid in his life up until he spoke before Coleman’s committee. From what I understand, Galloway may also have cheated on his wife. I’m sorry, but to me that doesn’t take anything away from the eloquence and courage of his statement. I haven’t heard any major American politician put the whole stinking mess together like that in a speech lately.

I assume that by saying Galloway praised Saddam Hussein, you’re referring to when he said to the Iraqi leader: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." Mr. Galloway claims his flattery was intended in general toward the Iraqi people. And in light of years of sanctions and regular air strikes from American and the British which never stopped between the two wars, I’d salute the strength and indefatigability of the Iraqi people as well.

So I’m glad you’re no fan of the war. I’m no fan of Saddam Hussein either. But listen, George Bush II has through his policies has killed thousands of Iraqis, American soldiers, and plenty of others. And I hear oodles of talking heads and creepy Republicans support and praise him all the time. And I am really SICK of the lame use of argumentative logic that justifies all the mass death and destruction by saying the world is a better place because Hussein isn’t in power. When in fact the opposite is true, and the world WILL be a better place when Bush isn’t in power.

And so what, you’re a fan of the Audio Kitchen? That’s swell, but what does that have to do with my opinion on the war, or what Galloway said the other day? I’ll waste my time any way I see fit, and I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you think it’s a good idea or not.

Have a nice day.

[matthew]

Professor, you said "I did NOT write a piece about the Respect party and I didn’t say that Galloway hadn’t said or done anything stupid in his life up until he spoke before Coleman’s committee." True, but George Galloway IS the Respect Party. It's a mashup of theocrites who think gay people should be killed and women should be beaten and that jews are evil. You're right, GG cheating on his wife has nothing to do with his politics, but his friendship with Tariq Aziz hints at something worse. Aziz was in a leadership position during Anfal, and he could have walked away but did not. you say that junior bush is worse than saddam and ba'ath fascism. you're right. in ba'ath iraq one third of the population spied on the other two thirds. thousands of kurds were killed and maimed by saddam's extermination campaigns. you're right, gwb is a much bigger monster.

please address how GG skirted any questions that would have embarassed him, including how GG's charity appears to have possibly profited from the oil-for-food scam.

[squinchy]

Matthew,
I'm looking for documentation on the web about the Respect Party's views on Jews, Women and homosexuals...not having much luck, although I also don't have time to go through all the results. So, seriously: enlighten me...

[matthew]

well, here's as good an indictment of GG as any.

[The Professor]

This as good as your indictment of Galloway gets? Christopher Hitchens??

Hitchens is a drunken ass, as Galloway pointed out right before the hearing.

I stopped reading his swill a long time ago.

[johnny Aa]

actually, I thought that was a pretty good indictment! since when does the cool-music community base its ad-hominem attacks on a dude's *drinking*? galloway suxxx, don't let his finely honed bullshitting skills trick you into giving him a free pass on his *genuinely* corrupt behavior

[johnny]

fwiw:
http://dailydemarche.blogspot.com/2005/05/gorgeous-george-storms-capitol-hill.html

[The Professor]

Oh Johnny

I think the point of this post was that WAR suxxx, okay? The reason that what Mr. Galloway had to say to Mr. Coleman was so fantastic and needed, is that there is no voice in our federal government, or in the popular mass media that has spoken out with so much accuracy and anger about how corrupt, illegitimate, murderous and unnecessary the war in Iraq has been.

Hitchens is a drunken contrarian windbag, who was FOR the war in Iraq. While there is some remnant of a very intelligent man in that pickled mind of his, the very worst possible human being would most likely be very intelligent. To me, his asinine behavior aside, Hitchens' warmongering idiocy makes anything he says suspect, and not worth looking at.

The fact that you and Matthew continue to bring up his what may be poor political decisions he's made in the UK, and don't confront the fact that he spoke truth to power before a U.S. Senate committee speaks volumes.

If you want to hear some "finely honed bullshitting skills," why not check out George Bush, Dick Cheney, Scott McClelland, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, Fox News, and 96% of talk radio. I didn’t hear one teeny bit of bullshit in Galloway’s statement. It was refreshing, and unlike almost everything else I hear or read in the news, it gave me a little bit of hope.

By the way, the blog you give a link to is written by a right-wing war loving morons who think Newsweek is responsible for the recent riots in Afghanistan. Why should I care what they have to say about George Galloway? I'm sure you can find more "dirt" on George Galloway at the Free Republic site as well, but I'm certainly not going to waste my time looking for it, or linking to it.

I'm so sorry that as a member of the "cool-music community" (wtf?) I wasn't able to be more entertaining, more cool, or more in favor of war.

Jesus. Just keep your microscope on George Galloway's imperfections and indiscretions, and don't look at that big pile of crispy bloody stacked up over there.

[johnny]

oh hey prof

I don't know, I hear a lot of people saying a lot of articulate, intelligent things about why the war was a bad move, and not using those things as a blatant smokescreen for very real 'indiscretions' (I'm not even gonna touch 'imperfections'). if you want to talk about how the war is bad, talk about how the war is bad, why be a fluffer for this asshole?

& did you bother reading that link, or did you just figure out that it was a right-wing site and click away? there were useful links that offered more information about Galloway's past 'indiscretions'. he noted oliver kamm's blog's account, maybe that will be more acceptable? http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/galloway_on_cap.html. though probably not - he's another one of those weird UK Marxists who were pro-war, see also http://marxist-org-uk.blogspot.com/, http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/, http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/, http://normblog.typepad.com/, and so on.

I don't really know where your head's at, but I kind of feel like you'd do well to occasionally read and think critically about people you don't necessarily agree with, you'd know more things and be less likely to get played by manipulative pols. keep your wits about you!

[The Professor]

Uh, I guess I'm a fluffer for this "asshole" because he spoke the truth, very well, in front of a senate committee. You may hear a lot of people saying articulate things about how fucked up the war is, but c'mon, Galloway did it loudly, poetically, and Republicans had to sit and take it. For the life of me, I don't know why this bothers you so much.

And I certainly don't have enough time to read garbage spewed by warmonger bloggers, no matter how much you may admire them. And it makes me laugh that you think I am being manipulated by Galloway. He didn't convince me of anything I didn't already believe. I'm not voting for the guy, I just believe he gave one of the best speeches of heard in this country for years. That's it. Hate him all you want. Have at it. I don't care.

As far as pro-war Marxists, pro-war Labour party members, pro-war alcoholics, whatever, I have no interest, no patience, no mercy for them. And it's sad that you do.

Regarding the Kamm blog post. Why is it so repulsive that Paul McGarr said that the "lesser evil" would be Hussein defeating the American & British forces? My god, we attacked a sovereign nation. And while I'm sick of saying it, Hussein is an awful person, his government has done horrible things, that still does not justify launching a war to remove him from power.

I think you would do well to commend Mr. Galloway's speech if you really are against the war, whether you agree with him politically or not. Where are your wits?