Kalpanishads

A Song for Dark Times

2012-01-29T00:03:00.000-08:00

"Smile when you're bused out!"

Obama: To Remain Great Americans Must Come Together, like SEAL Team 6, and Dispatch Our Problems with a Shot to the Face

2012-01-25T00:38:00.000-08:00

"We can be the greatest Kill Team ever, America!"

We're also "a more respected and safer nation" because of the Iraq War.

Where Is Professor Juan Cole When Libya Needs Him?

2012-01-21T14:43:00.000-08:00

Protesters storm provisional government headquarters in Benghazi, Libya. If only Professor Juan Cole was there to assuage those who have suffered thousands of bombs, deaths, and chaos from NATO's "humanitarian" intervention. Dr. Cole tends to support the early militaristic phase of intervention and then, after the dust settles and brutalized people awaken and protest, he pivots to "criticism"(e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan). Or he could just remain silent(e.g. Serbia).

Sovereign

2012-01-18T10:28:00.000-08:00

Chord to discord,
tongue split,
broken word.

The invisible hand
over mouths
breaks accord.

You take dominion
for tenderness.

Each affront,
a new distress,

Because nothing
is meaningless

In fear of
that cold hand
you clasp.

Legend:

There's a dragon
under every bank

Set loose on cloudy nights,
razing homes......

Taking Liberties: Liberation, American Style Pt. 1,450,345

2012-01-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

Our Heroes relieve themselves after safeguarding freedoms we take for granted.

The United States, Empire of Pain

2012-01-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

Poverty, Prisons, Torture, Predatory Finance, Drone Assassination, Occupation, Sanctions, Embargoes, Ubiquitous Surveillance: Pain for all who do not submit to elite Pain-givers.

Media celebs ask politicians how they, to be "serious" leaders, will introduce MORE PAIN to the people of "America". How many more prisons can be built? How many more homeless tent cities?

Nary a question about business subsidies, tax evasion by elites, increased military spending and a globalized torture and assassination policy. Pain-giving is always encouraged, never questioned. That's "serious".

It is no surprise Industrial Strength Sadism is fashionable with "American" elites. Inflicting pain on others has been a successful model, easily reformed and expanded, for over three centuries. Not surprising, as the elite's wealth and power grows, pain killer use is now epidemic in the "Greatest Nation Forever".

Decay of Perspective

2012-01-10T04:02:00.000-08:00

"I like being able to fire people."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"I like being able to drone murder anyone I deign a terrorist without due process or oversight."
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Though Lazy, I Find Myself Incredibly Clever

2012-01-09T04:50:00.001-08:00

Laziness: Timeless rebellion against the daily labor of the negative.

Jonathan Turley Trickles the Bloody Tripe

2012-01-03T14:28:00.001-08:00

My comment on this--->http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/02/final-curtain-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-of-citizens-into-law-as-final-act-of-2011/

Nice article.

My only quibble is this gibberish:

"You do not 'support our troops' by denying the principles for which they
are fighting."

US troops, with rare exception, fight to serve Imperial need for resource control and extraction. To write such an absurdly naive sentence after so many war crime sprees(Not in any specific order: Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, China, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Cuba, North America etc..) is quite astonishing. It’s nice rhetoric. But the history of US military action in the real world, beyond idylls of patriotic idolatry and rank nationalism, displays the endless abattoir of Capital’s expansion.

When a Political System Has No Legitimacy Authentic Reactionaries Become Messiahs to Luminaries of the Blogosphere

2012-01-03T04:32:00.000-08:00

We champion a few institutions sanctioned by the State above all others, Markets and Private Property.

(Dedicated to Glenn Greenwald, the CATO Institute, Andrew Sullivan, and other Luminaries of the Blogosphere, not forgetting salaried Think Tankers)

It has come to this. "Authentic principles". Championing a candidate for a few sacred threads while ignoring the entire fallen cloth. A man who preaches Gilded Age laissez-faire propertarianism has more appeal than the standard brand R, brand D, establishment candidates (though he carries an R). This is a good thing. Ideological revanchism, hearkening back to original principles lost, will, hopefully, lead to a look past the fog of nostalgia, and inspire a clearer appraisal of our nation's "sacred" origin. Eh, maybe not.

No serious person believes Candidate Paul has a chance, even if elected, of dismantling the War Machine, Inc.. In fact, he himself, at times, finds it necessary to back war when popular opinion demands. He wholeheartedly supported the Afghan War after 9/11, an aggressive action just as unjust and criminal as the Iraq War. A small quibble to be sure, but purists have died for less inconsistency.

Erstwhile blogger activists jumping on Paul's bandwagon still "want to believe" in the system. They treasure hopes this nation will recapture original integrity lost. Alas, rooting for one last daddy figure.

Rep. Paul is the "smarter and better" Reagan of the blogosphere. His failings are charming to bandwagoners who label them "authentic". And, yes, those failings are mere shade set against the billion dollar midnight of establishment money machine politics.

But Rep. Paul has been part of that machine for decades. What has he done other than be a well spoken memento mori for the "Republic"?

A Deafening Hush

2011-12-31T01:30:00.000-08:00

A deafening hush breaks the air. Ill-kept secrets flood ears forbidden to share. Colossal stillness dams every plaint. The ashen pile of our Capital arrogantly marks protest's sepulchre.

Sibylline 2012

2011-12-29T19:57:00.001-08:00

Apollo sings, prosaically(no more Golden Age), through me.

1. War intensifies in Central Africa. Strife stretching from Congo to Somalia. Involving Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Congo, Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia. US and NATO will increase intervention. In years to come region will be balkanized and riven with violence.(like SE Asia in 70's, 80's)

2. Reports of P.M. Zardari of Pakistan's death from Cardiac Arrest will fail to cover up successful military coup.

3. Sectarian war tinders to a blaze in Iraq. The US desires this.

4. Assad crushes western funded resistance and holds onto power. This will lead to US intervention.

5. Russian, China, and Iran tighten alliance. Russia also becomes more offensive towards West as NATO deepens ties with Ukraine.

6. China signs new trade pact with North Korea.

7. China allies with Pakistan against India in Kashmir dispute.

8. President Obama expresses desire to openly intervene in Syria. No fly zone and bombing. Russia and China will protest.

9. VP Biden and Hillary Clinton will switch positions.

10. Jeb Bush will be selected as Republican Presidential candidate in brokered convention at Tampa. His running mate will be Senator Ayotte.

11. Economic conditions will deteriorate in the United States and Europe. The United Kingdom will enter into an economic downturn that will make Greece seem a bagatelle.

12. Bank of America, which is technically insolvent, will finally fall when UK, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Greece default on debt. JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs will require another bail out.

13. China and Japan's deepening economic ties will further isolate US in Far East.

14. Protests will revive in Western Nations as economic conditions worsen and inequality rises. Police brutality will be fierce and protesters will be arrested under recently passed "anti-terrorism laws".

15. Jeb Bush and Ayotte will defeat Obama/Clinton in 2012 election. Low voter turn out will be blamed.

16. Mexican drug war will escalate as US falsely ties Hezbollah to drug cartels and views intervention as part of GWOT.

17. War on Iran drumbeat continues. Posturing by both sides. Status Quo of US sponsored violence in Iran.(assassinating Scientists, bombing installations, funding opposition Iranian terrorist groups).

18. Bahrain's Monarchy falls.

19. Widespread protest in Saudi Arabia.

20. Yemeni situation becomes incredibly unstable. Saudi Arabia intervenes with troops with US permission.

21. Qatar struck with bombings for its efforts in Libya.

22. Turkey suffers unrest because of Kurds fleeing sectarian war in Iraq and Syria's civil war spilling over border.

23. Libya's US/NATO puppets will not be held accountable for atrocities. Neither will US/NATO bombers.

24. Assange will be extradited to Sweden.

25. Pfc. Bradley Manning will be convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for reporting war crimes.

26. Worldwide financial collapse in March.

27. Martial Law will be ordered in United States.

28. London Olympics will be postponed.

29. Taliban mounts offensive against occupiers in Afghanistan at the beginning of spring, record casualties and death tolls.

30. HONY SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE.

* these are predictions, not wishes or prescriptions or endorsements of predicted events

Kalends

2011-12-26T11:24:00.000-08:00

Our cluttered wasteland,

landfill without end,

piles consumption's

protean nothing.

Have Yourself a Total War Christmas

2011-12-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

We have detained Santa Claus for violating U.S. airspace. Keep shopping!

Nice people of America, we wish to remind you that your lovely, and peaceful, crime-free, neighborhoods are a battlefield. At any moment a drone could whistle in and(We're the nice people you've elected, trust us.)...Over a hunch in secret, mandated by law, no possibility of redress(But we have access to information unavailable to you). All is well. It's for your safety. Enjoy the eggnog! Merry Total War Christmas!

The Price Was Worth It. You're Welcome.

2011-12-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

Fallujah, Iraq(Depleted Uranium Gehenna)

“As difficult as [the Iraq war] was,” and the cost in both American and Iraqi lives, “I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world,” he added.
---US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta

Sociopathy amplifies to eleven in statements from officials of the US Gov't on the horrific, and ongoing(arming and funding crony torture state), crime spree of US/NATO in Iraq. The arrogance of a serial killer taking glee in his craft rises to Imperial nostrums.

The titled defenders of the War Crime on Iraq are shit-heels of the lowest order. Look at the picture above and savor a small part of what "The Greatest Nation Forever" did in one city of Iraq.

The Timely Demise of John Bull Spengler

2011-12-16T10:15:00.001-08:00

"Spengler's theory of cultural cycles, that sociological solipsism, was presented as a doctrine of the perennial nature of sharply divided races which could associate with one another only in the form of mutual destruction."
Lukacs, The Destruction of Reason.

Christopher Hitchens was a journalist adept at exhibiting his fustian conceit in polemics against entire groups, and sometimes powerful or lauded individuals, he deemed beneath him. People of faith, especially Muslims, were subhuman. He explicitly wished death would mock their belief. An Atheist Tertullian who, while living, thrilled as he envisioned the death of countless Muslims in the depleted uranium hell fire of cluster bombs.

When Hitchens attacked worthy targets(Kissinger, Falwell, Mother Teresa, Clinton) there was always a haughty John Bull sneer. He railed more against their manner, rather than the wrong.

Warmongering caught his eye as something beautiful to behold. Radiating from Thatcher as she went to war over The Falklands to quell civil unrest at home. Refulgent in Bush and Blair as they lied to initiate a war crime spree in Afghanistan and Iraq to appease the venality of War Contractors and Oil Cartels.

Ultimately Hitchens, like Spengler, was a vitalist dilettante. John Bull's apparent when one notes the "Clash of Civilizations", a la Toynbee, flavor of his fervor for the "Enlightened West" to wage a war of annihilation on "Medieval Islam".

The heat of contest, even slaughter, from afar sparked bonfires in his mind. Polemic was his arsenal. Lauding war criminals was the Drumhead Mass. His pen worked for the God above all Gods he worshiped, Empire.

It is timely Hitchens passed as the Empire he adored, often with paternal misgivings, crumbles to a death he'd have viewed with rapt horror.

Principes Senatus

2011-12-15T12:56:00.000-08:00

"There, government by Senate and People was looked upon sceptically as a matter of sparring dignitaries and extortionate officials. The legal system had provided no remedy against these, since it was wholly incapacitated by violence, favoritism, and--most of all--bribery."
Tacitus, Annals, 1, I.

Henry James' War

2011-12-13T08:39:00.001-08:00

"We are never old, that is we never cease easily to be young, for all life at the same time: youth is an army, the whole battalion of our faculties and our freshnesses, our passions and our illusions, on a considerably reluctant march into the enemy's country, the country of the general lost freshness..."
---Henry James, The Middle Years.

More Sorrow in Belgium

2011-12-09T09:29:00.001-08:00

We're here to rescue insolvent banks, fuck the people they loot.
Euro Summit, Brussels, 2011.

The Exceptional Pique of a Mass Murderer

2011-12-09T04:35:00.001-08:00

“Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaeda leaders who’ve been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement,” the president fired back at an impromptu news conference at the White House.

“Or whoever’s left out there,” he added. “Ask them about that."

