War & Taxes
Two stories on the front page of the New York Times this morning reminded me of a historical precedent that may be useful to recall. The first story relates the increasing cost of deploying a single additional American soldier to Afghanistan.
The latest internal government estimates place the cost of adding 40,000 American troops and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces, as favored by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, at $40 billion to $54 billion a year, the officials said.
Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.
The second story is the sad tale of an American President entering Beijing as supplicant before his banker.
When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker. That stark fact — China is the largest foreign lender to the United States — has changed the core of the relationship between the United States and the only country with a reasonable chance of challenging its status as the world’s sole superpower.
The historical analogy is to the city-state of Florence at the beginning of the 15th Century. The oligarchs that controlled the government of Florence at the time were always pushing Florence to go to war with Milan in order to control more land, which was of course the basis of wealth in this era at the very dawn of capitalism. The war against Milan in 1424 was extraordinarily expensive–Machiavelli estimated it cost 4,200,000 gold florins–and was paid for through a tax on income called the “estimo”. The oligarchs, having most of their wealth in land, and being able to hide their true income, forced the average citizen or tradesman to bear a disproportionately large tax burden. The citizens, who never gained any of the land spoils of conquest, complained bitterly and were referred to by the financial elites as the “piagnoni”, or “whiners”. Of course the elites also gained by selling the armor and weapons to the city and because the Florence often hired both mercenaries and other cities to help fight the war, the battles continued because the surrogates were interested in prolonging the conflict for as long as their paymasters could afford it.
In 1427 all of this came to a breaking point. The Medici Bank which had been loaning money to the city refused to go further in debt and supported the piagnoni’s call for a new tax on a citizen’s entire wealth called a “castato” (register of property). This of course was much harder for the financial elites to escape and given that the Medici now had so much control over the city-state’s finances and that the piagnoni were in full revolt, the castato was passed. And then a funny thing happened. Because the castato was determined each year based on the needs of the city, the oligarchs stopped pushing for war, because its cost was coming out of their hides.
I believe the day is coming soon when the average American piagnoni will wake up like the Florentines did. We may think of the teabaggers as our modern whiners, but like every working stiff in America they have been suckered into supporting the phony patriotism of the chicken-hawks and they are paying for the Trillion Dollar Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is their sons and daughters who die on the battlefield, while the financial elites avoid putting their sons and daughters in harm’s way and take home million dollar bonuses for trading Credit Default Swaps. And of course, the surrogates in our contemporary story are both the Blackwater mercenaries and the corrupt governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan anxious to prolong the “war on terror” so Uncle Sucker will continue to fund their regimes. But perhaps the Chinese will play the part of the Medici Bank, forcing America to tax the wealthy to pay for the wars that only seem to benefit their pocketbooks.
And then we may find our elites suddenly anxious to stop being the world’s unpaid cop.
You actually make a pretty good argument in FAVOR of Obama’s change in direction…
You actually make a pretty good argument in FAVOR of Obama’s change in direction…
See seer Rebecca Solnit, who reminds us that California (as one example) has plenty of water and money, but has not had a ‘reality based’ discussion on how those resources are used.
Water, for example. As California citizens and small farmers are asked to cut back on water use, a drastic 40% of California’s water goes to farms that produce 1% of the state’s wealth — for cotton, rice, alfalfa and pasturage (irrigated grazing land).
The article (from this weekend’s Contra Costa Times) talks about the costs and benefits of war, also.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_13766492?nclick_check=1
See seer Rebecca Solnit, who reminds us that California (as one example) has plenty of water and money, but has not had a ‘reality based’ discussion on how those resources are used.
Water, for example. As California citizens and small farmers are asked to cut back on water use, a drastic 40% of California’s water goes to farms that produce 1% of the state’s wealth — for cotton, rice, alfalfa and pasturage (irrigated grazing land).
The article (from this weekend’s Contra Costa Times) talks about the costs and benefits of war, also.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_13766492?nclick_check=1
Maybe it’s time for one of those neodisciplines — you know, like paleoautomobiliatology. We’ve worked past semiotics and such. How about politicophysics? Or physicopolitics?
You got stuff happening at the idealized Newtonian level, like the masses and potential and kinetic energies of bodies, and it’s pretty obvious that there’s lots of “inertia” in the universe, that property of matter represented by its “mass” that resists any changes in direction and speed. Says one “expert” source, “on the surface of the Earth the nature of inertia is often masked by the effects of friction, which generally tends to decrease the speed of moving objects (often even to the point of rest), and by the acceleration due to gravity.”
Then you have “momentum,” which for a while was ID’d by the Talking Heads as “Big Mo.” So what you got in the pinball land of humanity is lots of classical multibody collisions and interactions, but so much of it is all in the direction of The Cliff.
The Wiki distillation includes this: “If an object is moving in any reference frame, then it has momentum in that frame. It is important to note that momentum is frame dependent. That is, the same object may have a certain momentum in one frame of reference, but a different amount in another frame. For example, a moving object has momentum in a reference frame fixed to a spot on the ground, while at the same time having 0 momentum in a reference frame attached to the object’s center of mass.
“The amount of momentum that an object has depends on two physical quantities: the mass and the velocity of the moving object in the frame of reference. In physics, the usual symbol for momentum is a uppercase bold P (bold because it is a vector, uppercase to avoid confusion with pressure); so this can be written
P = M xV
where P is the momentum, m is the mass and v is the velocity.”
So you see it’s all about framing, and developing a bit of math that can account for the evil forces that lurk in the hearts of men. Might even be able to predict what’s up next, and of course the Political Manipulators will be all over this.
I gotta say, good luck causing a change in velocity of even one of the masses that make up the politically framed universe, all of which have these “strange attractors” and quantum states that seem pretty much out, out, out of any possible control.
Maybe it’s time for one of those neodisciplines — you know, like paleoautomobiliatology. We’ve worked past semiotics and such. How about politicophysics? Or physicopolitics?
You got stuff happening at the idealized Newtonian level, like the masses and potential and kinetic energies of bodies, and it’s pretty obvious that there’s lots of “inertia” in the universe, that property of matter represented by its “mass” that resists any changes in direction and speed. Says one “expert” source, “on the surface of the Earth the nature of inertia is often masked by the effects of friction, which generally tends to decrease the speed of moving objects (often even to the point of rest), and by the acceleration due to gravity.”
Then you have “momentum,” which for a while was ID’d by the Talking Heads as “Big Mo.” So what you got in the pinball land of humanity is lots of classical multibody collisions and interactions, but so much of it is all in the direction of The Cliff.
The Wiki distillation includes this: “If an object is moving in any reference frame, then it has momentum in that frame. It is important to note that momentum is frame dependent. That is, the same object may have a certain momentum in one frame of reference, but a different amount in another frame. For example, a moving object has momentum in a reference frame fixed to a spot on the ground, while at the same time having 0 momentum in a reference frame attached to the object’s center of mass.
“The amount of momentum that an object has depends on two physical quantities: the mass and the velocity of the moving object in the frame of reference. In physics, the usual symbol for momentum is a uppercase bold P (bold because it is a vector, uppercase to avoid confusion with pressure); so this can be written
P = M xV
where P is the momentum, m is the mass and v is the velocity.”
So you see it’s all about framing, and developing a bit of math that can account for the evil forces that lurk in the hearts of men. Might even be able to predict what’s up next, and of course the Political Manipulators will be all over this.
I gotta say, good luck causing a change in velocity of even one of the masses that make up the politically framed universe, all of which have these “strange attractors” and quantum states that seem pretty much out, out, out of any possible control.
I don’t think the teabaggers have ever protested against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or the so-called “War on Terror”; rather, they have protested against every initiative to improve the overall quality of life domestically. They are not the whiners who are going to effect positive change.
I don’t think the teabaggers have ever protested against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or the so-called “War on Terror”; rather, they have protested against every initiative to improve the overall quality of life domestically. They are not the whiners who are going to effect positive change.
Bill-I just meant they are being suckered. They do plenty of whining about taxes, but it never occurs to them that the wars are causing their taxes to stay high.
Bill-I just meant they are being suckered. They do plenty of whining about taxes, but it never occurs to them that the wars are causing their taxes to stay high.
Agreed on all fronts, Jon.
One caveat is that I met a great many smart, engaged and vehemently anti-war supporters of Ron Paul during the campaign who have gone to the so-called “tea parties”. Dr. Paul was the only REAL anti-war candidate (aside, I think, from Dennis Kucinich who I also respect). Many libertarians remained anti-war including the Cato Institute. We are a minority on the right (if we really are on the right), but we’re real.
Say what you will, largely justifiably, about the (perhaps) majority of tea party goers and their (alleged) prior support of nation-bankrupting war but one must recognize that this is a long-standing bipartisan mess. Distilling the American Empire into a left vs. right battle should have died long ago, especially given the Democrats legal ability to shut this nightmare down since 2006 (didn’t they run on a promise along those lines?). But military interventionism had its birth in the progressive era and remained thoroughly of the left through LBJ. Goldwater and Nixon ran on anti-war platforms, didn’t they? Yeah, I know, Nixon was an SOB. Agreed in advance.
