U$er
It strikes me as unjust to speak of ‘The American Army,' or ‘American Government,' or ‘Americans' when what's actually meant is the United States. After all, Argentina is no less a part of America than the United States, but Argentina has nothing to do with the U.S. government or its machinations. Instead I use the term ‘U$er.' The term U$er is better than ‘American' because it's
clear we are not talking about Cubans, who aren't any less American than U$ers, nor frankly are we talking about U$ citizens who have no real say in their lives or their government, which is the majority of us. All we are talking about is U$ers: those who support and/or profit by the current reign of criminals.
The main characteristic of U$ers is their attitude toward the rest of the world. It is there, they say, for them to USE. Some of them pompously wonder if they are perhaps they are Using too much of it too fast, and soon there may be less for them to USE. People and other living things that they have no USE for, they kill without even a second thought, as they have for 400 years.
U$ers wring their hands that all their killing and U$ing might be affecting them psychologically, that their nightmares might stop them from a long future of U$ing, which they see as their birthright. It never occurs to them that their killing might have done damage to those they killed. It also never occurs to them that those they killed might have relatives who would want revenge. U$ers have no use for revenge, unless it is their own, and so they declare it meaningless. U$ers are surprised when anyone fights back.
U$ers have the most and best weapons in the world, and because of this they think they are safe. Anytime they feel insecure, they buy more weapons or bomb a city, and it makes them feel powerful. But actually they are weak and stupid and increasingly isolated in the world.
U$ers imagine that remaining ignorant makes them innocent of their crimes. After all, if they were just following their leaders and doing what they saw everyone else doing, then how could they be wrong? To a U$er, there is no difference between doing what is right and obeying authority. If you tell a U$er that this ‘morality' is the morality of lynch mobs and Nazis, the U$er will be insulted and either try to lynch you too, if the U$er has the guts, or (more likely) they will report you as a troublemaker. Being reported as a troublemaker means the criminal authorities might drag you away to be tortured. But take heart. There is infinitely more honor in being tortured and killed by the U$ers than in joining them.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Meeting a Blackwater Guy, For Real
My last paying job was as a video store clerk which derived most of its income from what the boss called the ‘family education section,’ or triple-x porn. On Sunday nights there was a dead period of almost no business from about 5:30 till about 5 minutes before we closed, and so I had plenty of time to chat with a visitor who came in then.
His name was Charley, he said, and he was from somewhere in southside Virginia. He did security work, he said. I was curious. I have done a little security work here and there, mainly bouncing in clubs. He said he worked for Blackwater Corporation as a courier. He was just in transport, he said, no actual operations. He said his job consisted of driving every week from Florida to Maine and back again carrying a small package. The package in the past had always been a computer disk, but this week he said it was a small heavy piece of heavy rock or metal. He said he was ordered to vary the route and avoid Interstate 95. Fo this he said he was paid over $100,000 per year. He described Blackwater Corp as the Bush family private mercenary force.
He was over six feet four, over 300 lbs. He wore a fine black leather coat that reached to his ankles. He claimed he had a record of 93 assaults, but I couldn’t tell if that was the law’s count on him or his own. I assume his own. He described the last one, involving alcohol and an ex girlfriend and Charley dragging some guy out of bed and beating him to a pulp. He said Blackwater preferred that recruits have some criminal record, ‘if it’s not too bad,’ he said, ‘a criminal record shows you’re not afraid to do what’s necessary to get the job done.’
He said the last in the last part of the training, he was awoken in the middle of the night, and told he was going to Saudi Arabia. He was given a side-arm but no ammo and flown in a military aircraft to a place that looked to him like Saudi Arabia. (Later he was told it had been Utah.) He was made to watch as apparent Saudis interrogated an apparent Saudi terror suspect, an elderly woman. The interrogation was pretty rough, he said, although all the talk was in a language he did not understand, as he watched through video monitors. When it was over, his commander told him that the woman had not had any good information after all, but that now she ‘knew too much.’ His commander handed him a single round of ammo for his pistol. Charley said he chambered the round, walked into the room, put the muzzle to her head and pulled the trigger. The bullet turned out to be a dummy, and he had passed the test. Now he was a Blackwater guy.
