What, We Worry?
I bet the nine questions below do not top your list of worries.
1. How can we keep China from replacing the U.S. as the dominant power in the China Sea?
2. How can we keep Persia from replacing the U.S. as the dominant power in the Persian Gulf?
3. Does rising Indian influence in the Indian Ocean pose an incipient threat to U.S. interests?
4. How can the U.S. reverse the trend of Latin Americans taking over Latin America?*
5. How can the U.S. make the North Koreans give up their nukes so that we can intimidate them again?
6. How can the U.S. strive harder to do whatever Israel tells us to do?
7. How can the U.S. get Hamid Karzai, the president Washington installed in Afghanistan, to do what we bribe him to do?
8. Ditto for the regime the U.S. props up in Pakistan?
9. Will the CIA finally succeed in assassinating Fidel Castro before he dies of old age?
With our busy schedules, scurrying between the unemployment office and the soup kitchen, few Americans have time for foreign policy. They leave that to President Obama and his administration. Since we already know from grade school that we’re always the good guys, we assume that anyone Obama is warning or warring on must be bad guys.
Not only are they bad, they’re so evil that we have no choice but to violate every law of God and man to combat them. Many of us don't enjoy torturing people, but sometime it’s just plain necessary to waterboard someone 183 times.
Not only that, fighting the bad guys invariably requires stupendous sums of tax payer money, even if our enemies are impoverished feudal tribes living in mud huts. Lots of Americans can’t understand why Washington has no dough for civic and social needs, but unlimited moolah to zap $10 mud huts with million dollar missiles. That’s because Americans are unsophisticated. It’s the same reason few of us fret the questions above.
The solution: I know it’s not easy, but to be better informed we have to begin spending less time with Jerry Springer and more time with Wolf Blitzer.
*Produce The Deed, Secretary Kerry
In recent days, John Kerry, our Secretary of State, revived the long standing claim by the United States that it owns Latin America, presumably including its 500 million people. He described the Western Hemisphere as "our backyard," headlined in the south of the border media as "el patio trasero de los Estados Unidos." But as in past, the U.S. official supplied no paper work supporting this claim.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Terror, Terror and Terror
"Their way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that involves gathering in groups. Yet there is no end in sight, and nowhere that ordinary men, women and children...can go to feel safe.”
Boston last week? No. Northwest Pakistan any week. Or Guatemala in the 1980s. If you were focused on the Boston bombing, you might have missed a couple of other terrorism stories in recent days:
In Pakistan, former close American ally, Daily Show guest and all-around tyrant, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, thought it was safe for him to go home and run for office. Instead, he was arrested on charges ranging from murder and abuse of power to treason. It was Musharraf who secretly authorized the ongoing droning by the U.S. of his own country. The effect on his own people is reflected in the quote from CNN at the top of this blog.
In Guatemala, former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt, a sub-commander of Ronald Reagan in our never-ending war on the leftists of Latin America, is finally standing trial for genocide. Roughly 200,000 men, women and kids, mostly Mayan Indians, were butchered by his regime in the 1980’s, their villages flattened by troops advised and armed by the U.S. and Israel. The crime of the Mayans was that for millenia they practiced a communal way of life. We don’t permit socialism in our backyard.
Including the Boston Marathon bomber, that’s three terrorists facing judgment. Imagine if we could prosecute all of them. That would make work for every lawyer in Washington.
"Their way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that involves gathering in groups. Yet there is no end in sight, and nowhere that ordinary men, women and children...can go to feel safe.”
Boston last week? No. Northwest Pakistan any week. Or Guatemala in the 1980s. If you were focused on the Boston bombing, you might have missed a couple of other terrorism stories in recent days:
In Pakistan, former close American ally, Daily Show guest and all-around tyrant, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, thought it was safe for him to go home and run for office. Instead, he was arrested on charges ranging from murder and abuse of power to treason. It was Musharraf who secretly authorized the ongoing droning by the U.S. of his own country. The effect on his own people is reflected in the quote from CNN at the top of this blog.
In Guatemala, former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt, a sub-commander of Ronald Reagan in our never-ending war on the leftists of Latin America, is finally standing trial for genocide. Roughly 200,000 men, women and kids, mostly Mayan Indians, were butchered by his regime in the 1980’s, their villages flattened by troops advised and armed by the U.S. and Israel. The crime of the Mayans was that for millenia they practiced a communal way of life. We don’t permit socialism in our backyard.
