ROTATION

Ice Cube
Rob Swift
Apples in Stereo
Jurassic 5
Sleater-Kinney
Nirvana
Sonic Youth
Amon Tobin
Dirty Three
Cat Power
Pixies
Fugazi
Frank Black
Breeders
Three Mile Pilot
Mogwai
DJ Shadow
Chuck D
Shipping News
Black Heart Procession
White Stripes
Built To Spill
Los Straitjackets
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

AND MORE!

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"Bush's lame response to North Korea has made it quite clear that all he wants is to invade Iraq again. North Korea may be more dangerous in fact, but there's no oil there, and it simply doesn't figure in the grand eschatological design of Bush's theocratic circle. Pyongyang isn't even in the Bible!"

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"You can make nicely crafted things, but they'll just be that -- nice. They won't be unwieldy as personal expression often can be."

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"There's some thing in our psyche, this kind of right or privilege to resolve our conflicts with violence. To actually have to sit down and talk, that's hard work. To go for the gun, that's the cowardly act."

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"It's a done deal. By the end of 2003, Saddam Hussein will either be out of power or out of the realm of the living. So who's next in line for the coveted position of dictator -- uh, leader -- of Iraq, home to the largest supply of crude reserves on Earth? Here's the list of nominees."

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"Word comes that brother Cat Stevens refuses to lend his support to our virtuous jihad. May this turncoat's Peace Train be laden with explosives and rammed into the Mountain of Mohammed, peace be upon him. "

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"'People are more aware of the world that they want to live in, and now they have to realize that they can actually create that world and fight for the things that are worth fighting for and not feel apathetic. We are all going to die. There is no point in holding anything back. ."

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"For white people, it will be very different. They will be advised to refer to the U.S. Federal Standard 595B Color Chart (or the Ralph Lauren color chip guide at Home Depot) to determine the range of colors permissible in a potential spouse."

by Scott Thill

If you don't know who Arianna Huffington is by now, then you haven't been anywhere near a media entity or a political cause in about a decade. Once the charming, intelligent and influential poster child for Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution, Huffington pulled off a moral and political about-face and -- in a move that still has right-wingers scratching their low-slung foreheads -- summarily abandoned what she once called the "trickle-down let-them-eat-cake" philosophy that is currently beating the living daylights out of the United States. And as much as that move made some do everything from question her political integrity to condemn her as a media-hungry opportunist, the one thing Huffington knows how to do is stick her finger on America's pulse and touch all of its nerves at once.

So it was no surpise to anyone when she threw her considerable presence behind her friend, environmental activist Laurie David, who had been campaigning against the exponentially growing number of relentlessly polluting SUVs littering the American landscape like so many non-biodegradable nightmares. Huffington and David quickly teamed up with film producer Lawrence Bender and agent Ari Emanuel to found the nonprofit group, AFFEC (Americans for Fuel-Efficient Cars), whose latest manfiestation, The Detroit Project, released two ads satirically parodying the ludicrous campaigns issued by the Bush administration shortly after 9/11 that more or less equated even casual drug use with support of lethal terrorism (without, of course, mentioning the utter failure of George Bush's previous War on Drugs). Well, to put it mildly, the shit hit the fan after that, and the backlash was vociferous if not confused. Some accused Huffington of being Hitler, while others cheered her on for possessing the cojones to call out Americans on their connections to the dangerous Oil Game that is so close to launching us into yet another unnecessary war in the Middle East.

But no matter what side you come down on, there's no debating Huffington's pull. Which is why I jumped at the chance to chat her up on all of these issues in her hybrid Toyota Prius after a reading for her newest missive, Pigs at the Trough, at an independent bookstore. And guess what? We didn't crawl the 405 at 30 MPH, no trucks or SUVs ran us over, and we didn't have to spend Huffington's hefty paychecks on gas. I doubt that the bling-blingers trampling the ozone layer in their Cadillac Escalades can say the same.

Scott Thill: Just so there's not any confusion -- since the media seems to get the facts wrong sometimes -- can you just state the aims of the Detroit Project and whether or not it has any campaigns planned for the future?
Arianna Huffington: The Detroit Project has three main goals. One is to jolt our Washngton-based leaders -- who are basically paying back their big-time contributors in Detroit by not voting for fuel efficiency standards, ending the huge subsidies for large SUVs, or calling on the American people to do anything to increase oil indepdence -- into reality. That is one of our target audiences. Detroit is another goal. Detroit has the technology right now to produce hybrid SUVs but instead they're spending millions of dollars a year fighting improvements in fuel efficiency. And then the third goal is the consumers, to help them connect the dots between their choices and the policy implications.

ST: When it comes to the outcry over the Detroit Project's ads, I just keep going back to that Chris Rock line about OJ: "I haven't seen white people this mad since they cancelled M*A*S*H*." Did you have a sense that these ads would precipitate such a backlash?
AH: Well actually it's an amazing reaction. First of all, we clearly tapped into a nerve, because how else would you explain that there have been over 350 newspaper stories? We have had over six million hits on our website in one week. You've seen the ads in rotation everywhere from Tom Brokaw to Headline News. And not to mention the homepages of Yahoo and AOL. So clearly I really believe that we picked the right strategy because we used satire to jolt people, although there were some people who took it literally. (Laughs).

ST: Yeah, that's the crowd I'm talking about.
AH: I wonder what they'd think of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"? For me, satire is a powerful tool and it's not sufficiently used; it's not just for late-night jokes but really to promote fundamental change. And it's inevitable that when you attempt to change the status quo, you're going to make some people upset. That's the price of change.

Driving the future. "It's inevitable that when you attempt to change the status quo, you're going to make some people upset. That's the price of change."