My last paying job was as a video store clerk which derived most of its income from what the boss called the ‘family education section,’ or triple-x porn. On Sunday nights there was a dead period of almost no business from about 5:30 till about 5 minutes before we closed, and so I had plenty of time to chat with a visitor who came in then.
His name was Charley, he said, and he was from somewhere in southside Virginia. He did security work, he said. I was curious. I have done a little security work here and there, mainly bouncing in clubs. He said he worked for Blackwater Corporation as a courier. He was just in transport, he said, no actual operations. He said his job consisted of driving every week from Florida to Maine and back again carrying a small package. The package in the past had always been a computer disk, but this week he said it was a small heavy piece of heavy rock or metal. He said he was ordered to vary the route and avoid Interstate 95. Fo this he said he was paid over $100,000 per year. He described Blackwater Corp as the Bush family private mercenary force.
He was over six feet four, over 300 lbs. He wore a fine black leather coat that reached to his ankles. He claimed he had a record of 93 assaults, but I couldn’t tell if that was the law’s count on him or his own. I assume his own. He described the last one, involving alcohol and an ex girlfriend and Charley dragging some guy out of bed and beating him to a pulp. He said Blackwater preferred that recruits have some criminal record, ‘if it’s not too bad,’ he said, ‘a criminal record shows you’re not afraid to do what’s necessary to get the job done.’
He said the last in the last part of the training, he was awoken in the middle of the night, and told he was going to Saudi Arabia. He was given a side-arm but no ammo and flown in a military aircraft to a place that looked to him like Saudi Arabia. (Later he was told it had been Utah.) He was made to watch as apparent Saudis interrogated an apparent Saudi terror suspect, an elderly woman. The interrogation was pretty rough, he said, although all the talk was in a language he did not understand, as he watched through video monitors. When it was over, his commander told him that the woman had not had any good information after all, but that now she ‘knew too much.’ His commander handed him a single round of ammo for his pistol. Charley said he chambered the round, walked into the room, put the muzzle to her head and pulled the trigger. The bullet turned out to be a dummy, and he had passed the test. Now he was a Blackwater guy.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
So it's all still here. I'm impressed. I stopped doing the web log thing for awhile, partly out of a fear that people were not listening, and partly out of a fear that they _were_ listening. But the time for that is done. As the Pirate Yellowbeard said, "Dyin' is takin' the easy way out. When they stretched me out on a rack for a couple of years, I didn't go dying all over the place. They'll have to kill me before I die!" So I am not going to shut up just for fear of what they -might- do.
Nothing I have seen in the past 7 years has shaken my conviction that GW Butch is nothing but an evil piece of white trash. He and his whole administration should go on trial for war crimes. And inasmuch as it was appropriate to try Eichmann for his Nazi War Crimes in Israel, it should be appropriate to try the Bushies in Baghdad. They should face Iraqi justice, and if they are found guilty, they should be unceremoniously strung up in their dank jail cells while grainy video cameras roll.
There is nothing that could ever happen to Bush or any of his people that could come close to equalling the magnitude of their crimes and treachery. And sadly, vengeance won't undo the damage they have done.
So if Justice will not right the wrongs they have done, or bring back the innocent dead, why bother? Why not just let them get off scot free? After all, that's what they expect. To a conservative, a public official being held personally responsible for war crimes is absurd. To a conservative, any crime committed by a head of state is OK, provided it leads to victory. Laws, to a conservative, are only there to give cops an excuse to beat up black people.