Including the Boston Marathon bomber, that’s three terrorists facing judgment. Imagine if we could prosecute all of them. That would make work for every lawyer in Washington.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Your Tax Dollars At (Dirty) Work
Back in 2006, the anti-Democratic regime of strong man George W. Bush spent at least $15 million subverting the popularly-elected government of Venezuela. We know the amount from a new WikiLeak of a secret memo sent by the then U.S. Ambassador in Caracas to SouthCom, the Pentagon command assigned to strong arm the shrinking South American division of the empire. The document covers four points: “penetrating Chavez’s political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” “protecting vital US business” and “isolating Chavez internationally.”
No doubt, a lot more money was spent that year for the same purpose by other branches of our government. And it wasn’t even an election year in Venezuela, when the big bucks pile in from Washington (meaning us) to impress our brand of droneocracy on its people.
It’s still going on--and it's obviously a waste of coin. If anything, the revolution in Venezuela has been putting down deeper roots and becoming more popular over the years. That’s what tends to happen to governments that stop serving the the rich and are obliged instead to share their powers with ordinary citizens and provide tangible benefits and services to them.
For instance, in Venezuela there is no Chavezcare equivalent of Obamacare designed to profit insurance companies. Instead, they have free medical care for everyone. Like in Christendom. And that bad example is one of the reasons that Washington remains intent on getting rid of the responsive regime in Venezuela and the other progressive countries to the south of us.
If you take the trouble to peruse the links in this blog, including the full text of the WikiLeak's memo, remember that the constant positive use of the word democracy by Ambassador Brownfield has little to do with its dictionary definition. What the ambassador and our other policymakers mean by democracy is our political economy characterized as it is by lootocracy and the extreme concentration of wealth and power.
Venezuela is having an election in a few days to choose a successor to the late President Chavez. It looks like Vice President Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver and labor activist, is a shoo-in. No doubt, all the opprobrium heaped on the beloved Chavez will now rain down on Maduro. And no doubt the American embassy will keep on buying "democracy" with dollars just like Obama spreads freedom with his kill lists.
Back in 2006, the anti-Democratic regime of strong man George W. Bush spent at least $15 million subverting the popularly-elected government of Venezuela. We know the amount from a new WikiLeak of a secret memo sent by the then U.S. Ambassador in Caracas to SouthCom, the Pentagon command assigned to strong arm the shrinking South American division of the empire. The document covers four points: “penetrating Chavez’s political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” “protecting vital US business” and “isolating Chavez internationally.”
No doubt, a lot more money was spent that year for the same purpose by other branches of our government. And it wasn’t even an election year in Venezuela, when the big bucks pile in from Washington (meaning us) to impress our brand of droneocracy on its people.
It’s still going on--and it's obviously a waste of coin. If anything, the revolution in Venezuela has been putting down deeper roots and becoming more popular over the years. That’s what tends to happen to governments that stop serving the the rich and are obliged instead to share their powers with ordinary citizens and provide tangible benefits and services to them.
For instance, in Venezuela there is no Chavezcare equivalent of Obamacare designed to profit insurance companies. Instead, they have free medical care for everyone. Like in Christendom. And that bad example is one of the reasons that Washington remains intent on getting rid of the responsive regime in Venezuela and the other progressive countries to the south of us.
If you take the trouble to peruse the links in this blog, including the full text of the WikiLeak's memo, remember that the constant positive use of the word democracy by Ambassador Brownfield has little to do with its dictionary definition. What the ambassador and our other policymakers mean by democracy is our political economy characterized as it is by lootocracy and the extreme concentration of wealth and power.
Venezuela is having an election in a few days to choose a successor to the late President Chavez. It looks like Vice President Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver and labor activist, is a shoo-in. No doubt, all the opprobrium heaped on the beloved Chavez will now rain down on Maduro. And no doubt the American embassy will keep on buying "democracy" with dollars just like Obama spreads freedom with his kill lists.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Reviled Yet Respected
ABC is running a series called Scandal in which the President of the United States murders a Supreme Court justice while his top advisor tries to cover up the election he rigged to put the killer and his scheming wife into the White House.
Showtime has a hot series called Homeland in which a Congressman, who is also a Marine hero and a Muslim terrorist, kills the Vice President of the United States. The daddy of these shows was “24” which depicted the U.S. government as chock-a-block with traitors, intriguers and incompetents, and whose one and only savior, Jack Bauer, was a demento killer and torturer who was the issue of a criminal clan.
