"What's the philosophy of displaced mines"

I feel like there's a confluence of events happening around me this week (and weekend), telling me to wake up a little. I'm not sure how long this wakefulness will last...and I'm sure I'll be blogging as usual tomorrow - who knows.

Red and Fox have been talking about posting a missing memo from Tony Blair...I'll give all you who don't wander their way a little Spins background on this memo (although if you want any links to this, you might check their sites...a good idea because there's been some debate the purported memo which I haven't paid attention to today).

Some months back, I watched a documentary, Control Room, about Al Jazeera's coverage of the invasion of Iraq. It was a fascinating movie. Part of the documentary was the coverage of the US Forces' bombing of the Al Jazeera headquarters in Baghdad. The excuses given at the time were thin at best. And I remember thinking, as I watched the documentary, that I didn't remember hearing anything about this. I would have been outraged. It seems clear evidence of the way the Bush White House has consistently tried to control what we see and hear about this war and occupation.

Well, just this week, information was leaked to the British press about a memo written from Tony Blair's office about a conversation that Mr. Blair had with our own Mr. Bush. Apparently the contents are about the possibility of bombing the Al Jazeera headquarters. At first, Blair's people seemed to deny knowledge of this, but then later this week banned the publication of said document by the British press (no, no, it doesn't exist, but if it does, you can't publish it). The US government has held to the "no knowledge" stance.

The editor of one publication has taken a stance saying that if someone were to supply him with said document he would publish at the risk of being arrested. So a number of bloggers have taken up the banner as well...pledging that if the document became available to them, they would publish it on their blog.

Almost nothing has been said about any of this in the US press. It seems particularly sad to me, seeing as I just tonight went to watch Good Night and Good Luck about Edward Murrow's confrontation of McCarthy in the '50s. Here was someone in the press who took a stand at the risk of his own personal reputation and job. Our current media are proving daily, in my opinion, that their reputations can be sold to corporate sponsors. It's sickening.

Howard Zinn, in his A People's History of the United States writes: "If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed thier ability to resist, to join together, occassionally to win."

So, in this spirit, in the spirit of a history rich and real that looks at different possibilities, I've also pledged to publish this memo on my blog should anyone make it available to me.

Good night, and good luck!