Austerity + Al Qaeda = More Specie for NATO Intervention in Africa and Asia

Mali is not the new home of Al Qaeda. It is the home of refugees from Libya. The home of Al Qaeda has always been nations US/NATO invade or bomb: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and now Mali. Nations where US/NATO desire regime change to secure "interests". In Kosovo, Libya, and Syria Al Qaeda affiliated groups were armed, trained and given funds for "organic uprisings". Either way, Al Qaeda is always an instrument of US/NATO intervention.

"Paternalist Racism" from Taft to McChrystal: "Responsibility" to Occupy and Slaughter Less Mature Humans Abroad Never Changes

“Like a teenager, you really don’t want your parents hanging around you, but … you like to know if things go bad, they’re going to help,” he said.

“We have an emotional responsibility” to leave US occupying forces in Afghanistan, he told AP.

-- Stanley McChrystal, 2013.

Read more: http://prn.fm/2013/01/09/gen-stanley-mcchrystal-afghans-are-like-teenagers-we-have-emotional-responsibility-to-continue-occupation/#ixzz2HWPWaBRi
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
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Taft "assured President McKinley that 'our little brown brothers' would need 'fifty or one hundred years' of close supervision 'to develop anything resembling Anglo-Saxon political principles and skills.'", and reports that the military greeted Taft's assertion "that 'Filipinos are moved by similar considerations to those which move other men' with utter scorn".

---above from Wikipedia entry "Little Brown Brother"--quoted material from book "Benevolent Assimilation"(lol).



excellent source on paternalism in Philippines and used in title for this post:
Carmen N. Pedrosa (September 20, 2009). "Paternalist racism". The Philippine Star.

Plus ca change!

Modern Science and Experimentation: Liturgy that Provides Statements "Meant Much More Seriously"

"Since the time of Galileo and Newton, modern science has been based upon a detailed study of nature and upon the postulate that only such statements should be made, as have been verified or at least can be verified by experiment. The idea that one could single out some events from nature by an experiment, in order to study the details and to find out what is the constant law in the continuous change, did not occur to the Greek philosophers. Therefore, modern science has from its beginning stood upon a much more modest, but at the same time firmer, basis than ancient philosophy. Therefore, the statements of modern physics are in some way meant much more seriously than the statements of Greek philosophy."

----- Physics and Philosophy, Werner Heisenberg, 1958.

"Somebody Please Tell This Machine I'm Not a Machine"

Austerity Drone Song.

Tripod Trippin', Oracular Frenzy*(Please Read Disclaimer at End)

For him there was nothing to it--he simply masticated soapwort root, the plant dyers use--but to the onlookers this foam was something fearful from heaven.
---"Alexander the Oracle-Monger", Lucian.

1. Bipartisan solution to "Fiscal Cliff" kayfabe announced at 11th hour restoring faith in our hallowed institutions. They always compromise and cut services to poor, elderly, children, and the infirm(i.e. the defenseless) to safeguard privileged status of wealthy, war and security contractors, fossil fuel cartels, and finance(Banks, Hedge Funds, Credit Agencies).

2. Syrian conflict deepens unrest in neighboring nations of Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Assad survives.

3. Kurdish insurgency in Turkey and Iraq. Much worse in Iraq. US/NATO use it as means to place more troops in Iraq.

4. Previous two events serve to alienate Iran further from Syria and Iraq.

5. Tensions between China and Japan escalate.

6. US military intervention in Africa, as in 2012, increases.

7. Pfc. Bradley Manning found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. HRW and Amnesty conspicuously silent about injustice.

8. First US Drone Strikes in Mexico in Drug War.

9. Stock Market continues detached from reality until February.

10. Erskine Bowles becomes Secretary of Treasury. He'll cash in his Morgan Stanley stock and seat on board to resume Wall Street friendly policies of Geithner.

11. Yemen and Somalia greater focus in War on Terror because of increased intervention in Horn of Africa. Eritrea focal point.

