Peggy Noonan: Blood Drinking Zombie from Hell

This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes.

-Peggy Noonan, advocating genocide against Iraqi children, April 2004

An indian who is as bad as the white man cannot live in our nation; he would be put to death and eaten by the wolves. We told them to leave us alone and keep away from us but they followed on and beset our paths and coiled themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. This is the cause of us making war; and they know it. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. Indians are not deceitful. Indians do not tell lies. Indians do not steal. But they look at the indian spitefully and speak bad of us... It is true that the white men do not scalp the head: but they do worse - they poison the heart.

-Cheif Black Hawk, 1832

Well this is some old business that needed taking care of, so it may be some days late and a few hundred billion dollars short, but here goes. As some of you may recall way back in early April 2004 four Blackwater mercenaries got the George Armstrong Custer/Mogadishu treatment in Fallujah, Iraq. The grotesquley macabre images of which quickly reverberated throughout the world and sparked one of the most grotesquely macabre editorials ever written. This was penned by none other than Ronald "Ketchup is a Vegetable" Reagan's former propagandist, Peggy Noonan. Yes the same subhuman creature that trumpeted it was "Morning in Amerikkka" as poor children saw their school lunches evaporate, death squads crank up in Central America and Osama Bin Laden's Afghan Mujahadeen get sent many millions of dollars and hundreds of Stinger missiles to boot, circa 1984.

This creature, this...this thing, sat down and banged out some of the most bloodthirsty prose seen since the days of Manifest Destiny sought justification for the Twin Godheads of this country's foundation: African Slavery and Indian Genocide. Fittingly enough, it appeared in the editorial section of The Wall Street Journal, the very mouthpiece of Capitalist Exploitation and Those Without Souls aka the ruling class. Let's take a look (take a deep breath and if you have just eaten you might want to wait a few minutes before continuing) shall we?:

"The world is used to bad news and always has been, but now and then there occurs something so brutal, so outside the normal limits of what used to be called man's inhumanity to man, that you have to look away. Then you force yourself to look and see and only one thought is possible: This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes."

Wow, where to begin... Well, let's start with some muuuuch needed perspective. These haughtily indignant words were written well after the last vestiges of any moral justification for the invasion/occupation of Iraq (which resulted in the slaughter of countless thousands of Iraqi civilians) had disappeared. We knew there were no WMD there and therefore we knew that Bush/Cheney were two big lying sacks of murderous shit. Whatever it takes? How 'bout some fucking TRUTH you pig, or have you been writing your lame ass propaganda so long that the truth is an abstract quantity, something impossible for you to grasp? But Wait it gets better...or worse, since I hope we are all living outside of Peggys "Up is Down Bizarro World":

"The pictures that television appropriately mostly did not show and the Internet inevitably mostly did were horrifying in a way that was reminiscent of the first still pictures of the Trade Center victims of 9/11. It was like seeing people in business suits falling through the air again. It was as if someone pointed a camera at evil and actually caught it in the act."

Ah several of the most amazing "qualities" of the propagandist are on display here in all their sick glory. To whit:

EMOTIVE PANDERING: Hey, let's exploit the 9/11 dead ONE MORE TIME, Peggy.

SELECTIVE MEMORY: I guess you don't recall the sight of hundreds of massive bombs dropped on Baghdad just a year earlier do you? Oh, but those were just Iraqis being shredded into little pieces by them, many of them not even wearing business suits. Their lives ain't worth remembering much, huh Peggy?

LACK OF PERSPECTIVE: Comparing civilians going about their workday to armed mercenaries in an illegal war halfway around the world.

And it still gets better (worse):

"This stops nothing, the terrorists will not win. A State Department spokesman said the contractors "were trying to make a difference and to help others." Indeed they were. There are many such in Iraq. They are risking their lives for many reasons, including improving the prospects for health and safety of 12-year-old boys like the one quoted by Reuters who witnessed the actions of his elders after the attack on the civilians. "I am happy to see this," he said."

"It is hard not to hate the teenagers and young men who celebrated under the bridge where they hanged the charred bodies. They are human expressions of nihilism. They take pleasure in evil, and they were not shy to show it. They are arrogant. They think barbarity is their right.
If this time, in this incident, these young men are left unchecked, their ways and attitudes, their assumptions and method of operating will only be encouraged, and spread. So we had better check them."

