November 15, 2009 archive

Gates has decided — no torture photos for you!

Good old Robert Gates, good friend of the Bush family, a player in the Iran/Contra scandal, the man who wanted to bomb Nicaragua in 1984, and former head of the CIA and now Obama’s ruler of all things Military Industrial Complex, has decided for us, that we shouldn’t see the infamous torture photos that have for so long been hidden from our view.

You know, the ones of soldiers raping and murdering and torturing children in front of their parents, those nice nasty bits of American Empire which salted the wound we’d cut in the breast of Iraq, that led to the brutal murder of the five mercenaries whose charred corpses were hung from the bridge?    Which led to the destruction of Fallujah, where American soldiers then shot families in their sleep, left the bodies to be eaten by dogs, burned people’s flesh off their bones with white phosphorous, and shot unarmed people who were swimming across the river to escape the carnage?

Yeah, it’s all part of the big picture, and we’re not allowed to see it.

At 50th Birthday Party, Geov Parrish Announces New Lobbying Career

SEATTLE (FNS)–Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish’s 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle’s tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the “Seattle Times” and a frequent target of Parrish’s acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named “I Am The State!”, is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.  

Fundamental flaws in progressive ideology

In my previous diary I asked progressive readers whether or not they really wanted power, since they seem to be willing to trust the actual handling of political power to the neoliberals.  This phenomenon was obvious in earlier election cycles: progressives supported Kerry for President, while Nader was labeled as a pariah.  Here I will try to identify the flaw in progressive ideology, which integrates it into the catastrophic path staked out by global capitalism.

(Crossposted at Orange)

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