President Obama, the Next Roosevelt

2011-12-07T04:21:00.001-08:00

Philippines. As Under Secretary of Navy Roosevelt aggressively backed intervention. The conflict initially began under the auspices of liberating Philippines from Spain. After "liberation" the brutality of the US occupation sparked resistance. War ravaged the islands for years as the US occupiers slaughtered nearly two million people.*

"All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."

--President Roosevelt, "Roosevelt Corollary"

President Roosevelt rewrote the Monroe Doctrine to give the United States full rights to intervene in the Western Hemisphere as European colonies fell. The United States wanted to bring about "desirable and orderly" outcomes. It also wished to expand "decency" by enforcing "greater obligations" upon their own new colonies. Roosevelt believed Anglo-Saxon nations were burdened with the task of teaching "lesser peoples" what the "ties of civilized society" meant, no matter how many of them had to die.

In 1948 the United States globalized the Roosevelt Corollary. With the fall of the Soviet Union the ability to implement this policy anywhere it deemed fit was accomplished.

In 2008 many "progressives" heralded Obama as the "next Roosevelt". President Obama chose to favor another Roosevelt. They deserve credit for having the last name right.

* Conservative estimates of death toll of US intervention from 1890-1913 in Philippines start at 1.5 million and go much higher.

Link detailing criminal nature of US intervention---http://bulatlat.com/news/4-33/4-33-crimes.html

The Great Year

2011-12-05T03:17:00.001-08:00

I

The whorl's turn
draws all to
a hook's stern.

II

Breath, like light,
snuffed by the
combustion
it midwifes.

Overcome
by the austere
immensity
of atmosphere,

men divest urban
crematoria,

as burning eyes
cry smoke tears.

III

Death is life
never left
alone.

Like song's rush
inhumed
in drone.

Our
labor sates
the law.

Their
rigor dates
the fall.

Smells Like

2011-12-04T02:35:00.001-08:00

Yeah.

Foreverywhere War

2011-12-01T20:31:00.001-08:00

Where's My Fasces?

"The imperialist war has greatly accelerated and intensified the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. The monstrous oppression of the laboring masses by the state--which connects itself more and more intimately with the all powerful capitalist combines--is becoming ever more monstrous. The foremost countries are being converted--we speak here of their "rear"--into military convict labor prisons for the workers."
---Lenin, State and Revolution, "Preface to First Edition".

Today the "Conscript Fathers" of the United States Senate openly conceded what has been sub rosa since 1948. The entire planet, including the "exceptional lands"(US, Israel, Western Europe), is a war zone. No person has the right to legally challenge being held indefinitely or drone murdered once alleged "ties to terrorist groups" has been "determined" in secret by "certain authorities".

Habeas Corpus has been usurped by the Star Chamber. States have lost legitimacy and openly flout the people's will. The "Global Economy" is a rigged casino. They must call the world a battlefield and arm themselves with the time honored tools of oppression to keep it "running".

Just as in 1917, States shamelessly ally with Capital to suppress people in the enduring, ubiquitous, Class War.

As the US Funds Military Dictatorship in Egypt, its Bombs Ensure Military Coup in Pakistan

2011-11-28T23:31:00.001-08:00

Not only does the US drone murder Pakistani civilians, it also "accidentally" bombs Pakistani military check-points.

The United States has always preferred Dictators ruling Muslim nations. The Shah in Iran, Mubarak and the Generals in Egypt, Suharto in Indonesia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and General Zia in Pakistan. They provide "stability". If they step out of line the US can always label them Hitlers, bomb and invade their nations under the guise of humanitarian liberation and maintaining "regional stability". It's advantageous to have well armed despots beholden to the largesse of the Pentagon.

US/NATO policy suppresses democracy in Muslim nations. The United States, UK, and France have all recently announced major military sales to Middle Eastern despots intent on strengthening counter-revolution. Arms sales to states busy crushing peaceful protests does not support the "Arab Spring"(I hate this fucking term. Revolts against US backed despots who have allied themselves with the US in the "War on Terror" are not a sudden awakening. They are not as puerile as a fucking advertising slogan for a Bar of Soap.)

US military and intelligence operations inside Pakistan have exacerbated civilian mistrust of the government. The Government allows US free reign to drone murder hundreds of civilians with impunity. When the United States kills military personnel it enrages them further. They rightly view the so called legitimate government a spineless client state taking orders from Washington, D.C..

All of this uncovers the true aim behind destabilizing Pakistan. The United States wants a military dictatorship in Pakistan. If drone murdering civilians can't bring it to pass, then maybe some soldiers will have to be "accidentally" killed. "Stability" is "worth it" to the US. They weren't above mass murdering nearly a million Iraqis for it.

Classical Shout Out Friday: Empedocles and the Strife of Loving

2011-11-25T20:35:00.001-08:00

You look for life, you look and from the deeps of Earth
A fire, divinely gleaming wells up for you,
And quick, aquiver with desire, you
Hurl yourself down into Etna's furnace.
Holderlin, Empedocles.

Double is my account: for at one time it grew to be one alone
from many, at another in turn it grew apart to be many from one.
But double is the coming-into-being of mortals, double their passing away;
for the coming together of all things begets and kills(life),
and as [all things] grow apart again [life] is nurtured, then disappears.
And, continuously changing, they never cease,
at one time through Love all of them coming together into one,
at another in turn each carried apart through the hatefulness of Strife.
---Empedocles, Fragment No. 17.

Kalli Kali

2011-11-23T19:20:00.001-08:00

Great Mother, fathers have lost sight.

Patriarchs dig.
They sow terror.
Their seed shames love.
The earth shudders.
It is your time.

U.S. Taxpayer Funded Police Brutality Here, There, and Everywhere

2011-11-22T15:03:00.001-08:00

Here

There

Here our tax dollars fund the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. They instructed and aided mayors of various cities to break up Occupy Wall Street encampments and suppress protests with militarized police forces.

There our tax dollars fund the security apparatus of the Egyptian Military Dictatorship. SCAF is almost wholly subsidized by the Pentagon.

Everywhere tactics appear to be the same. Brutalize all protesters with aggressive force. Everywhere, despite the Police's well armed aggression, protesters are asked to remain peaceful. Interesting such requests are never made to militarized Police forces.

Classical Shout Out Friday: Catiline, Enemy of Oligarchs

2011-11-19T10:47:00.001-08:00

"Our struggle is for fatherland, for freedom, for life; theirs is a superfluous fight, for the power of a few."
Sallust, Catiline's War.

Even Sallust, a stupendously rich Oligarch, after pages of describing Catiline as a Monstrous Beast displaying every vice at superhuman levels, didn't blush to pen fine sentiment in Catiline's voice.

Cicero once offered to defend Catiline before he, as a Consul, condemned Catiline as a grave threat to the Republic.

Catiline was the worst ingrate to them. Born into Aristocracy, he was a member of the Senatorial Class. He turned against the tyranny of his own. He had to be destroyed.

Over a decade later Caesar took the mantle, with the backing of his Legions, and subjected the Senate to the Imperator's Fasces.

Oligarchs prefer controlled demolition, even Civil Wars between Oligarchs, to sincere rebellion. Better to refine Tyranny than threaten it.

Best sources: Cicero, Sallust---Despite their polemical bent, grains of truth slip through.

Restless Beauty

2011-11-18T12:52:00.001-08:00

For the essence of humanism is that belief of which he seems never to have doubted, that nothing which has ever interested living men and women can wholly lose its vitality--no language they have spoken, nor oracle beside which they have hushed their voices, no dream which has once been entertained by actual human minds, nothing about which they have ever been passionate, or expended time and zeal.
Walter Pater, The Renaissance, "Pico della Mirandola".

Masters of Hygiene

2011-11-18T08:21:00.001-08:00

Disinfecting Protesters

Clean Up

"I have become increasingly concerned,--as had the park's owner, Brookfield Properties, -that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community."
--Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City.

"I want to thank everyone for the peaceful demonstration of Frank Ogawa Park tonight, and thank the city employees who worked hard to clean up the plaza so that all activities can continue, including Occupy Wall Street."
--Mayor Jean Quan, Oakland.

Orders from the top are followed to the letter. Sentiments of those who obey vary in content. Naetheless, concern for civic hygiene remains paramount.

The DHS and FBI orchestrated the "cleansing" of protest camps ordered by mayors in 18 cities to better enforce "sanitation" and "safety" standards. Nothing cleans up messes better than pepper spray, sound cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and less advanced forms of Police brutality.

Hymn to Artemis

2011-11-16T10:13:00.001-08:00

I

Silvery blush of sunless sky
dyes black bruised blue

Lustrous night's virgin halo,
timid brows glow anew

Laughing girls dance circles
Unbroken, she draws true

To you Fair Goddess night falls
In dulcet sways of modest hue.

II

Night wanes and stills hearths
as heavy eyes seek

Huntress' heart, sure as her eye,
Hones e'ery point's peak

Margins are plots for prey whose
Throats are stopped with ink

For you Fair Goddess we fall
In white fields, quarry to dream.

Recurrent Folly of Demanding Non-Violent Protest When the State is an Enemy in Class War

2011-11-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

Peterloo, 1819.

Bloody Sunday, St. Petersburg, 1905.

1. The arrogance of believing the righteousness of one's cause, and the precious manner in which it is peacefully maintained, will magically overcome enemies who have never been ashamed of using brutality is a suicidal form of megalomania. This Liberal messianism is preached in our schools and media via revisionary praise of "peaceful saints" like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr..

2. The stupidity of thinking protest is not a violent reproach to the power which stands to lose legitimacy.

3. The pride that makes one fail to see protest, by its nature, is violent. "We're refined protesters, civil but disobedient. They wouldn't dare attack us."

4. Supine protest invites massacre. Power loves to make a statement with dead bodies(US Resource Colonialism abroad). The above images(and there are countless more) prove this is a constant.

5. Stressing non-violent protest shows obedience to those who sustain a monopoly on violence.

6. The state and its institutions are an enemy in the class war. They have taken a side and are committed to fighting to the death. Prisons are sprouting up all over the country as police forces have been militarized. The past tells us well armed police, be they state operatives or private contractors hired by the state, will not hesitate to murder non-violent protesters.

7. Remove your peaceful heads from your stinking asses and realize if you really want change, you'll have to do more than obediently occupy parks. Our masters are not troubled by efforts to inconvenience them. They'll allow you to string out this morality play long enough to make it tiresome in its futility.

Past Flame

2011-11-13T05:36:00.001-08:00

Classical Shout Out Friday: Atomic Bard

2011-11-12T06:36:00.001-08:00

I will reveal those atoms from which nature creates all things and increases and feeds them and into which, when they perish, nature again resolves them.
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura.

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet of the 1st century BCE. Thanks to him we have the best exposition of Epicurus' philosophy in On the Nature of Things. This great poem is admirable for its clarity and hatred of superstition. Lucretius deftly uses poetic imagery to inspire a greater appreciation for natural phenomena. He dispenses with Superstition* and in its stead sings the glorious naturalism of Epicurus' theory of the universe.

*Even the opening Prayer to Venus implies the Goddess is revivifying Nature itself and not an anthropomorphic deity, despite the scene with Mars. Plus, as a philosophical poem, he was wise to observe the formalities established by Parmenides, Empedocles, and others. Lucretius wished to open with familiar honey to appeal to readers of his time.

Aragon, Antidote to Armistice Day

2011-11-11T02:46:00.001-08:00

...a certain Painleve, Minister of War, signed a monstrous decree the other day: any officer or noncom, any asshole paid to march, from now on has the right to arrest me in the street. The police were not enough. And like them, they are sworn in as of now. The word of this dung is law. Well, agriculture will no longer be lacking for cows. So: since looking at them cross-eyed in the street will get me time in the slammer, I have the honor, in my own home, in this book, here and now, very consciously, to say that I shit on the entire French army.
Louis Aragon, Treatise on Style.

The Valley of Darkness (Allegiance in Sports and Politics)

2011-11-10T02:58:00.000-08:00

The ground of an addiction to sports is an archaic spiritual constitution--the possession of the predatory emulative propensity in a relative high potency. A strong proclivity to adventuresome exploit and to the infliction of damage is especially pronounced in those employments which are in colloquial usage specifically called sportsmanship.
The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development of the man's moral nature.
---Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Chapter X.

