If You Don't Submit To It, You Will Be Punished

Police state at it's finest:

When we were finally brought to the final holding area for our arraignment we were informed that if we refused to submit to a retina scan we would likely be held overnight. The retina scan is a voluntary procedure that all 10 of us had already denied earlier that day. According to our lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild – who are heroes – the lieutenant on duty and the judge said that if we continued to refuse the scans we wouldn’t get out that night. With only a few exceptions due to personal commitments, we all stood in solidarity and refused to submit to the procedure. This was around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, roughly 36 hours after our arrest. Several of the women arrested and a majority of the men were going to spend another night in prison to protest the ever expanding security state. In many ways, this final hurdle was the most egregious encroachment on our liberties. The retinal scan is a voluntary procedure, but if you don’t submit to it, you will be punished.

'Cause I know some of you out there think I'm being over the top when I say "police state". There is no way, no how, that this is constitutional. This is akin to discussions of Dejure and Defacto segregation. Although the law is written to be constitutional, it is in fact used in an unconstitutional manner. No way should it be possible to be *forced* to stay in jail for refusing to do something that you are not required to do.

Invented or Illegitimate?

So many days have gone by since Newt Gingrich's commentary that the Palestinians are an "invented people". Though such news has made waves among more independent minded people, most are distracted by the $10,000 "bet" that Romney offered Perry over a claim that Perry made.
Though that is not the intended subject of this post I just want to say how silly all this "news" over 'The Bet" is.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have engaged in "The Wager" in which I challenged another blogger to provide indisputable evidence to contradict my "theory" of race:

I'll write you another $1,000 cheque should you find a German Shephard[sic] that gives birth to a poodle[sic] through natural means of conception.

I made that bet with a 99% confidence that I would not have to pay out. This is common when you KNOW you're right to bet someone a large sum which they have no chance of winning. It is a means of showing that you are certain of what you speak. As a matter of fact I believe that it is the BEST way to end an argument with anyone. If they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is, then clearly you should be suspect of whatever they are saying.

I'll note that the person the wager was directed to (and various other persons in the "peanut gallery" STILL have not offered the evidence asked for. But back to Gingrich.

Gingrich is absolutely and specifically correct when he said that the Palestinians are an invented people. He is correct because every nationality is, in fact, invented. Every culture, every national boundary, All of it are invented. The American identity is invented. There were no "Americans" before the United States Constitution was drafted. England as we know it did not exist prior to 1707 and prior to that was a bunch of kingdoms.

Latin America is an invention as well. Canada and Canadians are invented people as well.

Even if you look at biblical history it is clear that Israel is and was an invention. Judaism itself is an invented religion taking large portions of Sumerian and Egyptian theology to create itself.

We could go on and on about all the invented people in history but that really wasn't Newt Gingrich's real point. Gingrich, being the white supremacist that he is, was really saying that European white people, as a body, have the right to determine who is a "legitimate people" and who are "illegitimate people". Gingrich is simply offering, in full view, the white supremacist worldview in which people exist only if white supremacists say so and they exist under conditions that white supremacists determine.

Many of the targets of such ideologies internalize these identifications. African-Americans have called themselves Negroes for generations. They have accepted, largely without question, the One Drop Rule, imposed by White Supremacists to specify who is not white and will generally object to those who oppose such an "invention".

Many people scoff at Kwanzaa, saying that it is "made up" as if Christmas and a fat white man who goes up and down chimneys are somehow more "legitimate" an invention. Or that the claimed birth of a person who is the son of a sky god (even though the birthday could not possibly be at the time it is celebrated) is more "legitimate".

The Palestinian leadership for all their objections to Gingrich's commentary behave exactly as Gingrich meant when they "petition" the UN to recognize them and ask for a state. Did the Kosovars ask for independence? No! They took independence and declared themselves a state. Palestinians generally then accept this idea of illegitimacy each and every time they seek outside people to legitimize their claims to national identity.

The same White Supremacists who say that Palestinians are invented (read 'illegitimate") are the same ones who heartily approved of Serbian independence. This should make it clear what Newt Gingrich (and those who agreed with him) meant when he said "invented". Invented was simply a code word for another I word.

