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August 20, 2005
Just Another …
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Sure, we will reduce troop levels soon:
Army Planning for 4 More Years in Iraq
The Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq — well over 100,000 — for four more years, the Army’s top general said Saturday.
In an Associated Press interview, Gen. Peter Schoomaker said the Army is prepared for the ”worse case” in terms of the required level of troops in Iraq. He said the number could be adjusted lower if called for by slowing the force rotation or by shortening tours for soldiers.
…
”We are now into ’07-’09 in our planning,” Schoomaker said, having completed work on the set of combat and support units that will be rotated into Iraq over the coming year for 12-month tours of duty.
Why Posse Comitatus is important:
Could this ‘police officer’ be a soldier?
BRITISH special forces soldiers took part in the operation that led to the shoot-to-kill death of an innocent Brazilian electrician with no connection to the London bombings, defence sources said last week.
Jean Charles de Menezes was tailed by a surveillance team on July 22 as he caught a bus to Stockwell Underground station in south London. He was shot eight times when he fled [Note: he did not flee. He only ran to catch his train. b.] from his pursuers at the Tube station.
…
Press photographs of members of the armed response team taken in the immediate aftermath of the killing show at least one man carrying a special forces weapon that is not issued to SO19, the Metropolitan police firearms unit.
The man, wearing civilian clothes with a blue cap marked “Police”, was carrying a specially modified Heckler & Koch G3K rifle with a shortened barrel and a butt from a PSG-1 sniper rifle fitted to it — a combination used by the SAS.
Another man, dressed in a T-shirt, jeans and trainers, was carrying a Heckler & Koch G36C. Although this weapon is used on occasion by SO19 it appears to be fitted with a target illuminator purchased as an “urgent operational requirement” for UK special forces involved in the war on terror.
Police force is trained to save lifes. Military force is trained to kill. That´s why you never want a military force in a cvil dispute.
What b said. As I remember, military psychologists were blaming the cases of soldiers murdering their own families (after Afghanistan) on the “solve the problem by killing it” approach that they were taught in training. (Plus the opinion that it is not manly to go with your problems to a shrink … and that it would hurt your career.)
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Aug 20 2005 21:05 utc | 3
I’m not big on reading rants, but this one is blistering, perhaps, it is because my friend read it out loud to me, and like good poetry, needs to be said not just read : Bush is Not an American
oh, and here’s a few more (non-rant) thought provoking links:
FBI’s “National Security Letters” Threaten Online Speech and Privacy
Secret Police Make Us Safer
“New York – The Electronic Frontier Foundation, joined by several civil liberties organizations and online service providers, filed a friend-of-the-court brief yesterday in the case of Doe v. Gonzales arguing that National Security Letters ( NSLs ) are unconstitutional. NSLs are secret subpoenas for communications logs, issued directly by the FBI without any judicial oversight. These secret subpoenas allow the FBI to demand that online service providers produce records of where their customers go on the Web, as well as what they read and with whom they exchange email. The FBI can even issue NSLs for information about people who haven’t committed any crimes.
A federal district court has already found NSLs unconstitutional, and the government is now appealing the case. In its brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, EFF argues that these secret subpoenas imperil free speech by allowing the FBI to track people’s online activities. In addition, NSLs violate the First and Fourth Amendment rights of the service providers who receive the secret government demands. EFF and its cosigners argue that NSLs for Internet logs should be subject to the same strict judicial scrutiny applied to other subpoenas that may reveal information about the identities of anonymous speakers – or their private reading habits and personal associations.
Yet NSLs are practically immune to judicial review. They are accompanied by gag orders that allow no exception for talking to lawyers and provide no effective opportunity for the recipients to challenge them in court. This secret subpoena authority, which was expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act, could be applied to nearly any online service provider for practically any type of record, without a court ever knowing.”
The Rise of the Democratic Police State
on a somewhat different note:
NEW STUDY SHREDS THE MYTH OF THE MARKET ECONOMY BRINGING DEMOCRACY
and
An open economy, a closed society
and finally, from the day late dollar short dept:
Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 20 2005 21:09 utc | 4
The Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq — well over 100,000 — for four more years, the Army’s top general said Saturday.
They’re just tripping all over their own lies now. It’s pitiful.
Posted by: billmon | Aug 20 2005 22:27 utc | 5
(from blogforamerica.com)
Karen Bernal from Sacramento DFA went to Crawford, Texas to join Cindy Sheehan’s Camp Casey and was drafted to become the Crawford Peace House volunteer coordinator. She joins us today to share her firsthand stories from the camp.