Sports Institutions, especially popular revenue garnering NCAA Football programs, are the beneficiaries of mass adulation. Sports Merchandise worn by fans become emblems of pride. Many invest great amounts of time and revenue in "their" team. Fans participate vicariously in the triumphs and failures of a sports franchise. This identification is analogous to the nationalism of citizens enjoying the victories of its war machine by unfurling the flag. In short, they are facets of the same Barbarism.

The Penn State scandal starkly represents the absurd lengths such identification can go. A group of students riot to protest the ouster of a revered head coach. A man who participated in a decade long effort to cover up the serial sexual abuse of minors by a colleague at the campus on multiple occasions. Odd that students aren't protesting the ring leaders of the cover up and instead riot for one ring leader to be treated with "dignity".

NCAA Football thrives on exploiting student athletes, revenue hording by schools, and the vicarious triumphalism of its students, alumni, and fan base. Like Nationalism, it is a Cult. The callous barbarism sings the epos of invested allegiance. Who cares about raped children when "JoePa" has won the most games in Division I history and earned the school millions? A corollary in politics: many still "support" Obama despite the fact he's ordered the murder of thousands of women and children with extra-judicial drone strikes because he has a "D" after his name.

Allegiance conveniently accepts evil it'd otherwise condemn. One can easily find a million comments from widely respected thinkers and "good people" celebrating such evil as "pragmatic", "worth the cost", "for the greater good", or, the most common, "Who am I to question? They know what they're doing.".

The rioting of Penn State fans after Joe Paterno's firing was inspired by the same barbarism that had thousands taking to the streets in joy after President Obama announced the US assassinated Osama Bin Laden.

Throughout history allegiance to leaders of powerful institutions has ever darkened valleys with evil.

Austerity

2011-11-09T02:31:00.000-08:00

Why the long faces? Old and young must unite and pull our ship of state out of this crisis. Stimulating to know so many are sacrificing for the greater good. Reaffirms one's confidence in humanity.

Classical Shout Out Friday: Illustrious Turn

2011-11-04T22:33:00.000-07:00

For it was impossible either to avoid detection by swarms of spies, or if caught to escape death in its most agonizing form. Indeed, even in the company of my nearest relations I felt far from safe.
Procopius, Anecdota(widely published as The Secret History).

Tireless secretary to Belisarius, courtier to Justinian, had another history to write. He had before toiled as the stenographer of War(Gothic, Vandal, Persian) and penned tribute to imperial edifices. Even the favor of Emperor Justinian galled. The titles and sinecures, Prefect of the City, brought shame. His last task was to expose the horrors behind the narrative. Would that we had more like minded insiders now.

Humanity of Markets

2011-11-04T02:01:00.000-07:00

The ruling class's vision of shared sacrifice.

Looters of the World Unite and Pillage Nations with Austerity!

Sun Blonde

2011-11-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

Canvas the town and brush the back-drop. Are you sleeping?
"Surf's Up", The Beach Boys, music Brian Wilson, lyric Van Dyke Parks.

There are children blonde as the Sun.
There's music as radiant in tone.

Brian Wilson's an Icarus.

The Beach Boys' "Smile Sessions" was released on Tuesday--a magnificent mess. I cannot sing its sumptuousness sufficiently.

Ont ouvert le printemps dans nos yeux.

Geography Disposed

2011-11-01T22:25:00.000-07:00

"Some say that these lands were first known many centuries ago, and that their situation was written down and the exact latitudes noted in which they lay, but their geography and the sea routes by which they were reached were forgotten..."
General and Natural History of the Indies, Captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo.

Geography has been digitized into celestial oblivion, a matter of satellite imagery and sensors. The Earth cybernates.

Capital busies itself exhausting colonial expropriation. States honor alliances that better serve the effort to extract resources from weaker nations over the sanctity of borders and sovereignty; unless it's a matter of keeping undesirables away or securing the wealth of an insulated elite.

Geography's disposes. It's value is in the exchange of data points to augment market hegemony. Surveillance, Security and GPS Targeting by high tech weapons are Geography's Golgotha.

When colonial epochs peak, geography's end pens the epitaph.

As the Crow Flies

2011-10-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

Black wings raise
petrol bows.
Dye day's grays
livid rose.

Staid airs concede
to piercing caws.
Gates part, youths free,
grave men bear scowls.

Classical Shout Out Friday: Counter Christ

2011-10-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

Apollonius of Tyana
"Because Telemachus was young, Homer thought he needed two dogs, and he sends them to accompany the young man to the marketplace of Ithaca, unreasoning animals though they are."

He healed the sick, raised the dead, and ascended to Olympus. Honored the Pagan Gods and quoted Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and Aristotle. Augustine raged against his enduring popularity.

Philostratus' Life of Apollonius reads like an Alexandrian Gospel. The Philosopher Hero harangues Emperors(Nero, Vitellius), toadies up to them too(Vespasian, Titus), and still has time to shoot the breeze with Gymnosophists(Naked Philosophers). Entertaining stuff.

Authority Answers Peaceful Protest's Right with Might

2011-10-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

We demand your protest be peacefully ineffectual. The smallest violation will be punished with deadly force. We don battle gear to better serve the community. Our aim is true. God Bless America, land of the free.

The Winter of Our Crushed Dissent

2011-10-26T02:24:00.000-07:00

Officers of the Peace

Out of the decay of self-seeking capitalism, it was held, would arise the flower of the ages, the Brotherhood of Man. Instead of which, appalling alike to us who look back and to those that lived at the time, capitalism, rotten-ripe, sent forth that monstrous offshoot, the Oligarchy.
Too late did the socialist movement of the early twentieth century divine the coming of the Oligarchy. Even as it was divined, the Oligarchy was there---a fact established in blood, a stupendous and awful reality.
---Jack London, The Iron Heel.

Metternich/Napoleon: Two Modes of Reaction United in NATO

2011-10-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

"But, Karel, history is the memory of a people. You have only to distort that memory and....."
---Hugo Claus, The Sorrow of Belgium.

Would you like popular fascism or oligarchy? How about both? The imperial expansion of "Free Markets" accommodates. NATO weds Metternich's reaction with Napoleon's imperial hubris.

Ron Paul Lacks LoveSexy

2011-10-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

This is not music, this is a trip.

Ron Paul champions "unfettered" markets while decrying the expenses of Empire and the Drug War. He naively believes states and markets are distinct entities. Expanding Markets require War Machines and Legal Strictures, including Regulatory Oversight, to protect and secure hegemony. They saddle the State with obligations that it funds by taxing the public. States have become apparatuses to aggressively secure and defend the expansion of Market Hegemony.

The Market's control of State policy has become more pronounced. Bank Bail Outs, aggressive wars, longstanding occupations, increased military spending, and regressive taxation all remain despite widespread unpopularity. Military operations abroad and surveillance and incarceration efforts within are contracted out to private enterprise. Mr. Paul decries the expense of bases, wars, and occupations but fails to recognize private enterprises are heavily subsidized by these "expenses". There's a reason why Boeing, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, Oil Cartels, Bechtel, XE, and Banks are posting record profits in a recession.

When we turn to the Drug War we see it benefits Alcohol Distributors, Pharmaceutical Co's, and Private Prison contractors. Again, market forces demand state action and reap rewards.

I applaud Rep. Paul bringing attention to costly and insane policies, but Imperialism and the Drug War would not exist without the expanding Market's rule through the State.

(H/T to JCrow for idea of posting about Ron Paul to attract traffic. Bonus posting pic of Prince to perhaps inspire Paisley Park's attention over use of image. JCrow is not responsible for content. I love Prince's music.)

Classical Shout Out Friday: That Good Old Comedy

2011-10-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Why, don't you know that for Homer the word "marketeer" is a term of praise--he applies it to Nestor and all his other fountains of wisdom?
--Aristophanes, The Clouds, Act I, Scene 2.

Aristophanes is timeless. His irreverent invective towards all pomp, demagoguery, and posturing dialecticians remains a joy to read. Unfortunately his work has been shelved, deemed vulgar. Only Lysistrata remains popular because of its bawdy anti-war message.

My favorite is The Clouds. It provides the best portrait of Socrates. Presenting Socrates as the King of the Sophists is a brilliant move, superior to Plato's virtuous, honey tongued, charmer.

From this Friday forward I will post a piece on a neglected(IMO) classical writer out of kindness to long dead whiteness. I hope to, like time, wind, and water, level mountains of dust.

These pieces will be scant on detail. Best to praise and provide a small portion to prompt appetite.

All Our Rowdy War on Terror Friends are Gettin' Put Down

2011-10-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

This is what you get for Neoliberal Reform.

Mubarak and Gaddafi have been deposed. Assad and Saleh are teetering. What do they all have in common? Every one assisted the US in the "War on Terror". Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Assad have kindly tortured suspected terrorists US has rendered to them. Saleh continues to crackdown on a local resistance movement(falsely placed under rubric of AQAP) and welcomes drone strikes.

Gaddafi's fall is a Pyrrhic victory. Unrest will haunt Libya for decades as rival factions vie for Western dollars. Infrastructure was destroyed by US/NATO bombs. Distress and famine will grow as Libyan splinter groups crony up to Energy Cartels. These reservations won't silence the Imperial triumphalism coming out of DC.

FBI Implicates Freed Bengal Tigers in Ohio for Plotting with Iranian Quds to Attack Heartland

2011-10-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

The New Face of Terrorism

A Department of Justice press release has announced the FBI has unearthed another plot of the Quds Force, linked with a loose network of Central Ohio Marijuana dealers, to recruit Bengal Tigers in a terrorist attack on the Heartland.

An animal trainer was commissioned by a prominent Central Ohio Marijuana dealer, distantly related to an Iranian colonel, to free his entire menagerie of deadly predators. The animal trainer contacted the FBI and agreed to act as an informant. Anonymous sources have confirmed 18 Bengal Tigers aided in the planning and commission of this attack. This source went on to add the lead Tiger's cousin has a plush reserve at the Tehran Zoo.

Some terrorism experts believe the plot was nearly exposed earlier this year. The execution of 14 Lions at the Tehran Zoo on January 18 may have been a precautionary measure in the early stages of planning.

Jack Hanna was called onto the scene and described the attack's seriousness by equating it to "Noah's Ark crashing into a city".

Link to Mass Execution of Lions at Tehran Zoo story: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/18/iran-14-lions-killed-in-zoo/

53%'s Rich Pageant

2011-10-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

Proud Servant of the State

Pride rises above squalor. Obeisance treasures a kind nod from above. Consuming vicarious majesty, like manna from Heaven. "Man can't live on bread alone."

Moral of History: Kick a man one thousand times, win his fealty with crumbs. Rinse, repeat.

Of course many of the picture testimonials are fake. Still, the message begs obedience. Petit-Bourgeois proud of being exploited and living up to their masters' ideal. There are a million MBA's who are similarly inspired.

On the Established Political Journalist

2011-10-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

"That he defends the supreme powers, as the Geese by their cackling defended the Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favored them no more than the Gauls their Enemies, but were as ready to have defended the Gauls if they had been possessed of the Capitol."
---Thomas Hobbes, Epistle Dedicatory of the Leviathan.

(feel free to replace "o" in Capitol with "a" in translating to present)

Liberals Always Dream New Gracchi

2011-10-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

"In those years only the dead smiled,
Glad to be at rest:
And Leningrad city swayed like
A needless appendix to its prisons."
---Akhmatova, Requiem, Prologue.

1: Historical Background

Cornelia Africana bore two sons as martyrs to Republican Rome. They attempted to legally end iniquitous land distribution as Tribunes of the Plebes. Wealthy Romans(mostly Patricians) were buying up enormous tracts of lands and evicting peasants from their small holder farms. The dispossessed peasantry poured into the city as a "classical" version of a trouble making and unsightly lumpen-proletariat.

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were part of the establishment. Their father was a Censor, a scion of the Sempronia line. Mother was the daughter of Scipio Africanus.

In the struggle against iniquitous land distribution and urban blight they both exploited the sacrosanctity of the Office of Tribune of the Plebes to pass legislation favorable to small landowners. Their efforts were rewarded with assassination. They became martyrs to a cause that was merely reformist and only attacked a symptom of inequality while leaving the true institutional malady untouched. Such is the fate of most reformists.