In the end, murderous warmongering keynesianism is embedded in both parties as deeply as the utterly fallacious nonsense that WWII ended the Great Depression.
If you are truly anti-war, than you MUST support the restriction or (better yet) abolition of the Fed. It is inflation, after all, that has historically funded these wars, with the macroeconomic boom/bust being just one tragic result.
That is where liberals and libertarians MUST meet. But to embrace true pacifism, the left must give up an economic doctrine that considers war as an effective “stimulus” and reject all those who propagate it. Start with Krugman:
http://www.butwhatthehelldoiknow.com/blog/2009/6/15/about-paul-krugmans-frightening-view-on-war.html
Agreed on all fronts, Jon.
One caveat is that I met a great many smart, engaged and vehemently anti-war supporters of Ron Paul during the campaign who have gone to the so-called “tea parties”. Dr. Paul was the only REAL anti-war candidate (aside, I think, from Dennis Kucinich who I also respect). Many libertarians remained anti-war including the Cato Institute. We are a minority on the right (if we really are on the right), but we’re real.
Say what you will, largely justifiably, about the (perhaps) majority of tea party goers and their (alleged) prior support of nation-bankrupting war but one must recognize that this is a long-standing bipartisan mess. Distilling the American Empire into a left vs. right battle should have died long ago, especially given the Democrats legal ability to shut this nightmare down since 2006 (didn’t they run on a promise along those lines?). But military interventionism had its birth in the progressive era and remained thoroughly of the left through LBJ. Goldwater and Nixon ran on anti-war platforms, didn’t they? Yeah, I know, Nixon was an SOB. Agreed in advance.
In the end, murderous warmongering keynesianism is embedded in both parties as deeply as the utterly fallacious nonsense that WWII ended the Great Depression.
If you are truly anti-war, than you MUST support the restriction or (better yet) abolition of the Fed. It is inflation, after all, that has historically funded these wars, with the macroeconomic boom/bust being just one tragic result.
That is where liberals and libertarians MUST meet. But to embrace true pacifism, the left must give up an economic doctrine that considers war as an effective “stimulus” and reject all those who propagate it. Start with Krugman:
http://www.butwhatthehelldoiknow.com/blog/2009/6/15/about-paul-krugmans-frightening-view-on-war.html
John,
The “MUSTs” are a bit sophomoric. As are the casual elisions like ‘murderous warmongering keynesianism’. You’re trampling significant distinctions and the relationship between those concepts has a lot of moving parts.
Paul Krugman was one of a tiny handful of people writing or speaking in mainstream media who had sufficient integrity and courage to oppose the middle-east adventures of recent years. So it is a rather childish taunt to call him a ‘warmonger’ because he makes the observation that a lot of econometric study has indicated military spending can promote growth of a kind. Maybe those studies are flawed, but address them on the merits not with specious moral outrage.
I don’t think anyone “MUST” link demilitarization of our middle-east policy with elimination of the Fed. The financiers aren’t driving our military industrial complex. Financiers want to continue playing heads-I-win-tails-the-taxpayers-lose games. None of those financial games involve defense spending in any direct or essential way. So the two are potentially completely independent.
I also disagree that the Fed should be abolished. It needs reform, but there will always be a central banking function. If there isn’t a quasi-public one, then the money center banks will acquire the role (and power) by stealth. Arguably they have already accomplished this. The problem is to reassert the public will in opposition to private monopolies — which leads back to a more adversarial government role. Better to break up the biggest private banks (eg. “restore Glass-Steagall” to over-simplify) and dump the gamblers-posing-as-bankers off the public insurance “dole”.
Here’s where I would be tempted to put a somewhat ironic “MUST”: wouldn’t it be nice if the fans of Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Paul could agree on a few reforms? Genuinely right-left common ground on asserting the popular will against DC village traditions might actually be effective. As long as DC villagers can distract us with differences on social issues, they’ll go on ignoring the noises from the hinterlands. We MUST put our squabbles aside in order to adjust DC thinking. But of course we won’t. (That was the irony, by the way.)
John,
The “MUSTs” are a bit sophomoric. As are the casual elisions like ‘murderous warmongering keynesianism’. You’re trampling significant distinctions and the relationship between those concepts has a lot of moving parts.
Paul Krugman was one of a tiny handful of people writing or speaking in mainstream media who had sufficient integrity and courage to oppose the middle-east adventures of recent years. So it is a rather childish taunt to call him a ‘warmonger’ because he makes the observation that a lot of econometric study has indicated military spending can promote growth of a kind. Maybe those studies are flawed, but address them on the merits not with specious moral outrage.
I don’t think anyone “MUST” link demilitarization of our middle-east policy with elimination of the Fed. The financiers aren’t driving our military industrial complex. Financiers want to continue playing heads-I-win-tails-the-taxpayers-lose games. None of those financial games involve defense spending in any direct or essential way. So the two are potentially completely independent.
I also disagree that the Fed should be abolished. It needs reform, but there will always be a central banking function. If there isn’t a quasi-public one, then the money center banks will acquire the role (and power) by stealth. Arguably they have already accomplished this. The problem is to reassert the public will in opposition to private monopolies — which leads back to a more adversarial government role. Better to break up the biggest private banks (eg. “restore Glass-Steagall” to over-simplify) and dump the gamblers-posing-as-bankers off the public insurance “dole”.
Here’s where I would be tempted to put a somewhat ironic “MUST”: wouldn’t it be nice if the fans of Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Paul could agree on a few reforms? Genuinely right-left common ground on asserting the popular will against DC village traditions might actually be effective. As long as DC villagers can distract us with differences on social issues, they’ll go on ignoring the noises from the hinterlands. We MUST put our squabbles aside in order to adjust DC thinking. But of course we won’t. (That was the irony, by the way.)
“sons and daughters die on the battlefield.” Hate to say it, sir, but that just plays into the pathos that activates the tribal impulse.
This current set of GIs is not really dying “on a battlefield.” They have been sent on a fool’s errand to a place where there is no “battlefield,” no cricket pitch, no infield and outfield and dugouts and base paths and foul lines. Like the one young man said, “I know how to fight. I’m trained to kill the enemy. I’ve been in fights. What I don’t want to be is a Mine Detection Device.” As he rides bravely and foolishly and following orders out in his Humvee or MRAP, looking for “hostiles” to “light up,” to run over or next to the latest iteration of IED, EFP, or the homely “roadside bomb” (like it’s a fruit stand or something.) All in the nominal name of winning the hearts and minds, spreading democracy, opposing Arab fundamentalism, just like his Christian-fundamentalist chaplain tells him he is on God’s mission to do.
While the Pentagon dudes have figured out ANOTHER fucking way to keep the carousel turning, more funding for the new JIEDDO Knights (Does anyone read shit like this with anything in mind other than mastery of a new set of acronyms, fitting this new “initiative” into the carefully cultivated and won “knowledge” of the anatomy and physiology of the whole parasitic organism that is eating us alive, or looking to see what opportunities it might provide to bid on getting a slice of the dying water buffalo that is ‘our great nation? OOOOOhh, a “threat” we can “identify” and “quantitiate” and “budget billions to counter!!!” [how the fuck you gonna do that, exactly, Mr. General? Oh, I see, that’s a TASK GROUP function requiring BUDGET MONEY so it’s way premature to even speculate, and of course this “threat” morphs constantly as you fuckers send out GIs to be Mine Detection Devices without any other mission it seems, and of course your focus is on technology and tactics and you keep any possible mentation about maybe a sea change in how the whole thing might be handled very differently at a very great distance — might cut into your appropriations. I get it now.)
What you have is pure military-industrialism, an expenditure and procurement in search of an attractive definition of “mission.” There’s no definition of a political goal, no actually achievable “success” or “victory” despite incessant repetition of those empty words that we fill with so much phony “meaning” from echoes and resonances in the empty halls of our tribal shrines.
“noises from the hinterlands”? YOU hear any? Any notions of dissatisfaction, anyone willing to call bullshit on the “meaning” ascribed to the aluminum coffins and the presentation flags from the burials, the bullshit that “they sacrificed and died to protect us and Our Sacred Way Of Life,” or the realities of traumatic amputations and brain and spinal cord injuries, or the news that Raytheon’s rulers, who sell their toys to all and sundry and who have their own little tricks for manufacturing demand, see their future profits in a much more broadly defined notion of “security,” rather than its present profit centers, since at some point people might catch on that the vaunted anti-SCUD Patriot missile is a fraud?
And then you have Little Johnny One-Notes who have their prescriptions for unitary fixes for What Ails Us, As Told By Hayek. Kind of like the medieval physician, prescribing bleeding, blistering and purging for everything from constipation to cancer. There’s a noise from the hinterlands for you.
Face it, folks, as a species, we are soon dead by our own hands.
“sons and daughters die on the battlefield.” Hate to say it, sir, but that just plays into the pathos that activates the tribal impulse.