First, Cindy and Dede’s Mom is okay, considering she had a stroke—but they are doing tests on her. Dede (Cindy’s sister) will stay with her from here on out, and Cindy should be back in a day or two. There’s no such thing as good timing when it comes to a crisis, but this weekend is particularly trying because they are trying to move the encampment at the site to the plot of land that a lone sympathetic rancher has so kindly allowed the vigil keepers to stay on.
In addition, Amy Goodman just got here last night, in addition to an Air America affiliate from San Diego. There are celebrities scheduled to arrive here this weekend besides Lance Armstrong; unfortunately, I am not at liberty to say who they are. Because Crawford is so small, it has been a real struggle to handle the influx of people coming to the Peace House and Camp Casey from a logistical point of view, so advertising who may show up is not prudent. Just handling the parking situation is an ongoing challenge because the House is actually located on the main road going in to Crawford, and they are without a parking lot. Many of the neighbors are not exactly thrilled by our presence, so coming up with space can often be a headache. Add that to food, porta potties, water, ice… you get the idea.
But that’s not why I’m writing this. Let me just tell you a quick story illustrating a part of the why:
A few days ago, one of the two mail carriers that deliver mail in town whispered to our Parking Queen, Barbara (from San Diego), that any mail that only had “Crawford Peace House” without the actual numbered address, was being returned to the sender. Apparently, the Crawford Post Office was in the habit of holding on to the mail and then every now and then, sending them back to the people who had written either Cindy or the CPH. Barbara, a retired postal worker, informed me that while that was technically possible, to do so was a real indication of their attitude towards what was happening here. After a few well placed phone calls to various Congressional reps, Postal Inspectors from Dallas and regional offices paid a visit to the post office here in town. It’s true many pieces of mail were returned to people, but we found out that a large amount had also just gone back to the main Dallas-Ft Worth Post Office. It was just sitting there.
Johnny Wolfe, one of the co-founders of the Peace House went to the DFW office to pick the lot that had been sent back. When he walked into the place, he noticed that Air America was cranked up in the front receiving area of the office. After he introduced himself at the counter and informed them that he was there to pick up the mail, the entire facility, including the processing center in the back, stopped and came to the front. They cheered and roared their approval in the loudest Texas fashion for everyone in Crawford who was there to take it to Bush. News of this brought tears to a few of us back at the House. I can’t begin to adequately describe what it’s meant to get that kind of support. When I think of how difficult it’s been, I just think of those moments that I couldn’t even begin to imagine reading in a story.
Experiences like that have shown me that people everywhere, not just those that have gone out of their way to come here, are with us (and by that I mean all of you reading this, as well). Most of America truly understands that there is no light at the end of this dark, foul tunnel—they want it to stop—and stop before it goes elsewhere…
Posted by: Lash Marks | Aug 21 2005 4:25 utc | 6
Using soldiers for the actual hit appears to be S.O.P. in perfidious Albion. Many aspects of this Menzes murder especially the way it was committed in public when there had been ample opportunity to assasinate the chap in a much less visible spot, persuades me that a conscious decision had been made to kill one of the 21st July non-bombers.
Many readers won’t be that aware of how the British ‘secret state’ functions but suffice to say it has had several centuries more practice in underhanded extra-legal (well illegal really) actions. Paricularly murders. The SAS types are kept around precisely for the purpose of killing people. They wear black hoods just like the executioners of old and go to great lengths just like executioners to disguise their identity.
Anyway it looks likely that a decision had been made to kill at least one of the 21/7 bombers.
I suspect it was because they weren’t actually bombers. Now the Brit govt has conceeded that there were no links between the 7/7 and 21/7 mobs I suspect we will discover that there is no way in the world that the 21/7 bombs could have hurt anyone by exploding, that is they were designed to scare and were explosive-free.
That would have caused considerable consternation amongst the club habitues of Whitehall who always take it upon themselves to know what is best for England. I say England because although they work for the British government they are just about all English. The fact that the bombs couldn’t explode would be a worry as it would be unlikely that these ‘terrarists’ would get a long jail sentence when caught. They had ‘jammed up the works’ nearly as badly as a real bomb would have.
The port sippers would have decided to kill one or more of them as a lesson to anyone else contemplating the same sort of action.
The first trail police found led to the apartment block Menzes came out of and immediately he was spotted and mistakenly identified a hit squad was sent to rendevous with the surveillance team. This was long before a/ he had shown any indication that he was going to be using public transport and b/ despite the fact he wasn’t carrying a backpack and his light denim jacket wouldn’t have looked in the least like it was concealing a bomb.
