Happy New Years From DWT... And U2

The Rolling Stones were my favorite band for my whole life-- until 1979 when I first heard U2. Then they became my favorite band-- at least until I got into The Clash a month later. The Clash are still my favorite band. When the first U2 album was mailed to the press it included the first American story about the band. I wrote it. Boy was an amazing album. I Will Follow made me ditch the Rolling Stones… even after all those acid trips I had taken on the first day their albums were released all through my time in college! But “I Will Follow,” despite my review, didn’t break the band; neither did boy. Their first international mega-hit was “New Year’s Day” from the third album, War, in 1983. I was still a huge fan, even if The Clash was my #1 favorite band already.

U-2 often used my indie 415 Records bands as their opening acts. Romeo Void and the Red Rockers went out on several tours with them and I recall Wire Train doing a gig with them as well. War was a smash, especially because of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” and “New York’s Day,” both overtly political songs, as was the title track of course.

This year, in honor of New Year’s, Irish Central decided to republish Kate Hickey’s 2015 piece about the meaning behind the 1983 hit-- although I recall that it was a secret when it was released. “Although it is one of U2's most well-known tunes,” she wrote, “many fans don’t realize that the song's lyrics are actually about the Polish Solidarity movement. And you could be forgiven, given that it is called ‘New Year’s Day’ and it was released in January 1983.”

The lyrics, in fact, refer to the persecuted leader of the Polish Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa. Coincidentally, after the song was released Poland's Communist government announced that they would abolish martial law.

In 1980 the Solidarity movement in Poland, under the leadership of future Nobel Peace Prize winner and president Lech Walesa, challenged the oppressive rule of the Polish government. In December 1981, the Solidarity movement was outlawed and Walesa, together with the other leaders of the movement, was arrested and put in jail.

It is believed that "New Year’s Day" initially started out as a love song, dedicated to Bono’s high-school sweetheart, Ali, whom he had recently married, but this changed.

Bono told the Rolling Stone he made the lyrics up on the spot, as he often does. He said, "We improvise, and the things that came out; I let them come out."

"I must have been thinking about Lech Walesa being interned. Then, when we'd recorded the song, they announced that martial law would be lifted in Poland on New Year's Day. Incredible."

Here’s the beginning of the song:

All is quiet on New Year's Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
On New Year's Day.
I will be with you again.
I will be with you again

As the song continues, it further documents the growing movement of people clamoring for freedom and justice throughout Eastern Europe in the early 1980s.

Under a blood red sky
A crowd has gathered in black and white
Arms entwined, the chosen few
The newspapers say it's true
It's true
And we can break through
Though torn in two
We can be one.

The themes of understanding in a time of global unrest were a focal point for the album "War," the title of which was inspired by the various conflicts around the world at the time. "War" raced up the charts and became a huge commercial success, in the process knocking Michael Jackson's Thriller from the top of the charts. It became U2's first number-one album in the UK.

Here's a rather spectacular U2 performance of "New Year's Day" in December of 2006 in Poland. This audience sure seemed to know exactly what the song was about.

 

Other Countries Aren't Waiting For Trumpf To Start A Fascist Resurgence-- Take Poland

Some people never learn-- not a Trumpf rally though

Before 1918 Poland hadn't existed as a country since a series of partitions from 1764-1795 left it divided up between the Russian Empire, the Prussian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After World War I, which saw the dissolution of the 3 empires, Poland emerged as a weak, chaotic democracy that lasted until warlord Józef Piłsudski seized power in 1926. Democracy never really caught on and Poland, pretty much a basket case, and it was partitioned again in 1939 by Nazi German and Soviet Russia. The Soviets eventually defeated Germany and took over all of Poland in 1945, setting up a puppet government which lasted until 1990, when Lech Wałęsa was elected president. He was defeated for reelection in 1995 and the country's politics have been chaotic ever since, with a very right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) in and out of power in extremely low turn-out elections. The opposition parties are primarily right-wing parties as well, just not as right-wing.

Just over a week ago, PiS, further right and more authoritarian than ever, was voted back into power over a center-right party, winning an outright majority in the lower House of Parliament. These were the results:

• Law and Justice (PiS)- 5,711,687 (37.58%) 235 seats (far right)
• Civic Platform (PO)- 3,661,474 (24.09%) 138 seats (center-right)
• Kukiz'15- 1,339,094 (8.81%)- 42 seats (right-wing)
• .Modern (.N)- 1,155,370 (7.60%)- 28 seats (centrist)
• United Left (ZL)- 1,147,102 (7.55)- 0 seats (center left)
• Polish People's Party (PSL)- 779,875 (5.13%) 16 seats (center-right)

And PiS has wasted no time in a virtual coup d'état against the Polish constitution. Try to follow the names; there are some especially bad characters here:

Beata Szydlo, prime minister of Poland since November 16, set the precedent for defied expectations with her choice of cabinet members.

