August 25, 2010 archive

How To Fight The Class War

Simulposted at Daily Kos

First of all, do NOT change the name to something “nicer.”

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I’ve got bad news for you folks, there will be no Mission Accomplished in the Class War. There will be no great and glorious victory with flags waving above the battlements.

Class war is not about defeating the Rich, it is about scaring the hell out of them enough so that they give up power.

The Ruling Class (and don’t worry we are NOT talking about YOU) only grudgingly accepted the New Deal because the idea of a true Class War, an all out uprising of the poor, the unemployed, foreclosed upon farmers, destitute Veterans, and yes….Leftist Agitators …scared the hell out of them.

And it was ONLY as a result of that fear, fear of something far worse than the New Deal, that the Ruling Class gave up a smidgen of their wealth and power to the scary peasants (and yes, now we are talking about you) at their gate.

CIA: United States is exporter of terrorism

 Wikileaks has provided us with a question worthy of an answer.

 This CIA “Red Cell” report from February 2, 2010, looks at what will happen if it is internationally understood that the United States is an exporter of terrorism; ‘Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens.’

 While an interesting question, I think an even better one would be ‘what would happen if it was domestically understood that the United States is an exporter of terrorism?’

MSM Don’t Ask These Questions re: Afghanistan

Cross-posted at Dkos http://www.dailykos.com/story/… and Firedoglake

The mainstream media do not ask our government the questions they should be asking about Afghanistan.  

I diaried about this last week.

Since the MSM won’t ask the tough questions, it’s up to you and me, it appears.

I’m a military dad whose progeny has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan in heavy combat, where the batallion had many KIAs and serious WIAs.

I’m sick of constant endless war based on specious reasoning, and I have questions I want Dick Durbin, my senator, to answer about Afghanistan.  It’s our service members and their families who are paying the price and bearing the burden for all of it.  Members of congress who keep shoveling the money for constant, endless war ought to look us families who OPPOSE it in the eye, and answer questions.

Open Late

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The End

In the end, if the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

Barack Obama, University of Nairobi, August 28, 2006

An Honest Government, A Hopeful Future

False Gods



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False Prophets are a dime a dozen. From the clergy to politicians to flim-flam banksters, charalatans are monkeys in a barrel, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The problem is while many are on the lookout for False Prophets, most do not question the Gods behind the religions of these socio-economic-religious shysters.

DOGMA spelled backwards is AM GOD. Dogma is strict adherence to the teachings of the Priest caste. When God is replaced by Religion-as-God, things turn sour.

But further, when you look at the great religions of Western Civilization – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – that, based upon the history of inhumanity practiced by these “great” religions, one must question the veracity of the God behind all these religions. And if one is fearless in the face of billions of believers, the God of the Victors who wrote the History and made the rules is a FALSE God.

Human Progress

Ever fewer people, particularly those in institutions of power, but also in the general populace in developed countries, most especially in the United States, appear to be aware of, much less devoted to enlightened or humanistic values.  Interest in the betterment of humanity, in the hope of minimally ameliorating our worst human impulses, or perhaps peeking at transcendence if only occasionally and imperfectly, or even hypothesizing about potentially preferred realities, is no longer a core concern, having given way to raw economic and military subjugation.

Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions, in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is as true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers.

~Bertrand Russell

Major Ralph Peters expressed succinctly and nakedly the dominant philosophy in America today (and across the past two centuries), in his book, Endless War:

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

~Major (psychopath) Ralph Peters, US Military

In short, the dominant American philosophy is to violently impose American-style capitalism on the rest of the world, to enslave them to it or kill them, wherein “them” now evidently also includes most of “us.”  

Defeating Privilege, Challenging Assumptions

I’ve written before about the rather limited reach of privilege.  A conversation with a fellow writer and friend from Australia showed me yet another area where a lack of infrastructure, wealth, education, and crucial connections leaves people out.  Oversights like these which yell out for alleviation are all too common, but not terribly sexy in the way only a massive disaster can be.  While we were discussing LGBT issues, she mentioned a topic very enlightening and thought-provoking.  To preface, my friend identifies as bisexual herself and so she listened intently, and with much interest, to the words and phrases I’d been throwing around regarding my own identity and its many nuances.  Her immediate response raised another issue pertinent towards the need to spread resources beyond our liberal borders.  

A Day in the Life of a Republican

In bantering with my wingnut friends, I came across the selection below. Just a reminder of what we can do with directed energy and organization.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A REPUBLICAN

By John Gray

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards.

He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting

on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree-hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

An Opened Mind X

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

– Henri Bergson


Star Womb

Relatively Speaking

On a cosmic scale

the scale of star stuff

we are all

so insignificant

minor players

on a minor stage

Just dust in the wind

evaporating in a relative

wink of an eye

or so I have been told

One can also

hold the view

that the vastness

of spacetime

gives primacy

to that stage

and to this life

while it occurs

Earth is my universe

until I can leave it

I am immortal

until I die

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 14, 2005

Late Night Karaoke

NEW Study indicates Microbes ARE rapidly consuming the Gulf Oil

I, for one, hope that this is true, and will be further substantiated:

Study: Petroleum-eating microbes significantly reduced gulf oil plume

David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer — Tue, August 24, 2010

Petroleum-eating bacteria – which had dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the seafloor – proliferated in the cloud of oil that drifted underwater for months after the April 20 accident. They not only outcompeted fellow microbes, they each ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible.

The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing that reduced the amount of oil amounts in the undersea “plume” by half about every three days, according to research published online Tuesday by the journal Science.

The findings, by a team of scientists led by Terry C. Hazen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California […]

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