Sounds Fair to Me

From Fox News:

On Sunday, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commander said the regime will not return the drone, and in fact, considered the spy mission of the unmanned vehicle to be an act of war itself.

"We are not the kind of country to allow our enemy to operate freely within our national security and to continue without any response, but regarding the kind of reaction we will show, our enemies will see its effects," said. Gen. Hossein Salami.

I've seen argument against male self-determination in regards to becoming a parent start and end with "once his sperm leaves his body it's no longer his or his decision." I don't agree with that but if we're to take such an argument to it's logical conclusion, the drone that was in Iranian airspace, clearly without their permission, is THE property of the Iranians and as such, they have a right to do whatever they want to with it.

We would expect that the US, if it were confronted with an Iranian drone flying overhead, would also, understandably, take all measures to down it. They would not be returning the property to the Iranians either; at least not in one piece. Furthermore the US would also take such an action as aggression if not a blatant act of war.

Therefore, the proclamations made by Iran ought to surprise no one at all.


Looking further at the report we see the following:

President Obama was given different options by the Pentagon to go into Iran and either retrieve the RQ-170 or destroy it, but he declined because, sources say, he didn't want such a mission to be seen as an act of war.

Bolton said that's not an adequate excuse.

"The Iranians, in saying they would not give it back, said the very act of sending it over Iran was an act of war, which undercuts the Obama administration's assertion that we didn't go into try and destroy the drone after it was captured for fear of the Iranians saying exactly that. ... So while there may be a lot of good reasons not to go in that is not one."

President Obama is quite correct in his analysis. To further exacerbate this situation by invading Iran (which is exactly what "retrieval" means) is a silly idea. Obama is trying to save US face by attempting to deflect the "act of war" angle by NOT making the mistake of making an unmistakable act of aggression.

This writer would like to remind the audience that when China shot down a US plane in it's territory, the same fools said to go get it. They, however knew better than to try to run up in nuclear China and for all their talk, they got nowhere.

Someone tell Bolton that winning the so called "war on terror" does not include invading Iran.

Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front

Was only a matter of time.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

The money shot:

"Any time you have a tool like that in the hands of law enforcement that makes it easier to do surveillance, they will do more of it,"

The Decline of the American Middle Class

Back in August of this year I discussed the economic reality that is facing the US middle class:

Well right across the Pacific is this country with a middle class population that is as large as the entire population of the United States. Let me say that again: There is a country with a middle class population as large as the entire population of the United States. Oh, and that population is growing. There's another country on the Indian sub-continent with a huge population of bright people who are like this other country is growing it's middle class at a fast rate. If you are a company looking to grow and profit would you be looking to America or looking to these places? Don't think too hard now.

Furthermore:

As discussed earlier the race to the bottom is creeping into the middle class as occupations that require expensive college educations that commanded high 5 and 6 figure salaries can be (and are being) sent to anyone with a fast internet connection and a PC. They will gladly do for $20k, if that much, what you ask $100k for. You do the math.

You'll note from the original entry that I did not quote any primary sources. I had simply looked at the facts on the ground and wrote my analysis. Now let us look at what Alan NasserProfessor Emeritus of Political Economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. has to say on the very same subject.

Here he is quoting one of Obama's advisors Jeffrey Immelt:

“Today we go to Brazil, we go to China, we go to India, because that’s where the customers are.” My goodness, this looks like the Leninist thing about the insufficiency of domestic markets to absorb the economy’s output. The US worker is not only becoming decreasingly important as an input to production, (s)he is no longer seen by big capital as the most promising customer, the most robust source of sales revenue.

Here he is quoting a Wall Street [type] executive:

A US-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told a writer for The Atlantic that “the hollowing out of the American middle class didn’t really matter.” The CEO described the subject of an executive discussion earlier this year: “… if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade.”

Some more from a CEO in the internet business, you know, the ones who trade "free social networking" websites and programs for access to your private information to sell to his (or her) actual customers:

The Chief Financial Officer of a US internet company expresses the same sentiment: “We demand a higher paycheck than the rest of the world. So if you’re going to demand 10 times the paycheck, you need to deliver 10 times the value. It sounds harsh, but maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut.”