Moving across the Atlantic to the large church just over the wall from our former digs on the Via Niccolo Quinto, there are endless articles, books, plays, movies and tv series (check out The Borgias on Showtime) recounting the rogueries of the Roman Church over the last two millenia. Any evil that man has done, from simple simony to rape of the innocent and the waging of war for plunder and torture for pleasure, not to mention the perpetuation of spiritual quackery, has been committed by and for pontiffs and Curia and all that they command.
Compared to these dastardly depictions of our sacred and profane leaders, the faults I find with them in this blog amount to flicking my belly button lint at the Capitol or the Vatican--for which, I guess, I could be charged with littering if the authorities were able to come up with the evidence.
Whether watching the perpetual conspiracy that hatches popes in Rome or the endless chicanery that governs Washington, what intrigues me is that the media giants who entertain us by trashing those institutions as perdurably corrupt deliver exactly the opposite message in their news divisions.
Over on the news side, the most incredible, be they popes or politicos, are afforded endless credibility. No matter how spurious or merely stupid their utterances, they are accepted as mainstream and worthy of respect merely because of their provenance. A perfect example: the thoroughly discredited Newt Gingrich, recently labeled a “prick” by fellow reactionary Roger Ailes of Fox News, continues his lamentable record for being invited on Meet The Press more than anyone else ever.
All of this must be confusing to the faithful-citizen-viewer. Who should they believe? The producers of Scandal who warn us that Washington is the devil’s backroom or those of This Week With George Stephanopoulos who reassure us that, no matter how terrible things appear, our leaders always mean well?
ABC is running a series called Scandal in which the President of the United States murders a Supreme Court justice while his top advisor tries to cover up the election he rigged to put the killer and his scheming wife into the White House.
Showtime has a hot series called Homeland in which a Congressman, who is also a Marine hero and a Muslim terrorist, kills the Vice President of the United States. The daddy of these shows was “24” which depicted the U.S. government as chock-a-block with traitors, intriguers and incompetents, and whose one and only savior, Jack Bauer, was a demento killer and torturer who was the issue of a criminal clan.
Moving across the Atlantic to the large church just over the wall from our former digs on the Via Niccolo Quinto, there are endless articles, books, plays, movies and tv series (check out The Borgias on Showtime) recounting the rogueries of the Roman Church over the last two millenia. Any evil that man has done, from simple simony to rape of the innocent and the waging of war for plunder and torture for pleasure, not to mention the perpetuation of spiritual quackery, has been committed by and for pontiffs and Curia and all that they command.
Compared to these dastardly depictions of our sacred and profane leaders, the faults I find with them in this blog amount to flicking my belly button lint at the Capitol or the Vatican--for which, I guess, I could be charged with littering if the authorities were able to come up with the evidence.
Whether watching the perpetual conspiracy that hatches popes in Rome or the endless chicanery that governs Washington, what intrigues me is that the media giants who entertain us by trashing those institutions as perdurably corrupt deliver exactly the opposite message in their news divisions.
Over on the news side, the most incredible, be they popes or politicos, are afforded endless credibility. No matter how spurious or merely stupid their utterances, they are accepted as mainstream and worthy of respect merely because of their provenance. A perfect example: the thoroughly discredited Newt Gingrich, recently labeled a “prick” by fellow reactionary Roger Ailes of Fox News, continues his lamentable record for being invited on Meet The Press more than anyone else ever.
All of this must be confusing to the faithful-citizen-viewer. Who should they believe? The producers of Scandal who warn us that Washington is the devil’s backroom or those of This Week With George Stephanopoulos who reassure us that, no matter how terrible things appear, our leaders always mean well?
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Hugo Chavez
How things change.
Fifty years ago, at the height of its imperial power, Washington persuaded all the member nations of the Organization of American States, with the brave exception of Mexico, to expel Cuba from its ranks.
Today, the OAS is moribund, replaced by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Cuba is currently chair of this continent-wide organization while the increasingly isolated U.S. has been excluded.
What’s significant about CELAC, as it’s known by its Spanish initials, is that both progressive and conservative governments hastened to join this organization in which the U.S. empire would have no say. Whether left or right, they agreed that their future lay in their own independence and unity. CELAC was just one of the dreams that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela brought to reality.
