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February 4, 2011
Non-Egypt Stuff and Opinons …
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ok here’s something to ruffle ridges. some wingnut has decided to sue jimmy carter and his publisher simon and schuster in a new york court and let a jury decide if he lied about camp david in his book peace and apartheid.
Carter Sued Over ‘Apartheid’ Book.
wonders never cease.
Posted by: annie | Feb 4 2011 20:40 utc | 1
oh, there’s a pdf at that link leading to the class action. the alleged ‘lies’ start on pg 10. will a new york court be deciding the legalities of resolution 242?
unreal, bring it on.
Posted by: annie | Feb 4 2011 20:42 utc | 2
Congress Prepares to Renew the USA Patriot Act, Corporate Media Silent
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 4 2011 20:44 utc | 3
If Mubarak goes, Obama will have other options to send people for “interrogation”…
Iraq: Secret Jail Uncovered in Baghdad
…
Elite security forces controlled by the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq are operating a secret detention site in Baghdad, Human Rights Watch said today. The elite forces are also torturing detainees with impunity at a different facility in Baghdad, Human Rights Watch said.
…
Posted by: Rick | Feb 5 2011 1:39 utc | 4
Having trouble with links today … try this for above post
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/01/iraq-secret-jail-uncovered-baghdad
Posted by: Rick | Feb 5 2011 2:07 utc | 5
Adding to Uncle $cam’s post #3 regarding the U.S. Patriot Act.
This Washington Post story Monitoring America has been posted on MOA before, but it bears repeating.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/
Some highlights:
… In July, The Washington Post described an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it.
…The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
…Today’s story … describes a web of 3,984 federal, state and local organizations, each with its own counterterrorism responsibilities and jurisdictions. At least 934 of these organizations have been created since the 2001 attacks or became involved in counterterrorism for the first time after 9/11.
…The months-long investigation, based on nearly 100 interviews and 1,000 documents, found that:
* Technologies and techniques honed for use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan have migrated into the hands of law enforcement agencies in America.
* The FBI is building a database with the names and certain personal information, such as employment history, of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents whom a local police officer or a fellow citizen believed to be acting suspiciously. It is accessible to an increasing number of local law enforcement and military criminal investigators, increasing concerns that it could somehow end up in the public domain.
* Seeking to learn more about Islam and terrorism, some law enforcement agencies have hired as trainers self-described experts whose extremist views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies.
* The Department of Homeland Security sends its state and local partners intelligence reports with little meaningful guidance, and state reports have sometimes inappropriately reported on lawful meetings.
Posted by: Rick | Feb 5 2011 3:31 utc | 6
Kwesi Pratt, editor of the Insight newspaper in Ghana gave an interview which provides a lot of detail and research on what happened with the elections in Ivory Coast, and why Ghana’s President Mills declined to supply any troops to ECOWAS for an attempt to enforce election results by military means. AFRICOM’s General Hogg went to Ghana to try and persuade Mills, but got turned down.
Pratt is a top notch journalist. He was one of the earliest people to read and understand what Cheney’s energy policy meant for West Africa.
For a bit of context, President Mill’s party is the NDC, and the opposition NPP has been trying to say Mills should have sent troops, accompanied by a variety of other accusations. You can read the transcript of the interview here:
Kwesi Pratt to NPP: Do You Support War or You Don’t?
The article was transcribed by Nana Akyea Mensah. You can listen to the original audio here: Kwesi Pratt to NPP: Troops are sent for war, not to dance “Abele”, but I don’t know how long that link will remain.
i’m a lurker, but an avid lurker 🙂
@xcroc: “Pratt is a top notch journalist. He was one of the earliest people to read and understand what Cheney’s energy policy meant for West Africa.” can you point me in the right direction for the article if there is one?
Posted by: charmicarmicat | Feb 5 2011 9:28 utc | 8
@ charmicarmicat
I’m mostly an avid lurker myself. I caught up with this after the announcement Bush was creating the Africa Command in 2007. There is this brief story from 2007, which got a heated response. On Ghanaweb even the most commented stories go rarely much beyond 200-300 comments. This one got 569. US military base for Ghana?
And Pratt also mentions it in an interview on Democracy Now. President Obama Heads to Ghana on First Official Trip to Sub-Saharan Africa
AMY GOODMAN: And why do you think, and why are people saying in Ghana, that President Obama chose Ghana as the first Sub-Saharan African nation to visit as the first African American president?