There it is in black and white people. You, the 99% are overpaid for the work that you do. Remember that these are the type of people who are bankrolling the major candidates for President of the United States as well as those members in congress. Do you think they are backing and paying for candidates who think you are "underpaid"?

And do note that they are not of the opinion that somehow the retail prices for goods and services ought to drop in tandem with the drop in salaries.

Let's look at some more:

Thomas Wilson, CEO of Allstate, is unabashedly frank about the way in which globalization generates an opposition between working-class and business interests: “I can get [workers] anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business… American businesses will adapt.”

So all the big execs know that the American middle class is screwed and they are planning on who they can sell to instead. Of importance, this statement shows that the exec is of the opinion that the US ought to resemble the markets of current "developing" nations where there are wide disparities in income and wealth. Where if you have the connections and money to sell overseas you do so and you exploit your home labour force as much as possible to maximize profits. This is noted in our next quote:

We can call this the Third-Worldization of the Rest, or, if we focus on the wage-earners of the developed countries, the creeping obsolescence of the working class. Workers can of course never be rendered entirely obsolete. What is happening is that we are approaching that condition asymptotically. One might object that there are clear limits to how impoverished working people can be made – after all, workers have to be maintained as work-ready. Upward redistribution can only go so far. But ever-widening inequality is perceived by elites as feasible by virtue of the limitless possibilities of greater indebtedness. Workers can make ends meet by indefinitely mortgaging their future income.

This reminds me of an observation I made about I, Robot:

Specifically I was struck by the displacement of humans in many jobs. I, robot takes place in 2035, when yours truly will be in his 60's. at that time it appears that robots are rubbish collectors, babysitters, cooks, janitors even bartenders. My question was, what happened to the people who usually do these jobs?.

Workers are expendable and certain workers will become more and more expendable. I also wrote:

But I think that the movie presents a very very real spectacle as to how the elite in the US view the masses. People without "ends" are expendable and replaceable and hopefully we can make them just disappear.

Is this not what the executives are saying?

This subject of mortgaging the future is also the theme of the recent movie"In Time". There, instead of paying actual wages which people spend in order to live, they are paid in literal time to live. While a worker in our reality may decide not to work because he doesn't feel like it, he is unlikely to decide not to work if his life literally depended on it. In this dystopia, time is literally money. Why waste time with negotiating wages when you can cut the chase. Sounds extreme and scientifically impossible but the point is clear: How much work will we get out of you for as little as we can get away with? Let's go back to the article:

Non-union workers contracted by Ford to do inspection and repairs at the Dearborn truck plant make $10 an hour without benefits, which is projected to be less than the Chinese average by 2015.

So 2015, a scant four years from now, US autoworkers may well face having the same salary prospects as the Chinese, though with nowhere near the same cost of living. I bet they'll still be voting Republican though.

In the end though there will be an equalization among workers around the world as the ultra rich and those who own resources (usually one and the same) will force down the wages and living standards of those in the so called "developed world" while doing all they can to moderate the rise of income in the developing world. They will do this by moving production to wherever the customers and the cheapest labour is to be found. This is why many states in the US do all they can to give "incentives" for businesses to stay or relocate in said states. And oft times these incentives come right out of the tax revenue needed for cities and towns to run their public works. Many don't see the problem until the companies up and leave and leave a huge hole in the state and or city budget and a whole lot of unemployed people. Welcome to the new America. Not too much unlike the old one. Just that white folks are no longer being protected by their richer counterparts.

Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial

There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force” can be held in military custody “without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.

Note that they have put this into a defense appropriations bill so that Senators would have to vote against the appropriations bill in order to kill this little piece of unconstitutionality.

Money shot:

Obama approved of the execution without trial of Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Qaida’s YouTube preacher, based entirely on the unproven assertion that Awlaki was dangerous. Awlaki was an American citizen. So Obama thinks he has the right to kill Americans the government says are terrorists, but he doesn’t want the military to lock them up forever without trial. OK then

Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists

This from the same NY Times that hosted a thoughtless piece of drivel talking about how Al-Qaeda had "lost".

The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, appeared to have taken about 40 percent of the vote, as expected. But a big surprise was the strong showing of ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in voting or public life.

