the cabinet has an ugly finish

obama is putting the finishing touches on his cabinet. sadly, this cabinet is not worthy of your funkiest pair of socks. the latest to receive a gig is dennis blair. blair, for the handful of americans left with an iota of knowledge of the recent past, was central in supporting indonesia in their brutal 1999 assault on the people of east timor. in that year, east timor was voting on whether to become an independent nation. the indonesian military did all it could do discourage this, at one point even entering a church and hacking people to death with machetes. blair helped to keep weapons flowing to indonesia. now, obama wants to appoint him to head the federal intelligence bureaucracy. ironically, obama, who lived in indonesia for several years in his youth, wrote accurately in his book "the audacity of hope" about the brutality of the indonesian state, and american complicity in such behavior. however, obama is now showing that he is ready to fulfill his imperial functions. as such, morality and decency are things of the past, left to those who write books. indonesia's brutality toward it's own people and to the people of east timor is one of the true horror stories of the post ww 2 era, but because american military aid has been essential toward it, we hear nothing about it. so, as millions prepare to descend on washington to celebrate "change," how many of us know the truth about the kind of people that obama is placing into positions of power. these men and women represent continuity, not change. but that won't stop us from tuning into obama's inauguration. that won't stop us from holding an assembly at brookline high, in which we correlate the ascendency of the militaristic obama with the anniversary of king's birth. once, there was the stone age; now, there is the age of irony.

though i am not a big fan of petitions, there is one on line that opposes obama appointing blair. check it out on etan.org. etan stands for the east timor action network, a wonderful group that supports the people of east timor. by the way, the president of east timor has nominated the state of cuba for a peace prize for sending hundreds of doctors into remote areas of timor. isn't it something that cuba, the supposed communist dictatorship. sends doctors to timor to save lives, while the u.s, the supposed democracy, sends weapons to the indonesian military that were used to kill the timorese people. in fact, this is standard; cuba sends doctors to venezuela, we attempt to fund an overthrow of chavez. cuba sends literacy specialists to bolivia, we fund usaid, the ned, and other instruments of subversion within bolivia. cuba trains poor black and latino medical students to become doctors, while through our embargo, we make it difficult for cuba to attain medical supplies. and yet, we stand for freedom, and they, oppression. galeano speaks of an "upside down world." how true.

in any case, let the trumpets blair, dennis, and let obama know that his cabinet appears to be filled with clothes, for the emperor himself seems to be quite naked.