KWESI PRATT: Well, the official reason has been given as Ghana’s fledgling democracy, that the United States of America has a lot of confidence in Ghana’s fledgling democracy.
But all of us know that the main interest is oil. If you read the Cheney report, the Cheney report states very clearly that by 2015 American oil imports will move from 11 percent to 25 percent. The Cheney report also makes a recommendation for the establishment of military bases in order to protect American interest in American oil. And, for me, these are the two key reasons why the United States and Obama are interested in this visit. It’s got nothing to do with democracy, but the preservation of American interest.
I remember when I read the first article I tried to dig out more, but there was not much online. The Insight is only fairly recently an online presence.
I read an Europapress report (in spanish) telling the Ivory Coast history from Gbago’s side (a bit surprising looking how all the western governments and media backs Ouattara) and with a very interesting tittle. Of course I don’t know the real history about what’s happening at Ivory Coast, lack of time and knowledge of that region limits my understanding about who is right or wrong or more likely how much right and how much wrong is on each side.
My impression is about a divided country (roughly by half) coming from a recent civil war (2005?) that was on the French area of influence as its transitioning to the US area of influence (common trend in Africa). And for some reason that transition requires Gbagbo to leave power. Could be similar to Zimbabwe without the racist overtones I sense there (payback for kicking british landowners).
Gbabgo advisor says that US supports Ouattara to install AFRICOM base
Posted by: ThePaper | Feb 5 2011 20:03 utc | 10
when we look at things coldly, egypt is a client state of u s imperialism, par excellence – second only to israel – imperialism is already losing so much ground around the world, it cannot afford to lose this most loyal puppet & his appareil
u s imperialism has shown that if it cannot make an accord contingent on its own interests, first of all – then it will shed blood, as it has done time & time again
when the masses defeated imperialism in venezuela & bolivia – there was leadership available even tho chavez or morales were only elements within the resistance — because of chavez there was enormous support amongst the rank & file soldiers which bolstered their efforts, it is a little more complicated in bolivia but i think the army could see a very violent civil wat & they stepped back – & morales has been very delicate with the army which has of all latin american countries, a deep connection with u s military power
i think if we look at the movement all across latin america – there are great lessons – in the last decade they have been able to make great advances simply because u s imperialism has proved itself incapable of fighting on so many fronts
i hope with all my heart, the people have created a new dynamic that will not step down, they will not blink & that they force the puppets to reveal themselves openly as the gangsters they are
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 5 2011 20:20 utc | 11
A 48-year-old Afghan citizen dies at Guantanamo after 9 years in a cage and no charges filed against him
Valtin is always the go to for these matters, check out…
http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/witness-to-guantanamo-project.html
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2011 20:45 utc | 13
@ The Paper,
Horace Campbell provides a concise summary of Ivory Coast recent history and overview of the present situation. Gbagbo and the Ivorian test: Moving beyond anti-imperialist rhetoric. He describes the discriminatory divisions within the country and the unfortunate role Ivory Coast has played as a tool of French policy.
For myself, I would not want either Gbagbo or Outtara as a leader. They are both scum. It is clear that Outtara is the choice of the French and the US. I don’t know that the US would want a base in Ivory Coast. If the government was stable they would. But the recent civil wars and the promise of more to come makes that questionable.
The same geological formation from which Ghana is pumping oil extends along the entire coast, from the western edge of Nigeria including the entire coast of Ghana and Ivory Coast. The USGS estimates there are 4,071 million barrels of undiscovered but recoverable oil there as of Feb. 2010. The document is linked from here, but I caution that although it is only 2 pages, it is a 7.5MB pdf. USGS Fact Sheet 2010-3006: Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of Four West Africa Geologic Provinces
Sources in Ghana and in Africa have been saying the Ivory Coast dispute is about oil all along. But that does not come out in any press reports, which only mention cocoa.
A 48-year-old Afghan citizen dies at Guantanamo after 9 years in a cage and no charges filed against him
A 48-year-old Afghan citizen dies at Guantanamo after 9 years in a cage and no charges filed against him
A 48-year-old Afghan citizen dies at Guantanamo after 9 years in a cage and no charges filed against him
Goddamn it, this is really starting to sinking in, and I had shout it! Goddamn America, Goddamn America, Goddamn America. W/apologies to Rev Jeremiah Wright.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 6 2011 12:08 utc | 15
Hackers penetrated Nasdaq’s network
Probably FBI hackers giving the Administration impetus to push that killswitch bill. Of course, that one even thinks that, tells you all you need to know about this farce of a nation…
Can you say, it? There, I thought you could.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 6 2011 12:27 utc | 16
We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
– William Casey, CIA Director (first staff meeting, 1981)
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7 2011 9:31 utc | 17
Skirmishing on the Thai-Cambodian border has been going on for some time, but has received precious little play in the west.