Analysts in the state-run news media said early returns indicated that Salafi groups could take as much as a quarter of the vote, giving the two groups of Islamists combined control of nearly 65 percent of the parliamentary seats.

And remember that the entire point of backing Mubarak in Egypt was to keep parties like the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Also remember that one of the platforms of Al-Qaeda is the removal of "leadership" that is "non-Islamic" and who act as fronts for the "liberal west".

Total failure. Total.

Public Sector Meltdown Hits Black Women the Hardest

So says the article in Ms. Magazine Blog But of course one has to pay attention to the details:

That means, naturally, that black women are feeling public-sector cuts the most. Twenty-three percent of employed African American women work in the public sector, compared to 19.8 percent of employed white women, 18 percent of employed black men and 14.2 percent of employed white men.

You'll note the reference to "employed" women and "employed" men. Of course the problem here is that Black men in general suffer from high rates of unemployment. Higher than that of Black women.

From Crains:

“Black women are a majority [53.4%] of the black workforce, head a majority [52.8%] of black families with children, and were more economically vulnerable even before the recession started,” according to the report.

From Money Magazine:

Overall, black men have it the worst, with joblessness at a staggeringly high 19.1%, compared to 14.5% for black women.

That's the national number.

From the US Department of Labor:

Blacks are the only racial or ethnic group where women represent a larger share of the employed than do men — more than half (54.3 percent) of employed blacks in 2010 were women, compared to 46.3 percent among employed whites. Employed black women still earn less than employed black men.

In NY State the unemployment rate of blacks generally (2010) is 40.8% divided into 17.3 for black males (error margin between 15 and 19 percent) and 12 % (error margin 10=13 percent). No that does not equal 40% so lets take those numbers at the high end of the error margin for both groups. So 1 in 4 black males 16 and over in NY state as of 2010 were unemployed and 1 in 7 (rounding down) black women in NYS in a similar situation.

This is not to belittle the situation that confronts black women but the numbers do speak for themselves. It may be harder out there for them now, but the numbers are not and have never reached what black men have faced and are facing. I'm glad Ms. is concerned with getting women back to work but I'd like for people to be concerned with getting black men into work.

Teach by Example

Egyptian police crack down. From the AP:

Witnesses said the violence began when riot police dismantled a small tent camp set up to commemorate protesters killed in the uprising and attacked around 200 peaceful demonstrators who had camped out in the square overnight....

Police were firing rubber bullets, tear gas and beating protesters with batons to clear the area on Saturday, said Sahar Abdel-Mohsen, an engineer who joined in the protest after a call went out on Twitter telling people to come down to Tahrir...

While the military tolerates daytime demonstrations in the central square, a symbol of the country's Jan. 25-Feb. 11 uprising, it claims long-term occupation paralyzes the city.

Or was that New York City or Oakland or.....

There Is No One To Vote For

As a long time non-voter I have long since come to understand the true nature of the political beast that is the US political scene that the occupy people are facing. A lot of people assume that I don't vote because I am either apathetic, "given up" or some other scripted response taught to them by someone or some organization(I won't even go into the "slavery" angle). Every now and then some who understand as I understand come out and speak on who this system works for. Sometimes it's a foreign government official that declares that he or she has "access" regardless of who's in office. Sometimes it's the CEO of some company that declares the he too doesn't vote because his interests are always being looked after regardless of who or what party is in office. Today we find yet another person reaching this realization:

But what I sensed in New York was anger not only at this economic problem, but the fact that the political system is broken. There is no one to vote for as an alternative to pro-bank candidates. So what began as anger has become a gathering awareness that Obama was simply fooling voters instead of leading the change he promised. That’s what politicians do, of course. But people hoped that he might be different. That was the gullibility he played on. He has turned into the nightmare they thought they were voting against.

There is no one to vote for. Exactly. When I size up the candidates I understand that in the great scheme of things the ones who would best represent my interests (and yours actually) will never make it past the primaries. Even the so called "establishment liberals" who bash Republicans at every turn will marginalize true change agent candidates by claiming they are 'unelectable". They will turn from arguments that you should "be heard" to telling you what you should be saying.