This current set of GIs is not really dying “on a battlefield.” They have been sent on a fool’s errand to a place where there is no “battlefield,” no cricket pitch, no infield and outfield and dugouts and base paths and foul lines. Like the one young man said, “I know how to fight. I’m trained to kill the enemy. I’ve been in fights. What I don’t want to be is a Mine Detection Device.” As he rides bravely and foolishly and following orders out in his Humvee or MRAP, looking for “hostiles” to “light up,” to run over or next to the latest iteration of IED, EFP, or the homely “roadside bomb” (like it’s a fruit stand or something.) All in the nominal name of winning the hearts and minds, spreading democracy, opposing Arab fundamentalism, just like his Christian-fundamentalist chaplain tells him he is on God’s mission to do.
While the Pentagon dudes have figured out ANOTHER fucking way to keep the carousel turning, more funding for the new JIEDDO Knights (Does anyone read shit like this with anything in mind other than mastery of a new set of acronyms, fitting this new “initiative” into the carefully cultivated and won “knowledge” of the anatomy and physiology of the whole parasitic organism that is eating us alive, or looking to see what opportunities it might provide to bid on getting a slice of the dying water buffalo that is ‘our great nation? OOOOOhh, a “threat” we can “identify” and “quantitiate” and “budget billions to counter!!!” [how the fuck you gonna do that, exactly, Mr. General? Oh, I see, that’s a TASK GROUP function requiring BUDGET MONEY so it’s way premature to even speculate, and of course this “threat” morphs constantly as you fuckers send out GIs to be Mine Detection Devices without any other mission it seems, and of course your focus is on technology and tactics and you keep any possible mentation about maybe a sea change in how the whole thing might be handled very differently at a very great distance — might cut into your appropriations. I get it now.)
What you have is pure military-industrialism, an expenditure and procurement in search of an attractive definition of “mission.” There’s no definition of a political goal, no actually achievable “success” or “victory” despite incessant repetition of those empty words that we fill with so much phony “meaning” from echoes and resonances in the empty halls of our tribal shrines.
“noises from the hinterlands”? YOU hear any? Any notions of dissatisfaction, anyone willing to call bullshit on the “meaning” ascribed to the aluminum coffins and the presentation flags from the burials, the bullshit that “they sacrificed and died to protect us and Our Sacred Way Of Life,” or the realities of traumatic amputations and brain and spinal cord injuries, or the news that Raytheon’s rulers, who sell their toys to all and sundry and who have their own little tricks for manufacturing demand, see their future profits in a much more broadly defined notion of “security,” rather than its present profit centers, since at some point people might catch on that the vaunted anti-SCUD Patriot missile is a fraud?
And then you have Little Johnny One-Notes who have their prescriptions for unitary fixes for What Ails Us, As Told By Hayek. Kind of like the medieval physician, prescribing bleeding, blistering and purging for everything from constipation to cancer. There’s a noise from the hinterlands for you.
Face it, folks, as a species, we are soon dead by our own hands.
No comment really needed, is there?
But I can’t resist. Wonder where Paulson&Bernanke come down on this one?
No comment really needed, is there?
But I can’t resist. Wonder where Paulson&Bernanke come down on this one?
Seriously folks, are we actually looking at the possibility of a multi-party election for 2012. Rogue-like Palin/Dobbs, Lefttarian-like Kucinich/Paul, Take Back the RightChristianitos-like Huckabee/Palin or Palin/Huckabee? Are there more splits and power grabbers in the wings?
Jon’s on the right track quoting history but did history have the internet like quality of universally shared confidences like we have?
Can the US sustain such a splintering or are we finally really going to end the Civil War, by cracky?
One thing is clear, we all have opinions and are willing to share them. The question is when do you think we’ll wake up to how badly we need to quit fighting in wars with each other. JTM votes never. Jon holds out hope.
I say I am more than frustrated.
Seriously folks, are we actually looking at the possibility of a multi-party election for 2012. Rogue-like Palin/Dobbs, Lefttarian-like Kucinich/Paul, Take Back the RightChristianitos-like Huckabee/Palin or Palin/Huckabee? Are there more splits and power grabbers in the wings?
Jon’s on the right track quoting history but did history have the internet like quality of universally shared confidences like we have?
Can the US sustain such a splintering or are we finally really going to end the Civil War, by cracky?
One thing is clear, we all have opinions and are willing to share them. The question is when do you think we’ll wake up to how badly we need to quit fighting in wars with each other. JTM votes never. Jon holds out hope.
I say I am more than frustrated.
This looks more like the late 60s to me with Wallace et al dividing up the conservatives, the Nixon silent majority and the liberals eviscerating each other. It’s somewhat predictable and was.
Someone is going to pull their camps together by adopting the edge issues. Don’t underestimate Palin. When the electorate gets this befuddled they start following the small animals around the barnyard.
This looks more like the late 60s to me with Wallace et al dividing up the conservatives, the Nixon silent majority and the liberals eviscerating each other. It’s somewhat predictable and was.
Someone is going to pull their camps together by adopting the edge issues. Don’t underestimate Palin. When the electorate gets this befuddled they start following the small animals around the barnyard.
BTW, JTM, is your other name Serge?
BTW, JTM, is your other name Serge?
Nope, I think it is “Plop,” if I remember my birth certificate. http://grumpy-people.com/isoc-gallery.php?page=1
And schism isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing.
Nope, I think it is “Plop,” if I remember my birth certificate. http://grumpy-people.com/isoc-gallery.php?page=1
And schism isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing.
God help us.
Honestly, we’re in need of a good constitutional conference.
God help us.
Honestly, we’re in need of a good constitutional conference.
Screw the Democratic Party and its combination of, on the one hand, hawks who eagerly supported the war, especially if it meant they would benefit from it, and on the other, ball-less toadies who moved with the herd and conceded to Goober’s hillbilly ubermensch administration.
But that doesn’t in any way alter the fact that Iraq was a Republican war conceived by lies served up by Republicans and pushed by Republicans and it would not have happened if it hadn’t been for Goober with Strangelove’s hand stuck up his ass selling Republican freedom fries by the truckload. All of the Democrats who went along with that, either eagerly or cravenly, can all rot in hell.
But.
Republican.
Some of us are not so quick to forget that.
Screw the Democratic Party and its combination of, on the one hand, hawks who eagerly supported the war, especially if it meant they would benefit from it, and on the other, ball-less toadies who moved with the herd and conceded to Goober’s hillbilly ubermensch administration.
But that doesn’t in any way alter the fact that Iraq was a Republican war conceived by lies served up by Republicans and pushed by Republicans and it would not have happened if it hadn’t been for Goober with Strangelove’s hand stuck up his ass selling Republican freedom fries by the truckload. All of the Democrats who went along with that, either eagerly or cravenly, can all rot in hell.
But.
Republican.
Some of us are not so quick to forget that.
Screw the Democratic Party and its combination of, on the one hand, hawks who eagerly supported the war, especially if it meant they would benefit from it, and on the other, ball-less toadies who moved with the herd and conceded to Goober’s hillbilly ubermensch administration.
But that doesn’t in any way alter the fact that Iraq was a Republican war conceived by lies served up by Republicans and pushed by Republicans and it would not have happened if it hadn’t been for Goober with Strangelove’s hand stuck up his ass selling Republican freedom fries by the truckload. All of the Democrats who went along with that, either eagerly or cravenly, can all rot in hell.
But.
Republican.
Some of us are not so quick to forget that.
We survive it. Democracy is nuts by definition. A Republic is a way to keep it on some kind of stable course even if the stability is that of special interests.
In chaos is opportunity.
What is particularly disturbing to me is not the volatility of the parties. I like that. A boiling pot means the heat is on.
I am scared willikers of the unheard of concentration of world wide media and the obvious agendas sprinkled across a dozen seemingly unrelated but financially cohesive networks. As I said last year, The Prisoner seems more prophetic as the times pass. McGoohan understood more than he was ever given credit for.
We survive it. Democracy is nuts by definition. A Republic is a way to keep it on some kind of stable course even if the stability is that of special interests.
In chaos is opportunity.
What is particularly disturbing to me is not the volatility of the parties. I like that. A boiling pot means the heat is on.
I am scared willikers of the unheard of concentration of world wide media and the obvious agendas sprinkled across a dozen seemingly unrelated but financially cohesive networks. As I said last year, The Prisoner seems more prophetic as the times pass. McGoohan understood more than he was ever given credit for.
We survive it. Democracy is nuts by definition. A Republic is a way to keep it on some kind of stable course even if the stability is that of special interests.
In chaos is opportunity.
What is particularly disturbing to me is not the volatility of the parties. I like that. A boiling pot means the heat is on.
I am scared willikers of the unheard of concentration of world wide media and the obvious agendas sprinkled across a dozen seemingly unrelated but financially cohesive networks. As I said last year, The Prisoner seems more prophetic as the times pass. McGoohan understood more than he was ever given credit for.
Yeah, that’s it! Here, where “we” are busily breaking up into little fragments, well-armed with Our Own Personal Truths and a Vague But Fixed Knowledge Of Who The Enemy Is, without a real “King George and Parliament” common enemy, or any set of Founding-Fathers-quality people to recognize the inevitabilities of human nature and attempt to create a New Constitution that, if plugged into one-each RULEOFLAW, will bring about an end of scarcity and stupidity and greed and hate and violence, into endless green meadows of consensual-everybody-taking-in-everybody-else’s-laundrydom.
