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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Washington Lobbyists ain't got no culture

Harper's' Washington editor Ken Silverstein went undercover to see how eager lobbyists were to represent Turkmenistan (slogan our current President hasn't named a month after himself yet). They were eager. They are also out of touch with high culture.

For answers, Silverstein went undercover as “Kenneth Case,” a consultant for “The Maldon Group,” a mysterious (and fictitious) London-based firm that claimed to have a financial stake in improving the public image of neo-Stalinist Turkmenistan.


Ahhh someone looking for extremely shameless PR who says he works for the Maldon Group which is not, I think, a reference to the battle on the field of Maldon, but rather to the South Maldon Icelandic Saga Society as seen on Monte Python's Flying Circus which discovered that Gnarls Saga focused on the advantages of locating one's business in South Maldon.

Don't tell me it's a coincidence.

p.s. the punctuation if Harper's' is not a typo, Harper's is the Magazine so Siverstein is Harper's' Washington editor.

The title is a reference to "An average desultory philippic or I've been McNamara McNamarad" by Simon and Garfunkle which contains the immortal lines
"When you say Dylan, he thinks you mean Dylan Thomas
Man he ain't got no culture"

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remember the cheers for Iraqis fighting "al-s" a few few few weeks ago? Here then is the insanity of wart and occupation-colonisation:

June 26, 2007

"The 'Anbar Model' of arming Sunni tribespeople to fight religious extremists is being queried by many experts."

Juan Cole

We must leave Iraq completely and immediately. Peace is not war. I am for peace, and little fool that I am I have been right to stand for peace since we began to go to was in Iraq.

We must leave Iraq complete and immediately.

anne

Anonymous said...

Iraq is of course an Iraqi disaster, and an American disaster in physical, psychological, moral and material terms. We must leave Iraq completely and immediately.

No more cheering for war's insanity, even though we are insane. We must leave Iraq, though we will not leave Iraq.

anne

Anonymous said...

This today:

Notice also that Juan Cole as always understands the deceiving insanity in how America is counting our casualties in Iraq, and Cole is not even dealing with psychological casualties.

American military physical casualties in Iraq were above 50,000 in January, before counting psychological casualties. And, who has any sense the all but completely ignored but hidden civilian casualties?

Were we to win in Iraq this very day, we would have nonetheless lost.

anne

Anonymous said...

Brad DeLong wrote a courageous and fine diplomatic outline for rationally proceeding with nuclear efforts internationally. I am thoroughly pleased.

anne

Anonymous said...

Also, the thrust now from the right will be to continually emphasize that the left lost Vietnam and the left is not going to be allowed to lose Iraq, besides if Iraq is lost the left will bear responsibility for another 30 years as with Vietnam. So, we cower the Democrats.

anne