So as happy as it might make conservatives to let these war criminals get off, and still go around painting themselves as 'leaders,' or 'statesmen,' what will it say about the rest of us? If we refuse to pronounce the guilt of our leaders, then doesn't make us accessories to their crimes? Doesn't that make us part of the cover-up? Isn't there blood on all of our hands, if we will not turn over our so-called 'president' to face Iraqi justice?
Nothing I have seen in the past 7 years has shaken my conviction that GW Butch is nothing but an evil piece of white trash. He and his whole administration should go on trial for war crimes. And inasmuch as it was appropriate to try Eichmann for his Nazi War Crimes in Israel, it should be appropriate to try the Bushies in Baghdad. They should face Iraqi justice, and if they are found guilty, they should be unceremoniously strung up in their dank jail cells while grainy video cameras roll.
There is nothing that could ever happen to Bush or any of his people that could come close to equalling the magnitude of their crimes and treachery. And sadly, vengeance won't undo the damage they have done.
So if Justice will not right the wrongs they have done, or bring back the innocent dead, why bother? Why not just let them get off scot free? After all, that's what they expect. To a conservative, a public official being held personally responsible for war crimes is absurd. To a conservative, any crime committed by a head of state is OK, provided it leads to victory. Laws, to a conservative, are only there to give cops an excuse to beat up black people.
So as happy as it might make conservatives to let these war criminals get off, and still go around painting themselves as 'leaders,' or 'statesmen,' what will it say about the rest of us? If we refuse to pronounce the guilt of our leaders, then doesn't make us accessories to their crimes? Doesn't that make us part of the cover-up? Isn't there blood on all of our hands, if we will not turn over our so-called 'president' to face Iraqi justice?
Monday, April 10, 2006
Intelligent design / Stupid design
It seems to me that a main difference between real scientists and these intelligent design people is this. True scientists say 'It's a big and mysterious universe, and the things we think we know could be wrong.' Theologians, on the other hand, say 'It's a big and mysterious universe, and the things we keep saying might turn out to be true.'
Religion is like selling real estate you don't get to see until you die. Are you buying this?
Mark Twain had it when he said 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so.'
It occurs to me that modern religion (in the West) appears so absurd because it's only half there. The other half of fully operational religion is the torture chambers. The 'theology' only makes sense when it works fist-in-glove with a system of repression, spies, and torture. Without torture, who would believe this stuff? But when understood as the stuff you are _required_ to believe under penalty of real torture, then its very implausability becomes an additional torture, an additional twist of the knife, as it were, to really screw up any kind of rational thought.
Maybe all the followers of the Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, meeting on a battlefield and all slaughtering one another in one final Wargasm of religious piety is not such a bad idea.
Maybe Evil really does undo itself, eventually. That would be a fun thing to believe, whether it's true or not.
Don't think these thoughts.
Shhhhhh.
It seems to me that a main difference between real scientists and these intelligent design people is this. True scientists say 'It's a big and mysterious universe, and the things we think we know could be wrong.' Theologians, on the other hand, say 'It's a big and mysterious universe, and the things we keep saying might turn out to be true.'
Religion is like selling real estate you don't get to see until you die. Are you buying this?
Mark Twain had it when he said 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so.'
It occurs to me that modern religion (in the West) appears so absurd because it's only half there. The other half of fully operational religion is the torture chambers. The 'theology' only makes sense when it works fist-in-glove with a system of repression, spies, and torture. Without torture, who would believe this stuff? But when understood as the stuff you are _required_ to believe under penalty of real torture, then its very implausability becomes an additional torture, an additional twist of the knife, as it were, to really screw up any kind of rational thought.
Maybe all the followers of the Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, meeting on a battlefield and all slaughtering one another in one final Wargasm of religious piety is not such a bad idea.
Maybe Evil really does undo itself, eventually. That would be a fun thing to believe, whether it's true or not.
Don't think these thoughts.
Shhhhhh.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Mitzvahpalooza
The New York Daily News reported on Nov 29
"History will forever record Elizabeth Brooks' bat mitzvah as "Mitzvahpalooza."