If someone can put this in a more complete context, the contribution would be welcome.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Feb 7 2011 10:40 utc | 18
I have been reading about that frontier dispute between Thailand and Cambodia for years. It usually settles down on after a week or so. As far as I know there isn’t something really ‘unusual’ with the fire exchanges. There may be some non publicized issue that made one of the sides to start the confrontations to show that they are pissed and need attention but I don’t know the details.
NightWatch (note rightwing conservative analyst) had this to say:
The incident took place while Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya is in Cambodia for the Joint Commission meeting. The Thai apparently are annoyed by Cambodia’s prosecution of several Thai for spying, so they stressed a pressure point.
Posted by: ThePaper | Feb 7 2011 13:39 utc | 19
Air Force Warns Everyone Is a Criminal for Reading WikiLeaks
And this story/link is in the same “police state” category:
Police in the US now rival criminals, and exceed terrorists, as the greatest threat to the American public. -Paul Craig Roberts
Posted by: Rick | Feb 8 2011 1:10 utc | 20
Ships Underway Where to?
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=146
Carriers:
USS Enterprise (CVN 65) – port visit Marmaris
USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) – 5th Fleet
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) – 5th Fleet
USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) – Pacific Ocean
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) – Atlantic Ocean
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) – Pacific Ocean
USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) – Atlantic Ocean
Amphibious Warfare Ships:
USS Peleliu (LHA 5) – Pacific Ocean
USS Essex (LHD 2) – South China Sea
USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) – 5th Fleet
USS Boxer (LHD 4) – Pacific Ocean
Note: I purposely make the link so you have to copy and paste it, so no cyber track backs to our quaint little bar….
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 10 2011 1:09 utc | 21
Uncle $cam,
Since b’s return, the text of the comments are handled differently. The link you posted does not have to be copy and pasted.
Posted by: Rick | Feb 10 2011 1:47 utc | 22
Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror
…The war abroad entered a new phase with the release of the photos of detainees being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison. War as organized violence was stripped of its noble aims and delusional goal of promoting democracy, revealing state violence at its most degrading and dehumanizing moment. State power had become an instrument of torture, ripping into the flesh of human beings, raping women, and most abominably torturing children. Democracy had become something that defended the unthinkable and inflicted the most horrible mutilations on both adults and children deemed to be the enemies of democracy. But the mutilations were also inflicted against the body politic as politicians such as former vice president Dick Cheney defended torture while the media addressed the question of torture not as a violation of democratic principles or human rights but as a strategy that might or might not produce concrete information. The utilitarian arguments used to defend a market-driven economy that only recognized cost-benefit analyses and the priority of exchange values had now reached their logical end point as similar arguments were used to defend torture, even when it involved children. The pretense of democracy was stripped bare as it was revealed over and over again that the United States had become a torture state, aligning itself with infamous dictatorships such as those in Argentina and Chile during the 1970s. The U.S. government under the Bush administration had finally arrived at a point where the metaphysics of war, organized violence, and state terrorism prevented leaders in Washington from recognizing how much they were emulating the very acts of terrorism they claimed to be fighting. The circle had now been completed, as the warfare state had been transformed into a torture state. Everything became permissible both at home and abroad, just as the legal system along with the market system legitimated a punishing and ruthless mode of economic Darwinism that viewed morality, if not democracy itself, as a weakness to be either scorned or ignored. Markets not only drove politics, they also removed ethical considerations from any understanding of how markets worked or what effects they produced on the larger social order. Self-regulation trumped moral considerations and became the primary force driving the market, while narrowly defined individual interests set the parameters of what was possible. The public collapsed into the private, and social responsibility was reduced to the arbitrary desires of the hermetic, asocial self. Not surprisingly, the inhuman and degrading entered public discourse and shaped the debate about war, state violence, and human rights abuses; it also served to legitimate such practices. The United States unabashedly entered into a moral vacuum that enabled it to both justify torture and state violence and to mobilize successfully a war culture and public pedagogy in the larger culture that convinced, as a Pew Research Center poll indicated, 54 percent of the American people that “torture is at least sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists.”[1] Torture was normalized and duly accepted by the majority of the American people while the promise of an aspiring democracy was irreparably damaged.
Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror examines how the United States under the Bush administration embarked on a war on terror that not only defended torture as a matter of official policy but also furthered the conditions for the emergence of a culture of cruelty that profoundly altered the political and moral landscape of the country. As torture became normalized under Bush, it corrupted American ideals and political culture, and the administration passed over to the dark side in sanctioning the unimaginable and unspeakable–the torture of children. Although the rise of the torture state has been a subject of intense controversy, too little has been said by intellectuals, academics, artists, writers, parents, and politicians about how state violence under the Bush administration set in motion a public pedagogy and political culture that legitimated the systemic torture of children and did so with the complicity of dominant media that either denied such practices or simply ignored them. The focus on children here is deliberate because young people provide a powerful referent for the long-term consequences of social policies, if not the future itself, and also because they offer a crucial index to measure the moral and democratic values of a nation. Children are the heartbeat and moral compass of politics because they speak to the best of its possibilities and promises, and yet they have, since the 1980s, become the vanishing point of moral debate, either deemed irrelevant because of their age, discounted because they are largely viewed as commodities, or scorned because they are considered a threat to adult society. I have written elsewhere that how a society educates its youth is connected to the collective future the people hope for. Actually, how youth were educated became meaningless as a moral issue under the Bush administration because youth were not only devalued and considered unworthy of a decent life and future (one reason they were denied adequate health care), they were also reduced to the status of the inhuman and depraved and were subjected to cruel acts of torture in sites that were as illegal as they were barbaric. In this instance, youth became the negation of politics and of the future itself…
I wish the mother fucking people here were half as courageous as the people of Egypt.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 11 2011 2:04 utc | 25
Joe Bageant: an update
After a month in hospitals, cussing doctors and wanting to escape, Joe Bageant is back home in his own bed in Winchester. He is continuing the chemotherapy as an out-patient.
I talked to Joe by phone this morning and he sounded quite strong — compared to when I last saw him New Year’s Eve at the Guadalajara airport as he left for Virginia. “I’m feeling better and better every day,” Joe said. “But, I’m so busy keeping track of when and how many pills to take that it will be a while before I get back to writing. I haven’t even touched my laptop in two months.”
Joe has received several thousand emails from his readers, more than he could read and acknowledge even when healthy. Joe’s wife Barbara and his son Tim select several emails every day to read to him. I am saving all of Joe’s email and will send him a package of well wishes when he gains even more strength and feels like reading again.
— Ken Smith
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 13 2011 13:10 utc | 26
U$_
First off, damn fine blog graphic for dominos falling 🙂 I love things like that.
I have a couple of thoughts in response to your comment :
“I wish the mother fucking people here were half as courageous as the people of Egypt.”
My gut reaction is that in America we’re too tied to our stuff so we don’t revolt because we don’t want to give anything up. But then I thought a bit longer, and I feel the real reason Egypt protested and we don’t, is they have a sense of their history and who they are as a people.
Americans culturally are too fractured and broken; we have little common deep history (at best maybe 450 years for European stock) we’re a mish-mash of different core beliefs; a smorgasbord of ethnic make-ups; add in a land mass that has more geographic diversity than just about anywhere… and then there are the massive migrations of different people who’ve settled the land from pre-history to our modern migrations into cities and then back out to the suburbs. If that ain’t enough, you stir the pot with all the bullshit television host who are hypnotizing the population with lies, and shit, it isn’t hard to see why Americans bleat contentedly in their cookie-cutter suburban pens while the rest of the world gives the bankers (and their minions) the middle finger.
I don’t think we have enough in common to make a nation these days… I guess we’re all mostly humans, but sometimes I wonder, and judging by history, humans like killing each other more than they like doing about anything else, so I don’t have much hope (or anymore commas :).
A strongman is more likely to rule America in the future than any parliament, or republic. And I’m guessing it will be when the folks become hungry enough, or they can’t pay their cable bills, then we’ll have a Supreme Leader and a wonderful Soviet style land full of empty shelves and gulags. I certainly can’t wait, how about you?
Peace
I don’t think we have enough in common to make a nation these days
it’s sad, but i think you’re right Dave. we don’t. there has been too much greed is good brainwashing, and if you can’t get yours, then fuck off.
sure, there will be pockets of resistance, but i can’t see the scenario that gets millions of people marching on Washington.