After their deaths Rome quickly descended into an increasingly overt violent Oligarchy fostering Civil Wars against slaves, local Italian towns, and finally ending with concentration of all power in military leaders as Consuls(Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar). The Gracchi served as martyrs in the propaganda of populist Imperators like Marius and Caesar. Sulla and Pompey upheld the Senatorial Oligarchy. Caesar vanquished Pompey in their struggle and the Oligarchy surrendered itself, and the Senate, to Patristic Fascism. Caesar was assassinated before he had a chance to fully implement his Tyranny. It took his nephew Octavian, as Caesar Augustus, after defeating Marc Antony, to assume the title Princeps Senatus and use the facade of the Senate to mask his absolute rule.

2: Contemporary Application of Model

Liberals often dream one of their class will take up the mantle of dispossessed peoples. Only they can rescue them by reforming hallowed institutions of Democracy corrupted by evil doers(Partisans point at the other side). A new Lex Hortensia based upon an arcane precedent(like the Licinian Law)must be passed. They believe individual actors, if brilliant enough and divinely favored, can work wonders within powerful Institutions. Their call for "real" leadership in contemporary protests begs the masses to adopt new Gracchi as leaders. Read establishment Liberals on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Always the same tepid support anchored by "serious reservations".

These pedantic pipe-dreamers forget the Gracchi, though heroic and with "their hearts in the right place", were assassinated by representatives of the Institution they attempted to reform. Furthermore, their martyrdom was exploited by Fascists to create populist support for Dictatorship as an antidote to unjust Oligarchy.

Perhaps the modern Liberal secretly hopes a few of their own sacrificed for the change he or she, deep in the shady copses of their heart, desires is "worth it"? Only then will the masses demand an "effective Leader" who can "cut through" bureaucracy and "get things done"?

This is a recurring dream of "enlightened" minds throughout history. It is also an enduring nightmare for those who can't afford the luxury of dreaming.

I do not believe contemporary Liberals, as a type, actually think much, if at all, about the Gracchi. I am using the Gracchi's failed reform efforts as a timeless model Liberals always propose to escape the horrors of social unrest and reinstate their disturbed repose.

Rebirth of Security Out of the Spirit of Entrapment

2011-10-12T05:54:00.000-07:00

"Before being discovered, the savage was first invented."
--Giuseppe Cocchiara, Il Mito del Buon Selvaggio.

After the failure of security institutions on 9-11 the FBI had to implement more aggressive forms of combating "terrorism" to regain legitimacy. Of course it is just to state it, as a National Law Enforcement institution, has a rich history of failure.

In these perilous times, when income inequality is at a record high, and the Federal Government is buried, like a Titan, under a mountain of debt, an institution must strain to justify increased funding for its practices. In the past few years we have seen the FBI "discover" outrageous plots concocted by its own agents posing as Al Qaeda, Al Quds, et "Al"(humor) operatives. They provided material and funds to the would be terrorists, and ran entire operations until the glorious moment of discovery. This process was witnessed in the alleged Al Qaeda operation to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago by some poor Haitian Americans in South Florida, and once again in the Portland Christmas Bombing plot(A 17 year old Somali American was given money for rent, provided a plan, and a detonator).

Oddly the informants' activity in these operations are cloaked in impenetrable mystery. We know they selected the patsy, planned the operation and provided material. Oddly, their statements under oath were not recorded(per usual practice), and are heavily redacted. Details of their participation are not shared with the public or with the Courts. The FBI cloaks its entrapment schemes under a cover of necessary secrecy justified by "National Security Concerns".

Rest assured alarmist stenographers of the Corpress in the United States, with its battalion of "National Security Experts", rush to exaggerate the grave danger our heroes in the FBI thwarted. "Al Qaeda", "Terrorists", "Attacks on Civilians" run in caps just under a "Breaking News" title across television screens. The Director of the FBI and the Attorney General hold a solemn press conference and insure the nation all is safe despite the "immense danger" that has been averted.

The latest in this series of quashing deadly plots beggars credulity and has effectively "jumped the shark" for any future "entrapment production". We're told two Iranian nationals(linked with Al Quds) were connected, through an FBI informant, to a Mexican Drug Cartel, and adopted a planned concocted by another informant to acquire explosives and bomb a fictional restaurant to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, bonus #1, they planned to take out a few unnamed Senators and, bonus #2, bomb the Israeli Embassy. A plot arcane and implausible as a Gothic Novel has to be credible! One hilarious detail: the "plotters" allegedly used JPMorgan Chase bank to wire money from Iran to the United States(illegal under present sanctions) to fund operations.

It is well known JPMorgan Chase was fined earlier this year(August) for wiring transactions from Iran. It is also well known major banks launder billions for Mexican Drug Cartels.

Strange how this all came together! Strange how Iran has been happy with the present cooling of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia! Strange how the FBI is continuing, with the aid of Big Banks, DEA and Drug Cartels to entrap foreign nationals into implausible intrigues which damage its home country's interests.

The Rebirth of Security Out of the Spirit of Entrapment is an arcane endeavor. It appears foolish to the world, like all deep wisdom. Such mystery bewitches Congressional committees to zealously defend more tax dollars to security institutions to help "keep America safe". Complete secrecy is justly warranted by
recent "success".

Futility of Godwin's Law

2011-10-11T04:26:00.000-07:00

I hope the above does not offend Net sensibility via similitude. Fascism is a dirty word these days. Can't imagine why. Bulletins in Public encouraging citizens to report "suspicious types"(collaboration) are a leitmotiv of Fascist states.

"Terrorists", Muslims resisting bombs, torture, occupation, sanctions and resource looting(highest forms of terrorism), are Neoliberalism's version of "the mongrel race".

Won't be long before Americans in the "Homeland" resisting plutocrats and their political lackeys become "suspicious types". They're already treated like mongrels--prisons, military.

Notes from Liberal Heaven

2011-10-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

"Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dullness meet."
---Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, lns-50-1.

Admiring Pope's comme il faut poesy and proudly thinking, I am not ashamed to admit, how far we've come electing an African-American President. Albeit, his rhetoric's a smidge too leftist, but still, in action, he asserts values that have made our nation a global beacon. (Long drawl from pipe, deep furrowing of brow) He's taught medieval savages in the Middle East a thing or two about civilization. Like my dear old Father, he never spares the rod. (Air of melancholy) Alas, someone has to take up the burden of destroying those who threaten our liberty with the chaos of anarchy.

I was watching a news program just yesterday and witnessed the most amusing spectacle. Slovenly attired and poorly groomed citizens were camping out in public space to protest various issues. How preposterous? How can these ingrates fail to appreciate and treasure the glory of Universal Suffrage?(Shakes pipe at imaginary audience in reproval) If I had time to so easily dispose of I'd walk down to these mobs and, braving the lack of refinement and rudeness, freely convince them of their good fortune. No catering to underachievers from me. I'd refuse to champion their muddled divisiveness like the radical Lawrence O'Donnell has(two angry puffs billowing like steam from engine)! This nation has handed the gift of liberty to them. How dare they spurn such sacred largesse?

At times it dawns on me that most Americans are spoiled(sighs and taps pipe crisply three times). All the things we've accomplished. Civil Rights Legislation, American investment wealth lifting people up from poverty in third world nations, and protecting, with our valiant men and women in the Armed Services, peaceful protest movements in foreign lands from the genocidal aims of well armed and ruthless dictators(adjusting Jacket to accommodate puffed up chest). If I wasn't so Stoic about the failings of human nature I'd be incensed(benign gaze through smokey haze).

Be thankful Americans. This rough patch is transitory. Good times are ahead. We won't let you down. As one great man said, "The arc of history bends towards liberty." Do not allow that Progress to be stymied by strife. Markets lose confidence and people go tribal. We can't have that. As a polite man of the world, I'd never create strife or sow division so close to home. It's poor form(dusts invisible motes off jacket with left hand).

FINIS

Quean of Wall Street

2011-10-08T02:28:00.000-07:00

"...carrying home
To her imperial couch the stink of the whorehouse."
---Juvenal, Satires, VI, lns. 131-2.

Seriously!

A career of fellating the world of finance has earned Ms. Burnett a Wall Street Prince. She is this generation's Andrea Mitchell. There are tons of excellent women journalists. The Corpress pushes brainless eye candy like they're Pimps of the Principalities. We know whose interests they serve.(Commercial Break)

The same interests Ms. Burnett has engaged.

Distant Chill

2011-10-06T23:32:00.000-07:00

"Life has grown simple. Everything suggests something else."
---Aphasia Banks

Autumn's cold fingers
snuff wholesome fires.

Branches crack
brittle spines.

Come sweet tones
of night and honey,
comb ripe Suns
from this blight.

Breath's faint treble
intimates the end.

One song shatters
in bits of ice.

Steve Jobs: Gilded Age Cult of the Entrepreneur (Smothering an Asian Slave Master with Adulation)

2011-10-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

The orgy of grief over an Asian slave master, offshorer of labor, and exploiter of copyright laws is nauseating. His products are merely diversionary and in no way did they "change the world". He used his financial clout to bring about favorable conditions through legislation(Apple was heavily subsidized by US government) for the corporation he headed to not only profit immensely from advantageous copyright laws but also to proliferate slave labor(including children) in foreign labor markets. Chinese workers(again, many children) were subjected to inhumane labor conditions by Apple. The obscenity of American corporations exploiting slave labor production in Asia is a physical, and enduring, mark of the bigotry of NeoLiberal "Globalism". To them Asian laborers are still "coolies". Steve Jobs eagerly practiced this shameful exploitation. Celebrating his life is tantamount to celebrating the "wonderful talent and innovation" of a Southern Plantation Owner in 1850's America.

The Establishment Left: "It's wonderful to indiscriminately rain death from the heavens upon foreign ragheads, but please respect legality when targeting American citizens."

2011-10-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

"As for mankind, if anyone in the pride of his power treats you with disrespect, you have all the future in which to take your revenge. You are free to please yourself: act as your heart directs."
---Homer, The Odyssey, Bk. 13, lns. 144-147.

Liberal establishment loyalists are torn. Obama has drone murdered two American Citizens! They are harried by Erinyes of legal ambivalence. On one side they praise the toughness Obama continues to show in murdering Muslims afar, BUT they have misgivings about the awesome power to smote mortals from the heavens used on citizens of the greatest nation forever, the United States.

Yes, the War on Terror must grant sacrosanct, Tribunician, legal status to all, even Muslim, Americans. I find their "legal" uncertainties tragic. It's obvious an American is, per War on Terror legal calculus, worth about 1,000 times a "barbarous" Muslim. When it's an American Muslim the ratio changes. Ah! To have such refined minds attuned to finding petty faults in mass murder based solely on legal chauvinism. American Exceptionalism extends to tender hearted "Liberals" too!

There is good news. Many have overcome legal uneasiness through Faith. Obama the Thunderer said he was guilty of treason. No need for evidence. He has two Jars at his side, an endless supply of bolts, and a splendid view from Olympus.

American Oddity

2011-10-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

"...violence has been used again and again to support the structure of authority in American society. We are only puzzled when violence is used to attack that structure."
---John William Ward, "Introduction to Alexander Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist".

Apodictic: Rising Income Inequality Requires Increased Police Brutality(Poor Americans Already Know This)

2011-09-29T05:01:00.000-07:00

The Love of Clenched Teeth and Poison

Paymasters cannot allow their hirelings to waste a thought on the humanity of any who protest "order". Just beat the ingrates and shut them up in cages. They'll pay for such impudence. Try getting a job with an arrest for civil disobedience on your record in this economy(snicker). Best to become a jackboot or sign up for the Imperial Resource Looting Enterprise. You'll get to travel! They'll learn you obedience. Plus you'll get to be a hero and kill poor "ragheads" for room, board, and eats----plus wages! Police here in the Homeland already have the right to kill undesirables(cf. Police murdering poor folks in Urban Areas). Brutality's a bagatelle. They let you live. Listen to Obama, "Stop complaining." It could be worse. You could be in Somalia with our torturers and arms dealers.

Or you could be the man in the photo above. Look at the zealous titillation written in CAPS across his face as he sprays mace in a woman's face. He's participating in the brutality he serves. Sure many despise him. He'll soar above it all and win rewards for his obedience. The State loves men like him. He's a valuable asset when accountability is only enforced by, and specifically not applied to, them.