These guys were so busy concentrating on getting this job done that they didn’t even check the fellows identity properly. If murdering this bloke had been optional there would be some evidence of discussion about whether he had a bomb let alone whether he was the correct person. As far as the hitmen were concerned he had a ‘touch of the tarbrush’ about him and he came from the hoaxers apartment and that was that. Nip this hoaxing in the bud by making an example of at least one of them. Hence the certainty about what they were doing.
One of the truly worrying things about some of the older European societies is the way that many of the old institutions have been kept on just in case.
Traditionally English executioners owned a pub which put them where they belonged at the bottom of the English middle class and pretty much in the same niche as NCO’s in the SAS.
Some of you may remember a ‘firefight’ in Gibraltar about 20 years ago where a group of SAS NCO’s just happened past 4 Irish gentlemen and all the Irishmen ended up very dead. Eyewitness accounts of what happened conflicted greatly with the SAS version as only the SAS ‘remembered’ the Irishmen holding guns.
I loath the idea of state sanctioned murder but at least where countries have a death penalty they are required to go through some sort of quasi legal charade to justify the murder. Although that can be a farce. The last bloke hanged in England was a disabled young man who was actually in police custody and handcuffed when the policeman he was accused of murdering was shot. The problem was the asshole who shot the policeman was only 17 and couldn’t be hanged so they persuaded the kid to say he did it cause the other bloke (who was under arrest and well out of earshot) told him to. The shooter gets a slap on the wrist and the accused who had an IQ of less than 60 and who really had a great deal of difficulty grasping what was going on was hanged. Why?
The port sippers were concerned that ‘Teddy Boys’ or juvenile delinquents needed to be made an example of lest they get out of control. A quite ridiculous proposition if one considers how little consequential thinking these sort of violent young offenders engage in.
When these types commit a crime they frequently haven’t ‘got around’ to considering the post crime scenarios so trying to influence them with deterrents is probably a waste of energy.
The disillusioned 2nd generation Brit youths that appear to be the types involved in the bombings and hoaxes would likely fall into the same category being types who fail to think things through so really this sort of state sanctioned ‘hit’ is more about vigilantism than anything else.
But the long lunchers of clubland will be able to persuade themselves that they are still in control no matter what these dashed ‘fuzzy wuzzies’ get up to.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 21 2005 5:35 utc | 7
Evil America. Read on. Beyond belief.
And this frim Molly Ivins on a related topic.
I think at one point the only answer will be to personally stalk, harass, threaten and, if all else fail, do violence to the persons, physical individuals, responsible for such evils, who cowardly hide behind corporations and other intangible entities to perpetrate their evil.
Personally, I never understood how Ken Lay could still walk about in the streets of America.
We need urban guerilla.
Posted by: Lupin | Aug 21 2005 5:55 utc | 8
That’s just the problem. Violence doesn’t work. Our world today proves this. You have to outsmart them.
Every violent act begets another one. If you want to resort to hard edged bullying tactics then you have to be prepared to get them in return in the neverending cycle.
It’s going to take exceptional intelligence and creativity to get out of this trap. An ability to perceive tangentially and to come up with something entirely new. Believe it or not, our brains are evolving as clubbing the enemy to death becomes yesterday’s fashion.
Posted by: jm | Aug 21 2005 7:25 utc | 9
Rich The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan
CINDY SHEEHAN couldn’t have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States” by going fishing. On this Aug. 6 the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn’t see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn’t foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.
Yeah, just what I mean.
Here comes Cindy! Armed with a candle and a funky hat!
Posted by: jm | Aug 21 2005 7:56 utc | 11
Re this article posted by
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 20, 2005 5:09:13 PM
“An open economy, a closed society”
That can be seen in China and Russia and Singapore, clearly.
The author makes a mistake about Venezuela, though. Venezuela has a free press — big newspapers and TV stations owned by immensely wealthy and powerful people, who are rabidly against the lawfully elected President, Hugo Chavez. They planned a coup against Chavez, with advice and financial help from the US. Chavez would rather not have that happen again, so he is enforcing some old laws about not showing violence and TV during children’s viewing hours and not insulting the government.
Aside from that, I would describe Venezuela’s democracy as a zany affair on steriods, with more committees and feedback and check-up on action and progress reports between the citizens and the government than one sees anywhere else except in a few small towns.
Go to Narconews if you want an education on the subject of Venezuela and press freedom — they have archives going back to 2000. But there is much more about Latin America.
