Why is everyone so afraid of a totalitarian, authoritarian police state, anyway?

Everything else ain’t worth shit without you’re safe and secure, right?.

I have an idea – let’s make a list of all possible things to be afraid of, and make anybody who makes you nervous a felon.

Just think how much easier and better life will be. No more forgetting your bank card – just wave your hand over the scanner. Never have to worry about losing your wallet again – you’ll be your wallet. Want to clear customs? Just walk through this electronic gate please, sir. Is my sentence over – can I leave this place now? One second – let’s scan you…. Yep, you can go now.

Security trumps all.

It’s a big, bad, nasty dangerous world out there. Full of fanatical killers who hate you because you’re free. You got to make sure you’re safe. That’s the most important thing, right? Everything else ain’t worth shit without you’re safe and secure, right?.

Right. No question.  

And I chop it down with the edge of my hand

Yeah

Well, I stand up next to a mountain

And I chop it down with the edge of my hand

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Jan. 10 (UPI) — Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed to international fame as a member of the first climbing party to scale Mount Everest, died Thursday in New Zealand at age 88.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark called Hillary the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived, The New Zealand Herald reported. Hillary died in Auckland City Hospital, reportedly surrounded by his family.

“Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus,” Clark said.

The one-time beekeeper reached the crest of Mount Everest May 29, 1953, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. He once said of the feat, “We knocked the bastard off.”

Hillary climbed 10 other peaks in the Himalayas, and reached the South Pole as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Hillary, who had experienced failing health in recent years, became a writer and lecturer later in life.

He was made a knight of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 and 42 years later received knighthood in the Order of the Garter.

Hillary founded the Himalayan Trust, a philanthropic organization through which he provided assistance to Nepal.

Hillary is survived by his second wife, June, and two children.

My sincere condolences and good wishes to June Hillary, and their children.

88 years old. The good don’t always die young. Some of the best last nearly a century.

Jimi Hendrix could have written this song for Sir Edmund…

Cross Posted at OOIBC and SanchoPress

If the Iranians attack a US ship in the gulf, or shut down the strait, it will be, in historical context, retribution and retaliation for US Foreign Policy and imperialism over the past century, and we will be as much or more to blame than they.

We get what we give. As we sow, so we reap.

Imperialism is coming home to bite us on the ass, bigtime. It has been coming for a long time…

In about a year, when there will probably be a Democratic President sitting in The White House, we’re going to have the same “Foreign Policy” we’ve had for the past nearly a century.

Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing changing.

James Marshall Hendrix would have been 65 years old on November 27, 2007.

What great music would he have given us since 1970 if he had stuck around a bit longer?

This is, IMO, the best song he ever wrote and played, and is the epitome of his guitar virtuosity:

Happy late birthday, Jimi…

If you can just get your mind together

Uh – then come on across to me

We’ll hold hands and then we’ll watch the sunrise

From the bottom of the sea

…Trumpets and violins I can – uh, hear in the distance

I think they’re callin’ our name

Maybe now you can’t hear them,

But you will, ha-ha, if you just

Take hold of my hand

Ohhh, but are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful…

Can I move back to 1970 now?

I don’t very often post an essay that is not at least in part my own writing, but this in my opinion is important enough for as many as possible to know to aid in understanding how we got to where we are today that… well, here it is.

Cross posted at OOIBC and Edgeing

Jason Leopold of Truthout interviews Craig Unger, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, on the Rise of the Christian Right and Neoconservatism.

Unger garnered national attention with his previous book, House of Bush, House of Saud. Michael Moore cited it as a key source for Fahrenheit 9/11, and the film popularized the author’s reports on Saudi investments in Bush family enterprises.

In his new book, The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future, Unger turns his attention to neoconservative officials and theorists. At times he focuses so closely on neocon tactics that he misses other forces driving Bush-Cheney policies. Even so, the book offers a vivid account of the use of disinformation to promote extremism.

Leopold: Craig, thank you for being with truthout today. What are some of the issues in your new book that we don’t know about – that the public does not know about?

Unger: Well, I think we’ve been told again and again that we got into the war in Iraq beacause of intelligence failures – that various things just turned out not to be true – that we made one mistake after another.

I actually think we got into the war for exactly the opposite reason – because of intelligence successes – and by that I mean black propaganda operations – disinformation.

Chris Pepus of Chicago Reader takes the book review further for us with…

Bush and the Neocons

By Chris Pepus, Chicago Reader, Thursday 20 December 2007 (via Truthout)

Which presidents and political parties were responsible for America’s deadliest wars? To what extent can you blame a president or a political party for choosing to go to war? This map may hold some answers. It illustrates the history of American war from 1775 to 2006. War is a necessary evil. Politics, however, shouldn’t be.