Finally regular folks, not just poor minorities, in the Homeland will get a taste of what poor folks in every corner of the world have from security "American style". It's inevitable this violence would return home and level those spoiled by it. If you have a television, refrigerator, and an X-Box, how dare you ask for more? Those at the top don't like sharing the fruits of massacre and rapine. The GREATEST NATION FOREVER, The United States of Motherskullfucking America, was built on it! You think it can't easily apply that to its own? People in slave shacks, reservations, ghettos and prisons have known it from experience. It is an enduring aspect of liberal "culture". Brutality towards "undesirables" is Obscene(in the classical sense). Since when did "patriotic Americans" ever care? They lose patience when the Genocide of Natives and African Slavery are discussed.

Now that the police are openly beating white protesters, even women, you're outraged. Too little, too late. Once you applauded the state's brutality towards the most reprobate, you tacitly condoned it towards anyone. Who decides what's reprobate? Obeisant claques that pay homage to mass murdering war criminals, torturers, and banking looters as Gods on Earth.

Appalachian Noir

2011-09-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

I

Moon's yellow,
a ball of clouded amber,
rests easy over black limbs.

Within
Pagan gods are preserved
like amphibians in Formalin.

II

Hush.
Sirens approach.

Fingers of red light
scratch our faces.

Time is short.
Our bodies will explode.
This tissue will commingle
forever.

Time is shed.
Nothing will break us.
In one plot we'll overcome
together.

The Palestinian Authority=Vichy Palestine

2011-09-19T21:37:00.001-07:00

The PA collaborates with Israeli occupiers and killers. They do not represent the Palestinian people. Peruse "The Palestinian Papers" and see how they have always given up nearly everything for crumbs from Israel and the United States. The only good thing to come out of the fake statehood vote in the United Nations is that it may end the "Peace Process", repudiate the roadmap, and stop the United States from helping Israel steal land and brutalize Palestinians in the Territories while doing much worse in Gaza.

Thankfully the ghastly process fashioned at Oslo may also end. If the United States vetoes a yes vote it will alienate itself and its client, Israel, from all of the nations in the Middle East and an overwhelming majority of nations. That would be a good thing. The United States and Israel have arrogantly worked themselves into a dangerous corner.

If the bid fails, it will also undermine any legitimacy the Palestinian Authority claims. They are already unpopular in the Territories and Gaza for the above stated reasons. Much good may spring from an empty gesture at the UN. The two state solution will die a just death.

Monsieur Homais as a Contemporary Journalist

2011-09-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

"Yes," said the pharmacist, "no imagination, no wit, nothing that makes a man shine in society."

------Pt. 2, I.

He has more customers than there are sinners in hell; the authorities treat him kindly and he has the public on his side.

He has just been given the cross of the Legion of Honor.

------Pt. 3, XI.

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary.

As Flaubert's Homais was a concise portrait of the post enlightenment philistine, Thomas Friedman is the present arch philistine of "Globalism". The offhand comments of cab drivers and hotel receptionists the world over are sucked into the vortex of his tireless banality. Billboards and corporate boardroom bon mots are first principles. Ultimately Friedman is the "Ugly American" as an intellectual tourist.

President Obama, bien sur, reads him religiously. Established media in the United States refer to him as a "deep thinker". Our contemporary Homais writes a column weekly for the New York Times.

It is no surprise our Homais is a Centrist. All forms of "extremism" upset him; bottle rockets at a country fair alarmed the 19th century Homais. Like the ass caught between two piles of feed, Friedman can't help braying about the danger of "taking sides".

Unfortunately, he carries and broadcasts the love of his own opinion much further than his literary forefather.

This renders his output less tolerable and culture's adulation("best selling books") of it more troubling.

Under the Exchange

2011-09-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

"Electoral democracy greatly resembles the world of the Stock Exchange; in both cases, it is necessary to work upon the simplicity of the masses, to buy the cooperation of the most important papers, and to assist chance by an infinity of trickery; there is not a great deal of difference between a financier who puts grand-sounding concerns on the market, which come to grief in a few years, and the politician who promises his fellow citizens an infinite number of reforms, which he does not know how to bring about and which resolve themselves simply into an accumulation of parliamentary papers. Neither one nor the other knows anything about production and yet they manage to obtain control over it, to misdirect it and to exploit it shamelessly: they are dazzled by the marvels of modern industry and they each imagine that the world is so rich that they can rob it on a large scale without causing any great outcry amongst the producers; to bleed the taxpayer without bringing him to the point of revolt, that is the whole art of the statesman and the great financier. Democrats and businessmen have a very special science for the purpose of making deliberative assemblies approve of their swindling; parliamentary regimes are as fixed as shareholders' meetings. It is probably because of the profound psychological affinities resulting from these methods of operation that they both understand each other so perfectly: democracy is the paradise of which unscrupulous financiers dream."
-------Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, VII, I.

Dick Cheney: The United States Government Made Flesh

2011-09-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

"For they illustrate the beginning of this disastrous institution---which Tiberius so cunningly insinuated, first under control, then bursting into an all engulfing blaze."

------- Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome.

It is difficult for "Americans" to gaze upon the living image of their government. Venal, cowardly, heartless, contemptuous of laws, and eager to ostentatiously preen over the glory of snooping, torturing, and mass murdering. They hate this walking mirror. Members of the Punditocracy are seized by a catharsis of slavish infatuation with the power he represents and a cringing abhorrence of his refusal to apologize for the global crime wave it spurred. Cheney, as a proud Patriot, takes pride in its exceptional scope.

If you ask God to bless America, you are asking him to bless Dick Cheney. He is its true spirit made flesh. President Obama is no better. He has a younger, prettier, face, buries the criminality in bromide, and smiles more. The spirit endures though the flesh may unravel.

9/11: Fetishism as Imperial Anodyne

2011-09-08T02:35:00.000-07:00

Vain would be all attempts to convey the horror which thrilled the gathering spectators of this piteous tragedy.

---"Postscript to 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts'", De Quincey.

A nation has become a somnambulist trying to step out of a nightmare. This nightmare was tailored from its own terror. Imitation was not deemed flattery. Nothing has changed but the exponential rush to fetishism as an anodyne. Exceptionalism is a Neurosis that comforts us in gilded cribs. Security waxes fierce as the noon day sun. It blinds. The United States has never recovered from the audacity of its own violence returning home. It is now a terrorized nation utilizing terrorism to cow its people and murder all enemies. Anodynes are required. A housing bubble, low credit, fraud encouraged, impunity for torturers, and keep shopping!

All to no avail. The mass murder of thousands of poor Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya has not sated our leaders' bloodlust. This war, an Odyssey, must go on. Stop your ears and cover your eyes. Truth is a treacherous Siren.

Every avenue of communication must be monitored for your own protection. People can't have the luxury of privacy. In asserting the right to monitor all citizens the State requires complete secrecy for itself. Again, nothing has changed but imposing complete inability for any citizen to protest State violence and secrecy. Ubiquitous Surveillance has all the legal sanction of Aggressive War.

Incipit an Epic Rant on the "Innocence" of the United States Before 9/11/01

"Outraged chastity avenges itself in continuously fucking."---Blythe Tart

A Nation built on genocide(Native Americans) and exploitation(African Slavery, Chinese and Mexican Slavery on railroads, wage slavery, prison labor, looting through aggressive wars, etc.) has no right to speak of innocence lost. It's birth as a nation established the rule of white male elites who deemed Africans sub-human and Native Americans ripe to be pillaged. THE PAST "INNOCENCE" OF THE UNITED STATES IS THE GREATEST ANODYNE OF ALL. Since the invasion of Mexico in the 19th Century it has embarked on numerous aggressive wars--- Mexico, Philippines, Cuba, Central America, South America, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, etc. Not to mention funding acts of terror and mass murder in Indonesia, Iran, Yemen, Ossetia, Egypt, Lebanon, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bahrain. How many millions have violently perished, before 9/11/01, from the "kinetic benevolence" of this "innocent" nation?

The Atomic Bombs dropped on the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki needlessly. Truman admitted he dropped them to send a message to the Soviet Union, not hasten the end of the war.

The cruel medical experiments practiced on poor folks in Central America just after World War 2. This "innocent" nation also infected black men in the "homeland" of "innocence" with syphilis, without their knowledge for a medical study.

Since its inception the United States has labored to make the aphorism, "There is no greater evil than innocence.", a truism.

Jusqu'a l'automne

2011-09-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Legs like ribbons
brush over ground.

We tender dream's accord,
sentience.

Cruel when heaven's
bright prescience
loses compass
in meteor showers.

We seek rest,
wary of umbrous bowers.

Sub specie saeculi

2011-09-03T02:34:00.000-07:00

"Times when injustice reigned and a crime was legally sanctioned,....."
---Lucan, Pharsalia, Bk. I, ln. 2.

1. Nobody weeps over the vicious death of futurism.

2. At no time has so much power been held by so few. Odd those few persistently demand certainty.

3. Anarchists are realists, not cynics. No greater cynicism than believing we need a State for "the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness".

4. The War on Terror is deadly irony. We are expected to believe the United States and its allies are fighting against Islamic Extremists. No nation has supported and armed Islamic Extremists more than the United States in the past half century. It supported Fundamentalists in Egypt under Nasser. Utilized Iranian fundamentalist support to overthrow Mossadegh. Recruited and armed Wahabbi groups to infiltrate Afghanistan in the late 70's to topple Soviet backed republic. Armed Iraqi Shiites to topple Saddam Hussein before the last Iraq bombing and invasion. Now the US/NATO is supporting Fundamentalist groups in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi's secular regime. Over 30,000 bombs fell on Libya to support insurgents affiliated with Al Qaeda. The CIA has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria. It also arms and supports the Fundamentalist Monarchy in Saudi Arabia. The United States wars on Islamic Moderates by supporting and arming Islamic Extremists. They are useful forces to destabilize social movements in Muslim nations. The United States rightly fears the "Arab Street".

5. Please tell the poor to stop buying lottery tickets.

6. Partisans desire betrayal.

7. Political Science classifies the rage of institutional violence.

8. What if we laughed at every manifestation of seriousness? The sobriety of critique never rocks the boat. Sailors should drown seas with laughter.

9. Harpocrates doesn't shine any less because he's forgotten. Don't tell a soul.

10. Ten is more a fetish than number. No greater failing than perfection.

11. The nation as household simile is the crassest form of introducing microeconomic fabulism into macroeconomic reality.

A Message from the President of the United States of AAAmerica(Courtesy of Obamaaa2012)

2011-09-01T02:14:00.000-07:00

Keep shopping folks. The recovery's slow, but we're on the right track. Be sure to tune into my speech on jobs. I will say some wonderful things. The theme: "The United States, Forever a Triple A Rated Nation".

Leadership works best when it forges and promotes plans to help everyone. TARP, ACA, and HAMP are glorious examples of free enterprise and the government coming together to serve this great nation and its hard working people. Corporate leaders, Bankers and I have hashed out some wonderful work in the past few years.

What's that? None of this collusion has benefited you?

Well, wait a little. Don't be so fiercely rooted in the now. I won't be so beholden to electoral politics the next term. I'll be free to follow my heart and revisit ties to the community.

Why the concern? It will only be my past. To revisit the War Crimes and widespread Financial Fraud of the past decade would stir up too much trouble. Now is not the time to look back. The recovery is fragile and only a fool would invite more uncertainty. Markets need our vote of confidence. Let's look forward and watch as recovery dawns on tomorrow's horizon.

Until then I gotta raise a fuckload of money to cinch this election. You understand, don't you? Trust me. I am working for all of you. You're all heroes---(dramatic pause)---especially the brave men and women serving this great nation overseas.

God Bless AAAmerica

Obamaaa2012

To donate devote 401k contributions to BAC, GS, JPM, GE, GM, and CXW.

Triumph of the Revisionary Will(Honoring Global Leaders for Peace and Shitting All Over MLK's Legacy)

2011-08-28T04:09:00.000-07:00

The most war mongering nation on this planet held a gala to honor those who take the lead in furthering peace and also felt it suitable to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.(a lovely twofer). The image above is of the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sharing a tender moment with Reverend Jesse Jackson. Did Reverend Jackson absolve her of the half million Iraqi children murdered by sanctions she upheld? Did he ask her to atone for saying their deaths were "worth it"?

It gets much much worse. Dame Albright closed the precedings with a speech and received an award for her past and present efforts to take the lead in furthering peace. This is the woman who cornered Serbia into war with the Rambouillet Accords. She also quipped, "If we're gonna spend so much money on all those fancy weapons we might as well use them." It's a wonder the miniature replica of MLK's Memorial didn't explode contacting her bloody hands.

