Talk is Cheap

Terribly sick. Miserable start of spring, and worst, I know that my annual end of May allergies are on their way. Mostly I'm spending my days shivering in bed and trying to sleep away 24 hours of each day, waking every two hours, eating very little. I haven't been ill in years I think, so I guess I was due.

Happily I am reading and listening to some great Democracy Now! shows. If you've never checked out Democracy Now! please listen and consider supporting them. We need a Democracy Now! North.

Tonight apparently Barack Obama is going to address the Muslim world or something. More meaningless bullshit. Check out Robert Fisk's great commentary on the dismal speech to come. I've included an excerpt tonight:

"OK, so here's what President Barack Obama should say today about the Middle East. We will leave Afghanistan tomorrow. We will leave Iraq tomorrow. We will stop giving unconditional, craven support to Israel. Americans will force the Israelis – and the European Union – to end their siege of Gaza. We will withhold all future funding for Israel unless it ends, totally and unconditionally, its building of colonies on Arab land that does not belong to it. We will cease all co-operation and business deals with the vicious dictators of the Arab world – whether they be Saudi or Syrian or Libyan – and we will support democracy even in those countries where we have massive business interests. Oh yes, and we will talk to Hamas.

Of course, President Barack Obama will not say this. A vain and cowardly man, he will talk about the West's "friends" in the Middle East, about the security of Israel – security not being a word he has ever devoted to Palestinians – and he will waffle on and on about the Arab Spring as if he ever supported it (until, of course, the dictators were on the run), as if – when they desperately needed his support – he had given his moral authority to the people of Egypt; and, no doubt, we will hear him say what a great religion Islam is (but not too great, or Republicans will start recalling the Barack Hussein Obama birth certificate again) and we will be asked – oh, I fear we will – to turn our backs on the Bin Laden past, to seek "closure" and "move on" (which I'm afraid the Taliban don't quite agree with)."