Yeah, now is the time to open up Pandora’s Box, to do patently what is now being done tacitly, destroying the vestiges of the thing that partook of the REAL nature of Camelot (not the Kennedy Myth, our homegrown Royalty) or Glocca Morra or the potential but unlikely happyendings of a “Finian’s Rainbow”, all under the same kinds of memes and tropes and such that let the worst of the pigs write and re-write and pare down and paint out and re-write in the middle of the night when the rest of us are asleep, the Sacred Words, until all that’s left is “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
You got a list of nominees to represent the rest of us at the Great Conference Table?
And the Old Guys at least had the sense to refer to it as a “Constitutional Convention,” not a “conference,” since the latter by definition produce only words and noise and no useful output or healthy change in direction, on the fundamental premise that God So Loved Us Humans That He Did Not Send A Committee.
But hey, if you can line up enough allies, you go for it. The output and outcome will give this aging curmudgeon lots more to say “I told you so” about.
Yeah, that’s it! Here, where “we” are busily breaking up into little fragments, well-armed with Our Own Personal Truths and a Vague But Fixed Knowledge Of Who The Enemy Is, without a real “King George and Parliament” common enemy, or any set of Founding-Fathers-quality people to recognize the inevitabilities of human nature and attempt to create a New Constitution that, if plugged into one-each RULEOFLAW, will bring about an end of scarcity and stupidity and greed and hate and violence, into endless green meadows of consensual-everybody-taking-in-everybody-else’s-laundrydom.
Yeah, now is the time to open up Pandora’s Box, to do patently what is now being done tacitly, destroying the vestiges of the thing that partook of the REAL nature of Camelot (not the Kennedy Myth, our homegrown Royalty) or Glocca Morra or the potential but unlikely happyendings of a “Finian’s Rainbow”, all under the same kinds of memes and tropes and such that let the worst of the pigs write and re-write and pare down and paint out and re-write in the middle of the night when the rest of us are asleep, the Sacred Words, until all that’s left is “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
You got a list of nominees to represent the rest of us at the Great Conference Table?
And the Old Guys at least had the sense to refer to it as a “Constitutional Convention,” not a “conference,” since the latter by definition produce only words and noise and no useful output or healthy change in direction, on the fundamental premise that God So Loved Us Humans That He Did Not Send A Committee.
But hey, if you can line up enough allies, you go for it. The output and outcome will give this aging curmudgeon lots more to say “I told you so” about.
Yeah, that’s it! Here, where “we” are busily breaking up into little fragments, well-armed with Our Own Personal Truths and a Vague But Fixed Knowledge Of Who The Enemy Is, without a real “King George and Parliament” common enemy, or any set of Founding-Fathers-quality people to recognize the inevitabilities of human nature and attempt to create a New Constitution that, if plugged into one-each RULEOFLAW, will bring about an end of scarcity and stupidity and greed and hate and violence, into endless green meadows of consensual-everybody-taking-in-everybody-else’s-laundrydom.
Yeah, now is the time to open up Pandora’s Box, to do patently what is now being done tacitly, destroying the vestiges of the thing that partook of the REAL nature of Camelot (not the Kennedy Myth, our homegrown Royalty) or Glocca Morra or the potential but unlikely happyendings of a “Finian’s Rainbow”, all under the same kinds of memes and tropes and such that let the worst of the pigs write and re-write and pare down and paint out and re-write in the middle of the night when the rest of us are asleep, the Sacred Words, until all that’s left is “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
You got a list of nominees to represent the rest of us at the Great Conference Table?
And the Old Guys at least had the sense to refer to it as a “Constitutional Convention,” not a “conference,” since the latter by definition produce only words and noise and no useful output or healthy change in direction, on the fundamental premise that God So Loved Us Humans That He Did Not Send A Committee.
But hey, if you can line up enough allies, you go for it. The output and outcome will give this aging curmudgeon lots more to say “I told you so” about.
While y’all argue the merits of this mind-boggling, endless “war on terror” at the expense of trillions of dollars and endless youthful lives, allow me to add a few interesting thoughts.
–A new prison is built somewhere in the U.S. every single day.
–The two major hiring economic sectors appear to be war industries (armaments) and health (doctors, nurses, physical therapists).
–Wm Bennett said Sunday on CNN that the US military forces in Afghanistan should stay for perhaps ten or more years (20, 30, 100?)…while at the same time decrying the lack of fiduciary responsibility of the current government, particularly the health care legislation.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
While y’all argue the merits of this mind-boggling, endless “war on terror” at the expense of trillions of dollars and endless youthful lives, allow me to add a few interesting thoughts.
–A new prison is built somewhere in the U.S. every single day.
–The two major hiring economic sectors appear to be war industries (armaments) and health (doctors, nurses, physical therapists).
–Wm Bennett said Sunday on CNN that the US military forces in Afghanistan should stay for perhaps ten or more years (20, 30, 100?)…while at the same time decrying the lack of fiduciary responsibility of the current government, particularly the health care legislation.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
While y’all argue the merits of this mind-boggling, endless “war on terror” at the expense of trillions of dollars and endless youthful lives, allow me to add a few interesting thoughts.
–A new prison is built somewhere in the U.S. every single day.
–The two major hiring economic sectors appear to be war industries (armaments) and health (doctors, nurses, physical therapists).
–Wm Bennett said Sunday on CNN that the US military forces in Afghanistan should stay for perhaps ten or more years (20, 30, 100?)…while at the same time decrying the lack of fiduciary responsibility of the current government, particularly the health care legislation.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
Had an idea today, whilst viewing Pirate Radio at my local cinema. What if we started paying people to be students, you know like in as a job, called for want of a better term, How to Fix a Broken System/Planet. Regular hours, starting hourly and moving up the ladder toward salary. No more student loan debtitude, no more scholarships. Just money used to pay people to learn how to fix what’s broken. We could even call it a Job Corp. Notice by the way I didn’t codify the students as kids. Anyone should be able to apply and start to work immediately. Bring those troops home and show the world how to really live intelligently. Make the job of the future always be about learning how to make the world work better and longer.
Had an idea today, whilst viewing Pirate Radio at my local cinema. What if we started paying people to be students, you know like in as a job, called for want of a better term, How to Fix a Broken System/Planet. Regular hours, starting hourly and moving up the ladder toward salary. No more student loan debtitude, no more scholarships. Just money used to pay people to learn how to fix what’s broken. We could even call it a Job Corp. Notice by the way I didn’t codify the students as kids. Anyone should be able to apply and start to work immediately. Bring those troops home and show the world how to really live intelligently. Make the job of the future always be about learning how to make the world work better and longer.
Had an idea today, whilst viewing Pirate Radio at my local cinema. What if we started paying people to be students, you know like in as a job, called for want of a better term, How to Fix a Broken System/Planet. Regular hours, starting hourly and moving up the ladder toward salary. No more student loan debtitude, no more scholarships. Just money used to pay people to learn how to fix what’s broken. We could even call it a Job Corp. Notice by the way I didn’t codify the students as kids. Anyone should be able to apply and start to work immediately. Bring those troops home and show the world how to really live intelligently. Make the job of the future always be about learning how to make the world work better and longer.
I just copied this comment from the blog of the Huffington post. I think it is relevant to a general and growing feeling that has to be attended, soon.
” Today I drove down a street that had a block long line of people waiting to get food at a church. The town I live in doesn’t have that many people. And I’m finding it getting tough. America’s is becoming a third-world nation at first-world prices. All of it against the backdrop of 2 senseless special-interest’s driven wars that are of no benefit to the American people.
I believe that there’s a point where you just can’t make enough no matter how many jobs or hours you work. Anything connected to Wall Street is overkill. Always rate increases across the board. On everything.”
I just copied this comment from the blog of the Huffington post. I think it is relevant to a general and growing feeling that has to be attended, soon.
” Today I drove down a street that had a block long line of people waiting to get food at a church. The town I live in doesn’t have that many people. And I’m finding it getting tough. America’s is becoming a third-world nation at first-world prices. All of it against the backdrop of 2 senseless special-interest’s driven wars that are of no benefit to the American people.
I believe that there’s a point where you just can’t make enough no matter how many jobs or hours you work. Anything connected to Wall Street is overkill. Always rate increases across the board. On everything.”
Now one of the countless, cool things about China is that it takes the long view, but we are given now to anticipate their dispacing the USA as “sole sperpower”? Like, in what century?
Super-states don’t make a superhero make, one with gravity-defying powers. That’s the kind of weird (journalistic) magic it would take for China to be launched from overpoulated tyranny, to overabundant lender, to stand-alone global superpower overnight. It’s absurd.
It reminds me of the late-’80s psychosis about the Japanese and even (remember?) the West Germans. Plus ca change.
How silly. The tables will turn, because theirs are wob-b-ly…
We just have to be as patient as they, for a time. After all, by this calculus our weakness IS their weakness. But when our strengths are regained, and Kissinger and Haig and GHWB have passed, the tables could turn. The time of pimping for slave labor has overpassed China and its American beards.
Now one of the countless, cool things about China is that it takes the long view, but we are given now to anticipate their dispacing the USA as “sole sperpower”? Like, in what century?