For his daughter's coming-of-age celebration last weekend, multimillionaire Long Island defense contractor David H. Brooks booked two floors of the Rainbow Room, hauled in concert-ready equipment, built a stage, installed special carpeting, outfitted the space with Jumbotrons and arranged command performances by everyone from 50 Cent to Tom Petty to Aerosmith...."
The article goes on to list the other big names brought in for the event, and the estimated price tag of 10 million dollars.
Meanwhile the wearers of Mr. Brooks's bullet-proof vests are kicking down doors and torturing brown people from Bagdhad to Bali to Baltimore. That ten million dollars came from the premium the rich pay so they and their agents can shoot poor people without risking injury to themselves. It must be *nice* to be the beneficiary of so much greed coupled with such a strong desire to deny freedom to other people. I'm sure that whatever god blesses crusaders, zionists, and jihadists will look down on Ms. Brooks and smile.
You can tell how much injustice a nation has by the number of cops it takes to keep it that way. So what's it going to take? How many more cops will it take before ignorant rich bastards don't feel scared anymore? Humph. The extent of ignorant fear is near infinite. Maybe the real question is, how many 10 million dollar bat mitzvahs will it take before all of Bush's supporters have had their fill? Or, maybe it's how many ten million dollar bat mitzvahs will it take before the US Gov't's Asian Creditors start to lower the boom.
Speaking of the Asian Creditors, what is their angle on the war in Iraq? Clearly, if bankers in China and Japan said 'Stop the war, or we stop paying for it,' then the chicken hawks would have to stop and take notice. It must be that China and Japan have been promised some or possibly most of Iraq's oil, once it gets developed. That would give them a reason to back Bush with their money, if not out loud in the world.
It's not even real to most Americans that this money will have to be paid back. When that time comes, it should wipe out the rest of the social programs, virtually everything the government does that does not involve violence. This is part of the Republican plan to 'drown the US government in a bath tub' after having wrecked its finances, robbed its treasuries, dishonored its military, and basicly rammed the ship of state straight onto the iceberg of destruction, with the nuclear drive Fully Engaged.
But heck, who wouldn't rather have 10 million dollar bat mitzvahs than a free country, anyway?
The New York Daily News reported on Nov 29
"History will forever record Elizabeth Brooks' bat mitzvah as "Mitzvahpalooza."
For his daughter's coming-of-age celebration last weekend, multimillionaire Long Island defense contractor David H. Brooks booked two floors of the Rainbow Room, hauled in concert-ready equipment, built a stage, installed special carpeting, outfitted the space with Jumbotrons and arranged command performances by everyone from 50 Cent to Tom Petty to Aerosmith...."
The article goes on to list the other big names brought in for the event, and the estimated price tag of 10 million dollars.
Meanwhile the wearers of Mr. Brooks's bullet-proof vests are kicking down doors and torturing brown people from Bagdhad to Bali to Baltimore. That ten million dollars came from the premium the rich pay so they and their agents can shoot poor people without risking injury to themselves. It must be *nice* to be the beneficiary of so much greed coupled with such a strong desire to deny freedom to other people. I'm sure that whatever god blesses crusaders, zionists, and jihadists will look down on Ms. Brooks and smile.
You can tell how much injustice a nation has by the number of cops it takes to keep it that way. So what's it going to take? How many more cops will it take before ignorant rich bastards don't feel scared anymore? Humph. The extent of ignorant fear is near infinite. Maybe the real question is, how many 10 million dollar bat mitzvahs will it take before all of Bush's supporters have had their fill? Or, maybe it's how many ten million dollar bat mitzvahs will it take before the US Gov't's Asian Creditors start to lower the boom.
Speaking of the Asian Creditors, what is their angle on the war in Iraq? Clearly, if bankers in China and Japan said 'Stop the war, or we stop paying for it,' then the chicken hawks would have to stop and take notice. It must be that China and Japan have been promised some or possibly most of Iraq's oil, once it gets developed. That would give them a reason to back Bush with their money, if not out loud in the world.