Those fucking savages, Peggy!! How DARE they not throw rose petals at our glorious mercenaries while they were applying symbolic bandaids after kneecapping them with a machine gun. Ungrateful sand niggers, the lot of them! Why can't they be civilized like the lilly white neighbors in your gated community, Peggy!? (You know, the ones heavy with Boeing, Raytheon and Halliburton in their investment portfolios.) Why didn't they invite the mercs over for a spot of tea? You just can't reason with those savages Peggy, much less understand them. There's only one solution Peggy and you know what it is...to check them, Peggy. Yes we must check them. Umm, what are you suggesting?

"We know what the men and boys who did the atrocity of Fallujah look like; they posed for the cameras. We know exactly what they did--again, the cameras. We know they massed on a bridge and raised their guns triumphantly. It's all there on film. It would be good not only for elemental justice but for Iraq and its future if a large force of coalition troops led by U.S. Marines would go into Fallujah, find the young men, arrest them or kill them, and, to make sure the point isn't lost on them, blow up the bridge. "

That's right. Arrest them and/or kill them, whichever comes first. Then blow them up. And nuke them and their damn bridge, too. Wow Peggy, I didn't know you were taking testosterone injections. Check your adams apple, baby. Thump your chest like the big wholesome silverback gorilla that you are. Well guess what, Pegs...you got your wish. Your boys lobbed several thousand rounds of white phosphorus all over that motherfucker. Enough to melt the skin off every first born (and second and third born) son in the whole city. We depopulated it, too, just like Andy Jackson did the USA of the troublemaking savage Indians more than 150 years ago. Like the Nazis did to Lidice more than 60 years ago. Are you happy Peggy? Do you sleep better at night knowing that white people will not be dishonored by brown savages anywhere on earth?

Not long after this the story of Abu Ghraib broke, and Peggy shut the hell up about Iraq. And of course, it should come as no surprise that Peggy had not a damn thing to say about Hurricane Katrina, except praising Bush's inaction and empty rhetoric while the underclass were being washed away.

You Had a Billion Chances...

Don't kill the old lady
Nor the baby where a suck 'pon titty
Jah Jah Him no go have no mercy
-Eeka Mouse "Terrorists in the City"

April is the cruelest month
- T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"

Gunshots punctuate a sad song on the early morning radio
Was it just static or an automatic
My brain says no but my ears say so

You had a billion chances to change history
But you kept right on walking
You had the time to end it all
But you listened to other heads talking

No one is born to go out like that
Chemical imbalance put you in a trance?
Set you down a different path
He's gonna shoot, now you can dance

You just kept piling it on each day
Looking ahead with a sideways glance
You can't stop looking at the prize, no way
He's gonna shoot, and you can dance

It's the cruelest month of a cruel year
Look far away and it gets much worse
Ask yourself what you're doing here
Filled with a hunger that hangs like a curse

You have a billion chances to change
Before the time comes around
You don't have to keep insane
Before you go dormant underground

Numbed Down, Dumbed Down

Life is cheap here. People accept it or leave it with very little fanfare.
~ Ernesto Guevara commenting on the Bolivian peasantry, 1953

We have already looked at the plantation system and the way our current economic structure approximates it. Now I'd like to look at the natural world and the predator/prey relationship as a way of illustrating how things work in our society. So let's talk about herbivores and carnivores.

The herbivores are composed of the workers/consumers and the predators are the ruling class that prey off of them. Great big herds of herbivores roam the plains and forests, grazing on the fields of grass and browsing the branches of trees and shrubs. Their two primary means of defense against predators are either size or speed. The predators feast off the weakest and slowest, continuosly culling the herd. The predator prey ratio is held rather constant despite changes in population. The increase in the predator population is dependent on an increase in prey. The sytem depends on two main things: there is always a steady prey base for the predators and the prey base does not evolve new defenses that thwarts the predators. Although this is the natural order of an ecosystem in the natural world, it is not to be confused with being a natural order of human society. We have evolved past that!

In our society there will always be a prey base, those that can be sold things or made to work with the surplus value of their labor supplying the predators. So the system will not be evolved out of until the prey is able to develop new defenses. The development will include an increase in intelligence, in the same way that a certain species of omnivorous primate was able to climb to the top of the food chain. In order to develop that intelligence, we must apply ourselves and reject the torrent of cultural propaganda meant to reinforce and perpetuate the stats quo. If you have read this far, you are a suitable herbivore to begin evolving away from the predators. Kill your TV, develop your ability to question societal norms and economic realities versus the possibilities of a world with no one being preyed upon. Then you will have the predators on the run., screeching like jackals. Like they are in Bolivia these days. If it can happen there, we can do it here.