In the archives –
issue #19 talks about the two-day coup in Venezuela, the involvement of the big media oligarchs and the US, media preparation just like with Salvador Allende, etc.
issue #26 – the so-called strike, actually a lockout, organized by big business to wreck the economy and get rid of Chavez
issue #33 – 34 – the recall referendum for Chavez, organized by big business and promoted by big media, with advice and financial support from the US
But – curses, all three failed, and the US had egg on its face.
The site covers much more than Venezuela stories, of course.
Narconews also has this article which may encourage distressed Americans:
Now What? First, We Kill the Media
It’s mourning in America. My mailbox runneth over today with emails from friends and strangers who want to leave the United States and come down here to Latin America.
Nobody should do that to run from a fight: After all, if you are a citizen of the U.S.A., there is no place to hide from your own country’s foreign policy…
And if Narco News, the first online newspaper to win First Amendment protections from the United States courts, reporting on the drug war and democracy from Latin America, has proved anything, it’s that the fight can be waged very effectively from the outside and margins of the national borders, too.
Still, I wonder if Canada is far enough away …
Posted by: Owl | Aug 21 2005 9:45 utc | 12
is canada far enough away?
Just ask Marc emery, who was busted by the DEA pressuring the canadian courts, in canada, and now they want to extradite him!
Then again, he was asking for trouble by openly selling pot seeds online and shipping to the US…
i am more concerned about big time bullying around trade issues with the NAFTA, which was never mentioned in the MSM, but made huge waves in Canada!
here are some links and a useful overview:
link
link
link
link
link link
link
link
Free trade, sure – as long as you do it our way!
[html-ized links, deleted two long copied-in-full articles from this comment and a duplicate of the comment – b.]
Posted by: denviz | Aug 21 2005 16:02 utc | 13
The Inexorable Laws of the Economic Jungle
The BushOilCo Lockdown of America
The new eia.doe.gov reports are out on oil production.
1. Crude inventory supplies are +4% from last year,
when gasoline was at $1.59 a gallon.
2. Refinery utilization has fallen from 97% to 90%,
at a time when gasoline prices have nearly doubled.
3. Prices at the pump rose $0.19 last week , +7.3%
(or +380% on an annualized basis)
4. Published GDP reports fail to discount the effect
of rising oil prices, fail to discount the war in Iraq,
fail to discount an ephemeral real estate bubble,
and fail to discount for inflation and $ devaluation.
5. Published employment reports fail to discount the
number of workers now no longer able to find work,
and who are no longer eligible for unemployment,
and fails to discount the number of retirees’ jobs,
and fails to discount for the increasing need for
job growth *growth*, with an increasing population.
6. BushCo’s #1 topic of discussion is immigration,
followed by war, with no discussion of the economy.
7. IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID! Storefronts are being
boarded up all across the country. State and local
governments are cutting back by huge percentages,
tax revenues going from income-based to fee-based.
In less than seven years, if the Republicans carry
2008, any town in the USA will look like any town
in the former Soviet Union. 2012, end to the USA.
Mr. Bush, tear down that wall! The Ronald Reagan
Bad Karma Revolution bites America in the ass.
Posted by: tante aime | Aug 21 2005 16:36 utc | 14
Denviz, I hear ya’, brah. Canada needs to learn to privatize it’s oil economy, kick it’s population off the dole, sell whole logs direct to the Chinese, open it’s borders to the world, and then sob in a sock.
With your absolute wealth of natural resources, and relatively small population, for you’all not to be living like Saudis says more about Ottawa, than of Crawford. Study South American anti-establishmentism,
and then find that fixed point in the heavens where you can lever against the global race to the bottom.
Posted by: lash marks | Aug 21 2005 17:01 utc | 15
so why is there a huge, empty vacuum in the liberal blogs (at least the ones I read) about the Gaza pullout? Is this not Big Important News?
Posted by: Rowan | Aug 21 2005 21:48 utc | 17
@ Rowan
Depends on where you look Rowan…
I cannot recall any sympathetic coverage of Palestinians being evicted from their homes. No interviews with weeping mothers or fathers. No discussions of whether the evictions were right or wrong. Nothing.
We all know that both Israel and Palestine have blood on their hands…Further, we also know that
US foriegn policy sides w/Israel only because it is good for business, not democracy.
Gaza Evacuation Should Be Americans’ Last Straw
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 22 2005 2:46 utc | 18
opps, the above was moi… Uncle $cam
besides, if you didn’t know, Democracy is an Illusion.
Also see: Jewish Settlers Receive Hundreds of Thousands in Compensation for Leaving Gaza While Palestinians Working for Them Get Nothing
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 22 2005 3:05 utc | 19
jm
could you name a few movements that have bee violence free? none are coming to mind this morning.
