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"Terrorism" as Orwelliana (redeveloped)
Q: when should you trust the media and government?
A: when their lips aren't moving
A: when their lips aren't moving
Since 9-11, U.S. citizens have been conditioned to think of political terrorism as the ultimate evil, comparable to and contiguous with genocide. As with any paradigm shift, we have difficulty remembering that terrorism was once treated very differently by U.S. government and media. Or rather, not treated. Not so long ago, terrorism was strategically omitted from news coverage and the latest fashion in political fear-mongering. Since politicians instinctively understand the value of fear-mongering and don't usually miss opportunities, their 15+ years of sustained obliviousness in this case is quite interesting.
Back in the late 1960s, '70s, and early '80s -- the "heyday" of terrorism in the U.S. -- bombings and so on happened almost weekly. Absorb that for a minute. Go to the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism website ( http://tinyurl.com/9covf )and confirm it for yourself.
Far and away the biggest players were the CIA's Cuban exile henchmen and Rabbi Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League, both of which had strikingly similar profiles: both operated on U.S. soil with virtual impunity; both had access to U.S. military ordnance and built bombs with an expertise indicative of military/intelligence training (quite a few of their members are known to have recieved such training); both maintained very sophisticated worldwide terror operations, sneaking explosives into most any country and bombing targets with state-of-the-art security while almost never getting caught; both concentrated their bombings on "communist" diplomatic and business targets, typically in the middle of the night.
All this spells support from a Western government or governments, with that 'middle of the night' bit reflecting an apparent rule that their terror campaigns were to be about harassment and coercion, not killing. Only when they went rogue by violating this rule did they get in trouble -- not for any moral consideration, but because killings messed up the whole program, which was using psy-ops to get certain desired results. Reprisal killings of your own diplomats, spooks, etc., is not a desired result.
Even when these "terrorists" (freelance intel assets) got busted for stepping over this line, the punishments were clearly rebukes, not firings. After all, real talent is hard to find. The charges brought were laughable, exonerations on technical grounds were given undue consideration, and when sentences were handed down they were often light or waived altogether. Essentially and obviously, judges and juries were handed their marching orders by a U.S. intel Gestapo they had enough sense to fear. Gag orders, "national security" interventions, and grantings of immunity were commonplace. Media attention was spotty at best. After the "punishment" had served its purpose -- slapping the crazies around until they stopped foaming at the mouth and swore to behave -- they were let out to go do their thing again with full impunity.
Those who find all this implausible should give it some fresh thought in light of 1) the classic cat-and-mouse games spooks have always played with each other and 2) P-L-A-U-S-I-B-L-E _ D-E-N-I-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y. If you wanna harass another country's diplomatic missions on home soil and yet not get pestered by certain U.S. citizen-cattle who imagine they live in a democracy, "underground terrorists" are very handy to have around. No one who's seriously studied CIA dirty tricks will fail to recognize this logic.
Since the mid-'80s everything about the presentation of terrorism has changed radically. It's become the constant theme of government and media fear-mongering (analogous to communism in the '70s...), and terrorists are now targets of the most draconian "no-tolerance policy" in memory, basically treated as foreign spies, regardless of nationality. Even U.S. citizens are therefore placed outside constitutionally-mandated norms of U.S. criminal law.
While this may look like a 180-degree reversal, it's really not. The common thread between the two treatments is that each in its own way served or serves the U.S. Empire's overall agenda, especially as it relates to foreign policy. The kind of domestic terrorism seen in the 1970's -- i.e. harassment of "communists" and "sympathizers" on U.S. soil -- was a useful instrument of that policy and almost undoubtedly a deliberate one, so there was a clear motive to deflect attention away from it, especially from the idea it was "a menace that must be dealt with." Since then radical leftist, environmental, anti-U.S.-Empire, and anti-government political undergrounds have followed in the CIA's goon footsteps. In several cases, e.g. the Aryan Nations, the transition probably reveals more psy-operatives going rogue.
In short, terrorism on U.S. soil has gone from serving the status quo to threatening it, and it is this that has changed everything about its presentation.
An identical pattern unfolded decades earlier in Israel, where zionist undergrounds used terrorism heavily in the '40s and were subsequently rewarded with statehood, or in individual cases with elite political / military careers. Since Israel is an instrument of Western imperial expansion in the Middle East, this criminality served Western elite interests and therefore merited neither comment nor censure, then or now. Zionist terrorism in fact never subsided, but was absorbed into the routine functions of the Israeli state. For zionism's Arab opponents, the lesson of this has been that terrorism and lawlessness actually work.
Hell, they do work: it's how ruling elites always get their way when the people dig their heels in. This is a self-evident lesson of history. What sets sets the effective "legitimate" operations apart from the flops is the use of true standing militaries equipped with modern armaments -- the most formidable terrorist forces in existence. Such methods only become the stuff of villainous bogeyman when the ruling mafia's opponents resort to them. Otherwise they're called "warfare," carried out on an industrial scale, and represented as heroic.
From the 1940s to the '70s, as Middle East terrorism went from an asset to a liability in this context, it rather abruptly became "a problem" worthy of focused attention. This reformulation has been repeated exactly in the United States from the '70s to the present, and for precisely the same reasons.
The Empire's foreign agenda is not the only beneficiary; its domestic economic agenda is at stake as well. It is for this reason that attention to the "terrorism problem" has refocussed on "eco-terrorism," which infringes on the wellspring of private wealth known as "resource extraction." Meanwhile when equivalent (or much worse) actions serve private wealth they are not commented on.
The Hayman fire of 2002, for example -- the worst forest fire in Colorado state history -- was started by Terry Lynn Barton, a U.S. Forest Service worker / agent who'd fought forest fires previously but who didn't see a problem with incinerating personal effects on the forest floor during a severe drought -- or so she claimed. The imminent threat of fire in Colorado was so extreme it had already attracted national media attention. Barton's employer had declared a priority-one absolute ban on open fires in Pike National Forest, a ban Barton was helping to enforce. Her widely publicized and maudlin account of causation -- that she was burning a letter from her estranged husband and "just wasn't thinking" -- severely strains credulity while gratuitously tugging on heartstrings. The circumstances of the case neatly eliminate any possibility of using physical evidence to verify her account. In other words it looks, sounds, and smells like a calculated lie cooked up by counsel.
The Hayman inferno rampaged through 137,760 acres of forest, causing thousands of people to flee their homes, eleven dozen of which were consumed by the blaze. Around 470 non-residential structures were also destroyed. Of the homes that survived, many were looted due to the prolonged evacuation. Damages climbed well into eight figures. Five firefighters died and six were injured as they tried to drive nonstop from Oregon to answer the need for able bodies. The driver fell asleep and their van left the road.
It does not end there. The Hayman blaze ultimately resolved as an environmental holocaust of industrial profiteering. Less than a year later the Forest Service declared a "timber salvage" clearcut of 17,500 acres on which trees had been killed outright, a logging free-for-all that couldn't have happened without the fire -- both environmentalists and Pike NF's management plan would have stood in its way. This is a good example of "timber salvage" policy giving foresters and logging companies a back door around both regulation and environmental activism. This in turn diminishes incentives for the Forest Service's traditional emphasis on fire-prevention and fire-control while introducing a clear incentive to start fires. Whether consciously or not, Terry Barton functioned as an agent of this brave new reality. As of this writing, Barton has been convicted of arson and sentenced to a 12-year prison term, but the sentence is under appeal and will probably be cut in half. It will be interesting to see how long Barton actually spends behind bars. As with the CIA's homicidally insane Cuban proxies during the '70s, her sentence may end up being strikingly short. Same game, different world-class Washington scum.
