Well I was watching Fox news for a laugh humming "Believe it or not iiiiiiii'm walkin on air.........believe it or not its just meeeee" thinking about President Bush in his flightsuit. Then here comes footage of Bush campaigning on the taxpayer's dime(because Enron is in shambles). The *raise two fingers on each hand*"Journalist" was saying "President Bush has said that he will fight for truth, justice, and the American way." My freind turns to me and says "Its like hes a superhero or something." Thats right no substance Truth. Justice. The American Way. This does not mean anything, these are the three symbols this man has chosen to hide behind.
Don't get me wrong Democrats do the same damn thing, its just that well...Karl Rove seriously pushes the envelope. The flightsuit thing was so weird and then Murdoch's New York Post is printing pictures of Kerry in some kind of weird safety suit and compare it to Dukakis in a tank. The only real comparison to Dukakis in a tank is Bush's crazy flightsuit thing.
This also comes to mind because I saw Sean Hannity at the DNC calling the whole thing propaganda and Public relations ploys. I was always thinking about the Newspeak and how the ruling class always says the opposite of whatever its doing if its bad and always accuses the opposition of being guilty of its' own bullshit. So maybe we looked at this from ideological distant viewpoints and ended up with the reverse impression which is hilarious, but seriously the Karl Rove argument from before....... that trumps just about all you got Hannity(See book: "Bush's Brain"). I mean seriously.....Karl Rove is a really dirty manipulator.
Ok so theres this thing called freedom of speech, without it democracy can't work. The problem is social psychology has advanced to the point that marketing has become an effort at mind control(to a degree). Which can only mean that this trend will most likely continue. We have to beware of certain social psychology ploys, so that we can build an aversion to mind control. This is important, because as the reality around us is converted to billboard space, we will need focus our minds to retain sanity. It reminds me of this Philip K. Dick short story called "Sales Pitch". This person in the not so distant future is depressed and losing touch with reality, because of the bombardment of advertisements. The final straw comes when a servant robot comes to their house, the robots job is to sell itself for use. The protaganist is very similar to most of Dick's other protagonists, just a guy trying to get by, but riding a wave of confluent forces. This archetype is simliar to the Western democratic citizen. We are told we have so much freedom and this belief makes it harder for us to understand that we may be capable of evil.
I saw "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's war on journalism" an amazing movie. You know those liberals and their complaining about fighting a war under false pretenses(wake up supporters of imperalism). I recalled O'Reilly comparing Michael Moore to Goebells(spelling?). That is the exact newspeak i'm talking about. A man that advocated the death of all Iraqi citizens(in a show calling them savages and suggesting we level the whole country with bombs) and insists on portraying himself as a patriot while brainwashing our country in to sending their children to die for a "yet to be named" cause.
Ok here is a play 1 act.
Starring: Unwitting Imperialist and Jaded Cynic
JC: so why did we go to war with Iraq?>
UI: Weapons of mass destruction of course. we couldn't wait for "the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Jc: So we didn't find those WMDs. Why did we go to war with Iraq now?
UI: To remove a brutal dictator of course. He used chemical weapons on his own people!
Jc: Didn't the US provide him with the equiptment to manufacture chemical weapons? Didn't the US support Saddam before and after he used those chemical weapons? In fact didn't we send Rumsfeld over and he shook hands with the asshole?
UI: He went over there to decry Saddam's use of chemical weapons, to insinuate it had anything to do with trade and realpolitik is preposterous.
Jc: Ok so even if the United States didn't put Saddam in power, ever since he was first hired as an assassin and he couldnt' even hit the right guy and killed the driver all the way up until the point he invaded Kuwait and offered the US a share of the booty. Lets say hypothetically he wasn't even put in power by Reagan/Bush 41 and the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Kissinger crowd. Alright there are many other problems in the world why Iraq?
UI: He was BRUTAL DICTATOR! We had to remove him!
JC: SO WHY ARE WE STILL THERE!!!!????