As defense minister she appointed Antoni Macierewicz, who shares his hardline stance towards Moscow with the chief of the ruling Party for Law and Justice (PiS) Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Macierewicz eagerly spreads conspiracy theories about the plane crash in the Russian city of Smolensk five years ago that killed former President (and Jaroslaw's twin) Lech Kaczynski as well as a number of other high-ranking dignitaries. Worried he would scare away moderate conservative voters, Syzdlo promised in her campaign that Macierewicz would not take part in her government. And now he is in office.

Then there is the new secret service coordinator, Mariusz Kaminski. Former head of Poland's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, Kaminski was convicted for abuse of office in March with a three-year prison sentence - barring him as well from public office. Kaminski has since appealed the ruling. In any case, the new prime minister was not bothered and has brought him into the government too. Immediately thereafter the president issued him a pardon.

Critics fear that the head of state's unprecedented move will prompt other officials to support the party so they too may secure legal impunity.

The move itself was illegal, believes Piotr Kladoczny of the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights in Warsaw. "The president can pardon a conviction, but not the defendant himself," Kladoczny said.

In the meantime, judges from the court of appeals in Warsaw have spoken up. A council released a statement decrying the use of the justice system as a political instrument. Recalling the constitution's division of powers, it wrote: "The judiciary and the executive should not compete with each other and the president cannot release the courts of their constitutional duties."

But the decision of what is just and what is unjust will rest in new hands.

Only a few days after the swearing-in of the new Sejm-- the lower house of the Polish parliament-- the ruling PiS party pushed through both houses of parliament an amendment that would vindicate the president's legal maneuvering. Representatives and senators of the PiS voted in an nighttime session to appoint replacements for five recently nominated constitutional judges. With the help of the Kukiz'15 faction they gathered the necessary two-thirds majority to get their way. There was no hearing for constitutional judges. Amendment proposals were rejected. The opposition spoke of a shameful coup against the constitutional court and walked out before the vote in protest.

"It is very unnerving how the new leaders are moving forward, Kladoczny said. "It now looks like they want subordinate the constitutional court. That would be lethal," as the highest court is "the last reserve of jurisdiction."

Now the PiS has set its eyes on the media.

Shortly before a Breslau theater was set to premier its staging of Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek's "Der Tod und Das Mädchen," newly installed Culture Minister Piotr Glinski urged the performance to be called off amid talk that pornographic scenes would occur on stage. "Government money for culture will not be spent on pornography," he said.

When a television moderator from the channel TVP asked about the legal basis of his threat, Glinski dodged the question before offering threatening TVP in turn: "This program is propaganda, just like the propaganda and manipulation that your channel has been pushing for years," he said. "That will end soon. Public television is not allowed to function like that."

The journalist was pulled as the program's moderator and the culture minister soon announced that reform for rules governing the media were already in their "final phase." It is so far known that state television and radio channels, as well as the Polish press agency PAP, will be cast as "national cultural institutions." Their current boards will be swiftly replaced with people who in turn could be dismissed at any time.

Szydlo immediately rejected EU quotas for Syrian refugees and almost Trumpf-style (though not as drastic and extreme) is refusing the allow them into Poland. Surprise? No, of course not.

Although Those Countries May Barely Notice, Some Americans May Wonder Why Romney Is Snubbing Italy And Ireland

The verdict is certainly in on Romney's publicity stunt of a sojourn to the land of the Anglo Saxons: unmitigated p.r. disaster. Maureen Dowd used her analysis of it as an opportunity to give Obama a back-handed endorsement: "Romney programmed himself into a robot, so he wouldn’t boil over with opinions and convictions, like his more genuine dad. But if we’re going to have someone who’s removed, always struggling to connect and emote, why not stick with the president we already have? Better the android you know than the android you don’t know." Her column, wasn't nearly as cutting as the U.K. press, which nicknamed him "Mitt the Twit" and delighted in informing the British public that the Conservative officials who met with him found him "apparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity." That's our Mitt!