It's not even real to most Americans that this money will have to be paid back. When that time comes, it should wipe out the rest of the social programs, virtually everything the government does that does not involve violence. This is part of the Republican plan to 'drown the US government in a bath tub' after having wrecked its finances, robbed its treasuries, dishonored its military, and basicly rammed the ship of state straight onto the iceberg of destruction, with the nuclear drive Fully Engaged.
But heck, who wouldn't rather have 10 million dollar bat mitzvahs than a free country, anyway?
Monday, November 28, 2005
Cheating and Lying
It was in the late '90's that I noticed a story in the news that two thirds of American college kids admitted cheating on exams and papers. Two thirds is an important proportion of a population. It's the center of the bell curve. When two thirds of a group agree on something, the remaining minority know they are _really_ a minority, and the issue has been settled, and any further discussion will be regarded as in poor taste. So it was in the late 90's that an American concensus formed around the notion that cheating and lying were just part of succeeding in today's world. This concensus included a generation of future leaders, from the country club set on down, and it included their parents, teachers, and the entire adult power structure, at least to the extent that all these encouraged cheating by looking the other way.
To me this seemed a disheartening change at a foundational level of the country's values, and I wondered when and how it would start to 'hit home' in terms of real consequences. I suppose we are seeing it, in the current Bush administration.
The Katrina cockup, for example, spread far and wide to every level of government. It seems like a sort of generalized shotgun blast of trouble all over a lot of different groups, but it all makes sense when one realizes that all the trouble boils down to people not doing their jobs, and routinely signing off as if they did. In other words, it boils down to individuals choosing to cheat rather than do what they are supposed to do.
Individuals make this choice in an atmosphere where 'everyone is doing it,' and there is pressure on everyone to 'cheat' so that they enter the code of silence of the guilty. This 'cheating' phenomenon was endemic at every level from the New Orleans Police Dept to the Oval Office.
Related to the 'cheating' phenomenon (kissing cousins, perhaps) is the phenomenon of Lying , repeatedly, and shamelessly, and expecting others, particularly those of lower status, to accept the Lie and pretend to believe it. This is the usual dynamic in abusive households, and the USA is nothing if not an abusive household writ large.
I have made a careful study of the current occupant of the white building on Pennsylvania Ave, and I am certain that virtually all the times he tells a lie, his lips can clearly be seen to move. Hyper-analysis of thousands of hours of video footage reveals a virtual one-to-one correspondance between the Subject's lips moving, and the emanation of a lie therefrom. (Sounds that were not lies tended to be grunts and coughs with no apparent information content.) This is what poker players call a 'tell.' A 'tell' is a nervous habit other players can see that indicates a given player is attempting to deceive them, either bluffing or faking a bluff. Virtually every time Mister Bush appears before a camera and moves his lips, his intent is to deceive, to dissemble, to disinform, to distort, and then to dictate to the scared and stupid that they must flock together behind him with the other War Sheep, or else Santa Claus, Jesus, and the FBI will put them on the Naughty list.
Here in the Shopping Season, we take heart because once again we call Jesus to be born in our world. And like Pagans everywhere I pray earnestly that Jesus show up to lead his Flock with his Righteousness, and in Glory to Someplace Far Away where they can only harm each other. Failing that, I hope He shows up and tells them to give their wealth to the poor (just like before,) and they scatter like chaff before the wind.
Why am I proud to be Pagan? Simply, because my two least favorite living humans, Great White Beast Bush and Osama Bin Laden agree on exactly one thing: They both hate Pagans, and call each other Pagans as a slur. Good. Whatever they both fear most is what I want to be.
A friend of mine used to say that the Truth is the most powerful weapon in a world powered by lies. Maybe if we all made a point of telling some uncomfortable Truth in our own lives this season, the resonance could carry all the way to the highest levels, and shake away the veils of deception behind which todays mass murderers hide.