His other great accomplishment was to lift millions of his own people out of poverty and powerlessness. To do this, he obviously had to brave the wrath of the multinationals and their comprador allies who were reaping billions from Venezuela’s oil while millions went hungry.
The empire threw everything short of invasion at him: coup plots, sabotage, strikes by the bosses, endless assassination attempts. It even put up candidates for election. But each assault on the revolution only made it stronger.
Venezuela still has huge problems: crime, entrenched bureaucracy and the ever looming counter-revolution. It’s attempting to create a real socialist democracy at home while forging unity in the hemisphere. No one knows how far Venezuela will go towards realizing Chavez’s vision for his country and his continent. But after 14 years, the revolution has made solid gains and put down deep roots. Latin America has, by and large, broken free of the empire’s cruel grip.
I believe that people and movements make history, so I’m not one for the ‘great man’ theory. Still, it cannot be doubted that leaders who really change things do occasionally appear. Latin America had Bolivar, Juarez and Marti. Chavez will be remembered alongside them.
For a fuller view of Hugo Chavez’ legacy and Venezuela’s prospects, I’ve added this and this link from CEPR, one of the best sources for honest economic news we have.
How things change.
Fifty years ago, at the height of its imperial power, Washington persuaded all the member nations of the Organization of American States, with the brave exception of Mexico, to expel Cuba from its ranks.
Today, the OAS is moribund, replaced by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Cuba is currently chair of this continent-wide organization while the increasingly isolated U.S. has been excluded.
What’s significant about CELAC, as it’s known by its Spanish initials, is that both progressive and conservative governments hastened to join this organization in which the U.S. empire would have no say. Whether left or right, they agreed that their future lay in their own independence and unity. CELAC was just one of the dreams that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela brought to reality.
His other great accomplishment was to lift millions of his own people out of poverty and powerlessness. To do this, he obviously had to brave the wrath of the multinationals and their comprador allies who were reaping billions from Venezuela’s oil while millions went hungry.
The empire threw everything short of invasion at him: coup plots, sabotage, strikes by the bosses, endless assassination attempts. It even put up candidates for election. But each assault on the revolution only made it stronger.
Venezuela still has huge problems: crime, entrenched bureaucracy and the ever looming counter-revolution. It’s attempting to create a real socialist democracy at home while forging unity in the hemisphere. No one knows how far Venezuela will go towards realizing Chavez’s vision for his country and his continent. But after 14 years, the revolution has made solid gains and put down deep roots. Latin America has, by and large, broken free of the empire’s cruel grip.
I believe that people and movements make history, so I’m not one for the ‘great man’ theory. Still, it cannot be doubted that leaders who really change things do occasionally appear. Latin America had Bolivar, Juarez and Marti. Chavez will be remembered alongside them.
For a fuller view of Hugo Chavez’ legacy and Venezuela’s prospects, I’ve added this and this link from CEPR, one of the best sources for honest economic news we have.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Easy But Impossible
In John Kerry we have a new Secretary of State who actually speaks the language of diplomacy, that being French. Thus when his demarches are dismissed and things go de mal on pis he’ll be au courant.
Lots of people thought his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was terrific at the job even though a list of her tangible accomplishments wouldn’t fill the back of a post card from one of the countless exotic locales where she looked in on the empire’s endless interests.
That she left the empire weaker than she found it is no mark against her tireless efforts. It’s just a fact of life that ever more nations are finding ever fewer reasons to obey Washington and Wall Street. By the same token, WWS have ever fewer means to enforce their writ on the other 95 percent of the globe.
The big guns of the empire used to be military, industrial and financial power. The first two are suffering long-term decline, and the third, though growing like poison ivy, requires ever more debt to fertilize itself.
The problem with the military is that its multi-trillion dollar success at enriching contractors has not been been matched by competency in combat. It’s hard for an empire to intimidate its adversaries and rivals when it's losing wars to third world countries and feudal tribes.
America’s non-pareil industrial might was dismantled and delivered to the Chinese, among others, because they worked cheaper. Bad move. Better to have a country full of people making cars than people washing cars.
Only finance has made out--literally like a bandit. Indeed, it overwhelms the global economy. A new survey by Bain & Company of Romney repute tells us that, “Today, total financial assets are nearly 10 times the value of the global output of all goods and services.” In other words, a business that exists as pixels on screens and numbers on paper is worth ten times more than everything else on earth--including Jay Leno’s car collection.
