Pessimism

Pessimism easily seduces even the most minimally perspicacious observer of the world. The most beautiful creatures among us die too soon and in mass while ugliness flourishes across the surface of the planet. Wickedness is rewarded and righteousness is punished such that we now live in a world ruled tyrannically by the most wicked people imaginable. Genocidal murderers, dope traffickers, money launderers, child murderers, war mongers are words that come to mind when seeking to characterize the personalities that now rule the world. And our leaders are not content to destroy the best of their own species either. The most beautiful, most elegant, wise and graceful animals are quickly being cleansed from the face of the earth due to the policies of our leaders. The luscious diversity of plants, insects and all forms of life with which Creator lavished us is rapidly disappearing. The air is polluted and most people in the world no longer have access to potable water. Our leaders lie to us, they use us, abuse us, trick us, rob us of our children and generally add to the endless trail of corpses that essentially represents the past five centuries of history. Perhaps it is as Leslie Silko says, that we are living under the reign of the Death-Eyed Dog where blood-sucking sorcerers hold sway and bleed the people and destroy the land to satisfy their vile appetites. Perhaps these are the seven generations that Lakota medicine men spoke of, during which the Wasichus rule as tyrants over the land destroying the Buffalo Nation and massacring the people. And perhaps one day the White Buffalo Calf Woman will return and restore peace, harmony, justice, equality and freedom to the land. I pray that she does come or that something happens; that a change comes and soon, because this is not the way to live! It can't be that Creator put us here to endlessly circulate capital, to persuade others that "Brand X" doesn't suit their lifestyle, to live our lives as ideological automatons, to poison our brothers and sisters or even to murder them in mass! We obviously live in HELL and it's ruled by blood-sucking DEMONS! We must GET OUT! This imperative is the sole response I have been able to articulate to the pessimism that threatens to consume me.

"US Lets Liquids Bought Beyond Checkpoints on Planes"

Either the U.S. government is comprised of a bunch of absolute morons or there is no terrorist threat. These are the only two explanations for why the government would release things like this to the news media. This is essentially telling any would be "terrorists" that if they want to take liquid explosives onto airplanes -- now's the time to do it. It's the same with the Department of Homeland Security threat levels. Why would you want to announce to the world the level of security at airports and so forth if you were actually trying to prevent a terrorist attack? Now I am not among those who believe that U.S. government officials are a bunch of imbeciles. I think a lot of liberals find solace in the notion that they are smarter than the people who run this country and that is probably a big reason for their opposition to the government. In other words they think they could do a better job of running things and the only reason they are powerless losers is because they "chose" to be so -- not because they actually don't have the ability to be in power. I think that government officials are actually very good at what they do and frighteningly effective. So I think that there is in fact no terrorist threat outside the one posed by the U.S. itself in the form of its military arsenal and that all of this code orange and no liquids on airplanes bullshit are purely and simply scare tactics to create a level of mass paranoia sufficient enough to sustain and endless series of wars, a steady flow of terrorist acts, against the peoples of Asia.

"Ayer Vine El Diablo Aqui"

Okay. I don't care what anybody says -- Hugo Chavez is ill. He called George Bush the devil in front of the whole world, crossed himself and said it still smelled like sulfur! And people applauded and laughed. Keep in mind that the audience is not supposed to respond to speeches made before the General Assembly of the United Nations -- but people laughed and clapped anyway. He then went on to denounce U.S. imperialism and the continuing military violence perpetuated by the U.S. against the people of the South. I encourage anyone who reads or understands Spanish to check out the text of this speech or to watch the video. The English translation will hopefully be made available soon for those who don't. Chavez just said what the rest of the world's leaders were thinking but didn't have the balls to say. I.e. that the people of the world are not down with the program of U.S. imperialism.

Entertain The Notion

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Aristotle

Rest in peace to all of those who have lost their lives since the U.S. launched its war for global domination on September 11, 2001, the hundreds of thousands who needlessly lost their lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and New York City. Pour out some liquor.