The U.S. government and mass media have never deemed the entire Hayman saga worthy of comment. Compare this with their treatment of the relatively trivial 1998 arson by radical environmentalists at Vail ski resort, now a banner example of "The Menace of Eco-Terrorism -- booga-booga!"
In the first case, arson supported corporate greed while setting off a wildly destructive runaway fire. In the second, corporate greed was deliberately assaulted by environmentalists who conscientiously contained the damage. Guess which one gets a stiffer penalty and relentless negative exposure? Which one is considered an ominous threat and thus redefined as "terrorism"? And the key question: a threat to whom?
Within each of these cases and across all of them, the schizoid portrayals of "terrorism" have a unifying theme: the preservation and expansion of elite power, wealth, and privilege, and to hell with any other party.
Back in the late 1960s, '70s, and early '80s -- the "heyday" of terrorism in the U.S. -- bombings and so on happened almost weekly. Absorb that for a minute. Go to the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism website ( http://tinyurl.com/9covf )and confirm it for yourself.
Far and away the biggest players were the CIA's Cuban exile henchmen and Rabbi Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League, both of which had strikingly similar profiles: both operated on U.S. soil with virtual impunity; both had access to U.S. military ordnance and built bombs with an expertise indicative of military/intelligence training (quite a few of their members are known to have recieved such training); both maintained very sophisticated worldwide terror operations, sneaking explosives into most any country and bombing targets with state-of-the-art security while almost never getting caught; both concentrated their bombings on "communist" diplomatic and business targets, typically in the middle of the night.
All this spells support from a Western government or governments, with that 'middle of the night' bit reflecting an apparent rule that their terror campaigns were to be about harassment and coercion, not killing. Only when they went rogue by violating this rule did they get in trouble -- not for any moral consideration, but because killings messed up the whole program, which was using psy-ops to get certain desired results. Reprisal killings of your own diplomats, spooks, etc., is not a desired result.
Even when these "terrorists" (freelance intel assets) got busted for stepping over this line, the punishments were clearly rebukes, not firings. After all, real talent is hard to find. The charges brought were laughable, exonerations on technical grounds were given undue consideration, and when sentences were handed down they were often light or waived altogether. Essentially and obviously, judges and juries were handed their marching orders by a U.S. intel Gestapo they had enough sense to fear. Gag orders, "national security" interventions, and grantings of immunity were commonplace. Media attention was spotty at best. After the "punishment" had served its purpose -- slapping the crazies around until they stopped foaming at the mouth and swore to behave -- they were let out to go do their thing again with full impunity.
Those who find all this implausible should give it some fresh thought in light of 1) the classic cat-and-mouse games spooks have always played with each other and 2) P-L-A-U-S-I-B-L-E _ D-E-N-I-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y. If you wanna harass another country's diplomatic missions on home soil and yet not get pestered by certain U.S. citizen-cattle who imagine they live in a democracy, "underground terrorists" are very handy to have around. No one who's seriously studied CIA dirty tricks will fail to recognize this logic.
Since the mid-'80s everything about the presentation of terrorism has changed radically. It's become the constant theme of government and media fear-mongering (analogous to communism in the '70s...), and terrorists are now targets of the most draconian "no-tolerance policy" in memory, basically treated as foreign spies, regardless of nationality. Even U.S. citizens are therefore placed outside constitutionally-mandated norms of U.S. criminal law.
While this may look like a 180-degree reversal, it's really not. The common thread between the two treatments is that each in its own way served or serves the U.S. Empire's overall agenda, especially as it relates to foreign policy. The kind of domestic terrorism seen in the 1970's -- i.e. harassment of "communists" and "sympathizers" on U.S. soil -- was a useful instrument of that policy and almost undoubtedly a deliberate one, so there was a clear motive to deflect attention away from it, especially from the idea it was "a menace that must be dealt with." Since then radical leftist, environmental, anti-U.S.-Empire, and anti-government political undergrounds have followed in the CIA's goon footsteps. In several cases, e.g. the Aryan Nations, the transition probably reveals more psy-operatives going rogue.
In short, terrorism on U.S. soil has gone from serving the status quo to threatening it, and it is this that has changed everything about its presentation.
An identical pattern unfolded decades earlier in Israel, where zionist undergrounds used terrorism heavily in the '40s and were subsequently rewarded with statehood, or in individual cases with elite political / military careers. Since Israel is an instrument of Western imperial expansion in the Middle East, this criminality served Western elite interests and therefore merited neither comment nor censure, then or now. Zionist terrorism in fact never subsided, but was absorbed into the routine functions of the Israeli state. For zionism's Arab opponents, the lesson of this has been that terrorism and lawlessness actually work.
Hell, they do work: it's how ruling elites always get their way when the people dig their heels in. This is a self-evident lesson of history. What sets sets the effective "legitimate" operations apart from the flops is the use of true standing militaries equipped with modern armaments -- the most formidable terrorist forces in existence. Such methods only become the stuff of villainous bogeyman when the ruling mafia's opponents resort to them. Otherwise they're called "warfare," carried out on an industrial scale, and represented as heroic.
From the 1940s to the '70s, as Middle East terrorism went from an asset to a liability in this context, it rather abruptly became "a problem" worthy of focused attention. This reformulation has been repeated exactly in the United States from the '70s to the present, and for precisely the same reasons.
The Empire's foreign agenda is not the only beneficiary; its domestic economic agenda is at stake as well. It is for this reason that attention to the "terrorism problem" has refocussed on "eco-terrorism," which infringes on the wellspring of private wealth known as "resource extraction." Meanwhile when equivalent (or much worse) actions serve private wealth they are not commented on.
The Hayman fire of 2002, for example -- the worst forest fire in Colorado state history -- was started by Terry Lynn Barton, a U.S. Forest Service worker / agent who'd fought forest fires previously but who didn't see a problem with incinerating personal effects on the forest floor during a severe drought -- or so she claimed. The imminent threat of fire in Colorado was so extreme it had already attracted national media attention. Barton's employer had declared a priority-one absolute ban on open fires in Pike National Forest, a ban Barton was helping to enforce. Her widely publicized and maudlin account of causation -- that she was burning a letter from her estranged husband and "just wasn't thinking" -- severely strains credulity while gratuitously tugging on heartstrings. The circumstances of the case neatly eliminate any possibility of using physical evidence to verify her account. In other words it looks, sounds, and smells like a calculated lie cooked up by counsel.
The Hayman inferno rampaged through 137,760 acres of forest, causing thousands of people to flee their homes, eleven dozen of which were consumed by the blaze. Around 470 non-residential structures were also destroyed. Of the homes that survived, many were looted due to the prolonged evacuation. Damages climbed well into eight figures. Five firefighters died and six were injured as they tried to drive nonstop from Oregon to answer the need for able bodies. The driver fell asleep and their van left the road.
It does not end there. The Hayman blaze ultimately resolved as an environmental holocaust of industrial profiteering. Less than a year later the Forest Service declared a "timber salvage" clearcut of 17,500 acres on which trees had been killed outright, a logging free-for-all that couldn't have happened without the fire -- both environmentalists and Pike NF's management plan would have stood in its way. This is a good example of "timber salvage" policy giving foresters and logging companies a back door around both regulation and environmental activism. This in turn diminishes incentives for the Forest Service's traditional emphasis on fire-prevention and fire-control while introducing a clear incentive to start fires. Whether consciously or not, Terry Barton functioned as an agent of this brave new reality. As of this writing, Barton has been convicted of arson and sentenced to a 12-year prison term, but the sentence is under appeal and will probably be cut in half. It will be interesting to see how long Barton actually spends behind bars. As with the CIA's homicidally insane Cuban proxies during the '70s, her sentence may end up being strikingly short. Same game, different world-class Washington scum.