12. After Chavez passes US attempts coup and fails.

13. Major Earthquake in US Midwest. Death toll in thousands.

14. Afghanistan morass deepens despite pie in the sky propaganda of Pentagon. Karzai assassinated in Kabul.

15. Increased turmoil in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Qatar also targeted.

16. China lays low(besides tensions with Japan) and busies itself with domestic issues.

17. Despite NDAA and intensified and mainstream Warrantless Wiretapping most Americans accept Pop Fascism as a necessary defense from "bad guys"(terrorists, poor people, drug dealers).

18. Meaningful Gun Control is, as always, eschewed. Pundits deem it pragmatic, "the best that can be done".

19. Hillary Clinton passes from stroke.

20. Civil War in Libya.

21. Hurricanes menace coastal New England.

22. Food shortages in Europe lead to wide scale violence in Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal.

23. UK economy crashes. Precipitated by banking crisis.

24. Morsi ousted in Egypt.

25. Poverty rate in US rises. Homeless incarcerated on vagrancy laws, a boon to private prison contractors.

26. Israel bombs Lebanon. Pretext: increasing violence in Lebanon due to Syrian intervention. IDF claims Hezbollah is cooperating with Assad.

27. Obama breaks US Port Strike.

28. US puppet regime in Yemen falls.

29. After Fiscal Cliff "deal" OWS is reinvigorated.

30. Worldwide credit crash in October.

*All predictions are Divinely inspired. Events predicted are not personally desired.

Let It Burn: The Best and Worst of 2012

A hard year's leaves burn.

1. Worst term for US cleansing previously accommodating(Allies in War on Terror, Tortured "rendered" "suspects" for US) and presently unpopular Despots in MENA: "The Arab Spring".

2. Best Blog: Arthur Silber's http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/ . Passionately just outrage.

3. Victorian Novel that Best Depicts Truth of Our Time: "The Way We Live Now", Anthony Trollope.

4. Best Song for Globalized Austerity: "(If There's a Hell Below)We're All Gonna Go", Curtis Mayfield.

5. Worst Person: President Barack Obama. "Kill List", eager to cut Social Security and Medicaid, Libyan bloodbath, Syrian escalation, "full throated" support for Israel's aggression on Gaza, etc.

6. Best Person: Non-Voter in US Election.

7. Worst Marketing Campaign for Something Awful: "Stop KONY2012"

8. Best Marketing Campaign for Something Awful : R2P Aggression on Libya, Obama's Re-Election Campaign.

9.  Best Book for 2012: "The Recognitions", William Gaddis.

10. Worst Profession: Economist

11. Best Profession: Anchorite, Idler

12. Worst Nostalgia: US Constitution Worship

13. Worst Panacea: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

14. Best Panacea: General Strike

15. Worst Trend: Authoritarians who claim to be Anarchists

16. Best Trend: Contempt for Money(which maximizes poverty)

17. Worst Ideological Movements: bigoted US/NATO Humanitarianism and New Atheism

18. Best Ideological Movement: Full DEGE-ism (h/t Sushi_Goat)

19. Worst Term that Strives to be Asinine as "Reverse Racism": "Reverse Exceptionalism" (h/t Charles Davis)

20. Best Term: "Full Communism"

21. Worst Quote: "I want to do big things."--Barack Obama, on desire to needlessly cut social programs for poor, infirm, and elderly while increasing defense and security spending.

22. Best Quote: "You'd look wonderful as a corpse." Piss Wizard tweet to PM Cameron.

23. Best Thing: Capitalism failing worldwide.

24. Worst Thing: Capitalism flailing worldwide.

Is Everyone Ready to Have a Wonderful Holidays?