What happened on September 11, 2001 was the Reichstag Fire of the present era. The pivotal event that signaled both the end of the last economic expansion of U.S. capitalism and the beginning of the present phase of U.S. imperialism -- the quest for domination of the entire planet. And, like the Reichstag Fire, it was an inside job. People with many more, and more impressive, credentials than I share this view. Robert M. Bowman (former Director of the U.S. "Star Wars" Space Defense Program in both Republican and Democratic administrations, and a former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with 101 combat missions), Andreas von Buelow (former assistant German defense minister, director of the German Secret Service, minister for research and technology, and member of Parliament for 25 years) and Michael Hugh Meacher (senior Labour member of the U.K. Parliament and former environment minister) are among the long list of distinguished individuals that question the official story.

While you pay your respects to the dead, entertain the notion, do the research and examine all the angles. If I am wrong then you've lost nothing. But if I'm right then wouldn't you want to know?

North Korea

"Before a journalist starts to cover foreign policy issues, he or she should first be required to report on car accidents."

John Feffer, Co-Director, Foreign Policy In Focus and Director, Global Affairs, International Relations Center

Most journalists in the U.S. are simply mouthpieces for the foreign policy of whatever administration happens to be in office at the time. The notion that there exists an opposing view must strike them as utterly alien. It must be nice to get paid not to think. This is blatant when it comes to North Korea. We, the mentally retarded U.S. public, are told that the leaders of North Korea are a bunch of irrational lunatics just aching to shower us with nuclear weapons. Never mind that North Korea has had large stockpiles of chemical weapons for decades, and perhaps biological weapons as well, but has never used them. And never mind that the country has maintained its sovereignty for over 50 years! They're just a bunch of psychopaths. We're also fed a big juicy line on how our leaders just want to spread Democracy and Freedom to North Korea! Pardon me while I go somewhere private to vomit. Let's think about some of the great things the U.S. has done for Korea since World War II:

August 6 and 9, 1945 -- The U.S. drops nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ultimately killing hundreds of thousands of people including at least 60,000 Koreans mostly brought to Japan forcibly as laborers.

August 15, 1945 -- The U.S. authorities in the South support reactionaries who collaborated with the Japanese. These men formed the kernel of the government of South Korea which would eventually include military dictators like Park Jung Hee who used techniques to suppress dissent that they had learned from their Japanese masters before liberation.

Korean War -- U.S. forces, likely as a result of General MacArthur's view of all Koreans as "defeated enemies" as well as the knowledge that the North enjoyed widespread support among the people, are under orders to view any unidentified person on the battlefield as hostile.

Korean War -- The U.S. uses chemical weapons, especially napalm, extensively during the conflict.

July, 1950 -- Elements of the Second Battalion, U.S. Seventh Cavalry Regiment, massacre hundreds of civilians (mostly women and children) at No Gun Ri.

May 1980 -- The U.S. government approves the use of force against pro-Democracy demonstrators in the city of Kwangju and commits to direct intervention if the situation gets out of hand. A massacre ensues, the notorious Kwangju Massacre, that results in the deaths of between 500 and 2000 (the final death toll is still unknown because the military dumped bodies in mass graves and lakes) civilian demonstrators at the hands of the U.S.-backed South Korean military.

Now let's add that to all the other fucked-up shit the U.S. has done and continues to do all over the world and let's wonder why on earth the government of North Korea, which the President included in his "axis of evil" speech, would want to acquire nuclear weapons!