The U.S. government and mass media have never deemed the entire Hayman saga worthy of comment. Compare this with their treatment of the relatively trivial 1998 arson by radical environmentalists at Vail ski resort, now a banner example of "The Menace of Eco-Terrorism -- booga-booga!"
In the first case, arson supported corporate greed while setting off a wildly destructive runaway fire. In the second, corporate greed was deliberately assaulted by environmentalists who conscientiously contained the damage. Guess which one gets a stiffer penalty and relentless negative exposure? Which one is considered an ominous threat and thus redefined as "terrorism"? And the key question: a threat to whom?
Within each of these cases and across all of them, the schizoid portrayals of "terrorism" have a unifying theme: the preservation and expansion of elite power, wealth, and privilege, and to hell with any other party.
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PS-- could you please stop using your vile misogynistic language? It really is an embarassment.
No one is fanning the flames, trying to get in the last word. Its almost....pleasant.
I can't help but wonder if being exposed to the suffering of someone close to him will allow him to open his heart to the suffering of those distant from him. Who knows? Maybe its a function of the aging process.
Like here:
http://tinyurl.com/bsgtj
David Gehrig, king o the Indybay zio-liars, rendered nonexistent! Hahahahahaa!
Thank you so much mods! Don't think no one notices how hard you work, because I do, and I DO appreciate it.
The man has been consumed by his own greed. I never said he was a good guy. I have no respect for anyone who is motivated by money. The acquisition of wealth is not one of my personal values. Nor is stealing is not a Jewish value.
Gehrig is a warped lying one-trick intellectual degenerate who haunts this site like Gollum hanging around in the caves of Mordor, so therefore he's a magnificent hero. And then you have the gall to call *ME* nuts! It's just incredible! Your capacity for deluding yourselves is infinite.
I don't know the guy. He is intelligent and tenacious and is also good with a semi-colon. He is an excellent wordsmith. He doesn't tolerate crap from you or anyone else, which makes him a better man than I. I'd say he has many tricks. "Magnificent hero?" You said it, I didn't. We definitely could use more magnificent heroes.
Harriet, I would *never* wrap myself in the flag of a country that's doing to a people what Israel has done to the Palestinians.
Every single Israeli leader would have been willing to tolerate a Muslim state in parts what is currently Israel, if the Arab nations were willing to tolerate a Jewish state nearby. Israel has shown, time and time again- a willingness to negotiate. The Palestinians have responded with terror.
That's why I perceive clearly and denounce absolutely the imperial criminality of my own country,
As do I, if you'd ever listen to anything but the sound of the voices in your head.
and if I were a German in the 1930s I would denounce the Nazis for the exact same reasons. America in 2006 **IS** 1930s Germany! Everyone blindly defending or meekly accepting US foreign policy becomes a little more of a Good German every day, and guess where this places YOU. Yeah, that's right, you're not standing up for victims now, you're rooting for tyrants, murderers, fascist monsters.
Look at Britts checklist- Hamas is a fascist regime. The PA under Arafat was a fascist regime. Israel is the voice of freedom in the region. Read the thread about removing settlers in Amona - Olmert, rather than do what was politically expedient, a month before the election- did what he was commited to doing. It was the difficult choice.
That's what this mania for Israel has done to you. The REAL victims -- the "Jews" of this present-day Nazi Germany -- are the Arabs you love to loathe.
Yeah the poor little Arabs- I billion strong, sitting on the oil reserves that allow them to manipulate policy and dictate terms to the rest of the world. 14 million Jews, just wanting to be left alone. Its clear who the agressors are. But the Jews aren't victims. been there, done that. We will never be victims again.
The analogy is so clear it's nearly perfect. Iraq is America's Poland, the WMD bullshit was Operation Canned Meat all over again, now we're getting pumped up to blitzkrieg Czechoslovakia (Iran), and all you can think to do is jump around and wave your pom-poms -- rah, rah, go mein fuhrer!
You don't have a clue how i feel about US imperialism- show me one url where I support the war in Iraq.
Everything you believe, meaning your entire morality, is a weird upside-down lie relative to what is tangible and real. If that's not insane and evil, I don't know what is
Look no further than your bathroom mirror.
re gehrig being a hero: Uh Harriet hunneee, I hate to kick your bassinet again, but not "tolerating crap" while "tenaciously" defending the criminal depravity of the Israeli bigot state makes him better than neither you nor the Marquis de Sade. This is your weird exceptionalist reality again. 'Exceptionalism' is just a coy word for supremacism, get it?
"Every Israeli leader would have tolerated a Muslim state bluh-blah yada bluh-blah..."
You're still in utter denial that you pasty-white European zionists indefensibly INVADED their turf and FUCKING STOLE IT FROM THEM!!!! Even the Jews there resented you! Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the original zio-fascist murderer, spoke very openly about this in 1923, back before you assholes cooked up all your talking points (lies) to pretend it was ever otherwise. Here, read it and weep:
"there has never been an indigenous inhabitant anywhere or at any time who has ever accepted the settlement of others in his country. Any native people – its all the same whether they are civilized or savage – views their country as their national home, of which they will always be the complete masters. They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a new partner. And so it is for the Arabs."
They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie.
Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement... That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing..."
Colonization itself has its own explanation, integral and inescapable, and understood by every Arab and every Jew with his wits about him. Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible."
And he spoke just as frankly of Arab nationalism as Israel's enemy:
the Arab character of a country located in the center of their future “federation”
Arab nationalism sets itself the same aims as those set by Italian nationalism before 1870 and Polish nationalism before 1918: unity and independence. These aspirations mean the eradication of every trace of British influence in Egypt and Iraq, the expulsion of the Italians from Libya, the removal of French domination from Syria, Tunis, Algiers and Morocco.
This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through.
All from The Iron Wall
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
How do you think Israelis would react if oh say the Germans invaded and stole their territory? Do you think that as a people they'd be interested in negotiating to relinquish 80% of their land? Or would they fight to the last man, woman, and child? You fucking well know what the answer is. You don't think that would be deligitimized as "terrorism" by the Germans spewing Orwellian lies? And why do you expect the answers here to be any different when applied to Arabs? Cuz you're a Good German, mebbe?
re denouncing US criminality: "As do I, if you'd ever listen to anything but the sound of the voices in your head."
When? When have you done that here?
Meanwhile, as a pro-Israel nut you implicitly favor the US imperial conquest of the Middle East. It's totally obvious that Zionists as a category love it that US Empire has liquidated yet another leading pan-Arab nationalist, and are jumping up and down for the Stormtroopers to march into Iran. You want me to back this point up with 500 Israeli propaganda articles, don't you? Oh, hokay.
http://tinyurl.com/9gztv
Fuck Britt's checklist as it relates to Hamas, and FUCK YOUR RED HERRINGS!!!! I'm talking about **AMERICAN** fascism here, and you're totally evading the issue. BTW, how does ISRAEL satisfy Britt's list (which while of value is NOT a gold standard)? It checks pretty damn well to anyone but a rabid Israel Firster. No one can say with your certainty that Hamas' regime will be fascist: they haven't even assumed power yet. Besides, a fascist state is heavily militarized by any definition, and a government can't count as 'militarized' IF IT DOESN'T HAVE A FUCKING MILITARY. duh. Spare me the blather about "statements" and "intentions." You're just pushing your diseased talking point assumptions again. Didn't I tell you sopping that shit up day after day is bad for you? I wasn't kidding.
