a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Thursday, September 30, 2004 New Front PageThe site has a new front page, which you should visit if you missed my Indonesia piece in the Chronicle last week, or even if you didn't and just want to see photographs. There should be new stuff in the Politics and Prose section in a matter of days, when I finish updating the site. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 4:50 AM (0) commentsSunday, September 26, 2004 The Rise of the Meatheads
Most of you know by now that neo-Nazis won enough votes last weekend in two German states to take seats in their state assemblies. Pictured here is the absurdly-named Holger Apfel ("Holger Apple," in the middle), head of the far-right NPD in Saxony -- dressed, not by accident, in brown. Every couple of decades a far-right party wins more than 5% of the vote in some part of Germany and sends a short-careered meathead to some state-level legislature. (The last NPD member held office in 1968.) It may be just a blip. Both Saxony and Brandenburg are eastern states where people are sick of the weak economy and outraged at Gerhard Schroeder for rolling back (large, economy-sapping) welfare benefits. They voted, not just for fascists, but for old-fashioned Communists, too. But it's still an outrage. The Jewish writer Ralph Giordano points out that after Auschwitz Germans young and old have no excuse for voting in far-right candidates. (Interview's in German, sorry.) There's enough nonsense all along the political spectrum for disgruntled voters to choose from if they want to mount a protest vote. Giving anti-immigrant, "Deutschland für Deutsche" revisionists the time of day is frivolous and revolting. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:55 PM (0) comments Saturday, September 25, 2004 Bury the Rag Deep in Your FaceNow is the time for your tears:Mr. Rumsfeld, who did not set out a timetable for any troop withddrawal, said, "Any implication that that place has to be peaceful and perfect before we can reduce coalition and U.S. forces, I think, would obviously be unwise, because it's never been peaceful and perfect, and it isn't likely to be." Why would Rumsfeld say something like this now, at the bottom of the ugly chaos in Iraq? It sounds to me like he's retreated from the dream of creating a stable and democratic system there, just like John Kerry. ("John Kerry and John Edwards will make the creation of a stable and secure environment in Iraq our immediate priority in order to lay the foundations for sustainable democracy.") No one now in line to lead the U.S. wants to contemplate leaving troops in Iraq long enough to convert it to a working democratic state. That might be wise, if you believe this Counterpunch poll, but it also means that instead of a "liberated" Iraq at the heart of the Middle East we'll wind up with something, um, else. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 5:43 PM (0) comments Tuesday, September 21, 2004 Radio Free Mike Calls It for SBYOK, so everyone else has, too: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will be the next president of Indonesia. He beat Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the nation's founding president, in an election runoff that fell short of being a surprise, given that Megawati was not just feckless but female (in a Muslim country). BBC has good details; Bloomberg gives the western reaction. ("Indonesian Rupiah, Stocks Rise as Yudhoyono Leads.")Don't be too optimistic. The Radio Free Mike assessment still stands. I think it's basically good for Indonesia to have a change, because Megawati was feckless and out of touch; but SBY never outlined a clear vision for his country, and I met a bunch of people who mistrusted the simple idea of an ex-general taking command only six years after the collapse of General Suharto's military regime. (Suharto had the gall to show up at the polls on Monday. That's like General Pinochet waking up from his too-sick-to-stand-trial-for-crimes-against-humanity convalescence, only to participate in a process he had always resisted.) SBY is mild-mannered for a former general, sure enough; but some smart people in Indonesia worry that he'll roll back freedoms, starting with freedom of the press. We'll see. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 6:01 AM (0) comments Sunday, September 19, 2004 In Another CountryThis week's San Francisco Chronicle Magazine has a piece of mine about Muslims in Lombok and the Indonesian election. (Indonesians finish voting for their president tomorrow.) More blogging on Indonesia starts down here. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 5:17 PM (0) commentsSaturday, September 18, 2004 C'est pretty much ça 2The much-abused Hans Blix is vindicated by a quiet new report on weapons of mass destruction:''There was a very consistent creation of a virtual reality,'' he now says of the U.S. attitude. ''And eventually it collided with our old-fashioned, ordinary reality.'' posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:02 PM (0) comments C'est pretty much çaThanks to Marc for correcting my memory of the Neil Young lyrics in the last post, by the way. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:27 PM (0) commentsFriday, September 17, 2004 HurucanWhen I first met my wife -- or first got to know her, 12 years ago, before she was old enough to drink -- I told her she reminded me of a Neil Young song:You are like a hurricane There's calm in your eye Which I now think is kind of cute. Lately, though, towards the end of a long and mostly cheerful saga, all I can think of is a handful of lines by Derek Walcott, addressed to a more impersonal force: You scream like a man whose wife is dead, like a god who has lost his race, you yank the electric wires with wet hands. ...you abhor all other parallels but our own, Hurucan posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:30 PM (0) comments Thursday, September 16, 2004 Ozzies Win Second Annual Radio Free Mike Headline AwardA bit early, I know, but --Rembrandt Was Cross-Eyed posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:14 AM (0) comments Wednesday, September 15, 2004 The East India Company
Jen and I were in Holland late last month, where among other things we saw a replica of the Amsterdam, a merchantman in the old Dutch East India fleet. The East India Company colonized the Spice Islands and governed them, off and on, for three centuries, until the people rebelled and declared themeselves Indonesian. The East India company was also the first major capitalist venture, meaning the first modern undertaking financed by shareholders. The West India Company, which didn't do so well, has the distinction of sending Henry Hudson out to found a settlement called New Amsterdam, which later became a massive capitalist metropolis in its own right. Interesting how parts of Amsterdam, actually, look a lot like Greenwich Village -- sunken doorways, green copper railings on the stairs. Anyway, here's our editor navigating from the Amsterdam's bridge: 