In her Sunday column Dowd explained why he so cautious and scripted in terms of his father's ruined political ambitions. "Mitt began to build his own sterile biosphere, shaping his temperament and political career to make sure he never stumbled into such a costly moment of candor... limiting access to reporters, giving interviews mostly to Fox News, hiding personal data, resisting putting out concrete policy proposals, refusing to release tax returns, trimming his conscience to match the moment, avoiding spontaneity."

Even as he angled to appear Anglo-Saxon and obsequiously vowed to restore the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, Mitt condescended to the nation that invented condescension. The Brits swiftly boxed his ears for his insolence and foul calumny.

Conservatives in London oozed scorn. Mayor Boris Johnson mocked “a guy called Mitt Romney,” and Prime Minister David Cameron suggested it was easier to run an Olympics “in the middle of nowhere.” Fleet Street spanked “Nowhere Man” and “Mitt the Twit.”

Conservatives on Fox News were dumbfounded. “You have to shake your head,” Karl Rove said. Charles Krauthammer pronounced the faux pas “unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives.”

The alarming thing about Romney is that he has been running for president for years, but he still doesn’t know how to read a room. He doesn’t take anything in, he just puts it out. He doesn’t hear himself the way the rest of us hear him.

In the Mitt-sphere, populated by his shiny white family, the Mormon Church and a narrow, homogenous inner circle, Romney’s image of himself as wise, caring, smart and capable is relentlessly reinforced. That leaves him constantly surprised that other people don’t love what he is saying.

We may wince when the blithering toff, or want-wit, as Shakespeare would say, arrives at the Brits’ home and throws his Cherry Coke Zero can in the prize rose bushes. But what drives his gaffes is his desire to preen over accomplishments.

As a candidate, he’s expected to stoop to conquer, to play a man of the people. But he really wants voters to know that he earned $250 million, and not even in the same business where his dad made a name for himself.

So he keeps blurting out hoity-toity stuff to make sure we know he’s not hoi polloi-- about his friends who are Nascar owners, his wife’s Cadillacs, how he likes to fire people and how he, too, is unemployed. And he builds a car elevator in the middle of an economic slough.

The Brits boxed his ears. Great fun... ho ho. But they don't vote and Americans voters, by and large, don't care that he made a bore and a clown out of himself in London. He didn't do any substantive damage to the Special Relationship, not even by babbling inappropriately about the head of the MI-6. If anything, he helped burnish Obama's image with the British people-- and their Conservative government-- as the right man for the U.S. presidency. Mitt's just a light-weight gaffe machine with a lot of wealthy Mormon friends and a lot of wealthy reactionary friends trying to buy the White House. No harm done. But that wasn't the case in Israel. And I'm not talking about more glaring missteps like scheduling a $50,000/plate banquet on a solemn fast and mourning day, Tisha b'Av and then putting it off for a day and doing a photo opportunity at the Wailing Wall instead. Tisha b'Av is a day of mourning for Jews-- the day Solomon's Temple was destroyed. Of all places and times to schedule a photo op, this was just wrong-- just vulgar and crude. But that's not going to do any substantive damage to the other Special (non Anglo Saxon) Relationship either. At least Bishop Romney didn't start baptizing dead Jews while he was there or-- if he did-- managed to keep it as secret as his 2009 tax returns.

But between all the gaffes, ugly American behavior and slapstick, there was something seriously disturbing and real world problematic-- Romney interfering with delicate, ultra-sensitive foreign policy to make narrow partisan points while overseas. Did he think our Arab allies weren't watching when he went to an Adelson-owned far right newspaper and denounced the new pro-democracy governments in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt? What kind of message was he sending (other than to get the Republican base to vote for him)? As David Kirkpatrick explained to NY Times readers, Romney inserted the Arab Spring into the American elections for the first time. "Romney," he wrote, "discussed the Arab Spring revolts as a problem rather than progress. He asserted against some evidence that the Obama administration had abandoned an agenda of pushing for democratic reform pursued by George W. Bush, and he characterized even the most moderate and Western-friendly Islamists-- those in the political parties leading legislatures in Tunisia and Morocco-- as political opponents. The last runs counter to the Obama administration’s strategy, endorsed by some Republicans in Congress, of building alliances with moderate Islamists where possible." And, as always with Romney, it got worse. "What is this man doing here?" asked Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian negotiator. "Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn't this racism?" But Romney, seated next to Jabba-the-Hutt-like Adelson, was determined to say whatever was required to raise money. And seeking to score points back home, he did some anti-Iran saber rattling in Israel, giving Israel's far right a green light to go ahead and bomb Iran and count on help from a Romney government. This alone should disqualify him from even getting the GOP nomination.