Being Terror

     Consequently, stupor turns into despair: if patriotism must thrust us into debasement, if there is no safeguard anywhere, at any time, to stop nations or the whole of humanity from falling into inhumanity, then why indeed should we take so much trouble to become or to remain human beings: it is the inhuman in us which is our truth. But if nothing else is true, if we must either terrorize or die of terror, why should we take the trouble to live and remain patriotic?
     These thoughts have been put into our minds by force. Obscure and false, they all flow from the same principle: mankind is inhuman. Their aim is to convince us of our impotence. They achieve this as long as we do not look them in the face. Abroad people should know: our silence is not a sign of assent; it stems from nightmares which have been deliberately caused, sustained and directed. I knew this already, but had been waiting for decisive proof of it for a long time.

             --- "A Victory", Jean-Paul Sartre, 1958.

The Dark Lie Rises

America requires a fairy tale where operatives of secretive institutions that arm and fund tomorrow's bogeymen are depicted as single minded heroines and heroes devoted to protecting the Homeland(which they failed to do so disastrously on September 11, 2001) at all cost.

After one of the greatest security failures in history those who secure and defend the Homeland merited some recognition. Their sacrifice and zeal(torture, mass murder, kidnapping and raping innocent people) was part of a noble effort to destroy the Muslim Satan(a man who was armed, funded, and trained by US intel to destabilize Afghanistan years ago). Sleep well America. The Big Bad Muslim Wolf was killed and dumped into a watery grave. Forget the past and its failures. All is well. Brave heroines and heroes protect the shining Citadel on the Hill. All the torture, mass murder, and indefinite detainment was, and is still, worth it to regain your innocence in the face of absolute evil. Your sacrifice(austerity coupled with ballooning Military and Security budgets) makes America the Baddest and Coolest Motherfucking Killer and Torturer on Earth forever. Relinquish all shame, hold your head high, right hand over cold heart, and pledge allegiance to "winning" at any cost.

Vicious Times

Consumption/Production, a vicious labyrinth.

"Good Old Days"

Begin to understand pitiless middle class boomers.

Wonderful Banksy Christmas Card

Slaughter Fatigue: A Nation Shrugs as Indiscriminate Mass Murder is Codified, Secretly, into Law

Our Commander in Chief, flanked not only by Flags, but also Phoebus Apollo's inescapable light, leans back, exhibits heroic sangfroid, and suggests further measures as his Star Chamber, in deep thought, awaits.

Eagerness to kill people indiscriminately test power's principle and will?

To preside over a policy of indiscriminate mass murder is the willful abandonment of principle, a total failure.

Willful abandonment of principle towards human life is now law.

Who is tested?

Certainly not the killers.

The Ruling Class

"He's having supper with the upper management of a new regime."

Behold! A "Progressive" Heroine Who Loves Aggressive War/Intervention in Africa and the Middle East

“I think he has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.” (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003) 

“We need to be ready for the possibility that the attack against the U.S. could come in some form against the homeland, not necessarily on the battlefield against our forces. And I think there, too, is an area where the American people need to be better prepared by our leadership. … It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side.” (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002) 

“I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it’s a question of timing and tactics. … We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions." (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002)

h/t  http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021895778

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Lately she's been a stalwart defender of Israel's apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism(occupation, blockade, routine bombings of Gaza)  as the US Ambassador to the United Nations. She was also sponsor of the R2P Resolution passed by UNSC which turned an internal sectarian dispute fueled by Al Qaeda in Libya into a US/NATO led carpet bombing that slaughtered thousands. The recent attack in Benghazi was blowback for not only the drone killing of Al-Libi in Pakistan, but also the detainment of Al Qaeda fighters at a CIA black site near the consulate. 

She learned mass murder's always "worth it" as a protege of Madeleine Albright.

(Material in quotes Susan Rice's public statements on Iraq before "Shock and Awe" commenced.)

Everything

Never crossed my mind.