The Truth is the US Military, which used to have some honor, kicks in the doors of innocent people, shoots journalists in the head at close range, burns and dishonors the bodies of its victims, rapes children and posts pictures of all these atrocities on the internet. And every one of them is a volunteer, who hopes to gain monetarily from supressing the Iraqis or the Afghanis. In short, they are a mercenary army sent far away to steal somebody else's country, and every man and woman of them volunteered. That's the Truth.
The Truth is that about half of Americans who bothered to vote actually voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. It may be possible to believe that in 2000 some people did not know that Bush would be such a disaster. But by 2004, there was no mistaking what was plainly the Truth, that Bush had damaged the USA more thoroughly than any terrorist or enemy ever could. The Americans who voted for Bush in 2004 freely approved crimes against humanity, torture, and the theft of billions in public money.
No people anywhere was so brazenly Evil that it voted for the 911 terror attacks. You can't find lists of thousands of people who gave their money specifically to see Americans die. But the same is not true of the atrocities of the US military. Millions of Americans saw the torture pictures from Iraq and actually voted for more of the same. Thousands of Americans gave big money to continue the war crimes. These people should be exposed for what they are, and neither they, nor their children, nor their children's children should ever be allowed to forget what they did to our country.
It was in the late '90's that I noticed a story in the news that two thirds of American college kids admitted cheating on exams and papers. Two thirds is an important proportion of a population. It's the center of the bell curve. When two thirds of a group agree on something, the remaining minority know they are _really_ a minority, and the issue has been settled, and any further discussion will be regarded as in poor taste. So it was in the late 90's that an American concensus formed around the notion that cheating and lying were just part of succeeding in today's world. This concensus included a generation of future leaders, from the country club set on down, and it included their parents, teachers, and the entire adult power structure, at least to the extent that all these encouraged cheating by looking the other way.
To me this seemed a disheartening change at a foundational level of the country's values, and I wondered when and how it would start to 'hit home' in terms of real consequences. I suppose we are seeing it, in the current Bush administration.
The Katrina cockup, for example, spread far and wide to every level of government. It seems like a sort of generalized shotgun blast of trouble all over a lot of different groups, but it all makes sense when one realizes that all the trouble boils down to people not doing their jobs, and routinely signing off as if they did. In other words, it boils down to individuals choosing to cheat rather than do what they are supposed to do.
Individuals make this choice in an atmosphere where 'everyone is doing it,' and there is pressure on everyone to 'cheat' so that they enter the code of silence of the guilty. This 'cheating' phenomenon was endemic at every level from the New Orleans Police Dept to the Oval Office.
Related to the 'cheating' phenomenon (kissing cousins, perhaps) is the phenomenon of Lying , repeatedly, and shamelessly, and expecting others, particularly those of lower status, to accept the Lie and pretend to believe it. This is the usual dynamic in abusive households, and the USA is nothing if not an abusive household writ large.
I have made a careful study of the current occupant of the white building on Pennsylvania Ave, and I am certain that virtually all the times he tells a lie, his lips can clearly be seen to move. Hyper-analysis of thousands of hours of video footage reveals a virtual one-to-one correspondance between the Subject's lips moving, and the emanation of a lie therefrom. (Sounds that were not lies tended to be grunts and coughs with no apparent information content.) This is what poker players call a 'tell.' A 'tell' is a nervous habit other players can see that indicates a given player is attempting to deceive them, either bluffing or faking a bluff. Virtually every time Mister Bush appears before a camera and moves his lips, his intent is to deceive, to dissemble, to disinform, to distort, and then to dictate to the scared and stupid that they must flock together behind him with the other War Sheep, or else Santa Claus, Jesus, and the FBI will put them on the Naughty list.