Calling Things by their Real Names: Hugo Chavez Speech to the U.N

What a shame we never hear the truth plainly spoken by our own media or elected officials. What a shame we have to import the truth unwillingly then have it drowned out in a wave of righteous lying indignation. What a shame that those same liars that are so upset to hear the truth have turned this country into the world's biggest whorehouse. What a shame so many want so much to believe those liars.

Oh man, this was good. Best thing I've heard since Dick Cheney was told to go f-ck himself down in Mississippi after Katrina. Here's a partial transcript:

I think that the first people who should read this book (Chomsky's "Hedgemony or Survival") are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house. And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself]

And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world. I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe." As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons. What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy. What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace." That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes. But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless. Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches... But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world.

There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now? What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision. We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier. And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists. And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner. And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to. And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace. Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations. And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.

----------------------------

OK for all of you who want to faint at the sight of a world leader calling the President of The United States the devil...who else but the devil would try to justify a big moneymaking operation into Iraq as being a plan that JESUS put in his feeble mind?

My main beef with religious people is their unwillingness to question the dogma foisted on them, including the many perversions of Christian doctrine. Here's a hint for you weakminded types...if someone is using Jesus Christ as a tool for starting and maintaining hatred and war, then he is the very definition of the DEVIL.

There's still time to save your soul, but it's running out fast. Wake up or burn, suckers.

Hey Speaking of Anniversaries...

This is also the 33rd anniversary of the U.S. government-inspired slaughter in Chile, where democracy was crushed and 3,000 people were rounded up, tortured and murdered.

Yeah, we've been spreading our own special brand of goodwill around the world for a long time now.

Read all about it.

Fermi's Paradox Answered

I am in the vast minority. I am one of those people that finds reality more interesting than fantasy. If everyone were like me, Hollywood and the cult of celebrity would not exist. Instead scientists would be celebrities and we would have cured most diseases, developed a susatainable economy and be exploring the universe. Well...once we finally sobered up. ;) But seriously, I think I have the answer to Fermi's Paradox, which asks why there are no aliens colonizing Earth. It follows that if there were other planets that harbored life that evolved to the point where they could master interplanetary space travel, then one such civilization would have reached Earth by now. There are several assumptions here, one is that interplanetary space travel is possible. We suppose it is, although we have not attempted it yet. Think about why that is... Then you will have the answer, too.

Creeping Fascism

I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.

~ Mark Twain

Does anyone recall the scary days right after September 11, 2001? No I don't mean anthrax scary...I mean worse...when criticism of the United States, God and the Republican Party was strictly verboten. There was heavy censorship of anything that questioned the natural order of things, namely that Jesus Christ would get vengeance on Mohammed in the big sand box. I remember all the shiny gas-guzzling SUVs toting big flags, then brightly colored decals (made in Chinese prisons) and asking how stoopid could some folk be? They didn't see it coming. 3 buck a gallon gas. The attack on civil liberties, which has been non-stop. The diversion into Iraq. The decals have faded, bleached by the sun and the letdown of a quick high followed by a quicker withdrawal into reality. You been had, people, you been took. Bamboozled. I sensed it immediately, not because I am clairvoyant, but because I saw it all before. I knew where the media was being lead, willingly, complicitly. Most of all, I knew that the righteous warlords would get PAID in big stacks of pure blood money. Yes sir, a quick infusion right into their icy cold veins. And the worst part was that I couldn't call them on it. No one could or your words would disappear right off the page as if they, and you...never existed. I've studied enough history to know that these things go in cycles. I was there in 1991 when the same thing happened with Poppy taking down his doublecrossing drug runner buddy in Panama and then Oil War Numero Uno. I was there when Raygun atoned for all the dead marines in Lebanon by gangbanging a tiny island that neither he or his voting bloc could find on a map. Going back further in the same tragic history there was Nixon bombing the entrails outta SE Asia all through Christmas and Chanukah 1972 and beyond. There were so many lies ringing and echoing further back to the Red Menace, the Rosenbergs, McCarthy's lists of names, but most of all, the cowardice of the people to stand up to creeping fascism. What a tremendous let down, when you see what you thought was a free society crumble so quickly through fear and nationalistic hysteria. You would never think it was that fragile until you watch it fall. And it continues to fall little by little, brick by brick, even though the censorship loosened up slowly during 2002 as it become obvious that the struggle was taking an obvious detour to (quite literally) take care of business in Iraq. The criticism is there now, mostly uncensored. But so are the stealth prisons and the disappeared and the watch lists and the NSA data mining and the quid pro quo of the telecommunications companies. Freedom isn't free, it is a constant struggle against against opportunists, nationalists and believers in the supernatural. The fight against global capitalistic extremists will continue.