Israel's Bombing of Gaza, an Open Air Prison, is Indefensible Genocide(Just Like the Blockade)

President Obama states Israel has "a right to defend itself" after it initiated hostilities when its soldiers murdered a child playing soccer and then followed that by assassinating a Hamas leader on the cusp of signing a peace accord. Aggression is not defense. Israel does not want peace. The mendacity of President Obama and the State Department's "full-throated support" of Israel's genocide is vile but not surprising from a President who boasts about "Kill Lists" and proliferates drone strike assassinations that result in the wholesale slaughter of civilians in several Muslim nations. He casually erases this mass murder through stretching the definition of "militant" to meaninglessness. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from aggression. Will anyone else step up to defend them? Certainly not a cowardly enabler of genocide like President Obama. 

"If You Had a Vineyard..."

"What more could I have done in it that I did not do in it?"

"Buckle Yourself in for the Fiscal Cliff Show! Win or Lose You're Gonna Get a Grand Bargain!"

Every show has a purpose.

The Fascist Push

I executed a human being sans Due Process! Vote for me, the proud killer.

Voter SWAG 2012

Victim of Drone Strike

Record Homeless Rate. Inequality rising. More Austerity to Come

Record Incarceration Rate. Widespread Torture, Inhumane Conditions

Increase in Police Brutality, with Impunity

Torture Room at US Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan

Servers at NSA. Dedicated to gathering communications of Americans on Computers, Phones, etc.

Armored Military Vehicles for Local Police Forces provided by DHS

More Bombs for Foreign(Mostly Poor, Muslim, with Water and Carbon Energy Resources to Exploit) Nations that do not Obey

Every vote, even for a Third Party Candidate, legitimizes all of this.

November's Mutability Mutes None

1. Every cock a stiletto shining death down dark corridors

2. Life is mutiny. So beautifully futile a rebellion it overcomes oblivion each moment

3. November's the cruelest month. Trees shed habits of green, plucked naked by cold hands.

4. Let hair spill endless o'er ivory shoulders and delight Nyx in abandoned measure. 

As Darkness' Share Rises, Remember Your Love is...

Like the Morning Sun.

Deadly Dispositions

Sorry, children, the United States demands friendly dispositions!

(Psychotic States take every measure to exact and extend death and dismemberment.)

h/t Arthur Silber--> http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2012/10/paths-of-resistance-i-refusal-to.html

Esprit de Corps

Marx has the last laugh.

Objective idealism becomes commodity fetish.

Synecdochal Shrug, Fascist Serendipity (Rand's Pulp Sadism and the Election)

Corporate political machines compete to win majority share in the profitable business of eliminating "parasites".

Empire's Requiem

Drones whistle requiem.

No Creature Escapes Capital's Sadism

Capital is the most destructive drug on Earth.

Let's Watch the Debate!

Sheep lost in a sea of spectacle.

The President of a Nation Bombing Several Muslim Nations and the World's #1 Arms Dealer Pontificates at United Nations about Peace, Values, and "Muslim Rage"

The best part is when he, as President of a nation with the largest Nuclear Arsenal, and the only one to use it on civilians in warfare, lectures Iran about their "Nuclear Program".

Blessed

Piss On It 2012

Flow Forward.

Had to Post, Funny Cartoon

Chan Lowe, South Florida Sun Sentinel, 9/14/2012.

Patriot Day, an Imperial Nostrum

The Unbearable Gravity of Wartime Presidents. 

A massive security failure enables warmongers, snoops, torturers, and Executive mass murderers to act boldly in our name. Truly a day to be most Patriotic. Forget the blood, civil liberties, and public wealth going down the War on Terror's drain. American Empire Inc. cashes in and leaves you the privilege, as a Patriot, of paying the bill. Be proud.

The People's Hero

"for the spirit of our country...I believe we have made a decision now that will permit us to create more growth, more equality...and a greater possibility of world peace."

R.I.P.

Rachel Corrie interviewed two days before she was murdered in Gaza by the IDF, heavily subsidized by US taxpayer dollars, using a Caterpillar bulldozer.