Posted by: dk | Aug 22 2005 13:52 utc | 20
dk,
we’re not there yet, but I think we should be aware of the contract set up when we react violently. It’s inviting retaliation. So we can’t expect to stop it if we engage in it too. Sometimes its necessary, but keeping an emotional violent frenzy going usually comes to a bad end even if there is temporary victory.
As to revolutions that have already happened, some are way more violent than others. India’s revolution was less violent, of couse.
The protesters in Crawford are showing some inusual behavior and so far it has stopped the violence in its tracks. Instead of reacting with rage and fear to the gunshot and the tramplimg of the crosses, they turned and walked away. Didn’t even talk about it. They continued on their path and the events seemed to disintegrate even in the memory. They are focusing less and less on hatred of Bush and more on their comraderie and their overpowering desire to stop the war. They aren’t attacking, they are staying centered in themselves. They’ve got Bush running around frantically, not knowing what to do. The more they do this, the more support comes their way and the generosity is phenomenal, I think even among the local residents. It’s just a seed, but it is important.
Violence happens automatically so I think the less we seek it, the better. I go along with the Sun Tzu precept that claims if you use the best strategy it never comes to bloodshed. It has to start somewhere and it will take evolution and experience to learn others means of conflict resolution, but it’s possible.
I’m practicing in my personal life by holding back my initial violent reaction when someone attacks me. I don’t leap to negate the accusations. I’ve been turning attacks back on the perpetrator as a reflection of themselves and this usually confuses them totally and stops future attacks. They have no idea what’s happening when I react differently from the norm. These are verbal, but I try to avoid physical confrontaions by deft maneuvering.
The people in power in our government now always come and go. We can’t erradicate that element. Hating and fearing them takes precious life force from the overpowering that really is possible by strengthening the positive alternative. By cowering in fear in the face of brute bullying we are putting ourselves at a great disadvantage. By using the same violent tactic we can expect that violence to come back on us eventually. There are a million ways to deal with every situation and all I am advocating is the use of creativity and all the intelligence available.
Violent destruction doesn’t work. Things grow back.
Posted by: jm | Aug 22 2005 22:11 utc | 21
resistance takes as many forms as the offenses by power that we should stand up to. violence is not the desired end, but it is definately one functioning part of a means to that end when you are up against a violent tyrant. unfortunately, the oppressed & their sympathizers do not always find themselves in a position to set the terms of engagement. those holding power tend to only understand relationships in terms of strength & weakness, and sometimes that strength has to be backed up w/ more than rhetoric & disgust. after a surgeon analyzes and interprets, he sometimes must pick up the knife and cut.
that being said, the u.s. is not typically a society that relies on the internal use of force to subjugate the majority population, but rather controls thinkable thought thru other highly manipulative means. most rational people abhor violent acts, so a non-violent overthrow of the channels of communication would be one effective means to an end that stresses equality, liberty, and the creative pursuit of human nature. even then, the question remains as to how such a society can hold bay against the pirates & their sycophants. consciousness cannot stop a bullet.
Posted by: b real | Aug 22 2005 23:01 utc | 22
about marc emery…..its all politics.
emery is an advocate for the legalization of pot. thats why the the bushcovites want to take him down.
pot seeds are available from US sources online.
its bullshit politics. our feds love to kiss bush’s ass, but this is becoming a sovereignty issue and a big political hot potato for canuck politicians.
if emery gets dragged to the US we may see riots in our streets. we hate bush and find emery harmless at his worst.
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Aug 22 2005 23:33 utc | 23
I think consciousness CAN stop a bullet. The trick is to avoid making yourself a target. That’s where the inventiveness comes in.
I think the oppressed have more say than is commonly thought. It’s a two way game and both sides determine the rules, even if it is not apparent.
In my life when up against the surgeon’s knife I always find an alternative. People succumb way too easily. Sometimes bloodletting can’t be avoided, but from what I’ve seen, the human creature is far to eager to engage in this practice. blood is supposed to circulate in veins, but for some reason, people want to see it flow out of the body. And they are always cutting holes in others’ bodies where they are not supposed to be. I though we had enough holes already.