For example we have Cynthia McKinney, a black woman with a strong anti-war, anti-corporate platform. During the last presidential election the Black "Left" cognoscenti up and declared that supporting McKinney was a waste of time and votes and that voting for Obama was the right thing to do. So in essence the so called talented 10th spent their efforts in the service of pro-wall Street and pro-war candidates because they wanted to make history rather than stick to their principles. Principles which later showed themselves to be toilet paper thin as they supported, among other things, NATO regime change in Libya.

You'd think these cognoscenti would have encouraged black voters to, you know, vote their conscience or their principles, you know those things that they carp about every Jan 16th or other opportune moments to mention Dr. King and his dream. Oh well.

I have long said that it will not be until the proverbial feces hits the fan that people will realize that they are being had. They are being had slowly but surely. The general population is under the impression that unless something like a Nazi takeover happens that everything is OK. It is not and it will not go that way. The police state is everywhere and visible to everyone paying attention. One only need to move out of the little "permitted behavior" and "permitted discussion" zone to find out. The occupy break ups by various city governments shows that "we" are about as free as the Egyptian was in Tahir square. The differences are simply that there's more money here than there and cultural differences. Make no mistake though as politics go, both governments would do anything to maintain and protect itself from the people. And let us be clear, the protests are thus far non-violent on the part of the protestors, Just imagine what would happen if the protestors decided to do what the Libyans did, or what the Syrians are doing. With what we have seen thus far in NYC and Oakland do you now honestly think that mass beating and actual shootings would not happen here if the protestors actually resisted the police?

Where are the elected officials, supposedly the representatives of "the people"? Have you seen them with the people? Have you seen them have press conferences condemning the behavior of the authorities? Have you seen them point out the constitutional problems with the police actions? No. The ones who have spoken out have said that the protestors should "go home". That they "have been heard" and now "business needs to return to normal". As if they really do not get it.

So when people ask silly ass questions about "what candidate are they supporting" or "what candidate are they fielding" I know they simply do not understand what is going on. There is no one to vote for and when someone with the credentials show up the Liberal cognoscenti do whatever they can to not support them.

Game recognize game.

Sister Citizen Hits Cain Where it Hurts

Of late I've not found myself on the same page as Dr. Harris-Perry. This being especially true in her recent remarks in regards to Cornel West and her commentary in regards to the racism of white liberals with respect to Obama. But fair is fair and her latest Sister Citizen piece is all the way spot on.

Neither Thomas nor Cain was ever in any imminent danger of torture or murder, both of which are fundamental aspects of lynching. Neither man was attacked by a mob acting outside the normal structures of society and government; the inquiries into both men’s actions have followed standard media, employment and governmental practices. And while television and the Internet helped promulgate their stories, there was nothing particularly technological about their experiences. I suspect that what Cain and Thomas meant was that they were the victims of a symbolic lynching, not a high-tech one.

Kaboom. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Black Theology

Theology. According to the Webster dictionary theology is:

the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; the study of God and of God's relation to the world

According to the NY Times Africans AKA "black people" did not have "theology until 1836 when it was invented at Union Theological Seminary in NY.

The school, where the eminent theologian Reinhold Niebuhr taught, is also known as the birthplace of black theology. James H. Cone, a foremost scholar in that tradition, is still on the faculty.

I cannot make this stuff up.

Clearly then the staff of the NY Times among others are of the opinion that African traditional religions, which existed prior to 1836, simply do not exist. The Yoruba, Ashanti etc were just having idle chatter when they conceived of, discussed and handed down religious traditions to their descendants. The Kikuyu weren't facing Mt. Kenya for any particular reason at all. They apparently just enjoyed the view.

The further arrogance of this statement is that it also presupposes that somehow the trade in African bodies somehow managed to wipe out traditional religious thinking among those being bought and sold.

It would have been simple for the editors of the NY Times to have stuck "American" before "black" and "Christian" before "theology". That would have made the statement accurate and not totally dismissive of the theologies that existed in African-America prior to 1836.

Those "Unbridgable" Rights

Since it seems that unless I'm a white man or woman writing for an establishment type newspaper or blog, what I say amounts to a hill of so many beans (yes I'm somewhat bitter), let me go and quote somebody else in regards to those rights that "we" supposedly have in the US.