"Israel is the voice of freedom in the region."
Oh please, you're just impenetrable. Israel is the voice of Western encroachment and cultural imperialism, which you sell as "freedom" purely because you're out hustling for Israel. If you actually believe it, that's because you're lying to YOURSELF. The more universal concept of 'freedom' is embodied in the phrase 'self-determination.' No culture has the right to define for another what the word 'freedom' means, how hard is that? Besides, your concept of "freedom" *IS* an element of modernity, and the entire region *WAS* embracing modernity once, but that trend went hand in hand with Arab nationalism so Mossad and all the other spooks deliberately destroyed it. Oh yeah, you did. Here, read it and weep:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/26/151252
Yeah, sure Israel's "The Voice of Freedom" -- IF YOU'RE A ZIONIST IDEOLOGUE
"Read the thread about removing settlers in Amona"
This point I'll concede. It surprised me and it gives me hope that Israel's for real this time. I hope it continues.
"Yeah the poor little Arabs- 1 billion strong"
Ah- HAH!! That was a real dumb slip o' the tongue on your part, sister! What they call a FREUDIAN slip! You assholes are constantly trying to equate Palestinians with all Arabs with all of Islam to make pooah widdel Iswael look as underdoggish as possible with its measly 400 nukes, and now here you are puking the lie in the most brazen terms possible!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
NAILED!
"...sitting on the oil reserves that allow them to manipulate policy and dictate terms to the rest of the world."
BULLSHIT. Your entire concept of geopolitical realities is a whole cloth of burbling manipulated baby fantasies! Every single time Arabs have tried to excercise control of THEIR natural wealth the West has declared wars on their asses, and this includes the 1973 OPEC embargo. Go check it out in John Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman.' You want to talk about who's sitting on the oil controlling the taps and extorting obedience from everyone on earth, point at the Western oil elites like the Rockefellers. That's the imperial dynasty that truly has the world by the throat now. Habitual liars won't ever get this point, but REAL history is REAL important, baby.
"14 million Jews, just wanting to be left alone. Its clear who the agressors are."
Yeah, you're right, it is: 14 million super-weaponized fanatic invaders acting as proxies for Western Global Empire, ee-yupp that's right.
"been there, done that. We will never be victims again."
Wow, you never fail to play this card. Always using the victim shtick to claim "the moral high ground." You just can't deconstruct that shit can you? All it really does is push the Einstein quote to the fore again, cuz it doesn't hold a scintilla of truth in the present. It's degenerated into a really manipulative, really disgusting and tawdry smokescreen for YOUR OWN criminality.
"You don't have a clue how i feel about US imperialism- show me one url where I support the war in Iraq."
Show me the one URL where you've done anything other than completely omit the subject along with its pertinence to your own politics. Walk the walk or shut up.
You're still the one who needs to do some heavy mirror-gazing.
And finally, you led off by saying I'm a pointless waste of your time, Harriet. Okay then, why are you wasting your time so pointlessly? Jes gotta shill for Israel, huh? Why are you so obsessed, Harriet, or Jane, or Jess, or whoever the fuck you are? You've spent your whole life here. I don't identify with this culture either, but nor do I dream bigot dreams about reconquering "my ancestral homeland." talk about some Aryan bullshit!
Yuh, back to copping technicalities again. You defended him
Nope. Not me.
It was blatant. You went right along with the zio-asshole line that "he
helped Israeli's in need" (poor downtrodden machine-gun-pumping settler
psychopaths), so therefore let's remember him for the "good" he did (???).
Was it you that posted the shit from Israel Insider to this affect?
Nope. Not me. Here. For the record. Abramoff does not worship the G-d of
Israel. He worships the almighty buck. He is an embarrassment. We do not
share the same values. I would not want to break bread with him.
I did post a reference to a Botach essay regarding the complexity of judging
people as either good or evil...but it was not black and white enough for
you to understand, I guess. Part of my ongoing effort to be less judgement.
I'm failing, though, haven't ya noticed?
So, just wondering- if you, yes you, could torture one little innocent
infant and know that it would bring the world peace , would you do it?
"Every Israeli leader would have tolerated a Muslim state bluh-blah yada
bluh-blah..."
You're still in utter denial that you pasty-white European zionists
indefensibly INVADED their turf and FUCKING STOLE IT FROM THEM!!!!
There has been a continuing jewish presence in the land for thousands of
years. Even when the Jewish people were invaded, enslaved and exiled, they
remembered their ancient homeland. The Jewish liturgy is filled with
references to the return to Zion. Ongoing theme. Part of my heritage. I
could quote you line and verse.
Even the Jews there resented you! (Me? Huh?) Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the
original zio-fascist murderer, spoke very openly about this in 1923, back
before you assholes cooked up all your talking points (lies) to pretend it
was ever otherwise. Here, read it and weep:
"there has never been an indigenous inhabitant anywhere or at any time who
has ever accepted the settlement of others in his country. Any native
people - its all the same whether they are civilized or savage - views their
country as their national home, of which they will always be the complete
masters. They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a
new partner. And so it is for the Arabs."
The vast majority of Arab immigration into this area FOLLOWED the Jewish
return. There are many threads on this site that discuss this in great
detail. Remember?
They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that
any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie.
Or
that the Jews had for their ancient homeland. "By the rivers of babylon we sat and wept. Sing us a song of Zion, our captors taunted. How can we sing of Zion in a strange land? If I forget thee oh, Jersulaem, let my right hand wither. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not
remember Zion even in my happiest hour."
Its one of the Psalms- about a thousand years old. What does that sound like to you? True fervor maybe?
When I told you about my "instinctive love" for my ancient homeland,
you told me it was the result of parental brainwashing. But for the Sioux and the Aztec, its somehow noble?
re denouncing US criminality: "As do I, if you'd ever listen to anything but
the sound of the voices in your head."
When? When have you done that here?
I started posting anonymously because I grew weary of the repeated personal
attacks. I grew weary of chortling madmen responding to anything I wrote
with the chorus of "Ew! A Zionist!", as though that affected the validity of
any argument I could make.
Fuck Britt's checklist as it relates to Hamas, and FUCK YOUR RED
HERRINGS!!!!
Quick diversion:
Whats green and wet and hangs on a wall?
(part of our ongoing attempt to work on your sense of humor. This is a public service announcement. Answer at bottom of post)
I'll take that as a concession that Hamas, with its green banners unfurled
in the wind is indeed a fascist state.
I'm talking about **AMERICAN** fascism here, and you're totally evading the
issue.
America is well on its way to fascism. It is disturbing. I am seeking
comfort from history- knowing that these periods of repression and
xenophobia have often had equal and opposite reactions. The Palmer raids,
McCarthyism, now the Patriot Act....I am hoping that something will finally
mobilize the American public. However two stolen elections did not, and a
criminal invasion of an independent nation did not. I am losing faith .We
have a "democracy", yes, but little choice. The "choice" in our last
presidential election- two rich white Yalies, both "skull and bones"
members.
We are a nation of insatiable consumers- we eat up a gluttonous share of the
worlds resources, like a pig at a buffet table. I think the only thing that
will make a difference to the majority of Americans is when the kitchen
finally closes. Already it seems that the damage we have done is
irreversible. In my area you need not look any further than the dead and dying California oaks to know that something is desperately out of balance.
I despair.