This festival of unintended macabre humor contained other horrors. It deemed the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was another Global Leader for Peace. Israel is a warmongering Apartheid state. Gallows humor to have Ambassador Oren speak in praise of a man who'd righteously loathe Israel and anyone who represented it.

The hostess was Mrs. Greenspan, Andrea Mitchell. Her husband thought the Iraq War required no defense. Why? Because, in his words, it was all for oil. That's sufficient!

There were other speakers. The United State Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, especially stands out. He, along with the US State Department, backed the coup in Honduras because the usurper supported US Corporations exploiting laborers with sweat shops and sub-subsistence wages there. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a book extolling the DIGNITY of ALL LABOR. The United States Trade Representative loves "free trade" deals with dictatorships which destroy the rights of laborers to serve transnational corporations. He is an enemy of every laborer on this planet. His sole purpose is to destroy the rights and diminish the wages of laborers. This is a man Martin Luther King, Jr. wouldn't hesitate to condemn. Ron Kirk praising a man who not only spoke against, but also protested fiercely, the wealth inequality our dear Trade Representative daily strains every fibre of his being to uphold.

They attempted to salve the salt in decency's eyes with Reverend Jackson and a musical performance by Stevie Wonder---But, overall, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shabbily used as a front to praise warmongers, apartheid states, and plutocratic vampires as "Global Leaders for Peace".

Feel free to vomit. Then shower.

This Weak in Critique: Zizek Reproaches London Rioters with Left-Wing Infantilism

2011-08-26T05:29:00.001-07:00

I POSTURE THEREFORE I AM.

I will not quote his abstruse and meandering clarity of hindsight. Alas, the lack of a manifesto. The inability to mount collective action against a powerful and well armed state. Zizek longed for "a night in which all riots are class conscious". No echoes of Lenin or regret over the loss of "objet petit a". A sad and chaotic affair no studious ideologue could find solidarity with. If only they'd quote Chesterton as good British lads. We pray future rioters will be suitably erudite and crack jokes about cartoons as representational apologetics.

Byron's Scorn

2011-08-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

"I have seen some nations like o'erloaded asses
Kick off their burdens - meaning the high classes"

-----Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XI, 84.

The Hell of Uncertainty, a "Free Market" Phobia

2011-08-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

"If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty."
-----On Certainty, Wittgenstein, 115.

Uncertainty is killing free markets. Proposed regulation and tax hikes are terrorizing CEO's and investors. Keep in mind they are making record profits and enjoying an unprecedented growth in wealth. But uncertainty is used as a bogeyman to explain the lack of jobs and also to polemicize against regulation and more progressive tax policies. In a time of record income equality, growing unemployment and poverty it seems reasonable to ask more from a class that has benefited the most from tax-payer bail outs. Can they be certain the State will remain their steadfast lackey in the face of rioting majorities?

Economists from Adam Smith to Marx have noted that unfettered markets lead to greater income inequality and uncertainty. In their infinite wisdom the masters of our present day markets want less fetters, more income inequality enshrined in legislation, and greater uncertainty to produce certainty. This is a neurosis born of fear the free ride they are getting from their cronies in government and the people will soon end.

The main fear they have is being held accountable for their fraudulent practices. Since 2006 they have gone on a crime spree largely ignored, and at times staunchly upheld, by our leaders in Government. Fraud continues unabated and is a large part of their success. Will they be able to continue their illegal practices and loot every nation's wealth? Will the lower classes rise up and create conditions making it impossible for markets to sow their own brand of anarchy backed up by the state's monopoly of force? This is the true uncertainty. The elite looters fear the looted. They need the full and unconditional support of every state's security forces. They are getting it in the United States and United Kingdom, for now. The future is not promised.

Inspired by Charles Davis(False Dichotomy)

2011-08-11T04:55:00.001-07:00

When a State and its Legal apparatus upholds criminal acts by officials and exacerbates wealth inequality through undemocratic policy, it violates the social contract and loses its right to govern.

The contemporary nation-state is a front for "globalist" cartels(Central Banks, Hedge Funds, Energy Corps, and War Contractors) who loot resources on a worldwide scale for the benefit of an elect few. Law, be it national or international, is willing to overlook financial fraud, torture, aggressive war, and ecological devastation if it serves the power of these privileged cartels.

Valery heralded "The Age of a Finite World" in 1931. Since then wars and wealth disparity have increased globally. It took a half century for the spoliation to return home to nest in nations whose power reaped the greatest rewards. The end, in every sense, of this age necessitates an effort by power to extract more rights and resources from everyone to maintain its "growth".

The National Security State, along with its Central Banking Heart, does not plan on going out with a whimper. It needs blood. The parasite tells the host it's a parasite, i.e. Power tells those it loots to sacrifice more...

I should stop drinking Bhang.
Nevertheless, I stand behind, not hiding, everything above. Mr. Davis is correct about institutions of power being an insular affair amongst elites.

But didn't James Madison establish the insularity of powers in the Constitution?

Godel read the US Constitution and was disturbed because he thought, logically, it contained contradictions that allow for democracy to deteriorate into tyranny--But he didn't marry well.(laughter)

The barbarous vestige of looking for lone heroes in modern "Democracies" echoes the individualistic nihilism of "Free Market" fundamentalism. Nowhere does central planning rig outcomes for so few at the cost of so many as in "Free Markets". Our media always sing about the heroic nature of the lone, sovereign, individual. The entrepeneur, etc It's a great con job. Make the petit bourgeois barnacle feel valorized by pipe dreams Madison Ave microwaves daily in 30 second nuggets......But God forbid people come together, organize, and strive to enact change!(That would be Marxism! Ecrasez l'infame!)

(a response to his post on Institutions of Power)

Cruel Summer, Austerity in the UK

2011-08-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

"...but may I, before descending into my grave, see the humiliation of the arrogant bourgeois democracies, today shamelessly triumphant."

----"In Defence of Lenin", Georges Sorel.

One spark sowed a conflagration. The structural violence of Austerity Measures has solely fallen upon the poor and the young. Youth programs are eviscerated as university tuitions rise. All of these cuts and hikes made to secure the wealth and privilege of wealthy rentiers. The media, of course, acts as a handmaiden to cronyist authority by describing the riots as acts of "hooligans", and, when more candid, spouting racist and classist bigotry in commentaries. Their fear is real. They cannot speak the burning truth: Austerity is creating greater divisions, inequality, and inspiring rebellious anomie in the victims. Austerity measures implement looting by upper class "hooligans".

I applaud the rioters targeting shopping districts. It shows a deep recognition of their oppressors. Cameron and his crony regime chose the marketplace over people. In response the people are burning markets down. Sadly Cameron had to cut his summer vacation short to address the firestorm his policies laid out abundant pitch for.

No surprise the igniting spark was police brutality in a lower class, segregated, neighborhood. An "elite" police attack force shot a man needlessly in Tottenham. They attempted to cover it up and justify the murder by planting a gun at the scene and claiming they returned fire. Forensic examination found the "incriminating" bullet found embedded in a policeman's radio was police issue. A small protest at the police station resulted in a 16 year old women being beaten by officers. Police protect property and uphold class barriers. Killing a man and beating young women in a poor neighborhood enforces structural occupation, class division and dissuades the poor inhabitants from asserting their rights.

As inequality grows Police forces become more brutal and work harder to suppress any struggle against institutional attacks. Austerity is a weapon wielded by financial elites to plunder the lower classes. They started this war. The masters had hoped the "peons and parasites", phrases from The Daily Mail comments section, would stay cowered under the heightened brutality of their hirelings(police).

Buildings burn to ashes as rage buoys motes forming dark clouds over English cities.

Epitaph on the Debt Ceiling "Crisis" from an Illustrious Tomb

2011-08-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

"Bankers do their best business when governments fail to do theirs."

-----Prince Talleyrand

A Response to Joshua Foust's Piece, "Why the European Right Can't Be Blamed for the Attacks in Norway", in The Atlantic

2011-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

One is not surprised to see such a "balanced" apologia for Western prejudice against Muslims written from a person who has ties with USAID. Breivik's acts mirror what US/NATO policies do daily in Muslim countries. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Somalia are bombed and subject to internal operations, support of tyrannies, torture, wholesale murder of any who resist occupation, armed, funded and sometimes practiced by Western Intel agencies. Also the US is largely responsible for planting the seeds of Fundamentalism in many areas by funding and arming Wahabbi groups and destabilizing regions to weaken states to secure hegemony over resources(Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Libya,Yemen and Somalia). Does Mr. Foust really think Al Qaeda is not an arm of Western Policy to deligitimize Muslim resistance to Western Resource colonialism? If you look at all the trouble spots in Africa and Asia you'll see two common elements: US/NATO Military presence and Intel Agencies alongside Al Qaeda. The surest sign US/NATO is losing in a region is the disappearance of Al Qaeda. In Afghanistan we are now fighting a Pashtun insurgency. Our patsies have gone. We supported Al Qaeda in Kosovo and Bosnia and we are now supporting them in Libya. The War on Terror is a propaganda bonanza aided and abetted by US NGO's who publish studies and promote the "humanitarian" side of Western Colonialism.

Breivik's insanity is matched by the calculated Islamophobic practice of Western policy. The US, along with NATO, is now bombing 6 nations that "happen" to be Muslim, with a huge military presence throughout NE Africa and West Asia. Is this accidental? Every month drone bombs slaughter civilians in these nations. Breivik's act is no more acceptable than Western aggression. His desire for attention for his greater aims are no more psychotic than Western NGO's analysis of why US/NATO's efforts just need to be fine tuned to work better for the colonized. Mr. Foust himself is an ideological psychotic who fronts the world's largest murder machine and often wrings his hand at the "policy mistakes" it makes. He always argues for a more intelligent and "balanced" colonialism. You'll never see him argue that US/NATO's intervention in these regions is aggressively looting resources and terrorizing people under the rubric of "security".

It's nice to see Joshua Foust defend McCants and other Intel parasites who live off the terror US/NATO inflicts on the people of many nations. Bogus Jihadi groups are infiltrated and guided by Western Intel agencies to provide timely alarm for US Populations as an argument for our growing military expenditures, enhanced security state measures and greater belligerence. Breivik's fears of Muslims are largely driven by Western States consistently warning their people about Islamic Terrorism as they bomb and occupy several Muslim nations.

In the Europe of Le Pen and growing Right Wing Nativism Breivik is not an anomaly. He is the face of Western Agression towards Islamic nations turned against itself. But Foust grazes over the obvious terror practiced by US/NATO and sheds crocodile tears for his friends in the "Terror Analysis" business. They, like him, live off the terrorism US/NATO nations inflict daily against groups they funded and armed to further colonial aims. It's a good business to get in for people who like to think about how best we can humanely colonize people who resist our resource looting.

Mr. Foust needs to look inwards and examine the psychosis and corruption inherent in his own analysis before he bemoans US/NATO backing drug dealers(Afghanistan), black market human organ dealers(Kosovo), arms dealers and mercenaries. Colonialism can't have humanitarian aims. It can hire NGO's to trumpet its efforts to be more humane. They are promotional hacks attached like barnacles to the terror.

Joshua Foust is a paid ideological courtesan who fervently desires Western Resource Colonialism in East Africa and Asia becomes a kinder, gentler endeavor. He serves what he, in his ardent heart, at times finds abhorrent. I feel sad for the ethical gymnastics his mind must undergo to analyze the looting and mass murder of peoples all in the name of grandiose policies. He wishes to refine terror and oppression of peoples into something humane. Like our Humanitarian effort in Libya--which he, to be fair, is severely critical of. When the bombs stop falling and Gaddafi steps down(who knows?) he might leave his beloved Central Asia(Registan) and start opining on how the West can best serve Libyans. Apply, Rinse, Repeat ad infinitum.

Norwegian Wood: Terrorism Experts Rush to Erect Theories after Oslo Tragedy

2011-07-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

"The longer things have been established the more the idioms; the harder times get, the more the idioms increase."

--"Rameau's Nephew", Denis Diderot.

Cable News anchors and invited "terrorism experts" couldn't hesitate to ascribe the bombing and shootings in Norway to Jihadists or Al Qaeda. They cited the level of sophistication and bemoaned Norway's "open society". Another lament, Norway is a peaceful nation unjustly attacked by the madness of "terrorism". Even "prestigious" American publications like the New York Times ran with headlines announcing Jihadist terrorist attacks in Norway. They even reported on a bogus admission of responsibility by a "terrorist" outfit.