The Betrayal Is Complete: Permanent Occupation Of Iraq

If you ever doubted it…

…this should resolve the question once and for all: We are on our own.

…

Asked about her “greatest mistake,” Pelosi said Why don’t you tell me? ‘Cause I think we’re doing just great.” Remember when Georgie stumbled over a similar question and couldn’t recall any mistakes? It seems Our Only President is not the only one so afflicted.

The hand-off…

“Principles” for Permanent Iraqi Presence:

A “democratic Iraq” here means the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The current political arrangement will receive U.S. military protection against coups or any other internal subversion. That’s something the Iraqi government wants desperately: not only is it massively unpopular, even among Iraqi Shiites, but the increasing U.S.-Sunni security cooperation strikes the Shiite government — with some justification — as a recipe for a future coup.

…

In other words, we’re staying in Iraq to defend George Bush’s ass, and his puppet Nouri al-Maliki against all enemies, foreign and domestic. What will the presidential candidates say about this?

“Principles”?

Cross posted at OOIBC, Edgeing, and dKos

undercovercalico yesterday – The American Dream: Time to Wake Up:

…the persistent and pervasive belief in the American dream is what undercuts both serious talk about class and it acts as a safety valve to protect our current system against peaceful but radical change.

It’s called a dream because… you have to be asleep to believe it:

UCC closed with

Until ordinary Americans can be pried away from the American dream and encouraged to formulate a new one, they will always view progressives with fear and distrust and our ability to build coalitions will be hindered. Ordinary Americans aren’t stupid or unaware. They know something is wrong. They suspect long held deals have been trashed, but articulating an alternative requires them to reject long held notions.

Anyone who’s read most of my comments knows that they all boil down to one thing: trying to remind as many people as possible that they are not powerless, that each of us, working together have the power to turn everything around, or from the politicians in Washington’s view – upside down.

You’ll know that I think, from the kind of comments that Democratic Party apologists post, such as this one for example, that one of the first steps we need to take en mass, is to make it as subtle as a ball peen hammer or a club between their eyes that we are no longer listening to them… that it is them that need to listen to us, or lose their power and position.

The election system is not yet broken and corrupted so badly that it cannot be used as that club…

They need to be terrorized into doing their jobs, or marginalized out of political existence if they will not.

There is still almost a year before the 2008 elections. And I know I repeat myself often, but I believe that the Congressional leadership and senators and representatives who are up for reelection next year, and Democratic presidential candidates, need to be placed in stark cold sweating terror of losing their congressional majority, and of not winning the White House, before they will feel motivated to make any substantial and fundamental changes at all…

As long as they remain confident that they will have the votes they need without doing what they were hired to do, they will continue to ignore the peasants, the, in their minds, “stupid ignorant fucks who don’t understand” real politics. The rabble who just are too dumb to get that “If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First Amendment.”

They – democratic candidates – need to be told, and they need to be told NOW, they need to have it made as clear and forcefully as you can make it NOW, that they will have your support, that they will have your volunteer work, that they will have your money, you contributions, that they will have your vote next year.

But not just by promising to do something. ONLY by doing something.

Do what? Each candidate needs to be told that they must pressure the democratic leadership in Congress to do the things you want them to do, and they will have your vote WHEN those things have been done, and not before.

A radical concept? Vote for RESULTS. Not for PROMISES.

I’m talking to you here – not just the collective you of all readers – but YOU – the single person reading this right now… and I have two questions for YOU:

Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has written probably the most sobering article I’ve yet seen about the prospects for the Iraq occupation, and what can be expected from Democratic presidential candidates.

An email just landed in my inbox linking to an article from Alexander Bolton at The Hill this morning, telling me, for the umpteenth time, that Congressional Democrats led by Nancy “I think we’re doing just great” Pelosi and Harry “we don’t have the votes” Reid have once again caved or capitulated or rolled over or backed down or given up or submitted or tried their best, or some other bullshit story that I keep hearing, not only from mainstream media, but from progressives all across the blogosphere.

Dems cave on spending

Senate and House Democrats backed down Wednesday from a spending showdown with President Bush.

The Democrats’ capitulation Wednesday on the total domestic spending level is the latest instance of Bush prevailing on a major policy showdown. Bush and his Senate Republican allies have repeatedly beat back efforts by Democrats to place restrictions on funding for the war in Iraq as well as Democratic attempts to expand funding of children’s health insurance by $35 billion.

…

In the final analysis, Democrats realized they would not be able to muster enough Republican votes to override Bush’s veto. The president vowed to reject any spending package that exceeded the $933 billion limit he set.