Though we are still the leader in finance, that doesn’t mean much. First, because we’re also hopelessly in debt. Second, because finance is an easy game for resource- and cash-rich countries to play. That means we’ll have ever-growing competition when it comes to turning deals. Third, because finance is inevitably a house of cards.
So that doesn’t give son excellence Monsieur Kerry much to work with. That’s if he expects to help the empire grow despite its parlous condition. He’ll have it a little easier if he and his bosses in the White House and on the street are realistic enough to begin sensibly managing its dotage. Lots of former imperial states are doing well (the global capitalist crisis aside).
Sadly, realism was banished from Washington some time ago. America’s problems abroad and at home are easy but impossible to fix. Easy because they are reparable through reason and impossible because the greedheads and crazies who run the place have subject reason to rendition.
So, good luck to you, Secretary Kerry. I trust you will serve President Obama as ably as William L. Marcy served Millard Fillmore.
In John Kerry we have a new Secretary of State who actually speaks the language of diplomacy, that being French. Thus when his demarches are dismissed and things go de mal on pis he’ll be au courant.
Lots of people thought his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was terrific at the job even though a list of her tangible accomplishments wouldn’t fill the back of a post card from one of the countless exotic locales where she looked in on the empire’s endless interests.
That she left the empire weaker than she found it is no mark against her tireless efforts. It’s just a fact of life that ever more nations are finding ever fewer reasons to obey Washington and Wall Street. By the same token, WWS have ever fewer means to enforce their writ on the other 95 percent of the globe.
The big guns of the empire used to be military, industrial and financial power. The first two are suffering long-term decline, and the third, though growing like poison ivy, requires ever more debt to fertilize itself.
The problem with the military is that its multi-trillion dollar success at enriching contractors has not been been matched by competency in combat. It’s hard for an empire to intimidate its adversaries and rivals when it's losing wars to third world countries and feudal tribes.
America’s non-pareil industrial might was dismantled and delivered to the Chinese, among others, because they worked cheaper. Bad move. Better to have a country full of people making cars than people washing cars.
Only finance has made out--literally like a bandit. Indeed, it overwhelms the global economy. A new survey by Bain & Company of Romney repute tells us that, “Today, total financial assets are nearly 10 times the value of the global output of all goods and services.” In other words, a business that exists as pixels on screens and numbers on paper is worth ten times more than everything else on earth--including Jay Leno’s car collection.
Though we are still the leader in finance, that doesn’t mean much. First, because we’re also hopelessly in debt. Second, because finance is an easy game for resource- and cash-rich countries to play. That means we’ll have ever-growing competition when it comes to turning deals. Third, because finance is inevitably a house of cards.
So that doesn’t give son excellence Monsieur Kerry much to work with. That’s if he expects to help the empire grow despite its parlous condition. He’ll have it a little easier if he and his bosses in the White House and on the street are realistic enough to begin sensibly managing its dotage. Lots of former imperial states are doing well (the global capitalist crisis aside).
Sadly, realism was banished from Washington some time ago. America’s problems abroad and at home are easy but impossible to fix. Easy because they are reparable through reason and impossible because the greedheads and crazies who run the place have subject reason to rendition.
So, good luck to you, Secretary Kerry. I trust you will serve President Obama as ably as William L. Marcy served Millard Fillmore.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Two For One Week
LET'S MAKE A DEAL--You’re out to buy a new car. You go to the dealership, pick out the model you want and start bargaining with the salesperson. You affect a tough look and make your opening bid:
“I’m prepared to pay $2,000 over list price--but, if you insist, I’ll go $5,000 over list.”
“No way,” the smiling salesperson answers. “I’ve got a kid in college. The best I can do is $10,000 over list.”
“OK,” you say. “Will you take $7,000 over list?”
“It’s a deal!” says the now giggling salesperson.”
Obama and the Dems in Washington call that hard bargaining. And they’re proud of their skill at it.
Last year, Ob and the Dees came up with a clever new version of it. They got a sequester bill passed (don’t ask me what that word means in congressional context) that said, in effect, if the Republicans don’t accept our concessions we’ll punish them by drastically reducing government come March 1, 2013.
“That’s not punishing them,” a wag pops in. “That's giving them exactly what they want. You’re just selling out.”
“Keep talking like that,” say Ob and the Dems, “and you better start worrying about the objects flying overhead.”