The "experts" were convinced Islamic Terrorists were responsible because of the sophistication and scope of the attack. Their analysis concluded it had to be a Jihadi or Al Qaeda operation. Discussions about cartoons depicting Mahomet were given as possible reasons for the "attack". The aerial bombing of Libya by Norway's Air Force was not discussed. Norway's participation in Afghanistan as occupiers didn't garner a peep. Those inconvenient facts did not harmonize with the narrative of a peaceful Norway being unfairly targeted by insane Islamic terrorists.

Within hours of the bomb blast and shooting "experts" had already decided that Islamic terrorists were behind it. They had already depicted Norway as an innocent victim of Jihadi or Al Qaeda barbarians. Does this sound familiar? Their excitement to ascribe blame to those we terrorize daily with remote drone and manned aircraft bombings, invasion, and occupation is not accidental.

It's necessary to inoculate hints of blowback from our terror campaigns elsewhere by falsely stating attacks target "innocent victims". Recall that aerial bombings and drone strikes by the United State and NATO kill many times more civilians than all "terrorist" strikes combined.

A propaganda effort by Western Media went to waste. Only one man has been arrested in the attacks. He admitted to the bombings, was captured at the Labor Party Camp, and identitified as the shooter. A Norwegian man who had a history of writing Anti-Islamic screeds and affiliation with rightwing groups appears to be responsible.

The Western Media has moved on from irresponsibly applying blame to ostentatious grieving. Of course the white Norwegian male charged with the murder of 92 people is not called a "terrorist". When Europeans or US/NATO military operations mass murder civilians it is strategic action striking "terrorist operatives" or, when done by a civilian, the act of a crazed loner.

It's idiomatic. Western mass murderers are heroes or crazed loners. When Muslims resist occupation and the mass murder of their fellow civilians they are evil "terrorists".

Underground

2011-07-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

The infinitesimal
shelters emptiness.

A flash of love
scalds red
on a girl's face.

Death's touch
blooms gray
on mother's face.

We fuck
like frightened
acrobats.

Mysteries so deep
outlive the bloom
in blush's rebirth.

"Debt Ceiling Apocalypse" (A Deficit Monomania Soap Opera)

2011-07-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

The hype surrounding the debt ceiling vote is amusing and alarming. The last time we had an apocalyptic economic crisis Rep. John Boehner wept on the House floor. Those tears were shed to support TARP. It was a handout of almost $800 billion in taxpayer dollars to recapitalize Banks that precipitated the crisis. Debt Ceilings have been raised over 70 times since the 70's. This time is somehow different. Why? There's a bipartisan consensus that something "serious" must be done(except for raising taxes on the wealthiest, increasing inheritance and investment income tax rates or cutting defense spending). When the word "serious" is used by Politicians in Washington, D.C. or corpress pundits, one must know something unpopular to the majority of people in the United States will be done. The majority will have to tighten their belts to insure wealthy treasury bondholders can collect interest.

This crisis is a case of deficit monomania. They must terrify people with economic armageddon to defend cutting Social Security and Medicare. It's the "serious" thing to do. Even President Obama is on board. He'd never dare raise taxes. Cutting defense is not on the table. Taxing investment and inheritance at the same rate as labor? NEVER!

The negotiations will be extended as close to the deadline as possible to necessitate a "serious deal". President Obama wants to do "big things". Speaker of the House Boehner wants to defend the banks and hendge funds, again. They agree more than they differ. The media coverage of the acrimony and focus on process is empty theater to persuade folks there's a real difference and, therefore, a crisis. Nonsense. The debt ceiling, like 70 times before, will be raised. I wouldn't put it past these political marionettes to go over the deadline to let the market crash and allow Wall Street pundits to "seriously" decry "the lack of confidence" and "uncertainty" that has extended the recession and high unemployment rates.

The same Soap Opera as the first TARP vote, when Boehner wept.

Meet Grover Norquist's Latest Pledge

2011-07-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

He has previously shown reluctance to raise taxes on the wealthiest, despite rhetoric. Now he is farcically attacking "loopholes" to garner more revenue. Of course the telegraphed response from Republicans is, "if you close loopholes you have to cut overall rates". This is just like the tax plan for Corporate tax evaders. Understand the message: you cannot raise taxes on the wealthiest because any tax burden on them now could hurt the robust job market. After 10 years of record low tax rates on the wealthiest-->high unemployment, go figure? The answer, of course, is less taxes! President Obama will cut Social Security, Medicare and "move to the middle"(further Right) by erasing tax loopholes while lowering overall rates for our plutocratic "job creators".

Grover Norquist is smiling. His latest pledge is sitting in the Oval Office.

President Obama's Drone Bombing Policy for Dummies

2011-07-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHkvD7-u7y8

Fitting on this July 4th Holiday week-end.

"It blowed up real good."

Gaza: Collective Punishment is Terrorism

2011-06-28T10:45:00.001-07:00

Gazans elected the HAMAS party to lead them in a
free and fair election endorsed by the US and Israel
before the results were known. After HAMAS was
elected a Blockade was implemented as Collective
Punishment by Israel to punish the people of Gaza
for their free choice. A blockade without provocation
is an act of war. It punishes people by depriving them
from exporting and importing materials which crushes
the ability to build a viable economy. It is no crime Gaza
has responded to the blockade with rocket attacks and
calls for the destruction of a state whose officers have been
candid about starving the people of Gaza to near death.
The United States has fully supported this illegal blockade
along with two brutal bombings and one invasion with
weaponry, diplomatic cover and tax dollars.

Last year an Humanitarian Aid ship, full of unarmed

activists and out of Turkey, sailed to Gaza through

international waters and was attacked by the IDF.

Nine people were killed and one was a 19 year old

US citizen. The United States upheld Israel's right

to defend itself despite the event taking place in

International Waters without any credible threat

to Israel. This controversy was buried in the United States

with zealous defense of Israeli piracy and condemnation

of the activists trying to bring food and material to people

suffering under a criminal blockade.

Today Flotilla ships are docked in the port of Athens.

One ship is manned with American activists, even an

elderly Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, who wish to

protest the criminal blockade. The US Secretary of State

released a statement warning American citizens on

the boat they are needlessly provocative and,

furthermore, Israel "has a right to defend itself".

This statement grants Israel permission to be brutal

as possible and kill as many US activists in International

Waters as they wish with impunity and that Americans

should not expect the support of their government against

high seas piracy. The statement went further by intimating

American activists on the flotilla could be prosecuted in the

US if they join this flotilla for Material Supporter of

Terrorists(HAMAS).

The people of Gaza are in Limbo. Leaders they freely

chose are titled terrorists. As a result, they cannot

"legally" receive humanitarian aid according to a few

states who uphold an illegal Blockade. Collective

Punishment is Terrorism. Pronouncements of a

state against another state waging war on its people

is not Terrorism. The state whose people are being

collectively punished, a War Crime, has a right to

defend itself against the nation enforcing the Blockade.

Pap Smear

2011-06-15T22:06:00.001-07:00

Carion: Because even a blind man can see that it's much more profitable, in this age we're living in, to be a no-good.

-----Aristophanes, Wealth, Act 1.

The Prime Minister of Greece is demanding the people of Greece suffer austerity to reward the fraudulent collusion of International Banks and Government cronies. He must insure the wealth of banks and their bondholders. Greece is for sale at pennies on the Dollar. Landmarks and islands are offered at auctions for European and US financiers. The ICC is meeting in a Hotel opposite the Parliament. In between thousands of Greek people are rioting in Syntagma Square. Quite a spatial metaphor for the Prime Minister smearing the entire nation of Greece under the rapine of International Finance. Greece relives the fate of Prometheus: A proud man bound, having his vitals pecked out greedily by bankers.

A Short Defense of the Young Man, LeBron James

2011-06-14T00:48:00.000-07:00

"Certainly it is a fearful business, that of having your Ableman to seek, and not knowing in what manner to proceed about it! That is the world's sad predicament in these times of ours."

-----Carlyle, "On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History"

A young sports star is chosen to rule a sport. At 26 years of age he is considered a failure because he hasn't reached the potential bestowed upon him by others. Be they fans, journalists or peers, the great anomaly of his accomplishments are not enough. In a team sport he is labelled the sole source of defeat for his team.

Success in American Culture is believed to be a miraculous process birthed from inspiration, hard work, and ability. The chosen individual must gain success. If not, then he's an imposter or, even worse, a slacker. Here we see the petulance of the choosers rather than the failures of the chosen. Success is not an elective meritocracy automatically crowning itself.

People grow impatient and ask the man they Crowned before any Coronation, "How dare you act like the King we have always told you you were?!"

At 26 he is a reviled thing, a living, dethroned, King.

He is young, healthy, and financially set. Nonetheless, many Americans expect him to suffer dearly. Their expectations depose the King.

Hero worship is often a cruel burden put on the chosen for something the choosers would never dare wish. LeBron James is not a victim, but millions of Americans want him to be one.

2011-06-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

"Having taken advantage of them throughout the best years of their lives, society now forgets all the sleepless hours they've spent in its service, and repays them for all the vital work they've done, by letting them die in misery. What's more, the wretched earnings of the poor are daily whittled away by the rich, not only through private dishonesty, but through public legislation. As if it weren't unjust enough already that the man who contributes most to society get the least in return, they make it even worse, and then arrange for injustice to be legally described as justice.

In fact, when I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I can't, so help me God, see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing society."

----------Sir Thomas More, Utopia, Book II.

Aventine

2011-06-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

Birds escape
up dark arbors
above the river
that takes Kings.

Fields clear and
fail to fund hopes.
Skies embrace
each alone,
humble as soil
to the plow.

Atmosphere,
a blanket we huddle under
to hush the breathless horror
of empty space.

Cutting the Baby in Half, Madness of the Two State Solution

2011-06-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

------I Kings 3, 26-27.

Of course the two state solution offered in the Israel/Palestinian peace process has never been about equality or halving. But it, in a deeper sense, will destroy any hope of a viable state by demanding two, unequal, ethnically pure states. This spurious judgment is the truth of the entire process. When the United States, advocate for Israel and not an honest broker, leads the effort, do not expect justice or peace. Israel sits back and cares little whether peace is accomplished or not. It can always build illegal settlements and then claim them as "Demographic Conditions" or "facts on the ground" to argue for more extensive "land swaps" in later peace negotiations. Creating a weak and bifurcated Palestinian state without a right to defend itself is to posit the annihilation of any viable state for Palestinians. The two state policy takes the wisdom of King Solomon's gesture and warps it into a de facto destruction of what he, in the end, saved.

Separate but not equal was a hallmark of American segregation in the first three quarters of the 20th century. Perhaps the United States wants the same for Israel. A split, refugee laden, Palestinian state, with no right of defense or to water, will be placed next to a US taxpayer subsidized and well armed Israel. The two state solution with land swaps ensures a failed Palestinian state and ratifies ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the territories.

Selective Amnesia: Oprah Winfrey, Iraq War Cheerleader

2011-05-26T08:28:00.001-07:00

"(Bill) Moyers records an October 2002 Oprah show with guests Judith Miller and Kenneth Pollack speaking with certainty about Saddam's WMD programs. An Ahmad Chalabi flack also talks about how much the Iraqis hoped for an American 'liberation'. When an audience member meekly questioned the trio, Oprah cut her off with a dismissive 'We're showing you what is.'"

------"Oprah Hugs Hawks", The American Conservative, January 14, 2008.

As Oprah gracefully exits the stage it is fitting to recall she took great pains to admonish and shame an author she had previously promoted on her show and through her book club, James Frey, for embellishing a memoir about drug addiction to sell books. Strangely, she never invited Judith Miller or Kenneth Pollack back on her show to apologize to her audience and, most importantly, her for spreading lies to justify a criminal war against Iraq that slaughtered a million, displaced millions and cost trillions. Mea Culpas aren't asked from those in power. Executive Branch promoted lies paving the way for a criminal attack on a nation which led to the death and misery of millions does not ask for accountability. Writing a memoir embellishing one's struggle with drug addiction DEMANDS it.

This was "Oprah's America" in the 2000's.