Here's Dave Lindorff on The Penn State situation:

And yet there are all kinds of laws that abridge freedom of speech and the right peaceably to assemble, as well as the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We’ve all been witness lately to how municipal authorities, no doubt under pressure from the bankers and from the central government’s police and political authorities, have been “abridging,” with the aid of police wielding clubs, pepper spray and tear gas canisters, the supposed freedom of occupy movement activists to peaceably assemble.

This morning upon hearing the news of the removal of the #occupy protestors including the destruction of their property, I reminded the twitterverse as to the laws governing the citizens rights to peaceably assemble:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And importantly the 14th Amendment which is clear about what the states can and cannot do in regards to the rights of citizens:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In regards to due process, even the severely diluted form that it currently has, has been affirmed by court order allowing the #occupy protestors to remain. I won't engage in my position that the "life, liberty and property are in regards to criminal or civil prosecution and not in regards to the actual rights of citizens.

It's pretty sad when I have to read citizens writings about how the #occupy protestors have to act "legally" as if peacefully assembling isn't already legal. Furthermore claims of sanitation and crime are no legal grounds to abridge the rights of protestors. Sanitation issues can be negotiated with those peacefully assembled to provide public safety while recognizing the assembly rights.

Similarly if crimes are being committed in the #occupy protests then the state has a right and obligation to find those responsible and prosecute them. To report as if the actual protestors are criminals or creating crime is utter bullshit. Similarly claiming that reports of gunfire are grounds to evict #occupy protestors is bullshit as well. Shootings happen outside of all manner of locations including parks, nightclubs etc. Shall we shut them all down as well? I mean people get raped in Central Park. Shall we shut it down and deny people access to the park?

None of this is totally surprising given that a poll taken a couple of years ago found that a good number of Americans are of the bizarre opinion that they have "too many rights".

Clinton and Cain

Alexander Cockburn:

A luxury suite! One of Bill’s targets, when he was governor of Arkansas, would have been lucky to get a ride home in the troop car, after a brisk session in the governor’s office, with bruises on her arms when she resisted the guiding hand. Who says this isn’t the land of progress? Seventy years ago a black man making the sort of advances of which Cain is accused tended to end up swinging from the branch of a tree, not running for president with a hefty quotient of Americans saying they don’t give a toss about the harassment charges.

Gunfire Before Liberia Election

From the NY Times

MONROVIA, Liberia — Hundreds of protesters clashed with the police and United Nations peacekeepers here in the Liberian capital on Monday afternoon, leaving at least one person dead the day before a presidential runoff that the opposition has vowed to boycott.

Not a good sign at all. I suppose they still have not learned from that long brutal war.

Paul Craig Roberts on Western Democracy

Writing in Counterpunch

In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a “mere scrap of paper.” Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of “the war on terror,” itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply “because the president said so.” They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.

Anthony Weiner. Nuff said.

Jack Abramoff Puts The US Government on Blast

Think about it.He said that he had 100 congress members in his pocket. This is ONE lobbyist. Think of the implications of this when you consider the number of lobbyists in DC.


Remember that candidate Obama made the claim that he would not be held sway by special interests. Now consider just how much money is coming his way. Now watch Abramoff explain how these things go and think carefully as to whether Obama meant what he said or is actually living what he said.

If after watching this video you do not understand exactly how the government is run, why we have bullshit laws on the books and people at #occupy protests being arrested on bullshit charges in direct violation of their rights to peacefully assemble and seek redress, then you really are not all that bright.

Herman Cain on China

t China was "trying to develop nuclear capability .… "

LA Times

Just wow.

Re: Violent Islamism Has Failed

Op Ed contributor Richard Dearlove writing in the NY Times suggests that violent Islamism has failed:

Yet what is surprising 10 years on is the relative failure of violent Islamism to make a more lasting political impact. Few of us would have predicted this failure at the time.

Al Qaeda began with the idea of purging Saudi Arabia of “infidels”; it then came up with a complex political model of a caliphate. What we are seeing instead — and I stress that my comments are personal — is a resurgence of moderate Islam and moderate Islamist parties. These groups are now apparently arguing for the very democratic values and individual rights that Al Qaeda was so opposed to. This can be seen in what is happening today in Tunisia, in Egypt, in the sort of things that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is saying and doing.