America Furens

Any Valid Discussion of Gun Control Must Address Epidemic of Police Unnecessarily Gunning Down "Suspects" and Bystanders* with Overwhelming Force

A homeless man with mental health issues, holding a knife, was confronted by 6 cops. When he failed to obey order to drop the knife(one man with a knife, 6 well armed cops) they ended the "standoff" by firing 46 bullets into his body. Where are Gun Control activists when the police murder those they are trained to protect via asymmetrical gun violence?
*9 Bystanders were wounded by errant bullets as NYPD shot and killed murder suspect.

Tiny Spark

Weil

"Whether the mask is labelled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus---the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battlelines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others."

                                       --- Simone Weil, "Reflections on War", 1933.

Window's End

Published carousels burn to motes.

A trillion pixels flood the moats.
We're not free but we're interested.
Every white screen defenestrated.

Debs

"I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition."

The Lens

She lived a few blocks from a walkway that arched above the interstate. Late, when stillness settled over the freeway, she'd bring a camera to capture its thrall.

On her perch she looked down on white lines and black asphalt bracketed by constant yellow, a flat page marked by rubber, shattered glass, bright reflectors.

Occasionally a car or truck interrupted. She'd set the camera on her shoulder and skip the passage.

Telemaquerie

"Since politicians say what their auditor wants to hear, Jack made the $3.5 billion military build-up sound to me like so much 'pump-priming for liberals,' a group he deeply despised. 'No one can be liberal enough for the New York Post,' he used to say. But then the speed with which so many liberals abandoned Stevenson to join him was a source of his amused contempt as he himself went about courting conservatives like John J. McCloy."
------Gore Vidal, Palimpsest, p. 362.   

Fenelon smiles a kind curtain.  (I boycott accents.)

"Every night a strange geometry..."

From Kabul to Anaheim, Occupation Finds a "Homeland"

Kabul

Anaheim

Militarized response for any resistance to state brutality anywhere.

Trakl

Tassels wave
fragile wings.

The book falls
from lots cast,

an anxious God's
measure.

Chance, again,
as it will in time,
breaks the stylus...
cradling worlds
on papyrus.

The fields lie fallow
as this world
turns against
breath.

"Who'll dress their wounds?"

Progress!

"Licensed prostitution, direct material theft, house-breaking, murder, brigandage for the lower classes; while skillful spoliation, indirect, refined theft, clever exploitation of human cattle, carefully planned and brilliant executed betrayals, transcendent pieces of sharp practice in short, all the truly elegant vices and lucrative crimes which the law is far too polite to interrupt remain the monopoly of the upper classes."
                                                                     ----La Phalange, December 1, 1838.

Progress: LAPD Enhances Community Event with Rubber Bullets, Tasers, Tear Gas, Brutality

"Well, this shows that if this be law, it is not the law of righteousness; it is a murderer, it is the law of covetousness and self-love. And this law that frights people and forces people to obey it by prisons, whips and gallows is the very kingdom of the devil, and darkness, which the creation growns under at this day."
------ Gerrard Winstanley, "A New-Yeers Gift for the Parliament and Armie", (1650).

(Photo of LAPD aggressively blocking "Chalk Walkers" and others peacefully attending public Art Walk)

Rimbaud's Marriage

            I

A beggars eyes
can't sway the Sun.
Infinity's shadow
to fierce bonfires succumbs.

Chaos crests such
blinding brightness.

          II

Hooves beat
ashen cloudtops.

Four horses choke
on the dust 

of nightmares.

Apostasy's bit

slips away. 
 

And, dear love,
it moves me so
my cock
buries its head.

Apostasy

The blind was drawn.

Leaving by train,
a letter in my lap, windows
unmarred by the city's erosion
to inconstant gray.

She sat across from me,
Foi o Mar in her eyes.

Black cloth billowed
in those dark sea eyes
like our breath...
       in time with the engine.

Tacitly, we shared a burden.

Head against the pane,
I succumbed in dream
to the double-drone.