UI: Well.......thats because there has been a vacuum of power created and to leave now would mean more deaths in the future.
Jc: So you're telling me we had to go in there because he was a direct threat to us.........but we can't leave because taking him out of power creatd a direct threat to us!!!????
UI: No, no, its not our fault, just like the chemical weapons and our support for the perpetuation and escalation of the Iran-Iraq war. ........................................................................................................................Wait we did do all this shit didn't we? This is the most combat deaths since Vietnam isn't it? Why are we still there???
Jc: was there ever an exit strategy???
UI: We have to leave when democracy is put in place.
JC: So as we use a totalitarian military state to impose democracy. As we stay in Iraq because taking the man out of power that was the reason for the attack creates a larger threat than was there orginally. In order to have our freedoms we must begin to give them up(indefinite detentions, patriot act, "free-speech zones", and right to equal representation). We are on opposite ideological ends, because you can either believe the language or you can question it.
Did you truly believe that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea posed such a unique(compared to the many years before) and imminent threat that Bush had to mention these individuals in his state of the union address as 'the axis of evil' ??
UI: No I think anyone would have seen that as a little overboard. A three front war!! hahah wow no one could eve win that.
JC: What do you call Afghanistan, Iraq, and now the cause ramping up war for Iran?
UI: I've read in the newspaper articles that put the phrase 9/11 and juxtapose it alongside Iran, pure and simple manipulative psychological propaganda. You will forget where you heard the information from, but you will recall 9/11 and Iran in the same thought process as you think about recent articles containing either one of these subject matters.
JC: So essentially we're on the same side here, because Bush wants to reinstate the draft in 2005 and take us to war with Iran?
UI: Yah you think I was gonna vote for the guy who will kill me? ahahah, no no I just think Iraq was a good idea.
Ok so that was weak but i'm gonna post it anyway, because i'm tired. No more complacence and our problems will be solved. Let people know you are liberal and a democrat, the contemporary pop culture is similar to the red scare, artists who speak out are blacklisted and the character assasination by Rupert Murdoch's bitches begins. As much as Republicans want to we cannot return to Plessy v. Ferguson(sorry trent, strom, and helms, but Jim brown shoulda handled your ancestors). We cannot return to 1953 Nixon is dead and good riddance, Reagan is dead, but the assholes behind Iran-Contra are still in the Bush administration. I hope to see justice done in my lifetime.
Just think: Bush's actions are from a man who pretends to believe he will be eternally punished for using his life to enact evil. How can he believe that and at the same time indiscriminately kill civilians with bombs(the same way those assholes did us on 9/11) and send so many American soldiers either to death............. or insanity, because of ordering them to torture and rape other human beings.
We all should have took a step back on 9/12 and realized how much it hurts our nation to see so many civilians killed in an indiscriminate fashion. We then could have built a consensus to structure our foreign policy around helping developing nations rather than bombing their civilians or funding coups and death squads. The only way out of the path we have taken may be a drastic change.
Our Forefathers bestowed a duty upon us.
We are to protect the republic through force if neccesary.
If the government becomes tyrannical we are bound by our duty for country to revolt.
The trend of centralizing power within the executive branch and unilateral foreign policy is facist in nature. The use of nationalist symbols to bring about cognitive dissonance in the general public. We are being lulled in to a false sense of complacency while world war three is starting.
All Muslims and All Christians are my brothers and sisters, people of all religions and people of no religions. There is no need for us to fight a global crusade for Britain's three Cs: Commerce, Civilization, and Christianity.
If we help their countries develop their populace will become educated and will learn that democracy is a form of government that is meant to check oppression. The only way we can provide this example is if we set ourselves on the path towards demoracy.
http://www.marchofdeath.com
-Jimothy J. Jones
The conservatives of this country were more shocked by Michael Moore portraying the administration in a negative light than by our country committing horrible violations of the geneva conventions in Abu Ghraib. RUMSFELD ADMITTED TO CERTAIN FORMS OF TORTURE WHICH EXPLICITLY VIOLATE THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS!!!! I love my country but at this point in time I hate my government. If the government were to dissolve tomorrow I would celebrate for my brothers and sisters being tortured and raped in Abu Ghraib. I would celebrate for the individuals incarcerated for victimless crimes just to drive the incarceration rate to feed the prison industrial complex.