Here in the Shopping Season, we take heart because once again we call Jesus to be born in our world. And like Pagans everywhere I pray earnestly that Jesus show up to lead his Flock with his Righteousness, and in Glory to Someplace Far Away where they can only harm each other. Failing that, I hope He shows up and tells them to give their wealth to the poor (just like before,) and they scatter like chaff before the wind.
Why am I proud to be Pagan? Simply, because my two least favorite living humans, Great White Beast Bush and Osama Bin Laden agree on exactly one thing: They both hate Pagans, and call each other Pagans as a slur. Good. Whatever they both fear most is what I want to be.
A friend of mine used to say that the Truth is the most powerful weapon in a world powered by lies. Maybe if we all made a point of telling some uncomfortable Truth in our own lives this season, the resonance could carry all the way to the highest levels, and shake away the veils of deception behind which todays mass murderers hide.
The Truth is the US Military, which used to have some honor, kicks in the doors of innocent people, shoots journalists in the head at close range, burns and dishonors the bodies of its victims, rapes children and posts pictures of all these atrocities on the internet. And every one of them is a volunteer, who hopes to gain monetarily from supressing the Iraqis or the Afghanis. In short, they are a mercenary army sent far away to steal somebody else's country, and every man and woman of them volunteered. That's the Truth.
The Truth is that about half of Americans who bothered to vote actually voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. It may be possible to believe that in 2000 some people did not know that Bush would be such a disaster. But by 2004, there was no mistaking what was plainly the Truth, that Bush had damaged the USA more thoroughly than any terrorist or enemy ever could. The Americans who voted for Bush in 2004 freely approved crimes against humanity, torture, and the theft of billions in public money.
No people anywhere was so brazenly Evil that it voted for the 911 terror attacks. You can't find lists of thousands of people who gave their money specifically to see Americans die. But the same is not true of the atrocities of the US military. Millions of Americans saw the torture pictures from Iraq and actually voted for more of the same. Thousands of Americans gave big money to continue the war crimes. These people should be exposed for what they are, and neither they, nor their children, nor their children's children should ever be allowed to forget what they did to our country.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Who won the Cold War?
When I was a kid, there was this thing called the Cold War. The world was split between two competing ideologies that went out of their way to offer contrasts with one another. We were The Free World, and they were Behind The Iron Curtain. We had Free Speech, and they had jailed writers. We had Freedom of Religion, and they were Godless Communists who told you what to believe. We earnestly believed that every American who'd ever fought in Uniform had fought For Freedom, and if he died fighting, it was a noble sacrifice for a Great Cause. G.I. Joe might as well have been Martin Luther King. We believed Others might fight because they loved their country, especially the British or French, but just about every other army in the world was of brainwashed conscripts kept on rabbit food. And in any event, love of country was a lesser thing than fighting 'for freedom' which was the lofty motivation of every American who'd ever killed a stranger on command. Our side, which was conveniently called 'U.S.' in case we forgot who to cheer for, also harped constantly on the Commies about Human Rights. Freedom, of course, meant you could not be picked up by government agents and whisked off to some secret torture camp in Romania. You had rights. They couldn't do anything to you without a public trial (unless you were Black.) In ONE respect the two opposites mirrored each other exactly. We had their civilian population as hostage to our nuclear weapons, and they had our civilian population as hostage to their nuclear weapons. This ingenious compromise (hey, world leaders were Smart Guys, right? so anything that incomprehensible had to be genius...) was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or 'MAD' for short.
Then the Cold War ended. Our leaders gloated as the Soviet Union fell apart. Freedom Reigned Supreme, and the good guys had kicked serious ass by just spending money (giving it to defense contractors) faster than the Russians could match, for forty years. The Russians were big losers, and the defense contractors were the big winners. That might help explain how the weapons business has spread its tentacles into virtually every city or town. Almost anywhere in America, in any room full of respectable people with jobs, you can bet at least two or three of them work in the defense business, owe their careers to it, and will vociferously defend every last dollar that has ever been spent on defense, and darkly hint that They, doing Their Job are the only thing keeping you safe from the Enemy Du Jour.