What Would Ms. Leipholz Think?(My First Schoolhouse Becomes a Strip Joint)

Shocking! US Supreme Court Rules Congress Has Right to Levy Punitive Tax on Citizens too Poor to Afford Health Insurance

Good thing I just bought some Hospital Chain stock!

Summer Lasts

Untangling

"Since the emancipation of the third estate, the formation of bourgeois democracy and its transformation into mass industrial democracy, the neutralization of politically relevant differences and postponement of a decision about them has developed to the point of turning into its opposite: a total politicization of everything, even of seemingly neutral domains of life."
 ----Karl Lowith.

1. The future will be ruled by meth addled drone operators.

2. Neither trot nor ski because the shit mars snow.

3. Monetization is the easiest nihilism.

4. Editing T.S. Eliot: "This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but without giving a single fuck for 'people'."

5. The English and French Revolutions did fine without adhering to Scientific Principles. The Liberal fetish for a popular appreciation of Evolutionary Theory is reactionary.

6. Hegel's work is the best criticism of "common sense" philosophy. (Realism, Empiricism)

7. Orthodoxy is where ideologies go to die. (please note alternate meanings of "doxy" and "die")

8. Making conscious resistance to authority an ideology places it under glass, dead, pinned like a butterfly enabling hierarchical collection and classification.

9. Natural Selection: Mythical as the land of milk and honey, rational kernel of the Cosmos, etc.

10. Social Media: Canaries crying in sharecropped mines.

Pop Fascism 101 (Rock N' Roll Has Always Been)

Exhibit A: Stoic, Tightly Coiffed Guitar Gods*. Athletic Men, Defined Muscularity, Genitals. Beautiful Ancillary Woman. Science. Missile.

*Of course Marr is the "Guitar God" here but hard to miss huge piece Sumner wields.

It Means Nothing at All

Not Augustine or Aquinas, Here's the True Inspiration for Obama's "Kill List"

"But the anathema must strike down man most directly and most visibly: the exterminating angel circles this unhappy globe like the sun, and allows one nation a respite only to strike down others. When crimes, and especially crimes of a certain kind, accumulate to a designated point, the angel relentlessly quickens its tireless flight. Like a rapidly turning burning torch, the immense speed of his movement allows him to be simultaneously present everywhere in his formidable orbit. He strikes all the peoples of the earth at the same time. At other times, a minister of a precise and infallible vengeance, he pursues particular nations and bathes them in blood. Do not expect them to make any effort to escape or alleviate their sentence. It is if as we saw these great criminals, enlightened by their consciences, requesting the punishment and accepting it for the sake of their atonement. So long as they have any blood left they will come to offer it, and soon a sparse youth will get used to telling of these devastating wars caused by the crimes of their fathers."
--------- Joseph de Maistre, St. Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence.  

will anyone hear? does it matter?

Whistling Graveyards(Pop Fascism's Latest Hit)

“Barack Obama believes in options: ‘Maintain my options,’ “ said Jeh C. Johnson, a campaign adviser and now general counsel of the Defense Department."--"Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will"(to kill anyone he decides), Jo Becker and Scott Shane, New York Times.

The New York Times is once again floating "serious leadership" campaign propaganda for an Executive hoping to earn approval for a policy of indiscriminate(by it's own stated "principles") mass murder.

Namedrop Augustine and Aquinas to dazzle "thoughtful" liberals with Crusader apologia. Natch.

The decider is tested in secret. Can he continue to muster the will to kill anyone he wishes? It's a hard cross to bear. In the safety of the White House he meets with his advisors and mulls over which faces to erase with joystick operated drones. Very serious and heroic to take up the power of life and death over anyone, anywhere, at any time. A caricature of a living God brought to you by the latest military technology.

Fear not proud Americans. He's "maintaining his options" as Commander in Chief of the greatest nation forever. If he decides to kill you know his principles deemed it necessary to protect the Homeland. He's got your back, even in death. Accept his principles and, as a patriot, surrender your will to "his options".