Off the Plantation

"I freed thousands of slaves in my life and I could have freed thousands more, had they known they were slaves".

- Harriet Tubman

Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!

-KRS-ONE

The society of the U.S.A is remarkably similar to the plantation system. A very small minority of the population owns a large majority of the wealth and sets policy for the rest of the people to live and die by. Along with these modern planatation owners there are the latter day equivalents of the rest of the system: the wait staff and mammies living in the Big House. Most of them like their position and will work hard to retain their place of priviledge. The overseers who relish the use of force to keep the fieldhands in check. They see this excercise as validation of their superiority, when in fact it is a symptom of a deeper pathology. Finally, we have the large majority composed of field hands, who are given just enough table scraps, kept just exhausted enough, and threatened with enough violence/promised eternal salvation to prevent a large scale insurrection. It is a tenuous balance, but the glue that holds it together is the economic dependency of all involved, backed up by the threat of violence. But the system is doomed, as all unsustainable systems are. It is only a matter of time before declining natural resources result in the the standard of living reaching critical mass and a mass exodus off/collapse of the plantation. There will be a revolution and the new equilibrium will be established. But this revolution is less likely to resemble the American Revolution of 1776 and more likely to resemble the French Revolution of 1789. Payback is a muffa and overseers/collaborating house servants get cut no slack.

I'm Not Buying It

The most radical thing by far that you can do in America is to realize you can have a perfectly good time without buying anything. That means of course, that our entire society is built upon the premise of selling you things that you don’t actually need. This time of year it is especially obvious, as we have Christmas, a holiday that celebrates the concept. Jesus may have died for our sins, but it appears he was born as a way of selling a bunch of plastic crap made in Chinese prisons. Think about the way we are living for a moment: the better the economy is doing, the faster the landfills are filled up. The volume of garbage we generate is the leading economic indicator. This is not healthy for the planet and by extension, for us. So this season and every season, don’t buy the crap. And don’t ask for it. Be creative with your gifts and make/give things that mean something, like the little drummer boy did. Here’s a rule of thumb, the more space it takes up in a landfill or the quicker it gets there, the more it is to be avoided. Live gently, but love sincerely. All year round.

Uncle Scam Wants You

11/11/05

"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the 'haves' refuse to share with the 'have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
-General David Shoup, United States Marine Commandant Retired, 1966

At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
-Maj. General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner, 1933

November 11, 1918 was the end of the “war to end all wars”. And the date became a holiday called Armistice Day, later renamed Veteran’s Day to honor those who were part of the many wars that followed. Honoring veterans is a noble idea. But we must ask why there have been so many more wars after the Armistice. And why some of them were started by deceptions that were abetted by a news media owned by companies that stood to profit from the wars. But most of all we must ask why it is that those who beat the drums for war the loudest aren’t on the front lines fighting it. This is nothing new of course. The old men who thought up this current war all managed to avoid the front lines of Vietnam, although they no doubt supported that disastrous conflict. The tradition of a ruling class avoiding combat goes back to at least the Civil War. We read the following passage from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”:

"In premodern times, the maldistribution of wealth was accomplished by simple force. In modern times, exploitation is disguised—it is accomplished by law, which has the look of neutrality and fairness. By the time of the Civil War, modernization was well underway in the United States”.

So much so, that we learn the Northern industrialist robber barons could buy their family’s way out of military duty in the war. J.P. Morgan paid 300 dollars for a substitute to go off to war in his place. James Mellon was told by his father that “a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable”. That attitude is more alive than ever. And here’s the kicker: it is most alive in the people that have the gall not only to talk about supporting the troops, but to claim that those opposed to their war, the one they refuse to fight in, are on the side of the enemy! The only thing I can hear them saying is “Bleed for me and shut up about it”. To which I reply, “you want a war, you fight in it.” This of course, falls on deaf ears. Which leads to the inevitable conclusion: Support the troops, kill a chickenhawk. Smedley Butler said it best: WAR IS A RACKET.