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
you are just a cog in the steamrolling machine of imperalism
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Monday, July 26, 2004
The Yes-or-No Party System (and other infrastructure problems)
So voting is here again, finally our participatory democracy provides us with the extent of our participation. We poke a hole in a card or touch a button on a screen and pray to our respective deities that Katherine Harris, a house of Bush relative, and/or Scalia won't be able to not count it(Oh I'm sorry I mean not abrogate "state's rights" with a "federal chad standard", but will abrogate "state's rights" when the medicinal marijuana case comes up next season).
If you've ever seen the movie "Waking Life", a movie that follows different actors as they give melodramatic monologues on philosophical and political issues(the cool thing about the movie is they had different artists paint on the film, and then in the final cut removed the film, so it is a cartoon of sorts, but very intricate and beautiful if you can sit through some of the more boring dialogue[reminds me of someone else hah]). One character complains that his right to self-determination is not being granted by Democracy and only having one chance every 2 years to vote for certain representatives and 4 years for the president is not enough political power to give to the people. This man soaks himself in gasoline and sets himself on fire on a streetcorner(following the example of some monks protesting China's annexing of Tibet).
Our general public seems to be losing faith in this yes-or-no system. Where is the anti-pre-emptive war candidate???? Where is the candidate who doesn't blame 9/11 on security procedures, but on the massive horizontally organized net of militant Islamic fundamentalists. This network is the network that the United States created, funded, and trained called the Mujahadin(spelling is always different so I made up my own). The Carter and Reagan administrations started funneling money to these militant Islamic fundamentalists to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. These administrations thought they were pretty smart: just use the Muslims as cannon fodder and when the cost for the USSR is too much they'll pull out with a major defeat. It worked and the "evil empire" was halted in its' tracks.
The problem was we then ignored Afghanistan and left the entire apparatus of a network of militant Islamic extremists. These people helped secure like 70% of the country for the Taliban and became what we today call Al-Qaida(Craig Unger talks about this in his book "House of Bush, House of Saud").
Our candidates are not dealing with reality.
How can I act, as Sartre would say in "good faith", voting?
If I vote for Bush I would be advocating my own death and the death of thousands of civilians, I would be advocating a Draft, war with Iran, war with North Korea, and torture.
If I vote for Kerry then I am voting for the individual who voted for the Iraq war resolution. The candidate who will not get our troops out of this Vietnamesque hellhole immediately and another slave of soft money given by large corporations.
If I vote for Nader I am complicit in the election of Bush and basically ceding that he is the best candidate for the country. Although Nader is the only candidate who will bring up issues I feel are most important like the injustice in the justice system, pre-emptive war, soft money reform, and most importantly drive a wedge between the state and the corporation.
So who?
I already know the answer: Kerry, there is no way I can risk in any way having Bush in office again, its like asking for a bloody revolution. This man centralizing power in the executive branch and spouting his religious fundamentalist rhetoric. Guess what asshole? If there is a god he or she doesn't favor the individuals from the United States over everyone else in the world, if anything he or she is learning to dislike us from our current track record(Pre-emptive war, erosion of civil rights, torture and rape of civilians, etcetera etcetera). I can't be complicit in the continuing unilateralism. I am a US citizen, but also a citizen of the world. I'm sure if I met some guy or girl from Iraq and we had a chance to chill I think we'd get along. The last thing I'd think is we need to bomb them, occupy them, search them, degrade them, torture them, rape them, steal from their oilfields, and I heard this one jackass on Fox News saying he thought IRAQ SHOULD PAY US BACK FOR INVADING THEM!!!!!!
I will vote for sanity.