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
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Monday, September 13, 2004 LebanonJosh Marshall argues that Iraq has already become another Lebanon. He also says Kerry should not do what I want him to do, which is hash out a detailed plan for Iraq. "Yes, he needs to give an idea of what he'll do if and when he takes over," writes Marshall. "But the emphasis should be on the undeniable fact that though the way forward may be murky, the last person you want to lead the country down that foggy path is the guy who screwed everything up so badly in the first place." posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:35 PM (0) commentsSunday, September 12, 2004 The Man Who Outgrew His Prison CellMy friend Joe Loya just published a long-awaited memoir of his previous life as a bad-ass hold-up man in L.A. and San Diego. Joe now writes for the Pacific News Service as a kind of protegé of Richard Rodriguez, and I can vouch that his stories from prison are gripping colorful stuff. Joe blurbed my novel last year; he's been on the Too Much of Nothing page here at Radio Free Mike ever since. Congratulations, Joe! posted by Michael Scott Moore | 2:23 AM (0) commentsThursday, September 09, 2004 Jakarta, Jakarta
The Australian embassy was just hit by a car bomb. Australian and American governments released travel warnings only two days ago about anti-western violence before the September 20 runoff elections, so there must have been some intelligence; and one of the convicted Bali bombers took a cozy trip to Starbucks in Jakarta last weekend. Australians, obviously, are pissed. UPDATE: Jema'ah Islamiyah seems to have claimed the attack. "We decided to make Australia pay in Jakarta today when one of the Mujahideen brothers carried out a martyrdom operation at the Australian embassy," says the Reuters translation of an Arabic internet declaration. Pay for helping in Iraq, is the idea. Maybe JI thinks it can sway Australia's October election, where troops in Iraq are an issue. And maybe it can: The best thing for John Howard, and for that matter George Bush, would be a terrorist blast in or near the homeland to frighten regular citizens. A scared electorate will vote conservative in both countries. It'll be nothing like Spain. But you can't expect Islamic radicals to make such subtle distinctions. They are, as I learned last June, none too bright. UPDATE 2: For making the same point in a harsh way, Ken Parish gets eviscerated early and often by right-leaning Australians, labelled amusingly in the comments as "rent-a-loons." UPDATE 3: This short piece reports a phone call 45 minutes before the bombing to demand the release of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. UPDATE 4: News reports of a possible second attack keep turning up. UPDATE 5: Indonesian cops are now saying that the explosion was plan B for terrorists who had wanted to assassinate President Megawati and an Australian minister two months ago, during an opening ceremony for a new counter-terrorism center in central Java. I mentioned (and dismissed!) news about that plot last June. UPDATE 6: There's grainy surveillance video of the blast at BBC.com. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:35 PM (0) comments Jodie Foster's Army
Painted on a concrete bunker-like thing on the beach here in San Francisco is a patch of graffiti: "PUNK'S NOT DEAD. REAGAN IS. 06/05/04" Regular readers of the blog know I grew up in a time delimited by Reagan and punk, and you might say the novel is a response to it. Here's another response from last June. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 12:45 AM (0) comments BlackoutSorry, again, for the silence, but this time it wasn't me: A glitch at Blogger kept me from posting all weekend. I started to wonder if they kept any of their servers in Florida. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 12:43 AM (0) commentsSunday, September 05, 2004 Ozzies Win First Annual Radio Free Mike Headline AwardIt was a snap competition, I admit, with perhaps not enough deliberation by the judges. But here's how The Australian headed its report on the fearsome Hurricane Frances in Florida:Surfers Thrilled As Hurricane Nears posted by Michael Scott Moore | 12:12 AM (0) comments Friday, September 03, 2004 OK, I give upI have to say something about the convention. One honest remark I've heard from the speakers-of-the-thing-which-is-not in New York comes, as you'd expect, from John McCain. Now, McCain loathes George Bush the way Bush loathes McCain -- he just wanted the podium to set up McCain 2008. But the kernel of his speech is probably true:... While this war has many components, we can’t make victory on the battlefield harder to achieve so that our diplomacy is easier to conduct ... That’s why I commend to my country the re-election of President Bush. I think that is the reason McCain will vote for Bush. And it's a thorny, uncomfortable point. All Kerry has said so far about Iraq is that he would mend our alliances to involve the U.N. and give our troops a rest. Nice idea; but involving the U.N. in practice might do just what McCain says, make victory difficult. Americans have no legitimacy in Iraq only because Bush never had the moral stature (read: oil disinterest) to invade largely by himself, and because there were no weapons to back up his gasbag Cassandra-isms. There were plenty of good reasons to end Saddam's rule, though, and a better president could have done it right, even unilaterally. The problem with this war was the people in charge, not unilateralism. (I know this won't be a popular opinion.) But the same goes for Iraq's reconstruction: Bush and his people said they'd rebuild with a quick unfettered hand, which was also a nice idea; but they proved to be disorganized, irresponsible, or plain dishonest. That's exactly the reason to vote for Kerry. I just wish he could describe a new plan for Iraq. He's right that we should fix our alliances, but handing the mess over to a bureaucracy like the U.N. is not going to solve a thing. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:41 AM (0) comments | |
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