Posted by: jm | Aug 22 2005 23:33 utc | 24
in both the post of b real & jm there are essenial truths. there is no better thinker on war & on violence & on that side of man’s nature than sun tzu
what i have tried to argue here, however is that the situation we are in is unprecedented in nearly all its forms. in capitalism you could always depend on contending factions within them – to stop just in time – so as to reap the benefits in the long term. it was most probablu these contending interests that saved the world during the cuban missile crisis
today – for all my friend slothrops contentions – i, in my lifetime have never seen capitalism behave in the way it is behaving. that is, it has lost sight of its long term interests & is going for broke. for me that is why i believe an attack on iran is inevitable & much sooner than we expect. these monster that now run america are prepared to risk all & that of course includes us
what i desire but do not see – is a people’s war – as that described by lin piao in his ‘the field & the city’ – where the third world attacks imperialism openly & with force & that in the west affinity groups must find all the means that are available to the them to stop the worst of capitalism’s rapacity
the nature of america is violence. it has always been so & it is now. & yes even violence they are capable of co-opting. & today they have the means to attack any real & effective opposition through its corrupt judicial system & its perfidious patriot acts. that means in short – in time whatever way they will describe it – there will be internments without trial for those who oppose them. a person will not have to pick up he gun to end up in such internments. act will be enough. then later words will be enough
i have an extremely pessimistic view of our options & it is true that to not be taken as a target will take great skill & even greater courage – but any form of comprimise will inevitably lead to your & our moral defeat. comprimise is not an option . as they used to say you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. but a huey newton, a rap brown a cesar chavez in their nightmares could not have imagined a state as it exist today – cointelpro was childs play compared to what they have set in motion inside the belly of the beast
the third world can only expect further brutality. whaat is clear however – the focus of imperialism in the middle east has allowed forces in other continents to align – as in south america – but they will have to act both quiclky but with great prudence because this criminal administration is not beyond settting the mad dog facists in their pay all over latin america to enter it into another bloodbath. they are already doing so a little in mexico & obviouslly in columbia. the people of these countries not under direct attack today need to pull the beast away from the middle east –
what has happened – which is also unprecedented is that in the middle east there is a cohesive force – that was not there even under nasser & panarabism – it is a cohesion – we may not like – but now it is a historical reality – further it is a determining reality – & it is un unescapable reality
i have been watching a dvd of john le carré’s ‘smiley’s people’ & how we see in his vision, an acute vision – that the basests & the most stupid of politics has won the day – he saw it then – it is our reality today
there is no vision in their politics – only nightmares
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 23 2005 0:36 utc | 25
today – for all my friend slothrops contentions – i, in my lifetime have never seen capitalism behave in the way it is behaving. that is, it has lost sight of its long term interests & is going for broke.
I wish one of you Marxists could explain this to me. Why are capitalists seemingly destroying the system–the goose that laid the golden egg.
As the arch-fascist Henry Ford once noted by his actions at Ford in the late teens or twenties, with his $5 a day wage rate, only if the workers are able to buy a car in the end will I prosper.
Need some help in understanding the New Capitalist minset.
Going for broke indeed.
Posted by: Groucho | Aug 23 2005 1:02 utc | 26
@R’Giap, and any other Euro Barflies…
Do you have any knowledge or thghts. on why European governments did not respond to Iran’s letter specifying that they’d accept full time monitoring by IAEA of their nuke plants, etc. to assure all they weren’t producing nuke weapons? We really need them to stand up unequivocally to the NeoCons on Iran. I am seriously worried. Iran’s concessions. (See also link therein to Dr. Prather’s article.)
Thanks, for heads up on Smiley’s People DVD. I tried to read bk, even bought it in hardcover which I almost never do, but it was sooo painful that I set it aside.
Posted by: jj | Aug 23 2005 1:13 utc | 27
@Groucho, I’m not a Marxist, but it derives from politics not economics. Read Chomsky & follow his references. The long & short of it is that US elites got hysterical w/the beginnings of real democracy in the late ’60’s-early ’70’s. They were hell bent to return Political Control of America to a handful of Wall Street Bankers & their lawyers, as America had traditionally been governed – til they blew it in ’29. Read “Crisis of Democracy” by Sammy Huntington et. al. The Crisis was that there was too much of it. That’s the beginning of the “crisis of over-accumulation” – shipping jobs to China & importing slave labor from Mexico, etc. here to drive down wages, further concentrating $$ at top & building path for elimination of middle class.
Then, when they finally realize they’d blown it, apocalyptic hysteria set in as a canniablistic fury was unleashed as elites were trying to grab up absolutely everything, while there’s still anything to grab. Now they’re furiously buying up islands to retreat to after they’ve wrecked America.