ST: Do you find that you have to continually restate your position to straighten everyone out because of the misinformation campaign against what The Detroit Project is trying to do?
AH: Yes, but at the same time, we've had amazing things happening, such as the czar of highway safety coming out and saying that -- despite the mythology and the billions of dollars spent in advertising and promoting it as a safe vehicle -- that SUVs are just not safe.

ST: They're in fact more unsafe than some cars.
AH: More likely to roll over. And these facts are not new, so why are they suddenly being put out now? You know, Barbara Boxer is calling and saying that she's introducing legislation to end the SUV loopholes. So we see real change happening. We've had over 12,000 people taking action on our website, sending letters, giving out their opinions. And these are things that we should focus on, because one should never expect change without opposition.

ST: One of your SUV ads made The Daily Show's closing feature, "Your Moment of Zen". It was an interesting moment because that clarity of connection -- linking everyday American consumption of oil to war and conflict in the Middle East -- seems to be what is making people uncomfortable.
AH: I think that's so right, and I had never thought of it that way. But I think that there is a clarity of connection, and it's both the power of the commercials and the backlash. But people don't want to deal with it, they'd rather say, "Look over there! Gwyneth Paltrow is in the ad" or use some other kind of diversionary tactic.

ST: You live in a rough town for a stance like this, since Los Angeles is more or less a city of SUVs. Did you encounter any stated or private local opposition to the Detroit Project from your friends or colleagues?
AH: No, actually, I am doing this with a group of friends and one of them -- Laurie David, my friend and partner in the Detroit Project -- was ahead of me. She's the one that convinced me to give up my SUV. I have a lot of friends that still drive SUVs; you know, our goal is not to demonize people who drive them. It's to make it possible for them to be given more choices and to help them make the connections.

ST: I read somewhere that we have a looming deficit of $200 billion and that this war in Iraq might run us as much as another $5 billion a month. Do you think that the Bush administation is capable of running this country without running it deeper into the red?
AH: Well I think that they are almost two separate issues. If this is a war that we have to fight for the security of this country, then we would fight it no matter what the cost. But I think that it's an unnecessary war. There is not a clear and present danger from Iraq; that clear and present danger is from terrorist groups around the globe. So we need to focus on that and stop giving out false information about just how present that danger is.

ST: Right now there seems to be a clear and present danger in North Korea -- we know that they have nuclear weapons and we don't have any inspectors on the ground -- whereas with Iraq, we're pretty certain they don't have anything and we do have inspectors on the ground. Do you think that double standard in foreign policy is going to damage America's integrity with international relations?
AH: America is definitely having a hard time convincing our allies that the Iraqis are the gravest danger we're facing. And we're having the same problems convincing the American people. It would help if we got a few Democrats to speak out. But they are so terrified that they'll be seen as weak on defense or foreign policy. But I think that it's quite extraordinary to have an anti-war movement before a war. It took a while to get the anti-war movement going during the Vietnam war era, so that for me is another indication of how ripe populism is in this country.

BUY PIGS AT THE TROUGH

ST: Speaking of Democrats, right now I think Bush's popularity is about 50 percent or lower. And where the Democrats could seize the opportunity by putting forth a compelling figure with some new ideas, they seem to be going back to the well with guys like Lieberman and Kerry. Do you think they're missing a golden opportunity here?
AH: Well, the Democrats are at a very difficult moment, and it's exemplified by the fact that they have Terry McAuliffe as the chairman of the party. He's basically a man who's all about fundraising. So at the very moment when you need a man of ideas at the helm of the party…

ST: Or a woman.
AH: (Laughs) Exactly. Or a woman. Instead you have Terry McAuliffe, who's part of the problem, who's been making money off of Global Crossing and looking into which corporation he's going to get more money from.

22 January 03

Democrats: Profiles in Spinelessness How can these weaklings honestly expect the U.S. to take them seriously? The hapless George Bush couldn't be more beatable if he painted a giant bullseye on his back. The economy is shot, war profiteering is everywhere, and civil liberties? Forget about it. So what are the so-called Democrats doing about it? Nothing at all . . . . MORE	Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Touch We love it when the GOP's finest open their prejudiced mouths and show their true colors. But why have Rick Santorum's ass-backwards views on gay and lesbian America garnered less attention that Lott's nostalgia for the days of burning crosses and segregated schools? . . . MORE	The Spoils of War Before a bunker buster was launched, the Busheviks had already lined up a few corporations to divvy up the billion-dollar government contracts to rebuild Iraq. But there was no bidding war -- the prizes simply went to fat-cat donors. Does anyone else smell a master plan here? Arianna Huffington does . . . MORE
Directions, Anyone? Every few years. the Israelis and the Palestinians decide that they've killed each other enough, and sit back down at the table like mature adults. But guess who's coming to dinner? The Bush administration, fresh off of two wars in the Hot Zone, and flaunting a draconian civil liberties record. We smell a three-car pileup on that storied road to peace . . . MORE	Will Joseph McCarthy Rise Again? What is terrorism? How is it defined? Those same questions were once asked about communism, which was used to justify the imprisonment and execution of innocents almost as recently as half a century ago. But the bigger question is this: in that time, have we learned nothing about justice, freedom and -- especially -- hypocrisy? . . . MORE	"A Policy Poisoned By Money" You call yourself a journalist? Then we've got a man we'd like you to meet. See, while you've been busy interviewing porn stars on the O'Reilly Factor and kissing corporate ass on Lou Dobbs Moneyline, the BBC's Greg Palast has been writing books about how Katharine Harris stole your election and how Enron unplugged your lights. . . . MORE