THE GREAT (CON) GAME--The Iranians celebrated the anniversary of their 1979 revolution this month. That means 34 years since our leaders started warning us that, as well as being a threat to the Persian Gulf, the Persians were on the verge of acquiring a nuke. Meanwhile, it’s 12 years since we started targeting the apparently unlimited top executives of Al Qaeda and tussling with the tenacious Taliban. So far all we have to show for this are the profit margins of our war makers and a couple of juicy ass for brass scandals by our generals. Given the apathy of Americans. our leaders can keep these con jobs going for at least as long the Crusades. They went on, inconclusively, for two centuries, if I recall.
LET'S MAKE A DEAL--You’re out to buy a new car. You go to the dealership, pick out the model you want and start bargaining with the salesperson. You affect a tough look and make your opening bid:
“I’m prepared to pay $2,000 over list price--but, if you insist, I’ll go $5,000 over list.”
“No way,” the smiling salesperson answers. “I’ve got a kid in college. The best I can do is $10,000 over list.”
“OK,” you say. “Will you take $7,000 over list?”
“It’s a deal!” says the now giggling salesperson.”
Obama and the Dems in Washington call that hard bargaining. And they’re proud of their skill at it.
Last year, Ob and the Dees came up with a clever new version of it. They got a sequester bill passed (don’t ask me what that word means in congressional context) that said, in effect, if the Republicans don’t accept our concessions we’ll punish them by drastically reducing government come March 1, 2013.
“That’s not punishing them,” a wag pops in. “That's giving them exactly what they want. You’re just selling out.”
“Keep talking like that,” say Ob and the Dems, “and you better start worrying about the objects flying overhead.”
THE GREAT (CON) GAME--The Iranians celebrated the anniversary of their 1979 revolution this month. That means 34 years since our leaders started warning us that, as well as being a threat to the Persian Gulf, the Persians were on the verge of acquiring a nuke. Meanwhile, it’s 12 years since we started targeting the apparently unlimited top executives of Al Qaeda and tussling with the tenacious Taliban. So far all we have to show for this are the profit margins of our war makers and a couple of juicy ass for brass scandals by our generals. Given the apathy of Americans. our leaders can keep these con jobs going for at least as long the Crusades. They went on, inconclusively, for two centuries, if I recall.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Ben There, Done That Almost as venerated by Americans as the almighty dollar, the Pope of Rome is just another politician to Italians. Thus this morning on NPR the news of the demission of Joey Ratz was treated in a speak-no-ill-of-the-infamous tone. That was until Sylvia Poggioli, NPR’s longtime Rome correspondent with a typically European secular outlook, came on air to assess Benedict XVI’s reign. She got into the negatives pretty quickly since the positives were so paltry. At that point, Poggioli’s piece was cut short with the obviously agitated anchors excusing that they had to move on to another story. (That is, one of lesser import since the papal pensioning was the lead item that morning).
The pontifical Benedicts, a parade stretching back a millenium, were not exactly a heaven-sent bunch. No. 3 was rumored to have really been a German girl named Joan whose robes hid her pregnancy. No. 4 presided mostly over chaos, which killed him. No. 5 was a libertine who had his head cracked opened personally by the Holy Roman Emperor. No. 6 was strangled on orders of Pope Boniface VII. No. 8 was a lay warrior, noted for banning marriage by priests because they were leaving church property to their heirs. No. 9, an antipope, was chased out of Rome by angry mobs and later captured and convicted of corruption. No. 12 was known for harsh interrogations and, more positively, starting the construction of the wonderful papal palace at Avignon. No. 13 was the Bernie Madoff of popes, bringing on the financial collapse of the Vatican. On the bright side, No. 14 favored literature and the arts. No 15 was a noted peacemaker who made the deal with Mussolini that led to the creation of the modern Vatican state.
Below is a tribute to the departing No, 16, who, to be fair, was in the Hitler Youth but never joined the party:
L'ultimo comunicato ufficiale di Joey Ratz dalla Santa Sede: Informiamo tutti i Credenti che stare a letto nudi, in compagnia di qualcuno, e urlare:"Oh mio Dio! Oh mio Dio!"
NON E’ DA CONSIDERARSI PREGHIERA!
(Last official Communication from Joey Ratz of the Holy See: We inform all believers that being in bed naked with someone and shouting: "Oh my God, Oh my God!" is not considered prayer.)