(To me the potential nuking of Iran is a measure of that building hysteria & apocalyptic anxiety, fed in part by seeing China emerge at the same time as the end of cheap oil & global warming….The hysteria now is completely out of hand, so it finds its outlet in apocalyptic weaponry – in the same way that the terrors unleashed by Hitler found their outlet in the Manhattan Project, initated don’t forget by Einstein who was effectively driven out of Germany.)
Posted by: jj | Aug 23 2005 1:35 utc | 28
Why are capitalists seemingly destroying the system
unfettered greed, imo, in an ideological system that encourages the exploitation of everything, including itself.
Posted by: b real | Aug 23 2005 2:43 utc | 29
@jj and b real:
Thanks.
Just trying to understand why business would eat the golden egg and the goose, and foul the nest, if I can be poetic, with depleted uranium.
Very hard for me to understand the shortsightedness of these people.
I’ll read the book or a synopsis, jj.
Posted by: Groucho | Aug 23 2005 3:01 utc | 30
Groucho, here’s another book for you to look for: Systems of Survival; A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. I found it really enlightening.
God Ferdzy, with all this reading, I’ll go blind.
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
Posted by: Groucho | Aug 23 2005 3:32 utc | 32
@Groucho, I completely agree & marvel at it all the time. I find myself screaming – don’t they understand…they’re bloody cannibals. It’s just mad.
And the depleted uranium…..and no one will discuss it – ~2/3 casualty rate from Gulf War I – and that’s just among Americans. (Not to mention that the stuff will blow everywhere.) And of course, same problem in Afghanistan, Kosovo…everywhere they go now, they destroy Forever.
It’s like living in a Goddamned Madhouse.
Did you read that superb bk. we spoke of awhile ago by Perkins – “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. It’s a delightful & immensely informative 2 hr. read. Relevant here is the early bit where he talks about the tests they gave him to see if he was psychologically qualified. The key thing was that he was bribeable – w/sex, money, power…had a weakness…a desperation to obtain it. Along these lines, I’ve just listened to Kay Griggs bits on her site. link. She was married to Colonel Griggs – a Marine Corps Chief of Staff, as well as head of NATO’s Psychological Operations. To relieve himself, he’d get drunk & spew forth info. on his world of assasinations, etc. She said they specially selected guys for this kind of work who had very strong Mothers & weak/non-existent fathers – the kind of guys who’d do anything for “Daddy’s” approval. Also, in a DVD I saw last yr – the one on Corporations…forget the title, but it got some theater play..- someone did a study of CEO’s & said they had the characteristics of psychopaths…
In short, the system is so sick now, that some of the worst rise to the top – the saner ones among us recoil in horror…That’s when you seriously realize the American Century has passed and someone else must pick up the torch, unless it’s too radio-active. Naturally, don’t look to China w/all it’s rage & desperation to regain its Lost Glory. Can’t say I’m optimistic!!
Posted by: jj | Aug 23 2005 4:12 utc | 33
@Groucho, one more thght. along the lines of last paragraph of my 9:35 post. We’re still not through the apocalyptic hysteria from the Nazi era – which is a separate stream feeding into this. (I keep hoping that Robt. Jay Lifton, or someone of his eminence & depth will take this on, as it’s deserving of serious scholarship – the impact of the Terrors unleashed by Hitler upon subsequent historical developments & it’s Major Actors.)
I noticed that the last election was a face-off bet. Neo-Cons v. Soros financed & focused Dem. Party. Wolfowitz, current intellectual heavyweight of Neos, was shaped by holocaust, growing up w/tales from his father or relatives slaughtered. (Wasn’t Strauss similarly a refugee?) Similarly Soros fled as a child, penniless from Hungary. He’s shaped by the terror that he could ever be dispossessed & penniless again…never enough money to eliminate that fear. It’s also why he wants to keep a veneer of civil liberties, while stealing everything he can.
Then, of course, throw in Sharon & Likkudnik Israel. Curiously, the fascist tendencies of Wall Street who got FDR last time while financing Hitler, dovetail w/apocalyptic hysteria Hitler unleashed among Jews this time around…throw in China, a disintegrating/plundered biosphere…
I seem to have wandered from economic issues that Groucho asked the Marxists to address to the well-springs of Apocalyptic Thinking here…sorry, if I’m too far afield, but it is a fertile ground for inquiry & do wish a scholar would pursue it – before it’s too late.
Posted by: jj | Aug 23 2005 4:29 utc | 34
Onward…
Lovely Pat Robertson is getting his base fired up – he called for Assasination of Hugo Chavez on Aug. 22 broadcast of 700 Club. link (Gotta move quickly before China gets a toehold in Venez. oil & masses in US wake up to how democracy might actually work if profits from oil companies were used to benefit citizens!!)