Super-states don’t make a superhero make, one with gravity-defying powers. That’s the kind of weird (journalistic) magic it would take for China to be launched from overpoulated tyranny, to overabundant lender, to stand-alone global superpower overnight. It’s absurd.
It reminds me of the late-’80s psychosis about the Japanese and even (remember?) the West Germans. Plus ca change.
How silly. The tables will turn, because theirs are wob-b-ly…
We just have to be as patient as they, for a time. After all, by this calculus our weakness IS their weakness. But when our strengths are regained, and Kissinger and Haig and GHWB have passed, the tables could turn. The time of pimping for slave labor has overpassed China and its American beards.
Now one of the countless, cool things about China is that it takes the long view, but we are given now to anticipate their dispacing the USA as “sole sperpower”? Like, in what century?
Super-states don’t make a superhero make, one with gravity-defying powers. That’s the kind of weird (journalistic) magic it would take for China to be launched from overpoulated tyranny, to overabundant lender, to stand-alone global superpower overnight. It’s absurd.
It reminds me of the late-’80s psychosis about the Japanese and even (remember?) the West Germans. Plus ca change.
How silly. The tables will turn, because theirs are wob-b-ly…
We just have to be as patient as they, for a time. After all, by this calculus our weakness IS their weakness. But when our strengths are regained, and Kissinger and Haig and GHWB have passed, the tables could turn. The time of pimping for slave labor has overpassed China and its American beards.
BTW, I still don’t understand why we wouldn’t just rebroacast the original Existentialist TV series, from ’68, as it was itself so determinedly timeless, but now I’m told that TCM, or elese another retrospective network, is going to do this right away. So maybe we can see together how good McGoohan was and how thought-prevoking things could be until the times required a pretentous stupefaction.
BTW, I still don’t understand why we wouldn’t just rebroacast the original Existentialist TV series, from ’68, as it was itself so determinedly timeless, but now I’m told that TCM, or elese another retrospective network, is going to do this right away. So maybe we can see together how good McGoohan was and how thought-prevoking things could be until the times required a pretentous stupefaction.
BTW, I still don’t understand why we wouldn’t just rebroacast the original Existentialist TV series, from ’68, as it was itself so determinedly timeless, but now I’m told that TCM, or elese another retrospective network, is going to do this right away. So maybe we can see together how good McGoohan was and how thought-prevoking things could be until the times required a pretentous stupefaction.
> Super-states don’t make a superhero make
This implies the author thinks the U.S is a super hero.
Corrupt characters that torture people and carelessly kill thousands while invading their homes and support the imposition of intenrational treaties desinged to oppress the poor and enrich the priviledged aren’t generally regarded as heroes in the comics I read.
Some U.S citizens may have an illusion that thier country is a champion that deserves some special place in the world, but the folks whose lifes have been ruined it’s bombs, bullets and policies aren’t likely to think it more deserving than others.
> Super-states don’t make a superhero make
This implies the author thinks the U.S is a super hero.
Corrupt characters that torture people and carelessly kill thousands while invading their homes and support the imposition of intenrational treaties desinged to oppress the poor and enrich the priviledged aren’t generally regarded as heroes in the comics I read.
Some U.S citizens may have an illusion that thier country is a champion that deserves some special place in the world, but the folks whose lifes have been ruined it’s bombs, bullets and policies aren’t likely to think it more deserving than others.
> Super-states don’t make a superhero make
This implies the author thinks the U.S is a super hero.
Corrupt characters that torture people and carelessly kill thousands while invading their homes and support the imposition of intenrational treaties desinged to oppress the poor and enrich the priviledged aren’t generally regarded as heroes in the comics I read.
Some U.S citizens may have an illusion that thier country is a champion that deserves some special place in the world, but the folks whose lifes have been ruined it’s bombs, bullets and policies aren’t likely to think it more deserving than others.
Fentex, you see the almost sexual seduction of the kind of thinking and world view and unacknowledged tribalism and “rent seeking” and special-interest influence peddling and howtogetaheadism that persists and is likely to rule in this-here-”democracy” until a lot more of the people who found personal profit and emotional satisfaction in it have died off. Kiss-and-Tellinger saith: “Power iss de uldimate avrodisiac.” Guns and money = power, and “we” can be comforted that there are still some 6 or 8-ooo Made In Amarillo By Christian Rapturists Nukes able to be pooped off at any given time, and as many in the hands of other people whose job descriptions require them to keep the target lists up to date. Good Fucking Luck, and if I remember right, weren’t the streets of Aukland and such the last places to be affected by the sexy madness of “On The Beach”?
Stupendously stupoid species.
Fentex, you see the almost sexual seduction of the kind of thinking and world view and unacknowledged tribalism and “rent seeking” and special-interest influence peddling and howtogetaheadism that persists and is likely to rule in this-here-”democracy” until a lot more of the people who found personal profit and emotional satisfaction in it have died off. Kiss-and-Tellinger saith: “Power iss de uldimate avrodisiac.” Guns and money = power, and “we” can be comforted that there are still some 6 or 8-ooo Made In Amarillo By Christian Rapturists Nukes able to be pooped off at any given time, and as many in the hands of other people whose job descriptions require them to keep the target lists up to date. Good Fucking Luck, and if I remember right, weren’t the streets of Aukland and such the last places to be affected by the sexy madness of “On The Beach”?
Stupendously stupoid species.
So far it appears the author has taken the original premises and some of the symbols and is weaving a different storyline to a different conclusion. Not a bad job. I look forward to tonight’s finale. One hopes it doesn’t need the twenty years of analysis the first one did to figure out the ending.
So far it appears the author has taken the original premises and some of the symbols and is weaving a different storyline to a different conclusion. Not a bad job. I look forward to tonight’s finale. One hopes it doesn’t need the twenty years of analysis the first one did to figure out the ending.
So far it appears the author has taken the original premises and some of the symbols and is weaving a different storyline to a different conclusion. Not a bad job. I look forward to tonight’s finale. One hopes it doesn’t need the twenty years of analysis the first one did to figure out the ending.
‘On the Beach’ is set in Australia, I don’t recall if NZ gets a mention.
NZ and Tierra del Fuego would be last to be snuffed out in Shute’s story – although if I recall he did mention last holdouts in Antartica.
Did you know that wasn’t the only dystopia he wrote? Neville Shute was a scandanavian engineer who really worried about peoples ignorance of the physics they played with.
‘On the Beach’ gave me a real fright as a youth.
‘On the Beach’ is set in Australia, I don’t recall if NZ gets a mention.
NZ and Tierra del Fuego would be last to be snuffed out in Shute’s story – although if I recall he did mention last holdouts in Antartica.
Did you know that wasn’t the only dystopia he wrote? Neville Shute was a scandanavian engineer who really worried about peoples ignorance of the physics they played with.
‘On the Beach’ gave me a real fright as a youth.
A very interesting graphic experiment on the “Decline of Empires”. The creator, Padro M Cruz limits it to the “top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries” and so picks up several comments lamenting the lack of inclusion of the US, USSR and et al. Still, a very interesting reminder of just how quickly and dramatically empires can contract.
http://mondeguinho.com/master/visual-experimentations/visualizing-empires
Given that so few Americans have a concept of the US as an imperial nation, unlike the four countries Cruz used for illustration, few can accept that the Afghan war is becoming for us exactly what it was for the USSR: the fatal spend down of what is left of the national treasury on unsustainable occupations of nations.
The irony of so many congress folk developing fiscal responsibility around health care (at the bequest of their funders) while we are still plunging money into our two occupied territories is too ironic for the public to grasp.
We are not yet a second world nation, but the path we are locked into certainly promises us that future. And like the French, British, Portuguese, and Spanish movers and shakers of the 19th and 20th centuries our M&Ss can’t imagine such a magnitude of change. So we will continue to argue and vote for tax cuts all while promising the revenue of future growth (based on necessary investments in infrastructure that are not happening), and spending the money that should go to the benefit of the common weal on the illusion of increased “security.”
A very interesting graphic experiment on the “Decline of Empires”. The creator, Padro M Cruz limits it to the “top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries” and so picks up several comments lamenting the lack of inclusion of the US, USSR and et al. Still, a very interesting reminder of just how quickly and dramatically empires can contract.
http://mondeguinho.com/master/visual-experimentations/visualizing-empires
Given that so few Americans have a concept of the US as an imperial nation, unlike the four countries Cruz used for illustration, few can accept that the Afghan war is becoming for us exactly what it was for the USSR: the fatal spend down of what is left of the national treasury on unsustainable occupations of nations.
The irony of so many congress folk developing fiscal responsibility around health care (at the bequest of their funders) while we are still plunging money into our two occupied territories is too ironic for the public to grasp.
We are not yet a second world nation, but the path we are locked into certainly promises us that future. And like the French, British, Portuguese, and Spanish movers and shakers of the 19th and 20th centuries our M&Ss can’t imagine such a magnitude of change. So we will continue to argue and vote for tax cuts all while promising the revenue of future growth (based on necessary investments in infrastructure that are not happening), and spending the money that should go to the benefit of the common weal on the illusion of increased “security.”
@hugo:
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
AMC has the entire original series online. When I showed Episode 4 to my son during the last election, it scared him as everything he saw in the show was playing out on CNN in front of him in real time.