BTW, how does ISRAEL satisfy Britt's list (which while of value is NOT a
gold standard)?
It's a pretty good standard though- do you have a better one?
It checks pretty damn well to anyone but a rabid Israel Firster.
I'd disagree, of course. Want to go through it point by point?
No one can say with your certainty that Hamas' regime will be fascist: they
haven't even assumed power yet. Besides, a fascist state is heavily
militarized by any definition, and a government can't count as 'militarized'
IF IT DOESN'T HAVE A FUCKING MILITARY. duh.
A 40,000 person "security" force doesn't count? Thats 10,000 more than
allowed by Oslo, BTW. But if it quacks like a duck.....
Many of those "positions" were granted by Fatah as political favors, so
it remains to be seen what will become of them.
Spare me the blather about "statements" and "intentions." You're just
pushing your diseased talking point assumptions again. Didn't I tell you
sopping that shit up day after day is bad for you? I wasn't kidding.
"Israel is the voice of freedom in the region."
Oh please, you're just impenetrable. Israel is the voice of Western
encroachment and cultural imperialism, which you sell as "freedom" purely
because you're out hustling for Israel. If you actually believe it, that's
because you're lying to YOURSELF. The more universal concept of 'freedom' is
embodied in the phrase 'self-determination.'
I agree with you here- my definiton of Zionism is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to self determination in
their ancient homeland
No culture has the right to
define for another what the word 'freedom' means, how hard is that?
I lived in the developing world and spent a lot of time struggling with this issue.
Its harder than you think.
The country I was living in was eagarly awaiting electricity and cable TV.
At one point I tried and talk them out of it- they laughed at me and accused me of wanting to keep them in a zoo.
Besides,
your concept of "freedom" *IS* an element of modernity, and the entire
region *WAS* embracing modernity once, but that trend went hand in hand with
Arab nationalism so Mossad and all the other spooks deliberately destroyed
it. Oh yeah, you did. Here, read it and weep:
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/26/151252>
I'm not following you here.
"Yeah the poor little Arabs- 1 billion strong"
Ah- HAH!! That was a real dumb slip o' the tongue on your part, sister! What
they call a FREUDIAN slip!
Opps. Thats what I get for drinking while posting. Or posting while
drinking. I forget which one.
You assholes are constantly trying to equate Palestinians with all Arabs
with all of Islam to make pooah widdel Iswael look as underdoggish as
possible with its measly 400 nukes, (200 "alleged" nukes) and now here you
are puking the lie in the most brazen terms possible!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
There's that chortling madman we've come to know and despise.
NAILED!
Interesting enough, in 2000, for example, the Arab nations only contributed
5 ½ million dollars to the Palestinian Relief Fund. The US, the EU and a
few others contributed over 300 million. Why do you think that is? Why do
you think the Arab nations are interested in keeping the Palestinians
downtrodden? What do you think the motivation is?
And why do you think Israel donated more in per capita aid to the tsunami
victims than their oil rich Muslim brothers?
"...sitting on the oil reserves that allow them to manipulate policy and
dictate terms to the rest of the world."
BULLSHIT. Your entire concept of geopolitical realities is a whole cloth of
burbling manipulated baby fantasies! Every single time Arabs have tried to
excercise control of THEIR natural wealth the West has declared wars on
their asses, and this includes the 1973 OPEC embargo. Go check it out in
John Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman.' You want to talk about
who's sitting on the oil controlling the taps and extorting obedience from
everyone on earth, point at the Western oil elites like the Rockefellers.
That's the imperial dynasty that truly has the world by the throat now.
How are they not hand in hand with the Saudi princes?
Hell, there are photos of Bush kissing the Saudis. Literally.
Habitual liars won't ever get this point, but REAL history is REAL
important, baby.
"14 million Jews, just wanting to be left alone. Its clear who the agressors
are."
Yeah, you're right, it is: 14 million super-weaponized fanatic invaders
acting as proxies for Western Global Empire, ee-yupp that's right.
You keep making this claim and I just can't follow your logic.
State it simply. I don't have your educational level. Einstein once said
any scientist that can't explain what he does to a 10 year old isn't worth much as a scientist.
How is Israel anything but a pawn in all this?
And if Israel is "an agent" for the US, explain the US Liberty.
"been there, done that. We will never be victims again."
Wow, you never fail to play this card.
Always using the victim shtick to claim "the moral high ground."
Quite the opposite. Not a victim. Never again.
You just can't deconstruct that shit can you? All it really does is push the
Einstein quote to the fore again,
cuz it doesn't hold a scintilla of truth in the present. It's degenerated
into a really manipulative, really disgusting and tawdry smokescreen for
YOUR OWN criminality.
"You don't have a clue how i feel about US imperialism- show me one url
where I support the war in Iraq."
Show me the one URL where you've done anything other than completely omit
the subject along with its pertinence to your own politics. Walk the walk or
shut up.
You're still the one who needs to do some heavy mirror-gazing.
And finally, you led off by saying I'm a pointless waste of your time,
Harriet. Okay then, why are you wasting your time so pointlessly?
Because I see you hating and baiting....and you know you do it....and just
can't stop myself from responding......Its lack of self control on my part.
Gotta work on that impulse control problem.
You get bored- you torment Zionists. Damn, if you just start collecting
stamps or playing basketball or shooting possums from your front porch with
a 22, we'd both be better off. There has got to be something more
constructive we can both do with our time.
Jes gotta shill for Israel, huh? Why are you so obsessed, Harriet, or Jane,
or Jess, or whoever the fuck you are?
Lets throw this back at you. You don't even live in the bay area, yet you
troll my Indy Bay. Why? Don't you have a local Indy Media you could harass?
You aren't even a Jew or a Palestinian. Why are you so ossessed, TW or
Shmuel or whoever the fuck you are? It isn't just about your tax dollars.
Of that I'm convinced.
You've spent your whole life here. I don't identify with this culture
either, but nor do I dream bigot dreams about reconquering "my ancestral
homeland." talk about some Aryan bullshit!
Jerusalem, I am returning.
Aswer: A red herring
TW: A red herring isn't green
I just painted it. Now its green and its wet.
Tw: It doesn't hang on a wall
I just nailed it there. Now its hanging
TW: It doesn't whistle
That's just in there to make it harder
No, thats actually not funny at all is it?
"Are you failing reading comprehension?"
Nope, you are. You willfully disregard this passage, which the good Rabbi builds into the piece for a clear purpose -- just one you happen to not want to notice:
"The **GREAT MAN** or woman is not he or she who has never made huge mistakes. History is replete with great personalities who have. Rather, the great man or woman is the one who can point to having pushed mankind closer to a great and noble goal [i.e. the Greater Glory of Israel]."
The Eliyahu Stern quote is a much better example of what you claimed.
"So, just wondering- if you, yes you, could torture one little innocent infant and know that it would bring the world peace, would you do it?"
Torture? No. Kill, maybe. There is a huge ethical difference. To me, swift killing is more open to moral relativism, but torture is an unqualified abomination. If torture is the price of "civilization" -- and there is evidence that it is -- then the price is too high.
My guess as to what you're driving at here is that your ends (securing the zionist state) justify your means (invading Palestine, stealing it from the natives per Jabotinsky, and violating their human rights indefinitely into the future). On this I absolutely disagree. Your ends are simply not as noble as you insist. They're no more noble than American settlers chanting the poisonous refrain "manifest destiny" to excuse their land-grabbing total destruction of Indian cultures. It's the exact same criminal psychology in both cases.