Posted by: lizard | Feb 14 2011 5:33 utc | 29
No offense meant here..”I dont think we have enough in common to make a nation these days..”…and…”i cant see the scenario that gets millions marching on Washington.”..must be two of the saddest lines i have read..surely if a million predominantly Italian women can march due to the fact their Prime Minister thinks in the gutter with the wrong head; then surely those in America and other so called democracies can remember the power of the people extends beyond pockets of resistance.People everywhere must take strength, be courageous unite and act on common causes or soon enough the only things that will be free will be the stars in the skies.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8321866/Silvio-Berlusconi-faces-nations-women-as-a-million-protesters-take-to-streets.html
Posted by: noiseannoys | Feb 14 2011 6:35 utc | 30
well, noiseannoys, maybe it’s because the tea-party take over of my state, and the subsequent legislation they’re trying to impose, makes me very pessimistic. we have bigoted christian wack-jobs trying to force ultrasounds on women, “pull-out” of the UN, set up a paramilitary-type militia answerable only to the governor, and the list goes on. they’re slashing education funding, probably because they want future voters to be stupid enough to march lock-step with their extremist agenda.
until a majority of Americans divest from the two party charade, we will continue oscillating between the overtly fascist right and the increasingly complicit “left”, which we all know is just republican-lite these days. Obama’s monumental betrayals and disappointments almost totally ensures stupid Americans will go galloping back to the right to save them.
we’ve become a very selfish, dumbed-down population easily stirred up against muslims and immigrants and fags wanting their alleged rights. just look at Arizona: they are literally skirting succession, trying to repeal the 14th amendment because, you know, fuck the children of immigrants.
this may sound like defeatism, but i think it’s an accurate assessment of where we are. there is no collective investment in the betterment of this nation: the rich get their obscene tax cuts and Obama is considering halving the home-heating assistance program. the only bright spot nationally is the fact the tea-party insurrection may fracture Republican cohesion. the failure last week of Patriot Act provisions getting extended was certainly positive.
but then there’s clusterfucks like health care. my premiums are going up nearly 20%. for just my wife and two kids, it’s going to cost around $550 dollars a month to insure them. and our deductible, per person, is $5,000. it’s fucking insane, and we just take it because we have so few options, and not insuring my kids isn’t one of them.
i hope i’m wrong.
Posted by: lizard | Feb 14 2011 13:28 utc | 31
Lizard,
With all do respect to a guy who makes sense… I think you might not yet ‘get it’. That sounds negative and I don’t want to come-off that way 😉
Corporations run America. Corporations run all the political parties. Corporate mindset is what is fucking America (and the world) because of many reasons; unanswerable to anyone; living forever; blurred lines between private sector/government; ability to do business anywhere with anyone, regardless of national wishes (think of how many assholes fund BOTH sides of a war…) Those are just a few that come to my small mind at this early hour. There are surely other reasons.
When we fall into the meme created by corporations (thinking there is any difference in political parties is a biggie) they’ve already won the battle. They dictate most American’s beliefs, not only the masses, but even folks who drink at bars like this one and think they’re immune. Public Broadcasting’s funding comes from corporate grants, and also from the Federal Government’s appointed assholes. Just look at what happened to PBS under Bush II – what they didn’t directly gut, they simply changed how many programs ‘spun’ their stories. Most of the idiots watching (remember it’s still fucking television) didn’t even bother to think about what the nice men and women who used big words and seemed so educated were talking about, because the shows were PUBLIC BROADCASTING, must be liberal and all touchy-feely right?
Noiseannoys actually adds credence to my belief our particular government is fucked by using the example set by Italian women. Unlike America, Italy has a much smaller population that has a much more cohesive history to hold them together…
Got to go, Valentine’s breakfast is served 🙂
Peace
Dave, i’m well aware of the corporate control that has gripped our national politics, but at the state level, not all governance has been thoroughly corrupted.
i don’t know about Colorado, but up here the zealots that swooped in beneath the tea-party banner are proving themselves to be a bunch of raving, racist, bigoted assholes out to gut human services and education and INCREASE state government intrusion into women’s reproductive rights. they are trying to reverse equal rights initiatives passed by our town to protect the rights of the LGBT crowd, and seek to undermine the citizen initiative process itself. and one of the few economic bright spots–medicinal marijuana–they are trying to outright repeal, which would immediately re-criminalize almost 30,000 people. regulation of the burgeoning industry is needed, but the right-wing majority is using the same scare tactics weed has been subjected to for decades and decades of prohibition.
what’s disgusting about all the economic cuts is they’re not even necessary. our governor has already proposed a balanced budget.
i know you have an affinity for aspects of the tea-party, but the way they’re hypocritical ideology is playing out in my state, they can seriously go fuck themselves.
anyway, i’ve got the day off because it’s my wife’s birthday today, so i’m going to go enjoy it. peace to you too, Dave.