Be seeing you.
@hugo:
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
AMC has the entire original series online. When I showed Episode 4 to my son during the last election, it scared him as everything he saw in the show was playing out on CNN in front of him in real time.
Be seeing you.
@hugo:
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
AMC has the entire original series online. When I showed Episode 4 to my son during the last election, it scared him as everything he saw in the show was playing out on CNN in front of him in real time.
Be seeing you.
As they say in Maine, “Ay-yup.”
As they say in Maine, “Ay-yup.”
As they say in Maine, “Ay-yup.”
I often find it an amazng example of how fleeting outrage and nager is to see how similar poeples past arguments and complaints were to todays.
I just happened across this transcription of a speech given in the 1960′s by Rod Serling, and it struck me that the issues he addressed are not too dissimiliar to the issues bedeviling people today.
Not much has changed (with regards to the wars the U.S fights – not his more time anchored comments on race issues) between now and then.
I often find it an amazng example of how fleeting outrage and nager is to see how similar poeples past arguments and complaints were to todays.
I just happened across this transcription of a speech given in the 1960′s by Rod Serling, and it struck me that the issues he addressed are not too dissimiliar to the issues bedeviling people today.
Not much has changed (with regards to the wars the U.S fights – not his more time anchored comments on race issues) between now and then.
I often find it an amazng example of how fleeting outrage and nager is to see how similar poeples past arguments and complaints were to todays.
I just happened across this transcription of a speech given in the 1960′s by Rod Serling, and it struck me that the issues he addressed are not too dissimiliar to the issues bedeviling people today.
Not much has changed (with regards to the wars the U.S fights – not his more time anchored comments on race issues) between now and then.
Really, really, really wish I could edit those oh so obvious typos I can’t seem to see through my thoughts on first typing and checking.
Really, really, really wish I could edit those oh so obvious typos I can’t seem to see through my thoughts on first typing and checking.
Good idea. Anybody doing it already? Too practical to attract much notice in this rising day of “strange attractors.”
Good idea. Anybody doing it already? Too practical to attract much notice in this rising day of “strange attractors.”
Good idea. Anybody doing it already? Too practical to attract much notice in this rising day of “strange attractors.”
The Somali pirates have taken on Europe, Corea the US … and nobody can stop them. The illusion of “security” of 7 or 8 nations is challenged by a small group of illiterate fishermen. Fishing rights or Piracy , insurance companies, lawyers, banks …big business. … security ?
The Somali pirates have taken on Europe, Corea the US … and nobody can stop them. The illusion of “security” of 7 or 8 nations is challenged by a small group of illiterate fishermen. Fishing rights or Piracy , insurance companies, lawyers, banks …big business. … security ?
That’s a good read and thanks. The topics of events change but the archetypes remain the same.
That’s a good read and thanks. The topics of events change but the archetypes remain the same.
That’s a good read and thanks. The topics of events change but the archetypes remain the same.
The Maersk Alabama stopped them this week. They put a private security crew on board and when the warnings to the pirates weren’t heeded, they took direct aim.
The medicine for piracy has been the same for as long as their have been pirates. One wonders if that medicine will be applied elsewhere.
The Maersk Alabama stopped them this week. They put a private security crew on board and when the warnings to the pirates weren’t heeded, they took direct aim.
The medicine for piracy has been the same for as long as their have been pirates. One wonders if that medicine will be applied elsewhere.
The Maersk Alabama stopped them this week. They put a private security crew on board and when the warnings to the pirates weren’t heeded, they took direct aim.
The medicine for piracy has been the same for as long as their have been pirates. One wonders if that medicine will be applied elsewhere.
bernard, you said the magic words — “the illusion of ‘security’…”
It’s all so interesting and complicated. As to the Somali pirates being simple fishermen, well, American GIs “seeing the world, meeting new people, and killing them” as we used to say back in my time in “Uncle Sam’s Green Dream,” are “simple high school grads,” most of ‘em, so I guess that puts them one up on a Somali “fisherman” who might be something else altogether. I think I saw this little bit about the relation-ship (really bad 3-level pun) between those simple folk and “the international criminal cartels) in some more prestigious place like the NYT, but here it is again:
http://www.inform.com/article/Somali%20pirates%20controlled%20by%20syndicates%3A%20Interpol
There’s those that make, and there’s those that take…
And there’s the Forever Myth that if “we” just arm ourselves with large caliber weapons and rain down Hellfire, why, no more suffering the slings and arrows, right?
bernard, you said the magic words — “the illusion of ‘security’…”
It’s all so interesting and complicated. As to the Somali pirates being simple fishermen, well, American GIs “seeing the world, meeting new people, and killing them” as we used to say back in my time in “Uncle Sam’s Green Dream,” are “simple high school grads,” most of ‘em, so I guess that puts them one up on a Somali “fisherman” who might be something else altogether. I think I saw this little bit about the relation-ship (really bad 3-level pun) between those simple folk and “the international criminal cartels) in some more prestigious place like the NYT, but here it is again:
http://www.inform.com/article/Somali%20pirates%20controlled%20by%20syndicates%3A%20Interpol
There’s those that make, and there’s those that take…
And there’s the Forever Myth that if “we” just arm ourselves with large caliber weapons and rain down Hellfire, why, no more suffering the slings and arrows, right?
bernard, you said the magic words — “the illusion of ‘security’…”
It’s all so interesting and complicated. As to the Somali pirates being simple fishermen, well, American GIs “seeing the world, meeting new people, and killing them” as we used to say back in my time in “Uncle Sam’s Green Dream,” are “simple high school grads,” most of ‘em, so I guess that puts them one up on a Somali “fisherman” who might be something else altogether. I think I saw this little bit about the relation-ship (really bad 3-level pun) between those simple folk and “the international criminal cartels) in some more prestigious place like the NYT, but here it is again:
http://www.inform.com/article/Somali%20pirates%20controlled%20by%20syndicates%3A%20Interpol
There’s those that make, and there’s those that take…
And there’s the Forever Myth that if “we” just arm ourselves with large caliber weapons and rain down Hellfire, why, no more suffering the slings and arrows, right?
JTM, interesting article, the piracy in Somalia started because the Spanish trawlers entered their fishing zone and depleted the place. Hungry and in a totally corrupt country they turned pirates. Now with the help of the European mob they take ransoms and get payed in London ( of all places). Its a growing problem and it will be interesting to see how Europe is going to deal with it and at what cost.
JTM, interesting article, the piracy in Somalia started because the Spanish trawlers entered their fishing zone and depleted the place. Hungry and in a totally corrupt country they turned pirates. Now with the help of the European mob they take ransoms and get payed in London ( of all places). Its a growing problem and it will be interesting to see how Europe is going to deal with it and at what cost.
bernard, you can bet “dealing with it” will involve a lot of killing and a lot of money, as usual probably a huge amount more than “it” would cost to, oh, say, figure out some way to start up some aquaculture or something.
Besides, think houw soul-satisfying it was when those SEAL guys shot the brains our of the one set of young pirates, and how proud “we” were of their shootin’ skills and stuff… Here’s the “fair&balanced” account.
And here’s one of many much more fun accounts, that says yet more about who “we” are. And who our neighbors are.
bernard, you can bet “dealing with it” will involve a lot of killing and a lot of money, as usual probably a huge amount more than “it” would cost to, oh, say, figure out some way to start up some aquaculture or something.
Besides, think houw soul-satisfying it was when those SEAL guys shot the brains our of the one set of young pirates, and how proud “we” were of their shootin’ skills and stuff… Here’s the “fair&balanced” account.
And here’s one of many much more fun accounts, that says yet more about who “we” are. And who our neighbors are.
I am re reading the memoirs of Joseph Fouche and some of the most strident speeches of Robespierre
its interesting to observe that history is indeed a map. Different times and players, same game.
I am re reading the memoirs of Joseph Fouche and some of the most strident speeches of Robespierre
its interesting to observe that history is indeed a map. Different times and players, same game.
I am re reading the memoirs of Joseph Fouche and some of the most strident speeches of Robespierre
its interesting to observe that history is indeed a map. Different times and players, same game.
Speaking of wars and Afghanistan I’ve found a very interesting account of recent Afghan history.
The bit that really grabbed my attention was this opinion from the Chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Ogarkov when told to send troops to Afghanistan…
“We will re-establish the entire Islamic system against us, and lose politically in the entire world.”
Speaking of wars and Afghanistan I’ve found a very interesting account of recent Afghan history.
The bit that really grabbed my attention was this opinion from the Chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Ogarkov when told to send troops to Afghanistan…
“We will re-establish the entire Islamic system against us, and lose politically in the entire world.”
Speaking of wars and Afghanistan I’ve found a very interesting account of recent Afghan history.
The bit that really grabbed my attention was this opinion from the Chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Ogarkov when told to send troops to Afghanistan…
“We will re-establish the entire Islamic system against us, and lose politically in the entire world.”
Which means despite evolution and progress in the orchestration, the phenotypes, the base classes or genotypes are unchanged. This is the source, I think, of JTMc’s despair.