Also, you're kidding yourself if you really think the end is 'peace.' Like a certain greedy type of European that was irresistibly drawn to America, zionists are imperialists at heart. The imperialist impulse is pathological, i.e. is never satisfied. Just as 50% of North America -- a realm larger than any ancient empire -- wasn't enough to satisfy the US craving for empire, neither will all the territory west of the Jordan River satisfy the zionists. By the time the Palestinian conflict is resolved (if ever) you'll be so entrenched in the psychology of war and conquest that you'll invent new bogeymen in order to have new worlds to conquer. Just like the US has.
MARK MY WORDS.
"The Jewish liturgy is filled with references to the return to Zion. Ongoing theme. Part of my heritage..."
The Catholic religion originated on the Anatolian Peninsula 1800 years ago. There has been a "continuing presence" of Catholics there ever since (yes, a minority presence, just as Jews were a minority presence in Palestine until the modern zionist movement). Does this mean Irish Catholics have a right to invade Turkey and dissolve its government to "reclaim their ancestral homeland?" Your "logic" is identical to this, Harriet. Yes it is. Just because Jewish culture has invested an enormous body of lore in the lie that this is rational, and started spoon-feeding that lore to you before you could think properly, this does not make it rational. It's just insane bullshit you've never really examined.
Even if you were a pure lineal descendant of the ancient Hebrews (and you're NOT), there is a second absurd assumption that having ancestors who inhabited a spot 2,000 years ago means anything in practical legal terms. EVERY DETAIL of the global political map has changed entirely since then. If someone tried to make a territorial claim on such grounds anywhere else, they'd be laughed out of town. What makes you so special? I'll tell you what does: the Holocaust. You keep using it to guilt-trip everybody into making special allowances for you. It has been "instrumentalized" in this sense, especially since 1967.
Calling this "part of your heritage" doesn't defend it either, it's just another manipulative gambit. You've picked up a whole patois of these. Walking a ritual victim to the top of a pyramid, slicing his heart out, and hurling his corpse back down the steps is "part of the heritage" of meso-american natives. Does this mean they should have a right to keep doing it? Crazy ideas and practices should be abandoned, even if they are "part of your heritage."
"The vast majority of Arab immigration into this area FOLLOWED the Jewish
return."
Yes, Harriet, I have seen this crap before, plenty of times. Like most zionist historical postulates it's manipulative and dishonest. Even as I'm showing you the Jabotinsky quotes that blow this bullshit apart, you're still coughing up this canned canard as if you never saw them. This willful denseness is one of the ways you really piss me off.
Here's more that blows this shit apart:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/demograhics.html
also:
“The land [Palestine] is at present inhabited by native Arabs, who till the soil and mainly people the towns and villages. The question arises, how are the inhabitants to be dispossessed of the land? Is a purchase contemplated? Who, or what power is to enforce such a purchase, and where would the present inhabitants emigrate to? Or is it contemplated that they are to be driven out by the sword? This, I am convinced, is the only means by which the land can be cleared of its present population. But in this case the native inhabitants would, of course, be driven back upon Arabia, which bends like a crescent round the south and east of the Holy Land. The present inhabitants would not thus be driven out without obstinacy and bloodshed, carrying with them at the same time, the most malignant inveteracy. From Arabia, aided by other tribes, they would sally from time to time, to ravage and lay waste the whole land.”
-- Millard, D. (1843). A journal of travels in Egypt, Arabia Petras, and the Holy Land During 1841-2. Rochester, NY: Erasmus Shepard.
In other words, while local populations undoubtedly migrated to Palestine during the zionist influx, prior to zionism Arabs constituted a 90+% majority within Palestine. Also, if migration deligitimizes the territorial claims of Palestinians, what does it do to the claims of zionist Jews, who are recent immigrants/descendants thereof to an even larger extent? Zionists always try to play this sort of thing both ways. Why is that?
"By the rivers of babylon we sat and wept. Sing us a song of Zion, our captors taunted."
I addressed this sort of thing categorically. See above. This is also the xenophobia/persecution theme you're always denying. Einstein again.
"But for the Sioux and the Aztec, its somehow noble?"
I don't see the Sioux or Aztecs victimizing millions of people decade after decade on these grounds and politically destabilizing the whole planet in the process. If it weren't for Israel doing these things, I'd be less critical.
re when have you denounced US criminality: "I started posting anonymously..."
That's an evasion, not an answer. You do that a lot. It's another thing that pisses me off.
"America is well on its way to fascism. It is disturbing."
Okay, good. Do you not see how U.S. fascism as it relates to the "terrorism" bogeyman and mid-east conquest BENEFITS Israel, and that powerful zionist ideologues like Abramoff and the neocons are big players in pushing it along? You didn't acknowledge the relationship to Israel, but it's definitely there.
"I think the only thing that will make a difference to the majority of Americans is when the kitchen finally closes. Already it seems that the damage we have done is irreversible. In my area you need not look any further than the dead and dying California oaks to know that something is desperately out of balance.
I despair."
On this stuff we agree completely. You should keep in mind that warfare is the most grossly consumptive and environmentally destructive social process of all. Do you have any idea how much oil is needed to produce high explosives? How much energy is invested in the fissible material of one nuclear bomb? It's staggering. This black hole has sucked in a good percentage of the world's energy production.
"[Britt's list] is a pretty good standard though- do you have a better one?"
I have ideas that IMO are a more lucid window on the problem. Ask any two political theorists what fascism is and you get two different answers. I think this is because the idea that it's a discrete entity is in error, in fact using the word 'fascism' to label and delimit the problem is a serious conceptual mistake. 'Fascism' is correctly applied to specific places during a certain historical period, places where processes unfolded that SYMBOLIZE the destination of classist and systemically corrupt societies (a.k.a. "civilizations") once they've gotten their hands on a certain level of technology. "Fascism" is just a new variation on the ancient theme of elites conspiring to rig the game so that ALL advantage funnels solely toward them, while leaving everyone else miserable and SYSTEMATICALLY CONFUSED so that they're powerless to change things. This is simply civilization's basic agenda.
One feature of "fascism" that is exceptional is the use of high technology and psychological theory to keep people's minds permanently warped out of joint, but even this is not new. This is the function historically served by religion, certainly by Christianity in Europe. This got screwed up by the pesky social movements called "the Renaissance," "the Enlightenment," and "modernity" -- a critical mass of people reached a level of sophistication such that religion could no longer decieve or control them. That is, the monarchal set's theory of control became obsolete and thus mass culture wriggled loose and started calling the shots.
"Fascism" is the monarchal set finally catching up with modernity and, through the orchestrated use of scientific theory and high technologies, finally containing it, i.e. reimposing a social order that benefits only them. As such it's a straightforward regression to a very ancient type of class dictatorship, but one that psychologically enslaves people more profoundly than ever before, severely and systematically manipulating them away from self-interest. In the case of Western Europeans, "fascism" is a return to patterns that haven't been seen in hundreds of years, so we don't recognize them.
In other words it's a grave mistake to set "fascism" apart from the rest of political history as if it's some freaky unique new thing. Exceptionalism is stupid. Historical exceptionalism is no different. Class dictatorship and slavery have never ceased to be civilization's fundamental order. They just went vaguely underground for a few hundred years, meanwhile casting about for a way to return to the good old days. They finally found it.
All this is consistent with some stuff Mussolini said:
...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....
After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....
...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....
...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence.