(Granted Oprah deserves some credit for running a series of shows critical of the Iraq War run up after she shamefully granted a propaganda coup to the likes of Judith Miller, Pollack and Chalabi. By then it was too late.)

(The above pic is from a show not related to the Iraq War propaganda effort.)

(Thanks to Sam Husseini, Bill Moyers and A Tiny Revolution for their previous coverage. It is an honor and pleasure to echo their excellent work.)

A Tiny Revolution, "How About It, Oprah?", April 26, 2007.

Bill Moyers, "Buying the War".

Sam Husseini via Twitter and also cited by A Tiny Revolution.

Our Angelic Dr. Gingrich: Summa Plutologiae contra Gentium

2011-05-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

"---why has Minerva been celebrated whilst Pecunia has been left in obscurity, although throughout the whole human race avarice allures a far greater number than skill?"

---St. Augustine, De civitate Dei, Book VII, 3.

"Their numbers, and their wealth, makes them haughty, and that is so far from being an argument to persuade us to forbear them, that 'tis a warning to us, without any more delay, to reconcile them to the unity of the Church, or remove them from us."

---Daniel Defoe, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters".

The Angelic Doctor of Second Generation Reaganomics is a political type. He sustains his political celebrity by co-sponsoring efforts with charlatans on either side of the aisle, joining think tanks, appearing on corpress political talk shows and, most essentially, running or planning to run for President every election year to amass funds for his political pac. It's a living! A man who has not held a political office for twenty years has made more by doing what he loves best, and what also got him kicked out of Congress in an ethics scandal, raise money. He's divorced two wives and, like dame Pecunia herself, trades up in women to amass value. He's all for unfettered trade!

Inexplicably this veteran political hack has a reputation for having an enormous intellect. He was, to his eternal credit, the front man of the original Contract for America. It was, like Our Angelic Doctor's grasp of anything, an outdated economic and social programme we are now seeing revivified in various states of our Blessed Union. The corpress can't help but fall in love with a politician who zealously implements big policies to rape the many for a blessed and wealthy few. He's serious and courageous like his ideological homunculi, the Tea Party. They too are equipped with outrageously refined intellects. They too serve up left-over microwaved Heritage Foundation economic plans fervently praised by stupendous and unbiased intellectual luminaries such as David Brooks, Sean Hannity and Dick Armey.

Whilst divorcing two wives, one was served papers during Chemotherapy, publishing ghost-written civil war era historical novels, glorifying the States' Rights champions of course, and giving speeches at prestigious private religious colleges all over the United States, our intellectual and angelic, despite the porcine visage, hero also ran up an enormous expense account. His calls for shared sacrifice and belt tightening have yet to diminish his physical and pecuniary Transcendence. When you're a Media Savvy political careerist who toadies up to plutocrats you can't cater to the vulgare. Any sign of that weakness would lose him invitations to all FOXNews shows, Meet the Press, Face the Nation and, most importantly, Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

What pains his admirers most is that, now, as The Angelic Doctor, he has the temerity to speak plainly and, a detour for Mr. Gingrich, truthfully about another one of his epigone's, Rep. Paul Ryan, economic plan. It is unfair to hold this saintly and holy architect of contemporary and anachronistic right wing political ideology to any standard! His intellect makes him a fount of Our Creator's light set against, and magnified by, general human darkness. This spiritual war for the Future of America, to him, is a contractual relation. And, in a disciplined and Saintly harmoniousness, much like his market based matrimonial practice, is for sale to the highest bidder.

I have consciously tried to discuss our Angelic Doctor in Sacerdotal tones. His worship of campaign contributions matches the divine zeal of televangelists' insatiable fundraising efforts. The scope of his Goliath sized intellect merits allusions to the Angelic and Saintly Fathers and Doctors of the Mother Church. Though a Philistine, he's still blessed with the opulence of earthly paradise without donning a hair shirt or having a single original thought. Can any man deny Our Lord has shown him favor?

Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro.

Buttons

2011-05-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away-----
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

---------Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the Eighth.

Why is there so much nothing along with something? Why concede anomalies of space names?

Silence inspires song uxuriously.

Our eyes, buttonholes of light.

The Moon,
pregnant and virginal,
spills silver
over the city.

Eyes assonant
with its descent,

Awash and aglow,
we stroll past
idlers, gawkers
and feuilleton hawkers.

The Moon,
hoary and venerable,
ebbs gray
into day.

vestments of serialized ministries
choreographed infinitesimally
to the errant tongue and truant curl

Rebellion
of empty heads
and stuffed bellies
with arsenals of debt

rise from darkness
into neon banality

kindled
by pale hands
in brushfire
pocked lands.

Two children run in terror when air shakes their faces' imprint on dark waters.

A dozen pink scarfs disguised as clouds are ignored by serious people at dusk.

Listen as mother sings a lullaby to her babe about Angels swallowing doves behind clouds.

Listen as hunger shivers from a thousand dirty cupboards.
This cross drags a straight line over every heart.

There is no button to fasten this point.
Theology is rarefied dramaturgy. Snap.

Kenosis: 0=Infinity

2011-05-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

It never begins always.

Presence, a figured void
emptying itself eternally

The Paraclete rests
mumbling clever litotes.

As American youths
joystick bomb shepherds
a half-world away,

Still, the Paraclete understands
nothing buries nominal value.

This doxy is our
exceeding doxa.

Jingoist Porn: When Imperial Bogeymen/Patsies Lose Their Usefulness

2011-05-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Justice was done."

----President Obama, May 1, 2011.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"But the prelude to worse trouble often wears the guise of a change for the better."

-------Lucian, A True Story.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bloodlust of "patriotic Americans" was sated. The President claimed, on live television, that an illegal assassination was "justice". His Constitutional Law bonafides are as much toilet paper as the US dollar. People could not wait to rush out and cheer for the further collapse of the rule of law in a nation that proudly claims its strict adherence . They cheered the murder of an old dialysis patient who served as the bogeyman for US imperial interests in the Caspian Sea basin. A man who served as the neverending pretext for War Contractors and Private Mercenary groups to seek a plenteous bounty from the US gov't. I imagine they're mourning his death. He was their greatest cash cow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

News Media stars swooned over the violent details of Bin Laden's death like masturbators viewing a snuff film. And, the greatest horror of all, the people cheered and were proud. Sadism vanquishes Law, Human Rights and even sane policy. We made a so called fundamentalist Bond villain a Martyr. It would have served our interests to capture him(he was unarmed) and put him on trial and show the US still has one shred of regard for legality. But a poll lift for President Obama and a celebration for our disgraced military and intelligence agencies are more important than the Constitution. Now "the People" are clamoring for the death photos. Constant War and its propaganda demoralizes people.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't act surprised when this great victory over Terrorism(an assassination that mimics a terrorist act)leads to an even greater defeat for Civil Liberties in the US. News stories of threats from angered Al Qaeda members are already broadcast. Bin Laden was always a figurehead for Al Qaeda and in the past few years his prestige had eroded. He has no power in Yemen, Somalia and Libya---the latest hotbeds of Al Qaeda activity. Odd that the US kills the symbolic leader of Al Qaeda just as it is arming and training Al Qaeda in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi. Odd Bin Laden was killed at the end of one of the worst weeks for the US military in Afghanistan(massive jailbreak in Kandahar, 500 Taliban escaped and elsewhere 25 US soldiers were killed).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We went to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda, now that it is headless and so few will our troops be leaving? (laughter) It appears HUMINT from sources not in custody was crucial in singling out this location. It wasn't garnered from testimony extracted by torture. Does that mean torture will no longer be used?(laughter) If the people cheer on illegal assassinations(cold blooded murder), then torture is a bagatelle.

America's Loud and Proud Face of Exceptional Bigotry

2011-04-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

How can anyone think the United States is a "post-racial" society when a media whore as shallow and stinted as Donald Trump can race-bait the President while, simultaneously, receiving the slavish attention of the corpress? It beggars the senses.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am no fan of President Obama. The continuing Birther saga trivializes political discourse even further than seemed possible after the halcyon days of the corpress cheerleading Dubya's War Crime and Torture spree. (Yes, President Obama, just like Dubya, is a warmonger and torturer.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now Trump has moved on to Academic Review. "How did an anti-Colonial Kenyan get into Ivy League schools? Why isn't President Obama a good lawn jockey like 'the blacks' who are fond of me?" This is fine material for satire circa 1970. Maybe Trump can recycle some more Archie Bunker dialogue and get more interviews. This charade is vacuous as the Royal Wedding hype, but far more troubling. Too many citizens of the United States applaud Trump's views and admire his "serious and(of course) tough talk".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The election of Barack Obama during a recession has resurrected the ubiquitous and endemic spectre of racism in the US. Our elites would rather have angry white folks scapegoating immigrants, Muslims and a dark skinned President than focus rage at the real looters of the middle and lower classes--the Plutocratic Masters of Finance Capital. They give Mr. Trump all the air time he desires. Condone his excrescently bigoted and ignorant diatribes. Look at him folks! He puts on quite a show! "Americans" sit in front of the blue screen and nod their heads admiring "his fearless truth telling". He's so entertaining and decisive on his Reality Show!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bullshit has hit the fan and people are quaffing it up like fragrant perfume. Unfortunately this makes Obama's bullshit on humanitarian war and economic recovery seem a marvel of preciosity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In essence, nobody wins by appealing to the endless bigotry of "American Exceptionalism".

Limits(Capital and Human Freedom)

2011-04-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

Neo-Liberalism champions free markets and individual choice as the greatest, unlimited, expression of human freedom. In doing so it formalizes liberty as a factitious realm of magical choice which does away with real conditions.(cf. Marx on Primitive Accumulation) It's strange the market has never been as rigged and backed by public funds at a time when it is stated as most free. As individuals are punished by economic choices and lose rights, market entities licensed and guaranteed by the state are rewarded despite making even poorer choices. Individual liberty has all the responsibility for every choice made and therein finds real limits. Market sanctioned liberty is unlimited because Capital cannot be punished. When it dominates Freedom becomes a limited exchange where only capital, not humans, participates. Ultimately the masters of capital become the most servile in this boundless liberty. "Quod Me Nutrit Me Destruit"

Marx Spring(Another Resurrection)

2011-04-21T22:33:00.001-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This primitive accumulation plays approximately the same role in political economy as original sin does in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell on the human race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote about the past. Long, long ago there were two sorts of people; one, the diligent, intelligent and above all frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of economical original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means essential....In actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, play the greatest part. In the tender annals of political economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial....As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.

-------------------------------------Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Money(fiat currency) will lose its head(value), just like its ideological sires, Monotheism and Divine Right Monarchy, and in a similar fashion. The more it is upheld through reforms and apologias stating it is best, the more we will witness its dissolution and debasement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The real is always, already measured. A hand to the ear, inflection of voice, widening or narrowing of eyes, and even a turned up nose, rationalizes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is unconscionable we live conscious of our own death. We resent it through distraction.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ptolemaic man has yet to die. Cosmologies and Atheism were not enough. Even the relativity of space/time and nuclear uncertainty failed. Only the destruction of fiat currency will deliver the coup de grace. The destruction of a system of universal exchange value(money) will do more than an end of Cosmic and Atomic Centricity and Grand Signifiers. Ironically its saviours will hasten destruction through attempting to secure its value.

The United States Is an Overflowing Toilet

2011-04-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

There exists an insect which men feed at their own expense. They owe it nothing; but they fear it. This insect, which does not like wine but prefers blood, would, if its legitimate needs were not satisfied, be capable, by means of an occult power, of becoming as big as an elephant and of crushing men like ears of corn.

--------------------------------Lautreamont, Maldoror, Bk. II, 9.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The word is an elephant.

--Lacan

The United States is an overflowing toilet of torture, cluster bombs, debt ridden securities, fraud and hypocrisy. It is a Finance Criminal Cartel with a deep well of WMD's, not just of the bomb variety. The IMF/World Bank eviscerates just as much human life as the Pentagon's Hellfire missiles launched from drones. A worldwide mafia that darkens every continent with parasitic "aid". Give them enough debt to hang themselves then come in and loot the people when they can't pay. Willing Elites are given a cut. The people, their labor and natural resources are bartered for next to nothing. It will not continue much longer. When the Elephant is roused the genocidal kleptocrats will be trampled like ears of corn. Eyes are opening, mouths are telling and when ears start hearing hearts will move to take up arms. Soon.