Democrats made a final attempt to drive a wedge between congressional Republicans and Bush by threatening to kill all lawmakers’ earmarks to bring the cost of the omnibus to the level Bush demanded. Obey hoped rank-and-file Republicans would pressure their leaders to accept a Democratic-proposed compromise…

The email came from truthout.

On Tuesday srkp23 posted a story about Human Rights Watch telling us that Dems are “cowardly”.

I hear stories like this every day. And I’m sick of it.

Why are we doing this to ourselves?

Congressional Democrats are not caving or cowardly or capitulating or incapable or rolling over or backing down or giving up or submitting or trying their best, or any of that crap.

They are, simply and plainly, COMPLICIT.

And I think it is long past time we not only stopped letting the MSM fool us but long past time we stopped fooling ourselves, and long past time we stopped letting Republicans or Democrats in Washington take the country for a ride.

Once more, with gusto…

Congressional Democrats are not caving or cowardly or capitulating or incapable or rolling over or backing down or giving up or submitting or trying their best, or any of that crap. They are, simply and plainly, COMPLICIT.

They are doing exactly what they intended to do all along. And one of the things, IMO, that they have intended to do all along is to fool and convince the electorate into believing that they are “trying” but “failing”.

They are doing neither. They believe that the electorate is too stupid to see through them. Maybe they are right?

It’s about time we smartened up… and about time we quit accepting being set up.

What do we mean by “civility” in the context of “racism” and how to deal with racism and racists?

I’ll begin by stating my own views as clearly as I can. I won’t try to define civility outside of that context or use any dictionary definition. I’ll just state my own feelings about it and about the “problem”, and there is a big one, in my view.

It’s that we all have different opinions of what “civility” is.

I vehemently disagree that being “nice” to racists is “civil”. In my opinion it is extremely uncivil, and encourages them to think that racism is “just another point of view as valid as any other”.

Well, it’s not. It’s the most fucking uncivil thing in the world. Far more uncivil by fucking orders of magnitude than my use of the work fucking.

And imo racists deserve nothing more than being utterly condemned for their racism… shunned and ostracized and marginalized and insulted and made to feel small and turned into pariahs until they realize, no… until they “feel”… the wrongness of their attitude. And by now most here probably know that I have no problem with telling racists to go fuck themselves.

What most probably don’t know is that it is also my opinion that Armando has been far, far too nice, too restrained and too “civil” on these subjects.

Racism is not a “problem” only for Docudharma per se, it’s a “problem” that exists in the larger society, – and it’s not a “theoretical” problem.

It’s a real life bleeding and dying problem for far too many people.

There seems to be, no – there IS – a widespread desire and longing here for, as many people here have expressed it “peace” and “not fighting with each other” – for “civility”, a shorthand term those who have expressed those desires have used.

The rationalization of most who’ve expressed this desire is that in their view “being civil” by that definition of civil will result in more inclusiveness and less people feeling ostracized or condemned – which they view as a “bad thing” – and that “not being civil” will drive people away by making them feel unwanted.

The rationalization is aimed at not shunning or marginalizing or ostracizing racists out of “concern” for their “feelings”, and out of concern that some of this community might leave it because they are uncomfortable with “incivility”, as they term it.

The inseparable flip side of that rationalization in my view is that it encourages people  to think that racism is “just another point of view as valid as any other”, and removes any pressure or motivation for them to learn that racism is plain flat out wrong and evil, or change or stop.

In other words, in my view, that rationalization accepts that people who suffer from racism,  a set much, much larger than the set of racists, should continue suffering racism and their continued marginalization in the interest of not marginalizing and possibly losing a much smaller set of people who think that the much larger group is somehow inferior to them or less human, and in effect allowing to feel marginalized and excluding the larger group of people who suffer from racism by in effect and for all intents and purposes condoning racism.

That rationalization is racist…

Larisa at-Largely reports:

Well, apparently (and again) we find out that the majority of the “terrorists” we are fighting “over there” are actually a our own allies, or as the terrorists call themselves, Our Allies in Iraq (OAI):

“Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.

The data come largely from a trove of documents and computers discovered in September, when American forces raided a tent camp in the desert near Sinjar, close to the Syrian border. The raid’s target was an insurgent cell believed to be responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.

The most significant discovery was a collection of biographical sketches that listed hometowns and other details for more than 700 fighters brought into Iraq since August 2006.”

Ah, the House of Saud, with an ally such as this, who needs any enemies? They are, after all, our number one arms client, and so what if they dabble in murdering Americans, when multi-billion dollar contracts are on the table (where apparently impeachment [and Iraq occupation defunding] is not).

(italicized addition mine)

You’ve gotta feel for George Bush. Not enough people are buying his WOT fantasy, so as with any other BS product, he simply creates the problem to help him sell his solution.

And lives? Big deal. Lot’s more where they came from…

Thanks a lot, George.