Which means despite evolution and progress in the orchestration, the phenotypes, the base classes or genotypes are unchanged. This is the source, I think, of JTMc’s despair.
Which means despite evolution and progress in the orchestration, the phenotypes, the base classes or genotypes are unchanged. This is the source, I think, of JTMc’s despair.
“We will re-establish the entire Islamic system against us, and lose politically in the entire world.”
Dead on.
“We will re-establish the entire Islamic system against us, and lose politically in the entire world.”
Dead on.
“We will re-establish the entire Islamic system against us, and lose politically in the entire world.”
Dead on.
len, the real horror is when despair turns to glee and delight at the sight of the end of the line. And maybe from all the cumulative little bits that lead one to think that the “Game Almost Over” notion is right.
Hey, blowing it all to Hell worked in the last days for for Goering and Hitler and Tojo and those guys, and probably Louis XVI and maybe Pol Pot and Idi Amin and what was that famous painting where the Sultan is dying and his minions are busily killing his concubines and dogs so they can either accompany him spiritually into the next life or not be left behind to enjoy and be enjoyed?… Gotterdammerung, Ragnarok, What-Ever…
And speaking of feckless and futile repetition of behaviors, cheerfully done to the applause of Our Town, you got this archly named, drastically successful sortie: “Apres nous, le deluge…” I remember youthfully watching the movie the Main Media made about this, and cheering as that last bomb fell away from the belly of the Lancaster, with the ack-ack flying past, and then the squooosh of a wall of water exterminating and/or at least discommoding all those Fucking Nazis in the Ruhr Steelmaking Valley.
Who probably shared essentially the same emotional experience as the people of Johnstown, PA, where criminally negligent human-stupidity selfishness, as opposed to intentional really cool application of engineering and valiant attack by brave freedom-loving forces, caused the failure of the dam that created a private lake for the Steel Robber Baron Rich Folks of Pittsburgh to enjoy their exclusive and secretive waterfront property, with genteel fishing and boating and such. Where the Industrial Giants cut the top off the damn dam to suit their pleasure, and screened the overflow sluiceway, which led in a rainstorm to a destroyed dam and another wall of water, squooosh too, drowning one of Our American Cities…
Like Garrison Keeler reports of the motto of the Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average, “Sumus Quod Sumus.” We are what and who we are.
len, the real horror is when despair turns to glee and delight at the sight of the end of the line. And maybe from all the cumulative little bits that lead one to think that the “Game Almost Over” notion is right.
Hey, blowing it all to Hell worked in the last days for for Goering and Hitler and Tojo and those guys, and probably Louis XVI and maybe Pol Pot and Idi Amin and what was that famous painting where the Sultan is dying and his minions are busily killing his concubines and dogs so they can either accompany him spiritually into the next life or not be left behind to enjoy and be enjoyed?… Gotterdammerung, Ragnarok, What-Ever…
And speaking of feckless and futile repetition of behaviors, cheerfully done to the applause of Our Town, you got this archly named, drastically successful sortie: “Apres nous, le deluge…” I remember youthfully watching the movie the Main Media made about this, and cheering as that last bomb fell away from the belly of the Lancaster, with the ack-ack flying past, and then the squooosh of a wall of water exterminating and/or at least discommoding all those Fucking Nazis in the Ruhr Steelmaking Valley.
Who probably shared essentially the same emotional experience as the people of Johnstown, PA, where criminally negligent human-stupidity selfishness, as opposed to intentional really cool application of engineering and valiant attack by brave freedom-loving forces, caused the failure of the dam that created a private lake for the Steel Robber Baron Rich Folks of Pittsburgh to enjoy their exclusive and secretive waterfront property, with genteel fishing and boating and such. Where the Industrial Giants cut the top off the damn dam to suit their pleasure, and screened the overflow sluiceway, which led in a rainstorm to a destroyed dam and another wall of water, squooosh too, drowning one of Our American Cities…
Like Garrison Keeler reports of the motto of the Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average, “Sumus Quod Sumus.” We are what and who we are.
len, the real horror is when despair turns to glee and delight at the sight of the end of the line. And maybe from all the cumulative little bits that lead one to think that the “Game Almost Over” notion is right.
Hey, blowing it all to Hell worked in the last days for for Goering and Hitler and Tojo and those guys, and probably Louis XVI and maybe Pol Pot and Idi Amin and what was that famous painting where the Sultan is dying and his minions are busily killing his concubines and dogs so they can either accompany him spiritually into the next life or not be left behind to enjoy and be enjoyed?… Gotterdammerung, Ragnarok, What-Ever…
And speaking of feckless and futile repetition of behaviors, cheerfully done to the applause of Our Town, you got this archly named, drastically successful sortie: “Apres nous, le deluge…” I remember youthfully watching the movie the Main Media made about this, and cheering as that last bomb fell away from the belly of the Lancaster, with the ack-ack flying past, and then the squooosh of a wall of water exterminating and/or at least discommoding all those Fucking Nazis in the Ruhr Steelmaking Valley.
Who probably shared essentially the same emotional experience as the people of Johnstown, PA, where criminally negligent human-stupidity selfishness, as opposed to intentional really cool application of engineering and valiant attack by brave freedom-loving forces, caused the failure of the dam that created a private lake for the Steel Robber Baron Rich Folks of Pittsburgh to enjoy their exclusive and secretive waterfront property, with genteel fishing and boating and such. Where the Industrial Giants cut the top off the damn dam to suit their pleasure, and screened the overflow sluiceway, which led in a rainstorm to a destroyed dam and another wall of water, squooosh too, drowning one of Our American Cities…
Like Garrison Keeler reports of the motto of the Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average, “Sumus Quod Sumus.” We are what and who we are.
Wars are part of our dna. We were born out of violence in order to be at peace. War is an art that needs to be backed by justice, not money. Money don’t mean shit. So the moral off this jest is : unjust wars backed by money are doomed to fail.
Wars are part of our dna. We were born out of violence in order to be at peace. War is an art that needs to be backed by justice, not money. Money don’t mean shit. So the moral off this jest is : unjust wars backed by money are doomed to fail.
Wars are part of our dna. We were born out of violence in order to be at peace. War is an art that needs to be backed by justice, not money. Money don’t mean shit. So the moral off this jest is : unjust wars backed by money are doomed to fail.
Look at Vietnam, both French and Americans were defeated. Bigger guns and more money don’t mean shit.
Look at Vietnam, both French and Americans were defeated. Bigger guns and more money don’t mean shit.
Look at Vietnam, both French and Americans were defeated. Bigger guns and more money don’t mean shit.
Sure they do – if you’re prepared to kill all your enemies.
Afghanistan could be won, if the U.S was prepared to exterminate the Pushtun people.
Only a few hundred years ago nations didn’t baulk at such solutions, it’s at least one pleasing mercy that there isn’t as much of that going on any more.
Sure they do – if you’re prepared to kill all your enemies.
Afghanistan could be won, if the U.S was prepared to exterminate the Pushtun people.
Only a few hundred years ago nations didn’t baulk at such solutions, it’s at least one pleasing mercy that there isn’t as much of that going on any more.
Fentex, please don’t fall for or propagate the Engineer-Generals’ notion that “killing all the enemy” is ever possible.
Us mopes who feed our wealth and our bodies and souls into the Maw of the Machine may get off on the notion of terminal and complete brutality on the people who happen to be labeled today with the umbrella psychic construct we all carry from birth, “the Enemy,” but that’s so far from real-world possible…
And you blithely say “Afghanistan could be won…” May I ask for your definition of “Winning?” That seems to be one of the many huge holes in what passes for “policy-making” now. “We” just “Know” that “With Enough Troops, We Can Surely Win If We Just Expend Enough Of The Right Resources.” Don’t see no fucking endpoint, let alone point of aim, in any of this.
The set of “deciders” in the nationalist/political/military complex that considers genocide needs not only to be “prepared,” that is, to have the Will to “kill all your enemies.” Those considerers have to also have the actual physical capability to wipe out, without committing suicide on the way, or in their hubris doing what obviously happens in every Empire-Death, making a shitload of new “enemies” while so weakening the Empire that the wheel just has to fucking turn again. Of course, our species’ new skills, like custom assembly of genes and proteins, and all the wonderful potential of nanotechnology that also may make a few rich for a short while until the Trickster inspires someone to think, “I can get away with this, and Rule The World!!! Bwaaa-haaa-haaa-haa-ha!!!” (I wonder how the Phoenicians did as well as they did for as long as they apparently did…)
Our Gen. Curtis Lemay and various members of “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” were all about ‘nuking ‘em back to the stone age’ not so long ago, and just look at the curves and charts presented so aptly by our dinner host showing how well various doctrines and strategies and tactics and procurements and programs have served “us.” And in the public mind, the cost of the Great War On Terror is being paid for with “government money” and happening Somewhere Else to Sombody Else’s Loved Ones and Communities. So mentally, for most of us, it’s like the cost of gasoline or sugar. Not even in the stupid realm of Econ 101 supply and demand any more. The big rolling price signs are just part of the visual clutter. The vast mostness of us “voters” just zip the plastic through the slot, and whatever rolls around in the little windows on the slot machine, that’s how many gallons of liquid death we “win” with this spin.
