Us vs Them: Where do you fit in?

Here is an interesting article by Chris Hedges that discusses how our world actually works these days:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sparks_of_rebellion_20130930

He makes some very good observations and then presents us with the choice:  carry on into dystopia or change things so that humans can survive.

Occupy or Submit?  Your choice.

So you think bankers are your friends ...

Check out this under-reported (non-?) story from Geg Palast:

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

As Greg says:

"The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy:  that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet.  When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears."

It's been an interesting summer. To sum up ...

here's where we are at:

http://original.antiwar.com/jwhitehead/2013/08/19/the-nsa-the-abyss-from-which-there-is-no-return/

Is it too early to say I told you so?

This synopsis should get you thinking ...

... about the depths to which our culture has descended:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/all-the-infrastructure-a-tyrant-would-need-courtesy-of-bush-and-obama/276635/

Pogo was right - "We have seen the enemy, and he is us!"

A police state at work

FYI

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

If this is true, then perhaps the government should provide everyone with free phone service in the interests of national security.

The FBI comes a-calling ...

... and the result doesn't seem to pass the smell test:

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/06/03/innocent-until-proved-dead/

This really seems to represent the depths to which the rule of law has fallen in the US.

Anybody feeling safer yet?

A revolutionary OLD concept: the CommonWealth

Here is a reasonable starting point for a discussion of the horrors inherent to unfettered privatization and corporate growth:

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16329-our-common-wealth-the-hidden-economy-that-makes-everything-else-work

Many of the profits that currently accrue to corporations should actually be returned to the common wealth from which they were derived.  It is frightening that so few people feel that they have a common wealth to which they are entitled.

Is this a defining moment for our descent ...

.. into fascist totalitarianism?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/27/bradley-manning-sf-gay-pride

The rather extensive exploration by Glenn Greenwald (see link above) of what should be a minor event in life's little drama reveals the extent to which mindless obedience to authority has pervaded our culture.  I see a parallel to Jews turning in gypsies to the Nazi death squads during WWII quite clearly.

Governments should never be viewed with reverence, and certainly not with unquestioning obedience and acquiescence.  They are formed for the sole purpose of exercising the brute force that is sometimes necessary to allow a culture to defeat thugs, thieves and organized gangs of such people.  Constitutional and democratic governments try to limit the government's use of such power to those occasions for which violence is the last resort.

Dissent and discussion have been found necessary to the health of any truly free society, and nothing guarantees that freedom more than the ability and willingness to prosecute anyone, including and particularly government officials, who violate the laws designed to protect everyone's right to live in freedom and peace.

The little saga of the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade's Grand Marshall detailed above shows haw low our culture has fallen in dealing fairly and courageously with those who would attempt to shine some light on the sins of those in positions of authority.

We are all in danger because of this willfully blind mindset.

Guns don't kill people, bullets do ...

... so who do you think is buying a really monstrous number of bullets? ... ... ...

... why it's ... ...

The Department of Homeland Security!!!

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/04/26/enormous-dhs-bullet-usage-defies-common-sense/

I don't make this stuff up!

I suppose that Canada's Vic Toews (The Minister of Public Safety) will be signing off of the bullet requisitions any day now.  It only makes sense! (in a post 9/11ish, cowardly, bullying, ignorant, lapdogish, wanna-be-tough-looking sort of way).

A necessary study

The recent report from the Constitution Project in the US confirms in great detail that the US government, from its top officials on downward through the ranks, has committed war crimes with its handling of prisoners.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-necessary-reckoning-with-torture/

It seems that only by prosecuting those responsible will our society regain its moral compass.  Canada's governments have been compliant in this evil process as well, and there are no shortages of people in need of prosecution up here.

We have to enforce our laws and Treaties uniformly with respect to all classes of society.  The past decades have shown that the bad guys are often those in high office or with great wealth.

Time to restore the equilibrium in our little experiment in democracy.

Time to look into the mirror ...