Dearlove's position requires that one view failure as a total failure to get everything one wants. If that were the case then any negotiated settlement between any parties would be "failure" for all parties involved. No one looks at a negotiated settlement like that.

Furthermore; Dearlove's position also requires us to ignore history of Islam as it spread throughout regions such as North Africa, etc. Muslims have never been stupid. Contrary to what is generally said by some Muslims, The Prophet had no problem with the use of violence and nor did his followers. However; violence was not the preferred tactic of Muslims in their expansion but it was also never "off the table" and that has always been the case. If they were able to get a foothold somewhere by other means they did so. Knowing this we should look at the actual stated issues that Al-Qaeda claims to have.

Al-Qaeda had a deep hatred of secular governments that acted as puppets of the US and Israel. They had a deep hatred of governments that they saw as oppressing the rights of "righteous" Muslims. Yes, they had ideas of re-establishing Caliphates, but these other issues were just as important.

What has happened since 9-11? Among many things we have seen a very aggressive push by the Palestinians to receive recognition in the UN over the usual objections of the US and Israel. We have seen the "Arab Street" previously easily brushed aside, topple US aligned leadership in a number of countries. We have seen so called "moderate" Islamists make it into government whereas before everything was done to keep them out. We see the Muslim Brotherhood, previously repressed taking seats in new governments. In other words, the Arab world in general has become that much more assertive towards the US than any time prior to 9-11 or at the oil embargo.

At the same time, as Bin Laden said, the US has been shown to not really care about The Law(tm) as they claim to be. the US has been shown and documented using torture or outsourcing it. Stuff that has been happening for a long time but was not visible to the US or world population until after 9-11. The US and The West(tm) has been shown to be in cahoots with various dictators as evidenced by it's unwillingness to condemn Mubarak or the leadership of Bahrain.

Indeed just like the violence in various cities in the US made space for and pushed the powers that be to address the "more moderate" elements of the civil rights movement, so to did the violence of Al-Qaeda create a space where the relatively moderate Islamist groups had to be dealt with. This is almost always how violence works in such conflicts. In politics the most radical person is labelled the "extremist", the less radical that person is, the less room the people who are moderate have to move. But when that radical person is way out there the middle ground opens up quite a bit.


In Africa Muslims got their place by way of compromise. Why not let them live peacefully over there, rather than risk constant armed conflict? As the old Yoruba saying goes (paraphrased): Woe to the man who disturbs the praying Muslim.

So no, Al- Qaeda failed at setting up a caliphate. But yes, they did get some of what they wanted. Sounds like a "compromise" to me.

US Admits to "Setting the Course" in Libya

Every now and then the empire gets arrogant and blatantly displays itself to the people. It's usually quickly done, covered up and those not paying attention miss it. But it happens. Today we got a taste of it. Roger Cohen writing his latest opinion piece for the NY Times reveals the real NATO plan:

When I tweeted a sincere “Bravo Obama” message the other day, congratulating the president on “leading from behind” in Libya, it took only minutes for the U.S. ambassador to NATO to tweet back a sharp retort.

“That’s not leading from behind,” Ivo Daalder wrote. “When you set the course, provide critical enablers and succeed, it’s plain leading.”

Like Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's "accidental" commentary about the NYPD's ability (and assumed new authority) to shoot down commercial aircraft this statement ought not be taken as braggadious. This fellow meant exactly what he said. The US "set the course. and provided "critical enablers".

Since we know exactly what "the course" was, then what this amounts to is an admission that NATO was purposely engaged in regime change with the blessing of the UN. NATO essentially declared war on the legitimate government of Libya (a UN member state), "enabled" and "provided" for a civil war against the government of Libya.

And given that this person is making such claims I will direct the reader's attention to my discussion of the constitutionality of said war:

What part of "coordinates, participates or accompany" does the White House not understand? What part of "Nothing in this joint resolution shall be construed as granting authority to the President with respect to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances which authority he would not have had in the absence of this resolution" does the executive not understand?