But now that the Cold War is over, it is harder to recognize our side. We used to criticize the Soviets for occupying Afghanistan and committing war crimes there. Now our side occupies Afghanistan and commits war crimes there. We used to criticize the Soviets for violating human rights, and now our side asserts that neither the Geneva Conventions nor any other law apply to 'terror suspects,' or to anyone the President/military/CIA claims is a terror suspect. (If they are being held secretly, then they _must_ be terror suspects.) The Russians used to be the main trading partner of Red China, and so were partially responsible for human rights abuses there. Today our side is the main trading partner of Red China, and is billions of dollars in debt to Red China, and never mentions China's human rights abuses. We used to criticize the Soviets for having a vast secret police/torture infrastructure, and today our side are using the very same sites for the very same purpose.
I say 'our side,' but is it really? Who is really on our side? Is the United States Government really on our side? What has the U.S. Government become? What have We the People become?
When I was a kid, there was this thing called the Cold War. The world was split between two competing ideologies that went out of their way to offer contrasts with one another. We were The Free World, and they were Behind The Iron Curtain. We had Free Speech, and they had jailed writers. We had Freedom of Religion, and they were Godless Communists who told you what to believe. We earnestly believed that every American who'd ever fought in Uniform had fought For Freedom, and if he died fighting, it was a noble sacrifice for a Great Cause. G.I. Joe might as well have been Martin Luther King. We believed Others might fight because they loved their country, especially the British or French, but just about every other army in the world was of brainwashed conscripts kept on rabbit food. And in any event, love of country was a lesser thing than fighting 'for freedom' which was the lofty motivation of every American who'd ever killed a stranger on command. Our side, which was conveniently called 'U.S.' in case we forgot who to cheer for, also harped constantly on the Commies about Human Rights. Freedom, of course, meant you could not be picked up by government agents and whisked off to some secret torture camp in Romania. You had rights. They couldn't do anything to you without a public trial (unless you were Black.) In ONE respect the two opposites mirrored each other exactly. We had their civilian population as hostage to our nuclear weapons, and they had our civilian population as hostage to their nuclear weapons. This ingenious compromise (hey, world leaders were Smart Guys, right? so anything that incomprehensible had to be genius...) was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or 'MAD' for short.
Then the Cold War ended. Our leaders gloated as the Soviet Union fell apart. Freedom Reigned Supreme, and the good guys had kicked serious ass by just spending money (giving it to defense contractors) faster than the Russians could match, for forty years. The Russians were big losers, and the defense contractors were the big winners. That might help explain how the weapons business has spread its tentacles into virtually every city or town. Almost anywhere in America, in any room full of respectable people with jobs, you can bet at least two or three of them work in the defense business, owe their careers to it, and will vociferously defend every last dollar that has ever been spent on defense, and darkly hint that They, doing Their Job are the only thing keeping you safe from the Enemy Du Jour.
But now that the Cold War is over, it is harder to recognize our side. We used to criticize the Soviets for occupying Afghanistan and committing war crimes there. Now our side occupies Afghanistan and commits war crimes there. We used to criticize the Soviets for violating human rights, and now our side asserts that neither the Geneva Conventions nor any other law apply to 'terror suspects,' or to anyone the President/military/CIA claims is a terror suspect. (If they are being held secretly, then they _must_ be terror suspects.) The Russians used to be the main trading partner of Red China, and so were partially responsible for human rights abuses there. Today our side is the main trading partner of Red China, and is billions of dollars in debt to Red China, and never mentions China's human rights abuses. We used to criticize the Soviets for having a vast secret police/torture infrastructure, and today our side are using the very same sites for the very same purpose.
I say 'our side,' but is it really? Who is really on our side? Is the United States Government really on our side? What has the U.S. Government become? What have We the People become?
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