I will give Kerry and the democratic party a chance. Once they have the bully pulpit they better start speaking their minds again, forget the fact that the mainstream media has completely shifted far right after 9/11, and hopefully bring home our soldiers.
Politicians say "We need to say until the job is done."
The problem is that there is no done, all the leaders and even the Rupert Murdoch crowd can't articulate when this could possibly be done.
Remember this also: We lost Fallujah early, we will not win Fallujah in a ground war. If staying until the job is done means killing all Iraqi rebels then Fallujah will need to be completley and totally destroyed through a campaign of mass bombing which will be tantamount to genocide.
Fallujah is to Iraqi Occupation(US v. Iraq)
as
Stalingrad is to World War II(Germany v. Russia)
So if controlling Fallujah is neccesary to "be done" we will lose hundreds more young men and women. Thousands more will be wounded and our country's image and history will become a little more tarnished.
You gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em
So why is a two party system bad?
The two party system is fundamentally flawed in my opinion. By only having a yes and no answer there is very little room for dissent. Without dissent, opinions are not heard, with less variety of opinions there is less scenario planning, without an abundance of feasible scenarios our policy options become EXTREMELY limited.
By only allowing two points of view we have eroded the right of self-determination.
So you whiny "Liberal"(this is what people say who are convinced all political and philosophical thought can be boiled down to a simple left-right dichotomy) how do we get outta this and why don't you go to Canada if you don't like it?" Well you get out of this by dismantling soft money fundraising apparatus (by making it illegal to donate so much damn money from one individual or interest) to decrease the parties' power, which will simultaneously choke corruption and corporate influence out of politics. This will be the only enforcement needed in this policy, and there is already an enforcement agency that enforces these laws on Hard money, but after this it will be called what it really is.................money and the enforcement will make no exceptions for party donations
This will give rise to Libertarian interests and social-democratic interests. Marxists and Anarchists. Neo-Nazis and Black Panthers. Poor, middle class, rich. Jingoists and Facists(these are the two ideologies overrepresented in the current regime).
This will not fragment the US, it will only strengthen by providing representation for a wider spectrum of political views.
The problem is multiparty democracies are fragile. The current multi-party democracy of Italy and the past multi-party democracy of the Weimar Republic are examples of this. It seems that in Italy the governments ends up being a coalition of allied ideologies that can gain majority acceptance. The remaining opinions end up being deemed the opposition parties. So these coalitions last for long periods of time and the opposition party grows stronger and we see a bi-partisan democracy forming again. Also we all know that happened to the Weimar republic(and if you don't, go read about it, the years after the Weimar are surprisingly similar to present day United States Foreign Policy and civil rights for Muslims).
So after empirical analysis I can't say the evidence supports the need for all voices to be represented, but does the logic outweigh the empirical analysis? Isn't it the most important thing in a Democracy to have political equality? or is the chance of a disenfranchised party system leading to an increase in Executive power to much to risk?
So as politicians run towards the middle they lose the ability to actually lead, to cause CHANGE. This is the stagnation I feel is affecting our government today and another reason I support dismantling the current soft money system.
Three other reforms which are necessary for the continuing function of our democracy are:
-Dissolve the Senate. The "Millionaires Club" should be abolished and its duties bestowed upon the house of representatives. A unicameral legislature will run a lot smoother and be closer to the people to be held accountable for their actions. Maybe when the foreign policy is placed in the hands of the House they will enact things like CTBT or the Kyoto Protocols, because the people like clean air and surprisingly they do not want to be killed in a fiery blaze of radioactive energy, so banning testing will slow proliferation and make it obvious who the real threats are. Or this analysis is based on the fact Jessie Helms is a backwards racist who has worked dilligently to bring American foreign policy back to the habits of the early cold war.