-- from the 1932 Italian Encyclopedia
I see a lot in zionist politics that is consistent with this model of "fascism." I don't think the zionist program is really in the Jewish interest ("...systematically manipulating them away from self-interest..."). It's a way that the global empire's executive class has duped Jews into converging on the Middle East to serve as fanatical proxies in their war against the region's quest for autonomy and unity, a capacity in which they're serving spectacularly. I think this executive class includes elite Jews, including Israelis, who are knowing participants in the game. They understand this is how it's played, they have a real bad case of Empire Fever, and they want a piece of the action, it's that simple.
This kills two birds with one stone: before zionism became THE Jewish political idee fixe, Jews worldwide were intensely involved in leftist political movements, including communism, communism being modernity's answer to fascism... This is much more consistent with Tikkun Olam. Jews united behind a cause are a formidable political force, so a big Jewish concentration in the communist movement was EXTREMELY threatening. Now that zionism has displaced communism from Jewish political interest, this threat has been neutralized.
So zionism has 1) neutralized Jews as a threat on the one hand and 2) transformed them into cannon fodder on the other. All this smacks of a grand stroke of fascistic perceptual engineering.
And there is also the older model of mass control at work in this, i.e. religion. You've intimated that you're a feminist, Harriet. Can you not see the contradiction in believing in a patriarchal God? Look, that God is bullshit. The real God is absolutely concrete, tangible, manifest. YOU KNOW THIS!! That's what you're understanding down deep as you watch the world die and it breaks your heart. That's REAL ancestral wisdom welling up out of your primordial mind and speaking to you!
THIS AMAZING LIVING WORLD **IS** GOD!!!
It is our creator! Not that pie in the sky all-knowing sadist that only a child could believe in. God is far more huge and profound and REAL than that nonsense.
This is just one more of the things your most ancient ancestors -- the "cavemen" -- knew with certainty. We've been taught to spit back through history on their belief, which we call 'animism.' It wasn't just a set of silly incoherent superstitions. We miss the point entirely. It was worship of the world as a manifest deity. That's triumphantly rational, while our "modern" concepts of "faith" are the demented delusions. There is no "supernatural," manifest nature is all there needs to be. Think how different the course of history would be had we never shrunk into the sterile narcissism of using the humanoid God as an excuse to worship ONLY OURSELVES!!
If you really deeply love the living world as I do, I know this speaks to you.
Everything modern society has taught you to believe is garbage, Tia. I really mean it. To find real truth you must turn your back on all that and JUST SIMPLY OPEN YOUR EYES! The Truth of things is manifest all around you. The function of modern "civilized" culture is to make you blind. The people of this time are shadows of their ancient selves, cowards and anti-heroes. That's what 10,000 years of enslavement has done to us.
"How are they not hand in hand with the Saudi princes?"
The Saudi princes are in their hip pocket, and the Bushes are just smooching fellow loyal servants. The Saudis know if they fuck with the global imperialists they'll get destroyed. That's the stick. The carrot is the money they're rolling in, which is still crumbs compared to what the oil generates. Besides, what you're seeing in Saudi Arabia is a classic case of fascism being imposed from without to crush modernity, which is a grand theme of US neocolonialism. I refer you again to John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman." Perkins helped mastermind the means of keeping the Saudis in check. His book is a real eye-popper.
re: 14 million fanatic invaders: "You keep making this claim and I just can't follow your logic. State it simply."
Remind me some other time. This post has already gotten out of hand. BTW, I'm not highly educated. If I were I wouldn't think as freely. For one thing I'd have been bought by privilege.
"How is Israel anything but a pawn in all this?"
Again, I agree that it is, and if you think so how do YOU explain the USS Liberty? I have my historically informed theories, but again I'll explain them some other time
"You don't even live in the bay area, yet you troll my Indy Bay. Why are you so ossessed?"
I've explained it before, but I'll do it again -- some other time
When I turned 18, in my first act of defiance against my parents, I went up to the Adirondack High Peaks with a few friends. We went hiking to Lake Tear of the Clouds- origin of the Hudson river. It was the first time I had ever really been out of the urban environment. I remember the day being pleasant- but the night was astonishing. I had my sleeping bag directly on the moist ground and I felt like I was on the pulse of the planet. The wind in the leaves, the ripple of the water, the sound of my breathing - these were the sounds of the forest. I had never seen the milky way before. The starlight cast shadows on the ground- I had never realized how many stars there were. It was the first time I felt that I was OF the earth, and not simply ON the earth.
So yes, what you say does speak to me, and moves me.
At this present moment in history, I think UNlearning has become much more important than learning. "Learning" is how your brain gets chunked and formed and mashed into a standard mold. There is still such a thing as important stuff to learn, but YOU -- not some presumptive authority -- decide what that is. For me, what's important is what I keep calling "real history," the gigantic body of buried narratives that make it very clear that NOTHING about the common conception of history is true, it's all politically driven Orwellian lies.
Stay the fuck away from mainstream media. Heavy exposure to media is the #1 example of sopping up information indiscriminately. It's a screaming chaos of information that spells disorientation, not understanding. And it's not "news," it's propaganda. I mean newspapers, newsweeklies, television. *ESPECIALLY* TELEVISION. Think of that thing as Satan sitting in your living room. I do have one, but it doesn't recieve an outside signal. That's how it's been for 15 years. I use it strictly to watch media that I can pick and choose and fully control. Cut yourself off from all that idiot blather and you'll find that 1) anything you actually need to know you'll find out about right away anyway and 2) your own innate "analysis & commentary" muscles begin to strengthen, but based on the world of your own experience, not synthetic experience fed to you by some corporate mind-control regime.
That may sound paranoid, but I think the current abysmal state of "public awareness" in this country supports it. This is the most information-saturated society in the history of the world, and yet I think it's also one of the most demented. These people are lost. Whatever innate sense they have has been drowned under a flood of noise. They seem to think the world directly around them is dull and meaningless while TV-land is "reality." What you take in directly is incredibly rich, not meaningless, and it's the only information you can totally trust.
Really gigantic ancient trees come close, though. Mere words have never reached into me as deeply as trees do, and by words I mean scripture.
We'll talk more tomorrow. I'm nodding off already.
FUCK YOUR RED
HERRINGS!!!!
I prefer to fuck my own species.
However, within the privacy of your own home, you have the right to fuck any consenting adult fish you might desire. This is one of the advantages of living in a "free" society. But the PA is a classic fascist organization, as is Hamas, red herring or not. As such, they do not merit my support. If you were living under Hamas, your right to fuck red herrings would no doubt
be eliminated.
Besides,
your concept of "freedom" *IS* an element of modernity, and the entire region *WAS* embracing modernity once, but that trend went hand in hand with Arab nationalism so Mossad and all the other spooks deliberately destroyed it.
Arab and Islamic Nationalism appears to be thriving. Look at the photos of Muslims all over the world rioting over the depiction of their prophet in Denmark. Have you noticed the ones carrying signs "The real Holocaust is
about to begin" What do you think they mean?
Interesting enough, in 2000, for example, the Arab nations only contributed 5 ½ million dollars to the Palestinian Relief Fund. The US, the EU and a few others contributed over 300 million. Why do you think that is? Why do you think the Arab nations are interested in keeping the Palestinians downtrodden? What do you think the motivation is?
And why do you think Israel donated more in per capita aid to the tsunami victims than their oil rich Muslim brothers?
Any comments? Opinions?
Before I continue, Harriet, I need to say you've made a real effort to be civil and sincere and I DO appreciate that. You're still talking and thinking in terms that disturb me, but you're at least making dialogue possible, which is more than I can say for the likes of gehrig.