Gangland and Philosophy, Brooklyn-Style

Everyone from Brooklyn has a mob story. I have a few but I 'm not going to tell them today. Today I want to talk about the real crooks -- the ones whose racket is so bad that they are playing all of us for suckers. These hoodlums are so hip that they have all us all thinking that their racket is legitimate and, even worse, they have us all carrying on about small time hustlers and how they should be locked up. Every year each and every one of us kicks up about three tenths of his or her income to the U.S. Treasury Department. Why? Ostensibly that money goes to maintenance of the government, infrastructure, the military and social programs. But if you look at the Federal budget for Fiscal 2007, you'll see that about 49 percent of the budget is going to the military. And if you include spending on Homeland Security and NASA (basically a military program), the portion of the budget devoted to military operations swells to well over 50 percent. You don't have to be the hippest wise guy on the block to see that the U.S. government is essentially a protection racket. Hence, our politicians are always telling us that we need to spend more on military because of this or that very frightening enemy. Today it's the crazy Arab terrorists tomorrow, who knows what it'll be, or whether there'll be a tomorrow... But it's a little more sophisticated than your typical protection racket because the government really is spending the money on weapons and so forth. They're not just shaking us down to line their pockets like your typical street hustler. We know because they've got hundreds of thousands of our young men overseas and they're tapping our telephones. So whoever's behind this racket is putting the squeeze on us, taxing us in sweat and blood, to fight turf wars to control valuable foreign markets (mainly dope and petroleum) while making sure none of us squares at home gets wise to the lovely set-up. If you think about it, this is much worse than your typical mobster. Your typical gangster may shake you down for "protection" every week but he doesn't make you send your son to fight for him two blocks down. Also your typical lowlife doesn't tell you that Arab terrorists or some such bullshit are trying to burn down your store. And if you don't pay, they don't fly fucking airplanes into your store and demolish the joint and then blame it on some Arab guys with ceramic box cutters who the local newspaper reports were one thousand miles away when it all went down. Sure they may beat you up and send you to the emergency room, but you know damn well who it was. Usually it's the same guy who asked you to pay up the first time. The point is that we are all the big-time suckers in a really gruesome mob story and it's time we got wise.

The Truth About Iran

"Reactionaries hate the truth and the world's rulers fear it; but it embarasses lberals, perhaps because they can't do anything about it."

Chester Himes

On Wednesday, the Royal Institute of International Affairs -- a.k.a. Chatham House (a major British think tank) -- released a report that presented the following conclusion (a conclusion of which most of us who have been following the situation in Western Asia from a truly international perspective were already aware): "there is little doubt that iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the middle east..." Nonetheless this would blow up the happy little illusion that many in the U.S. have of their country's position in the world if they actually paid any attention. When it comes to Iran, the right and the left in this country like to clamor about political Islam (as if this country wasn't ruled by political Christianity), the absence of Democracy (as if this country were a Democracy), gender inequality (how many women presidents have we had here?) and the race for nuclear weapons (okay -- which country is the ONLY country to have ever used nuclear weapons TWICE on CIVILIANS?) but neither side wants to face the truth: that the leaders of Iran have played this thing out exceptionally well. Iran is now very tight with pretty much all the key players in Asia (excluding the U.S.) -- especially China and Russia. It is unlikely that any serious sanctions against Iran will get past a veto from either or both of these countries. Iran is not the pariah state here -- the U.S. is, along with it's principal ally in the region, the notorious Zionist colonial apartheid state, Israel. The U.S. politicians like to make a big fuss over the few countries that actually support their position against Iran -- namely France, Germany and the U.K. -- while downplaying the fact that all of the other players do not. Even Japan, the only real ally of the U.S. left in Asia, only half-heartedly supports the U.S. in this -- after all, Japan needs oil. A military attack on Iran at this point could easily precipitate armageddon given the players involved and what's at stake (i.e. Asia -- home of most of the world's population and remaining energy reserves). If the so-called left in this country really wants to make a positive impact here, rather than worrying about whether or not Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, they'd do a lot better making some kind of effort to make sure their own government or one of its key allies (i.e. Israel) doesn't end up nuking someone pretty soon! They do a lot better to recall that most of them supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and to make sure that they don't turn around and end up supporting a nuclear attack on Iran!