-Dissolve the Electoral College. Jefferson disagreed with the electoral college and I agree with him. This "safeguard" is the definition of aristocratic rule, meant to check "the people's" power in case they elected someone that wouldn't be good in the eyes of the landed elite. The electors are now merely a formality, they will never change their votes if their state is won(unless state law has guidelines about sharing electoral votes). So its time to dispense with the formalities and get back to work on creating a genuine right to self-determination. No one can define an argument for the electoral college that has contemporary application, so why is it still here? I for one am not afraid of the people and their choice for president, because I am a person in that crowd of people. Its like some arrogant Americans remark "Well why has UK got a queen?". Well why the hell do we have The Electoral College?
-Voting reform. We need to have a comprehensive reform effort that goes county by county over a period of time to make sure our voting system actually works. Yes I also advocate having the United Nations oversee our elections and Iraq's(because call me crazy but I trust the UN more than Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris when it comes to electing their good friend George Jr.). I do not want the supreme court deciding my President again.
If Bush wins and continues on his path.
If Kerry wins and continues the pre-emptive war in Iraq for years.
I will be through with both of them. Bill O'Reilly is always talking about how he wants liberals on his show to learn how they developed their philosophy. If you've seen that clip from Outfoxed of him telling tons of people to shut up its hilarious. I thought about going on his show with the "Hope and Memory" copy of Adbusters with this history of US imperialism spanning a great breadth of time. Ask him about a few recent stints in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
How can he justify the neo-manifest destiny?
How can he feel military action is justified unless in defense of an imminent and obvious attack or to halt genocide? These are the only two reasons I believe a war should be fought and many would disagree with me on the second reason saying that is too large a window. I'll put it this way: these are the wars I would die for my country for. But we all have to remember that fighting FOR your country is not the only way to die FOR your beliefs. You can also die fighting for your country but not for your military, like in the protests in Seattle, people fought against the country's muzzling of their opinions, and died for the constitutional right to free speech(although they were truly there to voice their opposition to neo-slavery otherwise branded "free trade" for marketing purposes). They had the opportunity to listen to O'Reilly and shut up. Instead they chose to have their voices heard and celebrate the first amendment in our consitution. They took the idea of America and held it in the highest esteem by actually employing their right to free speech. The internal security force beat that right, right out of their skull along with their brains.
They died so the rest of us don't have to, we are reminded again that freedom of speech is important, but obviously it isn't good enough. If you have read about the "free speech zones" being set up at the conventions. Messing up their photo ops I guess. This era will be documented in history books. When the leaders regain their sanity and start to recall that the entire country is a "free speech zone".
"Count bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums
the bogeyman comin' , the bogeyman comin'
keep your head down go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums"
-A Perfect Circle
-Jimothy J. Jones
If you've ever seen the movie "Waking Life", a movie that follows different actors as they give melodramatic monologues on philosophical and political issues(the cool thing about the movie is they had different artists paint on the film, and then in the final cut removed the film, so it is a cartoon of sorts, but very intricate and beautiful if you can sit through some of the more boring dialogue[reminds me of someone else hah]). One character complains that his right to self-determination is not being granted by Democracy and only having one chance every 2 years to vote for certain representatives and 4 years for the president is not enough political power to give to the people. This man soaks himself in gasoline and sets himself on fire on a streetcorner(following the example of some monks protesting China's annexing of Tibet).
Our general public seems to be losing faith in this yes-or-no system. Where is the anti-pre-emptive war candidate???? Where is the candidate who doesn't blame 9/11 on security procedures, but on the massive horizontally organized net of militant Islamic fundamentalists. This network is the network that the United States created, funded, and trained called the Mujahadin(spelling is always different so I made up my own). The Carter and Reagan administrations started funneling money to these militant Islamic fundamentalists to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. These administrations thought they were pretty smart: just use the Muslims as cannon fodder and when the cost for the USSR is too much they'll pull out with a major defeat. It worked and the "evil empire" was halted in its' tracks.
The problem was we then ignored Afghanistan and left the entire apparatus of a network of militant Islamic extremists. These people helped secure like 70% of the country for the Taliban and became what we today call Al-Qaida(Craig Unger talks about this in his book "House of Bush, House of Saud").
Our candidates are not dealing with reality.