President Obama has also affirmed the right of Israel to defend itself but, in contrast to Romney, Obama has warned of the consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran.

"Already, there is too much loose talk of war," Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March. "Now is the time to let our increased pressure sink in and to sustain the broad international coalition we have built."

While Romney is left to implicit contrasts with his Democratic opponent, Obama has been focusing on Israel, signing legislation on Friday increasing military and civilian ties between the U.S. and Israel. And he authorized the release of an additional $70 million in military aid for Israel, a previously announced move that appeared timed to Romney's trip.

Pentagon officials have spoken publicly about the difficulty of such a strike and American officials have expressed concern about the destabilizing effect such military action could have in the region, even if carried out successfully.

The goofball who made such a hash out of Bush communications on Iraq policy, Dan Senor, has been tasked with the same job for Romney... and, predictably, with the same results. His Tisha b'Av pronouncement was “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability the governor would respect that decision." Romney making a fool out of himself in London is one thing... threatening nuclear war against Iran is something else. The man is a danger-- not to Iran, but to America. Let's hope he doesn't start denouncing "the Soviet Union" again when he begins his visit to Poland today, where he's making a blatant play for Polish-American votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. (I wonder why he's skipping Ireland and Italy.) Romney is, however, expected o offer to add Poland to the visa waiver program in return for Polish-American votes. "Craven" and "opportunistic" barely describe the man's character.

Obama's Missile Defense Architecture Is A Security Improvement, Not A Concession

Click and it gets big... and crazy

Poland's Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, may be a right-wing politician, but his election in 2007 was very much a step in the right direction from the excesses of the neo-fascist twin brothers who ruled before him, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the latter a McConnell/Foley-like closet queen, who are most remembered in the West for their loud and hysterical homophobic obsessions.

Wednesday night Tusk refused to accept a phone call from Hillary Clinton who wanted to explain the details of the U.S. plan to change the childish and aggressive Bush era policy of provoking Russia on its borders. Thursday night, stiff mildly peeved, Tusk got on the phone with Obama. And this morning, the Russians announced-- as expected by everyone except right-wing American political hacks like Tim Pawlenty-- that they would scrap their own plans for deploying missiles near Poland.

For all the whining on the American right to the contrary-- cue up McCain/Lieberman/Graham-- a plurality of Poles are relieved and agree with Obama's more mature approach.

Almost half Poland's population supports a U.S. decision to scrap a planned anti-missile system partly based on their soil, a survey published on Saturday showed.

The survey published in the daily Rzeczpospolita by polling firm GFK showed 48 percent of Poles believed the decision was good for Poland, while 31 percent had the opposite view.

Stanford University Professor Emeritus Martin Hellman, whose work seeks to apply risk analysis to nuclear deterrence, applauded the Obama Administration because it "provides some hope for desperately needed improvement in Russian-American relations," while pointing out that hacks like McCain and Pawlenty are already "accusing Obama of 'appeasement,' wrongly but effectively conjuring up fears of Russia as a modern-day Nazi Germany, bent on world domination."

Given the looming battle over missile defense, it behooves us to better understand why the Russians find this defensive system so offensive. To do that requires going beyond what most people think nuclear deterrence means and, instead, seeing its reality.

Neither the US nor Russia can use nuclear weapons against the other without being destroyed in retaliation, leading most people to believe that these weapons will never be used-- their very destructiveness seems to ensure the peace. But that view ignores the more subtle use of nuclear weapons in times of crisis.

Hellman then proceeds to give an in-depth analysis of the high-stakes game of nuclear chicken known as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and concludes that today the Russians "have reason to fear that even a rudimentary, untested American missile defense [on their borders] will allow us to increase the intensity of our bluffs during a crisis."

To be afraid of our missile defense, the Russians don't have to fear that it will give us a military advantage. They don't even have to fear that our leaders will mistakenly believe that it will. All they have to fear is that our leaders will act as if they believe that it does. In nuclear chicken, the first party to behave rationally loses, so having one more prop to use in our act is dangerous to Russia's interests.

At first, that might seem to favor the Eastern European missile defense-- at least from our vantage point. But appearing more irrational than the Russians is a highly questionable advantage since it increases the risk of a catastrophic outcome. Failure to weigh the chance of a small gain (coming out ahead in a crisis) against the risk of an infinite loss (destruction of our homeland) clearly can have disastrous consequences.