You don't make it easy. Gehrig has explained his reasoning, more than once. I've observed that you always reject dialog with people who can pull their own weight, intellectually (Michael, Critical Thinker, etc) Why is that? Can't take a real challenge, perhaps?
Having said that...
"So, just wondering- if you, yes you, could torture one little innocent infant and know that it would bring the world peace, would you do it?"
This was from Dostoyevsky- let me try and find the whole passage somewhere:
Here goes:
"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -
that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth?"
What did we ever do before the Internet? Oh, thats right. We read actual books.
Torture? No. Kill, maybe. There is a huge ethical difference. To me, swift killing is more open to moral relativism, but torture is an unqualified abomination. If torture is the price of "civilization" -- and there is evidence that it is -- then the price is too high.
My guess as to what you're driving at here is that your ends (securing the zionist state) justify your means (invading Palestine, stealing it from the
natives per Jabotinsky, and violating their human rights indefinitely into
the future). On this I absolutely disagree. Your ends are simply not as noble as you insist.
But do you find that the Palestinian end justifies the means? The killing of innocents to achieve the elimination of Israel?
Also, you're kidding yourself if you really think the end is 'peace.' Like a certain greedy type of European that was irresistibly drawn to America,
Some were drawn to America by the hope of practicing their religion freely.
And I really do think the end is "peace"
zionists are imperialists at heart. The imperialist impulse is
pathological, i.e. is never satisfied.
History and Politics do not bear this out. The Zionists agreed many times to a small, non contiguous state They were rebuked each time. Israel had control of the
entire Sinai peninsula. They returned it to Egypt in exchange for peace. If the goal was simply to acquire territory, they would have spent their energy defending it.
Just as 50% of North America -- a realm larger than any ancient empire --
wasn't enough to satisfy the US craving for empire, neither will all the territory west of the Jordan River satisfy the Zionists.
Then why were they so willing to give back Sinai? And for that matter, Gaza (which Egypt refused, the first time it was offered, BTW)?
By the time the Palestinian conflict is resolved (if ever) you'll be so entrenched in the psychology of war and conquest that you'll invent new bogeymen in order to have new worlds to conquer. Just like the US has.
MARK MY WORDS.
I hope not.
"The vast majority of Arab immigration into this area FOLLOWED the Jewish return."
Yes, Harriet, I have seen this crap before, plenty of times. Like most zionist historical postulates it's manipulative and dishonest. Even as I'm showing you the Jabotinsky quotes that blow this bullshit apart, you're still coughing up this canned canard as if you never saw them. This willful denseness is one of the ways you really piss me off.
Here's more that blows this shit apart:
<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/demograhics.html>
Yes- there were some non-Jews living in the land. The ones that remained after the 1948 war are the Israeli Arabs of today.
They have full citizenship in Israel.
So I don't need to repeat the demographic history of the region:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1799822_comment.php#1800701
re when have you denounced US criminality: "I started posting
anonymously..."
That's an evasion, not an answer. You do that a lot. It's another thing that pisses me off.
If I detailed every claim of yours, my post would be 13 pages long. As it is, the moderators are pissed at me and have me auto-blocked from my main computer.
"[Britt's list] is a pretty good standard though- do you have a better one?"
I have ideas that IMO are a more lucid window on the problem. Ask any two political theorists what fascism is and you get two different answers. I think this is because the idea that it's a discrete entity is in error, in fact using the word 'fascism' to label and delimit the problem is a serious
conceptual mistake. 'Fascism' is correctly applied to specific places during
a certain historical period, places where processes unfolded that SYMBOLIZE
the destination of classist and systemically corrupt societies (a.k.a.
"civilizations") once they've gotten their hands on a certain level of technology. "Fascism" is just a new variation on the ancient theme of elites conspiring to rig the game so that ALL advantage funnels solely toward them,
while leaving everyone else miserable and SYSTEMATICALLY CONFUSED so that they're powerless to change things.
Sounds a lot like 21st century America. This is taking a depressing turn, isn't it?
This is simply civilization's basic
agenda.
Ok- so your definition of fascism is a situation where the "elites"(defined, i assume, by power, priviledge and money?) use psychological, technological and miliatry means to subrogate their population.
Don't all governments do that? Some better than others?
All this is consistent with some stuff Mussolini said:
...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of...Marxian Socialism, the
materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained
simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and
by the change and development in the means and instruments of production....
Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to
say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect.
Interesting definition of holiness and heroism. No economic motive.
And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while
the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied -
the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all
Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....
Ok- so according to the communist Marxist line of thought, class warfare is the only means of societal change. According to facist theory, this is not true.
Do I have that right?
What does history bear out?
Do class wars really eliminate the "elite"? Or do they simply replace one elite with another? Has there ever been a non-heirarchal government?
After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic
ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its
practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact
that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers
alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the
immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never
be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process
such as universal suffrage....
...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility,
and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of
liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and
possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power
in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....
Hmmm- sounds a lot like my democracy without choice dilemma....
...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the
nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign
of decadence.
-- from the 1932 Italian Encyclopedia
And there is also the older model of mass control at work in this, i.e.
religion. You've intimated that you're a feminist, Harriet. Can you not see
the contradiction in believing in a patriarchal God? Look, that God is
bullshit. The real God is absolutely concrete, tangible, manifest. YOU KNOW
THIS!! That's what you're understanding down deep as you watch the world die
and it breaks your heart. That's REAL ancestral wisdom welling up out of
your primordial mind and speaking to you!
THIS AMAZING LIVING WORLD **IS** GOD!!!
It is our creator! Not that pie in the sky all-knowing sadist that only a
child could believe in. God is far more huge and profound and REAL than that
nonsense.
This is just one more of the things your most ancient ancestors -- the
"cavemen" -- knew with certainty. We've been taught to spit back through
history on their belief, which we call 'animism.' It wasn't just a set of
silly incoherent superstitions. We miss the point entirely. It was worship
of the world as a manifest deity. That's triumphantly rational, while our
"modern" concepts of "faith" are the demented delusions. There is no
"supernatural," manifest nature is all there needs to be. Think how
different the course of history would be had we never shrunk into the
sterile narcissism of using the humanoid God as an excuse to worship ONLY
OURSELVES!!
If you really deeply love the living world as I do, I know this speaks to
you.
Everything modern society has taught you to believe is garbage, Tia. I
really mean it. To find real truth you must turn your back on all that and
JUST SIMPLY OPEN YOUR EYES! The Truth of things is manifest all around you.
The function of modern "civilized" culture is to make you blind. The people
of this time are shadows of their ancient selves, cowards and anti-heroes.
That's what 10,000 years of enslavement has done to us.
I don't write well and I don't operate in an intellectual realm. I'm not sure how to respond to you without resorting to clichés or platitudes or John Donne quotes. And I don't disagree with what you are saying.
Its a cold dark night in a cold dark world. According to the Atomic Scientists the time is 3 minutes to midnight. Its a world where raising a child or planting a tree becomes a supreme act of faith.
There are behaviors, practices, thoughts, actions...that sanctify the name of god, help us heal the world, help us reach self actualization, help us evolve and grow. And there are behaviors that don't. It doesn't matter to me if people use the language of religion, "secular humanism" or the language of Dr. Phil. Some actions move us closer to the source of all
light, some push us further away. Fighting against cynicism in the world rather than giving in to it is the true test of the warrior. I understand what you are saying. I like what you are saying. But ultimately, isn't cosmology irrelevant? Isn't it our behaviors that count? Towards our fellow travellers, as well as towards our mother, our god?
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.
One impulse from a vernal wood
Can teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
Wordsworth Tables Turned
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