How can I act, as Sartre would say in "good faith", voting?
If I vote for Bush I would be advocating my own death and the death of thousands of civilians, I would be advocating a Draft, war with Iran, war with North Korea, and torture.
If I vote for Kerry then I am voting for the individual who voted for the Iraq war resolution. The candidate who will not get our troops out of this Vietnamesque hellhole immediately and another slave of soft money given by large corporations.
If I vote for Nader I am complicit in the election of Bush and basically ceding that he is the best candidate for the country. Although Nader is the only candidate who will bring up issues I feel are most important like the injustice in the justice system, pre-emptive war, soft money reform, and most importantly drive a wedge between the state and the corporation.
So who?
I already know the answer: Kerry, there is no way I can risk in any way having Bush in office again, its like asking for a bloody revolution. This man centralizing power in the executive branch and spouting his religious fundamentalist rhetoric. Guess what asshole? If there is a god he or she doesn't favor the individuals from the United States over everyone else in the world, if anything he or she is learning to dislike us from our current track record(Pre-emptive war, erosion of civil rights, torture and rape of civilians, etcetera etcetera). I can't be complicit in the continuing unilateralism. I am a US citizen, but also a citizen of the world. I'm sure if I met some guy or girl from Iraq and we had a chance to chill I think we'd get along. The last thing I'd think is we need to bomb them, occupy them, search them, degrade them, torture them, rape them, steal from their oilfields, and I heard this one jackass on Fox News saying he thought IRAQ SHOULD PAY US BACK FOR INVADING THEM!!!!!!
I will vote for sanity.
I will give Kerry and the democratic party a chance. Once they have the bully pulpit they better start speaking their minds again, forget the fact that the mainstream media has completely shifted far right after 9/11, and hopefully bring home our soldiers.
Politicians say "We need to say until the job is done."
The problem is that there is no done, all the leaders and even the Rupert Murdoch crowd can't articulate when this could possibly be done.
Remember this also: We lost Fallujah early, we will not win Fallujah in a ground war. If staying until the job is done means killing all Iraqi rebels then Fallujah will need to be completley and totally destroyed through a campaign of mass bombing which will be tantamount to genocide.
Fallujah is to Iraqi Occupation(US v. Iraq)
as
Stalingrad is to World War II(Germany v. Russia)
So if controlling Fallujah is neccesary to "be done" we will lose hundreds more young men and women. Thousands more will be wounded and our country's image and history will become a little more tarnished.
You gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em
So why is a two party system bad?
The two party system is fundamentally flawed in my opinion. By only having a yes and no answer there is very little room for dissent. Without dissent, opinions are not heard, with less variety of opinions there is less scenario planning, without an abundance of feasible scenarios our policy options become EXTREMELY limited.
By only allowing two points of view we have eroded the right of self-determination.
So you whiny "Liberal"(this is what people say who are convinced all political and philosophical thought can be boiled down to a simple left-right dichotomy) how do we get outta this and why don't you go to Canada if you don't like it?" Well you get out of this by dismantling soft money fundraising apparatus (by making it illegal to donate so much damn money from one individual or interest) to decrease the parties' power, which will simultaneously choke corruption and corporate influence out of politics. This will be the only enforcement needed in this policy, and there is already an enforcement agency that enforces these laws on Hard money, but after this it will be called what it really is.................money and the enforcement will make no exceptions for party donations
This will give rise to Libertarian interests and social-democratic interests. Marxists and Anarchists. Neo-Nazis and Black Panthers. Poor, middle class, rich. Jingoists and Facists(these are the two ideologies overrepresented in the current regime).
This will not fragment the US, it will only strengthen by providing representation for a wider spectrum of political views.
The problem is multiparty democracies are fragile. The current multi-party democracy of Italy and the past multi-party democracy of the Weimar Republic are examples of this. It seems that in Italy the governments ends up being a coalition of allied ideologies that can gain majority acceptance. The remaining opinions end up being deemed the opposition parties. So these coalitions last for long periods of time and the opposition party grows stronger and we see a bi-partisan democracy forming again. Also we all know that happened to the Weimar republic(and if you don't, go read about it, the years after the Weimar are surprisingly similar to present day United States Foreign Policy and civil rights for Muslims).