 ... to see who the real bad guys are.  This article pretty well nails it:

http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-criminal-iraq-war/

So, if we wish to live under the rule of law, there seems to be a lot of prosecuting to do, particularly amongst the ruling classes.

However, as most people don't seem to care about these niceties, due to the the true nature of our world it would be wise to hook up with a strong gang of thugs to ensure your security.  Don't trust the gummint, those guys are taking care of themselves first!

The Gulf Oil Spill might have been prevented ...

if only people had listened to Bradley Manning!

Here's a remarkable story about the sort of information that was leaked from US State Department files by Manning and which should have been acted upon by the 'authorities':

http://www.gregpalast.com/bradley-manning-the-deepwater-horizon/

BP and the US gov't concealed information that proved that the reason for the blowout at the drilling rig was fully explainable and happened simply because BP was too cheap to do the job right.

Another example of the rich corporations being above the law, with the full complicity of those who should be enforcing the laws.

More thoughts on priorities

Here's a paragraph from a discussion by Spencer Ackerman (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/trillion-dollar-wars/) that is worth serious thought:

"Money, ultimately, is power. In context, it would take a nuclear strike on the United States to inflict the kind of economic damage that the wars have reaped. The only nations capable of inflicting such damage are disinclined toward doing so; and no non-state actor will plausibly obtain the capability to match such a threat. All of that damage is the result not of what bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or the insurgencies that began in their wake did to America, but because of how American strategiests chose to respond. As Radiohead once sang, you do it to yourself, and that’s why it really hurts."

The people running the US and its allies in the WOT can only be considered as suicidal morons to have done so much damage to their own countries.  Imagine what could have been accomplished if the resources wasted on these wars had been instead spent on education, medical research, medical care, infrastructure repairs and improvements, poverty reduction, etc., etc.

Consider also that the freedoms guaranteed in the American Constitution are now all history, and that, therefore, Osama bin Laden has achieved his stated goal - he has destroyed the American Republic and effectively created a presidential dictatorship enforced by the military.  Wow, that's efficacy for you!

Priorities

If these statistics are true, 9/11 is just a dust spec in the haystack of US mayhem.  However, it has resulted in their government destroying other countries, killing thousands, wasting trillions of $$$ and shredding their own constitution.  Wow!

Canada officially becomes an international pirate

Here's an article form the Montreal Gazette explaining that Canada jumped into Libya's civil war so that Canadian businesses could get control of Libyan valuables.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Government+plan+ensure+commercial+return+military+investment+Libya/8116497/story.html

I guess Canada is trying to join up with the big boys now.  Forget all that helping the downtrodden stuff, there's resources to be plundered!

The Golden Rule - Redux ...

Here's how the US government wants the world to view drone attacks:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14899-what-if-a-drone-attacked-in-the-us

Somehow, I don't think they would agree with the legality of the scenario described in this article.  I mean, really, who would allow that others can do unto you as you do unto them?  That thinking is do pre-9/11, so childishly christian.  Why would anyone expect the rule of law to apply to those who spout the law?

The Way We Were ...

Here's a really good description of the way things used to be in the western world before torture, rendition, and governmental murder became the 'in' thing.

http://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2013/02/13/obamas-secret-court-for-killing/

How quaint to think that most of us used to support the former rule of law as described in the Judge's article.

Welcome to the new Age of Tribalism

Glenn Greenwald discusses the phenomenon of 'us' versus 'them' that is behind the shabby state of politics and human rights discussions in the modern era:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/11/progressives-defend-obama-kill-list

This willful blindness to the murderous consequences of faithfully supporting your 'party' when it is the governing power applies as much to Canada as the US.

Welcome to the steep descent into the next age of tribalist thuggism.  Fear has triumphed over reason.  Things are likely to get very messy, soon.

A depressing summary of things ...

This is self-explanatory:

http://www.thenation.com/article/172380/government-persecution-aaron-swartz-bradley-manning#

Thought control is the real prize.

Another thought on the Swartz persecution:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/20/aaron-swartz-cannon-fodder-internet-freedom