The sound of whistling fills the sky...

Bloody Diamond: Head of England's Oldest and Wealthiest Crime Family Celebrates 60 Years on the Dole

"She sang a heavenly lullaby,
The song of renunciation
By which the people, that giant clown,
Is lulled from its lamentation."

---Heine, Germany: A Winter's Tale.

Rant in Response to Attempted Defenses of President Obama's Drone Assassination Policy

(in response to various comments on this piece--> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-kill-list/257890/
where a man, though troubled by deeds[indiscriminate mass murder], reaffirms his faith in Obama with an emphatic comment)




Nice to see REALPOLITIK along with historical precedent not even remotely analogous(Barbary Pirates) trotted out to defend a policy of indiscriminate mass murder. "Terrorist" is a term used to dehumanize insurgents. People hate a brutal occupation by foreigners. Torture, indiscriminate violence, mass murder are common occurrences(McChrystal, "Amazing how many people we've killed..."). Afghanistan and The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. They offered to hand Bin Laden over to President Bush if they were shown evidence of his complicity. The US was offended by that demand and bombs fell. In short, President Obama was wrong in 2008, Afghanistan was never "the right war". It was just as criminal as Iraq(Earlier this year Obama issued a proclamation making the Anniversary of the Iraq War a "Day of Honor").

If you wish to look inside the heart and mind of an unapologetic warmonger then read President Obama's Memorial Day speech at the Vietnam Memorial. He used the myth of soldiers returning from Vietnam being spit on to set up a counterpoint where he, the patriotic Warlord, lauded them as undefeated heroes in battle. The Vietnam War destroyed millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians for no reason. Vietnam was never a threat. Still, our boys were undefeated! They died for freedom! Their "service to the nation" was valorous! Obama believes protests and lack of political will prevented our mass murdering "heroes" from taking their undefeated record in battle to a complete aggressive war(greatest crime of all according to Nuremberg Tribunal) victory. 

Militarism is bankrupting this nation materially and spiritually. Its zeal for rapine is imitated by our masters of finance. President Obama absolves their past crimes and enables their aspirations. Torturers, war criminals, and financial fraudsters nestle, like the Children of Abraham, in his bosom. Whistle Blowers catch his wrath. In public he makes jokes and boasts(Jay Leno) about drone strikes. He's the face of a Top Secret due process free assassination program not subject to public examination. Why can't he, the star of the Star Chamber, crack jokes and wax proud?  

As others have noted, what if every nation on the planet began killing anyone anywhere in the world because they felt they might be a present or future threat? The US supports terror groups in Iran assassinating scientists and promoting regime change. Those are real threats. Does Iran have a right to bomb the White House for funding acts of terror and leading the effort to levy collective punishment(sanctions) on their people? Assassinate former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Governor Rendell, etc. for supporting MEK? 

A guy posting youtube videos critical of US foreign policy is not a threat to the greatest military machine in human history or the "homeland". The United States visits this kind of psychotic violence on poor destabilized nations(Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya--Muslim nations). The bomb plots breathlessly reported on by our courtier media are invariably planned and supplied by our own security organizations here and abroad. These plots serve to create a predicate for the psychotic violence. It does not surprise me that Americans support drone strikes. Decades of dehumanizing Muslims(by our gov't, news media, literature, movies, etc) has laid the groundwork. The War on Terror is a lie. It is a war of aggression against any kind of insurgence(youtube videos, familial relations, spatial relations too) that dares to even hint at resisting US hegemony. Also, every government loves creating "threats" to justify increased security powers(destruction of human rights, more spending for arms etc).    