So after empirical analysis I can't say the evidence supports the need for all voices to be represented, but does the logic outweigh the empirical analysis? Isn't it the most important thing in a Democracy to have political equality? or is the chance of a disenfranchised party system leading to an increase in Executive power to much to risk?
So as politicians run towards the middle they lose the ability to actually lead, to cause CHANGE. This is the stagnation I feel is affecting our government today and another reason I support dismantling the current soft money system.
Three other reforms which are necessary for the continuing function of our democracy are:
-Dissolve the Senate. The "Millionaires Club" should be abolished and its duties bestowed upon the house of representatives. A unicameral legislature will run a lot smoother and be closer to the people to be held accountable for their actions. Maybe when the foreign policy is placed in the hands of the House they will enact things like CTBT or the Kyoto Protocols, because the people like clean air and surprisingly they do not want to be killed in a fiery blaze of radioactive energy, so banning testing will slow proliferation and make it obvious who the real threats are. Or this analysis is based on the fact Jessie Helms is a backwards racist who has worked dilligently to bring American foreign policy back to the habits of the early cold war.
-Dissolve the Electoral College. Jefferson disagreed with the electoral college and I agree with him. This "safeguard" is the definition of aristocratic rule, meant to check "the people's" power in case they elected someone that wouldn't be good in the eyes of the landed elite. The electors are now merely a formality, they will never change their votes if their state is won(unless state law has guidelines about sharing electoral votes). So its time to dispense with the formalities and get back to work on creating a genuine right to self-determination. No one can define an argument for the electoral college that has contemporary application, so why is it still here? I for one am not afraid of the people and their choice for president, because I am a person in that crowd of people. Its like some arrogant Americans remark "Well why has UK got a queen?". Well why the hell do we have The Electoral College?
-Voting reform. We need to have a comprehensive reform effort that goes county by county over a period of time to make sure our voting system actually works. Yes I also advocate having the United Nations oversee our elections and Iraq's(because call me crazy but I trust the UN more than Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris when it comes to electing their good friend George Jr.). I do not want the supreme court deciding my President again.
If Bush wins and continues on his path.
If Kerry wins and continues the pre-emptive war in Iraq for years.
I will be through with both of them. Bill O'Reilly is always talking about how he wants liberals on his show to learn how they developed their philosophy. If you've seen that clip from Outfoxed of him telling tons of people to shut up its hilarious. I thought about going on his show with the "Hope and Memory" copy of Adbusters with this history of US imperialism spanning a great breadth of time. Ask him about a few recent stints in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
How can he justify the neo-manifest destiny?
How can he feel military action is justified unless in defense of an imminent and obvious attack or to halt genocide? These are the only two reasons I believe a war should be fought and many would disagree with me on the second reason saying that is too large a window. I'll put it this way: these are the wars I would die for my country for. But we all have to remember that fighting FOR your country is not the only way to die FOR your beliefs. You can also die fighting for your country but not for your military, like in the protests in Seattle, people fought against the country's muzzling of their opinions, and died for the constitutional right to free speech(although they were truly there to voice their opposition to neo-slavery otherwise branded "free trade" for marketing purposes). They had the opportunity to listen to O'Reilly and shut up. Instead they chose to have their voices heard and celebrate the first amendment in our consitution. They took the idea of America and held it in the highest esteem by actually employing their right to free speech. The internal security force beat that right, right out of their skull along with their brains.
They died so the rest of us don't have to, we are reminded again that freedom of speech is important, but obviously it isn't good enough. If you have read about the "free speech zones" being set up at the conventions. Messing up their photo ops I guess. This era will be documented in history books. When the leaders regain their sanity and start to recall that the entire country is a "free speech zone".