Grazie a Rosella per l'immagine
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Murder By Memo
NBC News, to its credit, yesterday released a Justice Department memo that reveals more scary details about the Obama administration’s murderous attack on the Constitution and the rule of law. Below is an update of my blog of May 21, 2010, when I first learned some of the awful truths.
In Catch 22, General Dreedle, annoyed by Major Danby’s moaning, orders that he be taken out and shot. Dreedle’s son, Colonel Moodus, whispers to him and he replies in surprise: “‘You mean I can’t shoot anyone I want to?’ He pricked up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering. ‘Is that a fact?’ he inquired, his rage tamed by curiosity."
The reason General Dreedle couldn’t shoot anyone he wanted to is western civilization. Once upon a time, kings and generals killed people and started wars at their whim. Over centuries, the rule of law and popular consent gradually replaced Caesar’s thumbs up or thumbs down. Thus the west became civilized.
It was a long process. In 1215, King John of England was forced by his barons to sign a document stripping him of many of his ‘divine’ powers. Called the Magna Carta, it codified habeus corpus. No longer could the king simply off you on his say-so. If he thought you had committed some infraction, he had to produce you, bring charges and let a trial decide your guilt or innocence.
Five hundred later, the U.S. Constitution declared that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law.” And now we have a leader, a lawyer no less, and his followers acting as if these two documents did not exist.
Before these latest revelations about yet another Murder Inc. operating from the Oval Office (Lyndon Johnson accused JFK of running one, if you recall), Barack Obama gave us several indications that, even though he was a professor of law, his devotion to it was casual at best.
He declined to prosecute the war crimes charged to the Bush administration. He said they were in the past and he was looking to the future. Try that with a judge the next time you get a traffic ticket. Then he backed away from trying the perpetrators of the greatest financial crime in history. Such cases, with all those numbers, were too complicated to bring, his non-prosecutors said, adding that, in any event, the obvious culprits were too rich and too powerful to punish.
Had a Republican president committed such derelictions, the Dems and liberals would be having conniptions. But since a Dem was doing the devil’s work, they changed the subject or took naps. What did you expect?
The people who own and run this country are much sharper than us. Decades ago, when they wanted to do business with super commie Red China, they picked hard-line anti-communist Richard Nixon to cut a deal with Mao. Now, when they’ve decided that the rich and imperial must be protected from law and order at any cost, they cast a reputedly “liberal” black constitutional lawyer to be their hitman. And still the hopeless liberals nap, undisturbed not only by the killing of “terrorists” a world away but also indifferent to the news that Obama’s FBI considers the Occupy movement here at home a “terrorist” organization.
NBC News, to its credit, yesterday released a Justice Department memo that reveals more scary details about the Obama administration’s murderous attack on the Constitution and the rule of law. Below is an update of my blog of May 21, 2010, when I first learned some of the awful truths.
In Catch 22, General Dreedle, annoyed by Major Danby’s moaning, orders that he be taken out and shot. Dreedle’s son, Colonel Moodus, whispers to him and he replies in surprise: “‘You mean I can’t shoot anyone I want to?’ He pricked up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering. ‘Is that a fact?’ he inquired, his rage tamed by curiosity."
The reason General Dreedle couldn’t shoot anyone he wanted to is western civilization. Once upon a time, kings and generals killed people and started wars at their whim. Over centuries, the rule of law and popular consent gradually replaced Caesar’s thumbs up or thumbs down. Thus the west became civilized.
It was a long process. In 1215, King John of England was forced by his barons to sign a document stripping him of many of his ‘divine’ powers. Called the Magna Carta, it codified habeus corpus. No longer could the king simply off you on his say-so. If he thought you had committed some infraction, he had to produce you, bring charges and let a trial decide your guilt or innocence.
Five hundred later, the U.S. Constitution declared that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law.” And now we have a leader, a lawyer no less, and his followers acting as if these two documents did not exist.
Before these latest revelations about yet another Murder Inc. operating from the Oval Office (Lyndon Johnson accused JFK of running one, if you recall), Barack Obama gave us several indications that, even though he was a professor of law, his devotion to it was casual at best.
He declined to prosecute the war crimes charged to the Bush administration. He said they were in the past and he was looking to the future. Try that with a judge the next time you get a traffic ticket. Then he backed away from trying the perpetrators of the greatest financial crime in history. Such cases, with all those numbers, were too complicated to bring, his non-prosecutors said, adding that, in any event, the obvious culprits were too rich and too powerful to punish.