Posted by: lizard | Feb 14 2011 17:36 utc | 33
I’ve got some rabid Libertarian friends… probably more than one Tea Bagger, um, I mean, Tea Partier friend, but I myself, see ALL these sorts as self-serving assholes who want to control other people. I believe in freedom, and also in the responsibility that comes with having true freedom, and most people who seek political office are simple humans who think they are in some way chosen to lead. Those sorts you describe are exactly the kind of assholes I’m talking about.
The original Tea Party movement was an organization that cut across party lines, but it was soon co-opted by the assholes who think god texts them personally.
I’m pretty bitter these days. I see everything as a lie. This is one of the few blogs I trust the other posters to be what they seem to be. A lot of people are either too stupid, or are being paid to act stupid, because I can’t believe the comments I read on some blogs. And if I need proof that all these wacky comments are just human ignorance, all I need is to have breakfast anywhere and listen to what the folks are saying… hippies, rednecks, they’re each blaming each other and neither realizes they’re both being played for fools by the billionaires receiving the REAL welfare checks.
And Lizard, I wouldn’t bet all those Tea Partiers are against MM because it’s a sin… you’d be surprised how many of them are feeling the financial effects of legal smoke. Funny how that’s working out in a similar way here. Lot’s of angry rednecks who drive trucks that must always be hitting skunks while traveling, because of how they smell after inspecting one of their fields of ‘feed corn’ – yeah, right 😉
I agree with you about the tea baggers… and anyone who wants to be part of a group these dark days. Love your family, hopefully trust your friends, but watch your own back. Yet, even though I say this, I also think we need to be even more open and understanding as folks try to grab any piece of flotsam that’s floating by during this financial and social hurricane. Some are grabbing anchors that are going to sink, not only them, but any hope of a return to civil society.
Peace and happy birthday to your wife 🙂 I hope you’re all enjoying a fun one. 40+ degrees (f) here today, I’m going to play outside.
i’m watching “hour of the furnaces” (once again thanks to the living library that is rememberinggiap for sharing impeccable resources)…what comes to mind quickly is perhaps it is that america itself has been colonised by the corporations and the structure of fear they impose..and with that th threat of violence against the people inherent in that structure..is this what keeps the people from standing together?..when they do & i’m sure there are better examples but the murders of kent state in the 1960’s must resonate to the day…way i think about it where there is still a spark there is always hope of fire.
Posted by: noiseannoys | Feb 14 2011 22:03 utc | 37
i think there are no easy answers but what is vital is never ever to stop asking the questions
Posted by: noiseannoys | Feb 15 2011 0:49 utc | 39
from john berger’s ‘ways of seeing’…”Capitalism survives by forcing the majority,whom it exploits,to define their own interests as narrowly as posible.This was once achieved by extensive deprivation.Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is no desirable.” that was written in 1972…as a young man i read that and every day i ask questions…so there is no one particular question but an endless and ongoing process
Posted by: noiseannoys | Feb 15 2011 1:29 utc | 40
noiseannoys, you ask:
perhaps it is that america itself has been colonised by the corporations and the structure of fear they impose..and with that th threat of violence against the people inherent in that structure..is this what keeps the people from standing together?
that would certainly be part of it.
honestly, the only collectivism this country seems capable of experiencing is through its thoroughly corporatized consumer culture, and this culture only cares about how to commodify our experiences.
the threat of violence isn’t necessary; violence to us is like the air we breathe. pointing out how this country was born from violence and is perpetuated through violence wouldn’t illicit more than the twitch of the eyebrow.
noiseannoys, you mention kent state. that event has been successfully commodified by neil young. i can go buy the song on itunes. the entire counter-culture movement of the late 60’s has been entirely absorbed and regurgitated by consumer culture. that’s part of how the momentum of those days were taken and redirected.
we don’t even understand our own history, which is why so many insane revisionists are running rampant in the co-opted tea party. to re-contextualize one’s understanding of how we have gotten to this point in our struggling republic takes conscious effort. not enough people are willing to go to the trouble.
i wish it was different. but, as i said, i don’t see the chain of events that will lead to a broadly supported national resistance against the exploitive ravages of late-stage capitalism.
Posted by: lizard | Feb 15 2011 3:56 utc | 41