The need for our decision-making process to better balance potential gains and losses extends far beyond missile defense and national security. Lack of such a framework led financial institutions to take excessive risks, an error that is now costing us trillions of dollars. As expensive as that mistake was, it pales in comparison to what we will suffer if our nuclear weapons strategy proves as faulty. Before it is too late, let us learn from our now obvious economic mistakes and objectively balance the risks associated with changes in our nuclear weapons posture against the risk associated with threatening to destroy civilization.

Listen closely to Obama's explanation of his decision (in the video below), which seems to indicate that knee-jerk obstructionists in the Republican Party-- particularly McCain-- are simply on another planet. Of course, there is still the question of how much progressives can really trust Obama anyway.

The Pentagon’s 2010 budget seeks 250 Standard Missile-3 interceptors. It also seeks to increase to 27 from 21 the number of warships equipped to launch the Standard Missile-3s and requests $1.6 billion to develop software and hardware to upgrade ships and to develop a ground-based model.

The Pentagon is also now promising Poland that Patriot missiles will still be deployed in that country as previously planned.

So in the end I see this as an adjustment in strategy due to technology as much as anything. The flexible, more mobile, short range missile defense systems are proving ready to go while the former Bush proposal for Poland and Czech Republic included technologies that are not yet proven.

Obama can appear to be stepping back from an immediate confrontation with Russia but in fact he is following the lead of the Pentagon who for some time has been saying that they must move to expand the more promising Navy Aegis-based missile defense system. This program has already been dramatically growing in the Asian-Pacific region and will now be slated for expanded European operations.

UPDATE: What A Shock!

Robert Gates, Bush's Secretary of War who Obama held over, agrees with my assessment. "Last week, President Obama-- on my recommendation and with the advice of his national-security team and the unanimous support of our senior military leadership-- decided to discard that [outdated and ineffective Bush era] plan in favor of a vastly more suitable approach. In the first phase, to be completed by 2011, we will deploy proven, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles-- weapons that are growing in capability-- in the areas where we see the greatest threat to Europe."

It looks like he forgot to consult with President McCain or President Pawlenty. Maybe he tried and they were too busy running to get face time on the media to take his call.

TWO BUSH ALLIES DEFEATED-- NEW LEADERS IN AUSTRALIA AND POLAND VOW END TO PARTICIPATION IN HIS IRAQ BOONDOGGLE

Poland has been ruled by two extreme right, viciously homophobic twins President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Last month their right-wing party took a drubbing in parliamentary elections and the new Prime Minister, confirmed yesterday, is Donald Tusk, a moderate. Yesterday Tusk reaffirmed his pledge to pull Poland's remaining 900 troops out of Iraq and to back away from the Kaczynski's bellicose pro-American posture towards Russia.

"In a year's time, I will tell you here in this chamber that our military mission in Iraq is over," Tusk said, as the house erupted in applause.

"We have taken the decision, as far as the government powers go, to make 2008 the year when the pullout of Poland's military mission is started and completed," Tusk said. "We will carry out that operation with the conviction that we have done more than what our allies, especially the U.S., had expected from us."

On top of that Bush's closest ally, Australian neanderthal John Howard "suffered a humiliating defeat" today. Kevin Rudd, a moderate left candidate will be the new prime minister and he has promised to overturn the ultra-reactionary Bush-like policies of his predecessor, particularly in regard to Global Warming and Iraq. Bush's only ally left in the entire world on Global Warming is now Oklahoma crazy right-wing senator, James Inhofe. Rudd won a clear parliamentary majority and it looks like Howard may actually lose his own suburban Sydney seat to boot! It is likely that Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett will join the new cabinet as Environmental Minister.

Rudd campaigned on promises that "his first acts as prime minister will include pushing for the ratification of the Kyoto climate agreement and to negotiate the withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq," both seen as repudiations of George Bush's embarrassing leadership.

Remember this?




UPDATE: GLENN GREENWALD LISTS THE REASONS TO CELEBRATE THE OVERDUE POLITICAL DEMISE OF JOHN HOWARD

I had forgotten about Howard's slurs against Democrats, although I had remembered that he had lost his marbles long ago. I love this from the video Glenn found (re: Howard's tough re-election bid)

Vice President Cheney is heading to Australia later this month to try and help. The White House can hardly afford to have another friend of the president go the way of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Well, one did-- and worse. I know there are scores of Democratic candidates around the country who are hoping Vice President Cheney heads to their constituencies to campaign for their opponents just the way he did for John Howard.