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One Month Ago …
… Billmon went “to be off on a boat for a week or so”. I have no idea what happened to him since – let´s just hope he is well.
This site was created to carry comments on Billmon´s posts after he turned off comments at the Whiskey Bar. Here well used Open Threads were added, as were some posts from fellow bar flies and my rants. This morning someone commented:
seems like less and less posts lately. i’m not on the same scale of intellect as most of you but i wanted to let you know i check this site several times daily and do really appreciate your insight. some of the best links to info also. thanks!
The Whiskey Annex has hardly traffic anymore and here at the Moon Of Alabama traffic dropped from some 1,200 hits per day to less than 1,000. Worse, comments to hits ratio has halved from some 8% to 4%. Without Billmon or more active participation from the bar flies this site looses its purpose.
I do not have the talent, cultivation, knowledge, background and time to create the content needed to keep this side running all by myself. If you see value in keeping the Moon shining please contribute.
You may want to write several short pieces a week and post them here. Drop me a note and you will have a posting account. You may like to write a piece just once a while and have it posted – send it via email and I will take care of it (address on the About page).
If writing posts doesn’t fit you, please comment. Let’s know your thoughts and feelings, drop some links, suggest discussions – it’s what keeps this site going. And if you find something valuable here, let it be known elsewhere too.
However, thanks for visiting and your participation.
my personal take – a bit convoluted
i started to get interested in american politics in earnest after 911, which was a shock to me and everybody i know. i was on the job when the daugher of my colleague called to say that a small plane had crashed into one of the towers. we tried
to find out what had happened, but the internet was dead, of overload as we found out later. by the time we came thru, cnn had posted the pics of the second crash and the radio was frantic. it was the only time ever i saw my boss giving any hint of humane feelings. i myself was so sick that i had to take off several days.
before that, i was not more interested in american politics than the average political aware person here in europe. before that 2000 elections i said to somebody that if bush was elected we’d have war, and generally, that bad stuff would happen. i was dismissed, and soon i forgot about that comment and took part in the general merriment about the stupidity of the new american president. how fucking wrong everybody had been who had laughed at the sick fuck, and how on spot my first hunch had been.
three years later, i’ve learnt lots about politics and what i see is no encouraging. back in 2001 i was elected to a small position in local politics here. i took part because i thought i would be able to do something of value for society, but my experience and all what i learned while looking for answers to the horror of that day, i’m convinced that party politics are fucked up badly, for reasons which need more energy to explain than i currently have.
one of my political activities was to read and participate in various political forums – blogs – interestingly all american. hosted, initiated, kept … by americans and dealing mostly with american politics. blogs are interesting because you can compare the blogsphere with the redlight district of any major city, but instead of whores and whorehouses you have the same configuration with poets and discussion salons, literature coffees and reading parlors … for all tastes. in this sense, the american political scene, while often not of my taste, resembles a fashion mile: lots of it but not for the masses, but rather configured like one boutique next to the other. one exclusive discussion club next to the other, as far as the eye can see.
while the american bloggers – atrios, steve gilliard, billmon, kos, and others – do an admirable job at putting their fucked-up corporate media to shame, there are some points of criticism which should be mentioned: bloggers speak to a minority, a growing one, but still; bloggers have attained some influence in politics, but only at the cost of having allowed politics to coopt them – the spectrum goes from kos who gives obscure province candidates their 5 minutes in the spot to gilliard, who has become as staunch a partisan hack as can be, to the agonist, who sees no evil and suspects off-the-beaten-path opinions. it escapes me why somebody educated and somewhat politically aware would endorse either kerry or bush who i see both as bringers of ruin to the US, it is probably their privilege as americans and owners of their respective blogs to run after delusions of their liking.
my more fundamental criticism of the american blogs – from my view as european, are other issues. first, they do not deal in issues interesting to europeans, second (and i repeat myself here), they have no real influence beyond what the political establishment wants to give them. as such, the blogs absorb energy which would be better spent elsewhere (i’ll come to this later).
but my more fundamental problem is with the american political system per se, the one on which bloggers and other discussion fora have no influence at all. it is plain for anyone to see how corrupt and far from the needs of common americans the main political parties in the US are. this not only reflects in the torrent of lies and disinformation spewed thru the media, but in the american economy and other issues of importance to any country. the american economy is a terminal case, and right now the elites are taking it apart and selling it plank by plank, like a decomissioned war ship. bleeding the US of jobs like a cow at the butchery and at the same time allowing millions of illegals into the country plus total deconstruction of the legal system plus destruction of the health and social care systems are actions which in their totality amount to war against americans. the generals conducting this war are the heads of all the well-known corporations, their behind-the-lines units would be the dem and rep parties headed by you know who.
it may be arguable whether americans would be able to defend their country against an old-style invasion, but fact is that americans are singularly ill-prepared to defend themselves, their nation as a functioning commonwealth against the kind of attack they are experiencing right now. estimated 40% of americans belong to the wacky “born-again” variety of nutjob religions which turns them into smiling morons incapable of thinking beyond what their hierarchy tells them. of the rest, only a minority are politicized and could say to have some insight into how their country works. americans as a collective are exceptionally ignorant of the world in which they live, most of them have no idea what is going on outside the US and still think that their wars are somehow morally justified.
the collective depolitization of americans plus their exceptional ignorance plus plain bad education of the masses are factors which all stand in the way of americans stopping the rampage of their criminal elite and taking back their country. for americans to raise in arms, they would have to be able to know, to think, and to see where their interests as a collective and as individua are. i doubt that many americans have this kind of insight. americans have already lost this war which they themselves are – without realizing it – fighting against themselves in the name of their enemies because they are incapable of realizing that there is a war against them in the first place. because americans seem to be too fucking dumb to realize what is being done to them – and i say this without schadenfreude or the intent to insult – they will become prisoners in their own country, they will continue committing atrocities around the world “in the name of freedom fries”, they will go to concentration camps and find it ok, they will continue paying tribute to the jews and do nothing against it, they will morph into the equivalent of a beehive, with a worker class, a warrior class and a minuscule ruling class.
when – and if – americans try to get rid of their zionist parasites and their friends, they will find some nasty surprises laying in the waiting: debts being recalled, attacks from the new allies and friends of the zionists who will now be in posession of all those secrets and cool weapons which the americans thought were being made to defend them against these enemies. to most people who, like me, are in position to look at this from a rather detached position and who know about the crimes ameica has comitted against humanity, the demise of the US from the world political scene will be greeted with cynic smirks, but that is too simple, and misleading. the tool of evil, having been spent, will be tossed aside like yesterdays newspaper. but the criminals will be on their way looking for new tools to commit new horrors.
next in row for the butcher is europe. the parasites are already increasing their activities, probably in order to suck this continent dry before the grace shot, not unlike what is going on in the US right now.
the consolidation and expansion of the EU is but one step on the way to disaster for europe. most people are noticeably worse off after introduction of the euro, and the additional layer of bureaucracy on brussels, an imperial court as corrupt as possible and not answerable to anybody, will in all probability put to shame the shenanigans of washingtonian politics in the near future.
i’m tired now (and hungry). will try to continue this if its not too boring to everybody.
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 15 2004 19:15 utc | 6
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