Had a Republican president committed such derelictions, the Dems and liberals would be having conniptions. But since a Dem was doing the devil’s work, they changed the subject or took naps. What did you expect?
The people who own and run this country are much sharper than us. Decades ago, when they wanted to do business with super commie Red China, they picked hard-line anti-communist Richard Nixon to cut a deal with Mao. Now, when they’ve decided that the rich and imperial must be protected from law and order at any cost, they cast a reputedly “liberal” black constitutional lawyer to be their hitman. And still the hopeless liberals nap, undisturbed not only by the killing of “terrorists” a world away but also indifferent to the news that Obama’s FBI considers the Occupy movement here at home a “terrorist” organization.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Which Side Are We On?
Even though we owe them our independence, the Frenchies have always been our bêtes noires. The same unwritten but strictly observed law that forbids Americans from faulting Israel also bans any flattering of France. Still, our two countries have usually found ourselves on the same side in our recent wars. Indeed, we went so far as to pay for their colonial conflict in Indochina and then keep it going after they took a shellacking at Dien Bien Phu. Except for our invasion of Morocco early in World War II, where U.S troops overwhelmed French forces uncertain in their loyalty to the fascist Vichy regime, the two nations have never really fought.
Well, there’s a first for everything. Right now, French troops are in combat not with Americans per se, but with renegade Malian forces equipped, trained and advised until recently by the Pentagon. Here's how a revealing NY Times dispatch puts it:
“For years, the United States tried to stem the spread of Islamic militancy in the region by conducting its most ambitious counterterrorism program ever across these vast, turbulent stretches of the Sahara.
"But as insurgents swept through the desert last year, commanders of this nation’s elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were needed most — taking troops, guns, trucks and their newfound skills to the enemy in the heat of battle, according to senior Malian military officials.
"It was a disaster," said one of several senior Malian officers to confirm the defections. Then an American-trained officer overthrew Mali’s elected government, setting the stage for more than half of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. American spy planes and surveillance drones have tried to make sense of the mess, but American officials and their allies are still scrambling even to get a detailed picture of who they are up against."
Right there, you have a $500 million screw-up. Not that anyone in charge will make a stink about it: the only thing as sacrosanct as the Pentagon is Wall Street.
More interesting will be how the U.S.-trained rebels fare against the Frenchies. Which side will the Pentagon generals be rooting for down in their guts? An army that they proudly created, even if it did surprisingly switch sides (as is typical in the region), or the forces of the mission civilisatrice who are on our side but whom we really can’t countenance?
Even though we owe them our independence, the Frenchies have always been our bêtes noires. The same unwritten but strictly observed law that forbids Americans from faulting Israel also bans any flattering of France. Still, our two countries have usually found ourselves on the same side in our recent wars. Indeed, we went so far as to pay for their colonial conflict in Indochina and then keep it going after they took a shellacking at Dien Bien Phu. Except for our invasion of Morocco early in World War II, where U.S troops overwhelmed French forces uncertain in their loyalty to the fascist Vichy regime, the two nations have never really fought.
Well, there’s a first for everything. Right now, French troops are in combat not with Americans per se, but with renegade Malian forces equipped, trained and advised until recently by the Pentagon. Here's how a revealing NY Times dispatch puts it:
“For years, the United States tried to stem the spread of Islamic militancy in the region by conducting its most ambitious counterterrorism program ever across these vast, turbulent stretches of the Sahara.
"But as insurgents swept through the desert last year, commanders of this nation’s elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were needed most — taking troops, guns, trucks and their newfound skills to the enemy in the heat of battle, according to senior Malian military officials.
"It was a disaster," said one of several senior Malian officers to confirm the defections. Then an American-trained officer overthrew Mali’s elected government, setting the stage for more than half of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. American spy planes and surveillance drones have tried to make sense of the mess, but American officials and their allies are still scrambling even to get a detailed picture of who they are up against."
Right there, you have a $500 million screw-up. Not that anyone in charge will make a stink about it: the only thing as sacrosanct as the Pentagon is Wall Street.
More interesting will be how the U.S.-trained rebels fare against the Frenchies. Which side will the Pentagon generals be rooting for down in their guts? An army that they proudly created, even if it did surprisingly switch sides (as is typical in the region), or the forces of the mission civilisatrice who are on our side but whom we really can’t countenance?
To My Reader: Taking a break.
Back in two weeks
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