In Remembrance (aka "Camilo's Airplane")

October 28, 2005

Who killed the man who, in the lives of others like him, lives on in the people? The enemy killed him, killed him because they wanted him dead…

“Camilo” by Ernesto Guevara

John Brown, him dead and gone.
Jah know that him history still live on
As him dead more John Brown born…

“Terrorists in the City” by Eeka-Mouse

Perhaps the most absurd manifestation of the market economy is the industry of Death. I am not talking about the funeral business, but the nostalgia marketing of dead celebrity. The more tragic and unexpected the death, the more meteoric the career of the dead, the more profitable is the selling of the legendary demise. All but the bones of the deceased are packaged and sold. In this country we watch this curious spectacle from within the framework of the marketing system, where everything has a price tag of value. Here, our numbed minds are incapable of fully seeing the macabre aspect of marketing based on the level of morbid, sensational, prurient interest in the dead.

In other societies this interest can manifest itself somewhat differently. The dead become iconic, martyrs, symbols of virtue that are not mourned, but celebrated. Here, the industry is non-profit, but the dead are still sold. The selling is that of the legacy of the dead as a moral lesson. The weaknesses, the human frailty, the very humanity is replaced by the image of resolute zeal and uncompromising character. No more realistic than the glamorized selling of a dead icon for profit, though one hopes that the sentiment is at least more authentic and heartfelt.

But what is the fascination with the storied cliché of the sudden demise of someone in the prime of life? Actor, athlete, musician, rebel, seditionary, become the eternal…celebrity. The fascination is that of what might have been. And the imagined course is always a powerful antidote to the omnipresent failings of those contemporaries that have survived and turned out very mortal, or even banal, compromised, or just plain uninteresting. Longevity and relevance seem to have a natural inverse relationship, particularly in a consumer driven society. But in the perfect society there is no need for heroes, icons, or martyrs. Those things are to motivate the masses to strive for selfless effort, to work for the common good of all. This effort would already be innate. As long as the struggle to achieve this perfect society is ongoing, the search for Camilo’s airplane will not end. We who struggle to see that day arrive, say to Camilo:

You are a spirit, not a ghost.

Operation Northwoods

In 1962 the United States military signed off on a plan called Operation Northwoods. The point was the overthrow of Fidel Castro. The means to justify the end result was to stage terrorist attacks on American soil, attack airliners in flight, kill American civilians, and a few other things, then blame it on Castro. This was the pretext for launching a massive attack on Cuba and installing the U.S.-approved government that the mercenary attack of the previous year had failed to do. If the documents of this plan were never released no one except conspiracy nutcases would believe it. But they were. In the spring of 2001 the story broke, receiving some attention in mainstream media circles, where it was dismissed as the work of a general gone insane...even though all the members of the Joint Chiefs approved it. John Kennedy, still smarting over the dismal failure of the last plan to invade Cuba, rejected it. One can only wonder what course history would have taken if one Richard Nixon had claimed the presidency in the extremely close election of 1960. Fast forward to September 2000, when there was another plan written. This one mentioned a “catalyzing event” similar to a latter day “Pearl Harbor” as a means of justifying the ends of establishing U.S.-approved governments across the globe. Say what you will about them, but the people who wrote the plan don’t dream small. One year later, in September 2001after an extremely close election went the way of the party of Richard Nixon, came a catalyzing event. Even if one believes the “official version” of who planned the attack, then the facts are that an organization founded with great expense by the CIA and U.S. military to give the Soviet Union “their Vietnam” not only did that, but 15 years later went on to give the newly installed marginally unpopular government of the United States their “latter day Peal Harbor”. What is three thousand lives worth to killers? Apparently not much since the latest justification to stay in Iraq and reach the 3,000 dead benchmark is in order to…get this… pay homage to those who have already died. This is the logic of the end justifying the means. This is the same logic that produced Operation Northwoods. And September 11th, even if you believe the official story.

All Power to the Imagination

The student protests in France in May of 1968 produced the graffiti that I have used to title this story. But what happened in 18 October of that year best illustrates the possibility of protest taking forms unimaginable. Robert Beamon ran down a track in Azteca Stadium in Mexico City and landed in a sand pit exactly 8.9 meters from the point he left the earth. It was a gold medal and world record performance that rocked the Olympics just as profoundly as the protests that followed. Avery Brundage, the personification of the old guard power structure wasn’t pleased when Bob followed that up by taking the podium wearing black socks and no shoes as a symbol of solidarity with the victims of poverty throughout America and the world. This was the year of protest and violence that had claimed the lives of King and another Kennedy and the national political conventions, In the year that gave the world Richard Nixon as the law and order president meant to restore civilization through the continued killing of peasants halfway around the world and in the ghettoes at home. Tommy Smith was listening for the click of a gun as he stood on the podium with his fist raised in the air in Mexico City. As Apollo 11 orbited overhead and Hurricane Gladys spun its way through the Caribbean towards Florida. Thirty-seven years later another hurricane is in the same spot headed in the same direction. Beamon’s unbreakable record jump has been broken for 14 years. It lasted not quite 23 years, even less than the record jump of Jesse Owens which lasted a full 25 years. Jess Owens was there in Mexico City telling the young and angry athletes to wait…these things take time. But the power of protest and the imagination remain undiminished. Even if the dreams remain unrealized for so long. To quote Malcolm X…’time is on the side of the oppressed today and against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed and against the oppressor. You don’t need anything else.”