The Third Reich took a shot at it, without the intended effect. And of course look where $2, or is it $3, or maybe $4 trillion is going off to these days…
On a personal pet peeve note, I love the post hoc treatment accorded Leni Riefenstahl, whose Trickster-inspiration and Dedication To Her Art kind of helped boost us all along toward Where We Are Going To Be Tomorrow-Land. Say the Aesthetes, “Art transcends society, Art is Unjudgeable and Unaccountable. Art Just Is, And Is To Be Worshipped And The Artist To Be Lionized.” Y’know, I bet that around the old sacred purifying fires in the God-Lodges of “pre-literate Man,” the story tellers that produced stuff as deadly to the tribe as Lady Leni, and so many others at the interface of Art and Poetry and Prose and Power Accumulation, probably at best learned what it meant to be “ostracized,” if not straightaway garrotted and their bodies burned Beyond the Pale.
“Kill all the Pashtun people”? Let’s see, what happens next after that? There’s always the players for the next act, weapons at high port, standing in their uniforms in the wings, waiting for their cues.
Fentex, please don’t fall for or propagate the Engineer-Generals’ notion that “killing all the enemy” is ever possible.
Us mopes who feed our wealth and our bodies and souls into the Maw of the Machine may get off on the notion of terminal and complete brutality on the people who happen to be labeled today with the umbrella psychic construct we all carry from birth, “the Enemy,” but that’s so far from real-world possible…
And you blithely say “Afghanistan could be won…” May I ask for your definition of “Winning?” That seems to be one of the many huge holes in what passes for “policy-making” now. “We” just “Know” that “With Enough Troops, We Can Surely Win If We Just Expend Enough Of The Right Resources.” Don’t see no fucking endpoint, let alone point of aim, in any of this.
The set of “deciders” in the nationalist/political/military complex that considers genocide needs not only to be “prepared,” that is, to have the Will to “kill all your enemies.” Those considerers have to also have the actual physical capability to wipe out, without committing suicide on the way, or in their hubris doing what obviously happens in every Empire-Death, making a shitload of new “enemies” while so weakening the Empire that the wheel just has to fucking turn again. Of course, our species’ new skills, like custom assembly of genes and proteins, and all the wonderful potential of nanotechnology that also may make a few rich for a short while until the Trickster inspires someone to think, “I can get away with this, and Rule The World!!! Bwaaa-haaa-haaa-haa-ha!!!” (I wonder how the Phoenicians did as well as they did for as long as they apparently did…)
Our Gen. Curtis Lemay and various members of “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” were all about ‘nuking ‘em back to the stone age’ not so long ago, and just look at the curves and charts presented so aptly by our dinner host showing how well various doctrines and strategies and tactics and procurements and programs have served “us.” And in the public mind, the cost of the Great War On Terror is being paid for with “government money” and happening Somewhere Else to Sombody Else’s Loved Ones and Communities. So mentally, for most of us, it’s like the cost of gasoline or sugar. Not even in the stupid realm of Econ 101 supply and demand any more. The big rolling price signs are just part of the visual clutter. The vast mostness of us “voters” just zip the plastic through the slot, and whatever rolls around in the little windows on the slot machine, that’s how many gallons of liquid death we “win” with this spin.
The Third Reich took a shot at it, without the intended effect. And of course look where $2, or is it $3, or maybe $4 trillion is going off to these days…
On a personal pet peeve note, I love the post hoc treatment accorded Leni Riefenstahl, whose Trickster-inspiration and Dedication To Her Art kind of helped boost us all along toward Where We Are Going To Be Tomorrow-Land. Say the Aesthetes, “Art transcends society, Art is Unjudgeable and Unaccountable. Art Just Is, And Is To Be Worshipped And The Artist To Be Lionized.” Y’know, I bet that around the old sacred purifying fires in the God-Lodges of “pre-literate Man,” the story tellers that produced stuff as deadly to the tribe as Lady Leni, and so many others at the interface of Art and Poetry and Prose and Power Accumulation, probably at best learned what it meant to be “ostracized,” if not straightaway garrotted and their bodies burned Beyond the Pale.
“Kill all the Pashtun people”? Let’s see, what happens next after that? There’s always the players for the next act, weapons at high port, standing in their uniforms in the wings, waiting for their cues.
Fentex, please don’t fall for or propagate the Engineer-Generals’ notion that “killing all the enemy” is ever possible.
Us mopes who feed our wealth and our bodies and souls into the Maw of the Machine may get off on the notion of terminal and complete brutality on the people who happen to be labeled today with the umbrella psychic construct we all carry from birth, “the Enemy,” but that’s so far from real-world possible…
And you blithely say “Afghanistan could be won…” May I ask for your definition of “Winning?” That seems to be one of the many huge holes in what passes for “policy-making” now. “We” just “Know” that “With Enough Troops, We Can Surely Win If We Just Expend Enough Of The Right Resources.” Don’t see no fucking endpoint, let alone point of aim, in any of this.
The set of “deciders” in the nationalist/political/military complex that considers genocide needs not only to be “prepared,” that is, to have the Will to “kill all your enemies.” Those considerers have to also have the actual physical capability to wipe out, without committing suicide on the way, or in their hubris doing what obviously happens in every Empire-Death, making a shitload of new “enemies” while so weakening the Empire that the wheel just has to fucking turn again. Of course, our species’ new skills, like custom assembly of genes and proteins, and all the wonderful potential of nanotechnology that also may make a few rich for a short while until the Trickster inspires someone to think, “I can get away with this, and Rule The World!!! Bwaaa-haaa-haaa-haa-ha!!!” (I wonder how the Phoenicians did as well as they did for as long as they apparently did…)
Our Gen. Curtis Lemay and various members of “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” were all about ‘nuking ‘em back to the stone age’ not so long ago, and just look at the curves and charts presented so aptly by our dinner host showing how well various doctrines and strategies and tactics and procurements and programs have served “us.” And in the public mind, the cost of the Great War On Terror is being paid for with “government money” and happening Somewhere Else to Sombody Else’s Loved Ones and Communities. So mentally, for most of us, it’s like the cost of gasoline or sugar. Not even in the stupid realm of Econ 101 supply and demand any more. The big rolling price signs are just part of the visual clutter. The vast mostness of us “voters” just zip the plastic through the slot, and whatever rolls around in the little windows on the slot machine, that’s how many gallons of liquid death we “win” with this spin.
The Third Reich took a shot at it, without the intended effect. And of course look where $2, or is it $3, or maybe $4 trillion is going off to these days…
On a personal pet peeve note, I love the post hoc treatment accorded Leni Riefenstahl, whose Trickster-inspiration and Dedication To Her Art kind of helped boost us all along toward Where We Are Going To Be Tomorrow-Land. Say the Aesthetes, “Art transcends society, Art is Unjudgeable and Unaccountable. Art Just Is, And Is To Be Worshipped And The Artist To Be Lionized.” Y’know, I bet that around the old sacred purifying fires in the God-Lodges of “pre-literate Man,” the story tellers that produced stuff as deadly to the tribe as Lady Leni, and so many others at the interface of Art and Poetry and Prose and Power Accumulation, probably at best learned what it meant to be “ostracized,” if not straightaway garrotted and their bodies burned Beyond the Pale.
“Kill all the Pashtun people”? Let’s see, what happens next after that? There’s always the players for the next act, weapons at high port, standing in their uniforms in the wings, waiting for their cues.
> And you blithely say “Afghanistan could be won…”
I sarcastically declared that powerful weapons are useful if you use them blindly and arrogantly with disregard for all humanity and rational ambition.
It is, incidentally, possible to exterminate opponents, it has happened quite a few times, and the threat of it has conquered all of Afghanistan in the past.
I think it a positive thing that it isn’t likely the U.S military will start decimating villages and otherwise deploying the tactics a great Khan would have in times past.
I think I’ve made it quite clear that my personal opinion is that the U.S has no chance of winning any kind of victory (even the poorly defined objectives it’s forces are labouring under today) and ought go home ASAP.
> And you blithely say “Afghanistan could be won…”
I sarcastically declared that powerful weapons are useful if you use them blindly and arrogantly with disregard for all humanity and rational ambition.
It is, incidentally, possible to exterminate opponents, it has happened quite a few times, and the threat of it has conquered all of Afghanistan in the past.
I think it a positive thing that it isn’t likely the U.S military will start decimating villages and otherwise deploying the tactics a great Khan would have in times past.
I think I’ve made it quite clear that my personal opinion is that the U.S has no chance of winning any kind of victory (even the poorly defined objectives it’s forces are labouring under today) and ought go home ASAP.
> And you blithely say “Afghanistan could be won…”
I sarcastically declared that powerful weapons are useful if you use them blindly and arrogantly with disregard for all humanity and rational ambition.
It is, incidentally, possible to exterminate opponents, it has happened quite a few times, and the threat of it has conquered all of Afghanistan in the past.
I think it a positive thing that it isn’t likely the U.S military will start decimating villages and otherwise deploying the tactics a great Khan would have in times past.
I think I’ve made it quite clear that my personal opinion is that the U.S has no chance of winning any kind of victory (even the poorly defined objectives it’s forces are labouring under today) and ought go home ASAP.