For Tomorrow

Executioner's Pride, from Ned Dennis to John Brennan

"In proportion as Mr. Dennis exercised these intellectual qualities with which he was gifted, in reviewing his best chances of coming off handsomely and with small personal inconvenience, his spirits rose, and his confidence increased. When he remembered the great estimation in which his office was held, and the constant demand for his services; when he bethought himself, how the Statute Book regarded him as a kind of Universal Medicine applicable to men, women, and children, of every age and variety of criminal constitution; and how high he stood, in his official capacity, in the favor of the Crown, and both Houses of Parliament, the Mint, and Bank of England, and the Judges of the land; when he recollected that whatever Ministry was in or out, he remained their peculiar pet and panacea, and that for his sake England stood single and conspicuous among the civilized nations of the earth: when he called these things to mind and dwelt upon them, he felt certain that the national gratitude must relieve him from the consequences of his late proceedings, and would certainly restore him to his old place in the happy social system."
                       ---Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Chapter 74, (the hangman's thoughts).

Well, President Obama agrees.  And that is why I am here today.

I stand here as someone who has been involved with our nation’s security for more than 30 years.  I have a profound appreciation for the truly remarkable capabilities of our counterterrorism professionals, and our relationships with other nations, and we must never compromise them.  I will not discuss the sensitive details of any specific operation today.  I will not, nor will I ever, publicly divulge sensitive intelligence sources and methods.  For when that happens, our national security is endangered and lives can be lost. At the same time, we reject the notion that any discussion of these matters is to step onto a slippery slope that inevitably endangers our national security.  Too often, that fear can become an excuse for saying nothing at all, which creates a void that is then filled with myths and falsehoods.  That, in turn, can erode our credibility with the American people and with foreign partners, and it can undermine the public’s understanding and support for our efforts.  In contrast, President Obama believes that done carefully, deliberately and responsibly we can be more transparent and still ensure our nation’s security.


---John Brennan, "The Efficacy and Ethics of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy", (speech given at Wilson Center).

in loco parentis

Sainty knits and murmurs, "I can't. I can't."

Market Makers, Cartesian Demons

"Uncertainty is gripping world financial markets, after elections in Greece and France raised concerns about the future of austerity measures to help rescue Europe's debt-ridden governments and its ailing economies."
   ---Voice of America, "Uncertainty Grips World Financial Markets in Wake of European Elections", 05/07/12.




"Accordingly I shall now suppose, not that a true God[Market], who as such must be supremely good and the fountain of truth[Wealth], but that some malignant genius exceedingly powerful and cunning has devoted all his powers[Capital] in the deceiving of me; I shall suppose that the sky, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things[Property] are illusions and impostures of which this evil genius has availed himself for the abuse of my credulity[Labor Power]; I shall consider myself as having no hands, nor any senses, but as falsely opining myself to possess all these things[Property]."
      ----Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy, Meditation I. 






(Bracket Material Added by Evil Genius)

Hipsterism: The Liturgy and Vestments of Submission to Imperial Culture

"'I am not concerned with jurisdiction of the courts as Hess or others are.'(Laughs.)"
Albert Speer(Hipster Archetype), Interview before Nuremberg Trials, 1946.

Accepting the benefits of Empire while not giving a shit about it is not only a narcissistic defense, it's obscene collaboration. Here ironic detachment becomes abasement masters find most pleasing.


***Thanks to Pere Lebrun for a series of valuable posts on Hipsters.

http://perelebrun.blogspot.com/

The Cassandra England Never Deserved

Experimenta lucifera(Fried Bacon)

"Now experiments of this kind have one admirable property and condition: they never miss or fail."
---Bacon, Novum Organum, Bk 1, xcix.

Instruction for Protesters(PSA by DHS, FBI, and Various Municipal P.D.'s)

Obama 2012: Just Drone It

"You don't see any dead people. All you see are wobbly gun sights and then hits. Bull's-eyes supposedly. It's like a game..."
"Right. Because CNN's got the TV rights for this war---and the next and the one after that..."
---- Gunter Grass, My Century, 1991.

Supporting Mass Murder as a High Ranked Official in US Gov't = Surest Way to Earn "Presidential Medal of Freedom"

"The horror in the merely schematic."
           --- Kafka, Diaries.