Posted by: jj | Aug 23 2005 4:46 utc | 35
As per my norm, some say obssesion, I post any and everthing I find of Sibel edmonds :
Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 23 2005 4:53 utc | 36
This is interesting. Even powerful Canadians are getting pissed off enough @US policies to act against xUS interests.
Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign affairs minister. He wrote in the Star Time to redefine ties with U.S.
Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy blasts Washington’s ` imperial attitudes’ to international agreements
This isn’t just bluster or threats, as one might expect. Tired of being treated as the frumpy old wife whose loyalty & affections can be taken for granted, China’s biggest state-owned oil company said Monday the board of directors of PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian company that is a major oil producer in China’s neighbor Kazakhstan, has accepted a $4.2 billion takeover offer.
The takeover of PetroKazakhstan would add closer economic ties to the growing strategic cooperation between China and Kazakhstan, which is expected to become one of the world’s leading oil producers over the next two decades.
China is trying to increase its role in Central Asia, spurred in part by unease at the presence of U.S. military forces in the former Soviet region that borders.
…
PetroKazakhstan is based in Canada but all of its operations are in Kazakhstan. The Canadian company says its proved and probable oil reserves stand at 550 million barrels.
PetroKazakhstan shareholders are to vote at a meeting that is expected to be held in October, CNPC said in a prepared statement, and the Canadian company’s board has recommended shareholders accept it.
And don’t forget, that xUS is has strong military connections w/Kazakhstan. KAZAKH-U.S. FIVE-YEAR MILITARY-COOPERATION PLAN
Posted by: jj | Aug 23 2005 5:26 utc | 37
Going back to depleted uranium, Groucho’s comment about the golden egg, jj’s cannibalism explanation.
If the objective is to cripple the human race and take over the planet then this behavior makes sense, perhaps not for the mindwarped warriors doing the deed, but for the handlers who did the warping.
It is a complicated subject.
Posted by: rapt | Aug 23 2005 15:00 utc | 38
Rolling Stones:
“Oh, sweet Neo Con, What path have you led them on? Oh, sweet Neo Con, Is it time for the atom bomb?”
via Raw Story
Tony Blair to join Carlyle Group
Now we know why the Labour PM was so adamantly a poodle for Bush’s War.
Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 23 2005 18:53 utc | 40
Chuck Hagel has friends (even if they hate Kelly, it´s a turn)
Well, I was leaning more toward the he-was-bribed-by-Bushco angle. Doesn’t that make Blair a national security risk for the UK? As a result, jihaddists are now bombing the London underground in retaliation for Blair’s bought-and-soon-to-be-paid-for war complicity. Why isn’t this a bigger story?
Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 24 2005 1:53 utc | 44
@GGrl:
Naw, he’s just a politial whore cashing in after the fact.
A whore after the fact is stll a whore.
Posted by: Groucho | Aug 24 2005 2:13 utc | 45
@Rapt, I was largely just trying to raise the point that aside from calculations of how the elite can centralize power again in their hands, which leads to centralizing the money – ie. the well observed “crisis of over-accumulation – there’s a separate underground well-spring that’s feeding this. That’s the apocalyptic hysteria that began at least w/Hitler’s attempt to exterminate a people, and the emotional dialectic that’s still unfolding from that.
Today I wondered if you’re a member of the Elite Elite – tippy top dog, say David Rockefeller or whoever like that – perhaps they don’t see things as the elite flying plane America into a mountain. Perhaps they Only Care that they, the Absolutely Superior the Most Worthy & Righteous, will have complete Political & Economic Power and that is all that matters to them. What happens to the rest of us, perhaps matters little. So all is well. Hell, everyone goes through hard times, depressions, a bit of fascism…but history moves on…no big deal…(Christ I don’t know how so many read those sites that think it’s all the Repugs, and if only the JackAss Party can somehow return to power things will be so much better!)
Is this possible??
Posted by: jj | Aug 24 2005 2:17 utc | 46
This in from Sam Smith. All this time we’ve been struggling w/trying to preserve out democracy. Joke’s on us. Turns out we don’t have one. We have a new form of government – A KAKISTOCRACY – Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens. Etymology: Greek kakistos, worst, superlative of kakos, bad.
– American Heritage Dictionary
Posted by: jj | Aug 24 2005 2:34 utc | 47
jj….keep it coming, dude! don’t worry about going off topic. the biggest mistake made is believing that all the issues aren’t connected. they are. if you don’t look at the big picture, you aren’t really looking.
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Aug 24 2005 7:32 utc | 48