Thirty-seven years is a long, long time.

Politics and Religion

The two most uncomfortable subjects to bring up in everyday conversation. Well, besides anything of a sexual nature. As always, the question of why this is appeals to me. So let’s take a look at why these two seemingly innocuous topics generate such anxiety and dread when some oaf dares to broach them in polite company. My theory is that it’s because the very personal nature of the subjects, which goes way back to our childhood. We picked up our beliefs first from our parents and then from the media. But the first instruction in or absorption of them was as children, from our parents. And they have been reinforced over the years. Therefore, our beliefs are deeply personal. And it is quite uncomfortable to have deeply personal feelings and opinions questioned or debated. It is akin to someone speaking ill of your mother. So why do I love debating these issues? Well, first of all I think I am right. And anyone who would disagree with me is wrong. Of course, the other person feels the same way. And never the twain shall meet, so…what’s the point again? Perhaps there is none, but I wouldn’t argue a point just for the sake of argument. I want to make known the facts on my side and throw them at an opposing viewpoint like so many fragmentary grenades. And hope that none can be lobbed back. It is great sport. And while it may work to a degree in political debate, what about religion? Well, there you can throw rational debate, facts, and anything else that is even near coherent right down the waste disposal. Anything based on faith is impossible to debunk to that person who believes…or should I say has suspended belief in the laws of physics and everything else of this universe to accept an answer unquestioningly. Why anyone would accept anything without question is another question. My answer is that they are lazy and superstitious. So there is no sense debating religion. And there is no sense to the tenth power in fighting a war over it. Suffice to say that I echo the old adage that asks “O god, protect me from the people who believe in you”. After all, there is no difference between those on any side willing to kill the “non-believers”. They use the word “infidel” to recruit, while we use “terrorist”. Fifty years ago, while Jim Crow ruled the South by terror, the word was “communist”. Today it is “terrorist”. May I say that the devil does not change form, but merely changes a word here and there to better fit the circumstance. Speaking of words…I will also say that those who use the words “freedom” and “democracy” as synonyms for “unregulated crony capitalism” are the oldest terrorists on earth. And over the years they have racked up a body count that would make Satan blush. War through deception is their stock in trade. Which brings me to tomorrow’s subject: “Operation Northwoods”. And the question: just what is the devil on earth actually capable of?

An Exauspicious Beginning

Greetings to all. This is my first post in my first blog. Huh? Yeah...I don't care if you don't care. It's a big thing for me. Which shows you what kind of life I lead. But it is kinda neat to finally have my own blog after hijacking threads and such on dozens of others. I will briefly state my interests in the off chance that anyone has read this far, or at all for that matter. I don't expect a lot of hits...maybe 3 in the first 3 months. But anyway...I like talking about politics, and science. The environment is the most important issue, followed by distributing resources in an equitable manner. Then everything else. Pet peeves: people who mix up the usage of there, their, they're, too, to, losing, loosing, and several others. Also... fat, enviro-trashing Republicans that drive gas guzzling cars ten to twenty mph over the speed limit. You are causing the destruction of all life on earth at a faster rate than everyone else, so the sooner you perish or change your ways the better. The rest of us will be right behind you. So cool it. You pigs.

About the name. I wanted to call this blog "Venceremos" but that name was chosen already? So I couldn't think of another name. I had a CD playing at the time and I named it after the song that was playing...which is by Lee "Scratch" Perry, the legendary reggae kingpin that most people haven't heard of. If you have heard of him you are cool in my book. And even cooler if you have heard of Eeka-Mouse. Otherwise, you are not cool...in fact you are lost sheep. Oh that reminds me, I like talking about music, too. Look for future posts on music and the environment, and long winded rants about how Republicans are wiping out all life on earth. That is all for now.

Venceremos!,
Ernesto Del Mundo