"Count bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums
the bogeyman comin' , the bogeyman comin'
keep your head down go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums"
-A Perfect Circle
-Jimothy J. Jones
Sunday, July 25, 2004
How did we let this happen?
There is a video of male soldiers of the United States Military raping young boys in the Abu Ghraib prison.
This is a link to a transcript of the Speech given to the ACLU by Seymour Hersh, who is trying to spread the truth:
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/07/post_1.htm
New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh the same individual that brought the truth of the My Lai massacre to the public has let the public know the truth again. The original torture story which had been a story since the red cross recognized the brutal tactics being used, but was not even TALKED about by the mainstream media until the New Yorker broke the story.
This is the most disgusting display of brutishness that we could possibly perpetuate upon innocent children. THIS IS A DEMOCRACY WE ARE ALL GUILTY FOR THE RAPE OF CHILDREN. When shit like this happens we need to step back and think about what THE FUCK WE"RE DOING IN IRAQ!!!!!!!
Think about this: so the CIA gets orders from the pentagon and defense department to obtain intelligence, because the soldiers don't know who the hell they're fighting(because there is no uniform for a guerilla/terrorist insurgency). So soldiers begin interrogation and CIA officers who are known to have been at the scene at Abu Ghraib and are pointed out in photos taken of the toture. Some sick individual somewhere in the chain of command had the idea to rape children for the safety of democracy.
These actions cannot be justified, the hiding behind the flag does not work when tactics such as this are used. The people of the United States will see straight through the red, white, and blue disguise. Anyone who truly believes in our constitution and the theory of democracy itself as the only rational governmental form of the right to self-determination need to step forward. Email your 2 senators and your representative let them know that you are against the raping of children and therefore want our country to leave the sovereign nation of Iraq THE HELL ALONE IMMEDIATELY!!!!
Your government's military raped children and video taped it
Your Leadership of the executive branch is trying to suppress the release of this video.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, and Powell must be brought to trial for their war crimes. THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS OPENLY FLOUTED THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS!
Sorry for the caps. I am just enraged by the fact that I stood by and did nothing as my country raped children, RAPED CHILDREN AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!!
No American would vote for the rape of children, WE MUST FIND THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE AND MAKE SURE THEY WILL NEVER OBTAIN A POSITION OF POWER IN WHICH THEY CAN PERPETUATE BLATANTLY EVIL ACTIONS SUCH AS THIS.
I am a post-modernist I don't believe in universal truth, but it does not get more obviously evil than the rape of children.
This is not just one child either, THIS IS SYSTEMATIC!!!! As the military continues to pretend it is doing something to the next ranking officer and as the yes men climb the hierarchy it reaches George Bush Jr. Himself.
The military has to fight against an enemy who does not wear a uniform or fight on a battlefield, this enemy acts and looks exactly the same as the people we are trying to protect.
It would be completely naive to believe that this prison is not populated densely(if they don't' comprise the majority) by innocent Muslims, whose only crime was being born in a different part of the world than you or I.
We can find solace in the fact that the mainstream media cannot ignore this forever. If they do then history books will pick up on it. WE NEED TO MAKE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO MOVE AS A NATION AWAY FROM THE PRECEDENT THE IRAQ WAR HAS SET.
Public relations disinformation campaigns, intelligence agency group-think, followed by pre-emptive military action, then systematic torture and rape, and finally endless troop presence(that's right Wolfowitz said we could be there until 2010).
I am not a believer in an omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, and infinite entity; but for those of you that do, you should start praying for your and your neighbor's soul, because we just sold it for a few dollars saved at the pump and replaced it with anti-Muslim fervor.
YOUR GOVERNMENT'S MILITARY IS SYSTEMATICALLY RAPING CHILDREN IN IRAQ
-Jimothy J. Jones
There has to be some good left in our country, please help stop this blatantly evil action.
Probably no one will even read this, but for that one person that does, make sure you tell your friends and family what is being done in our name in Iraq.
This is a link to a transcript of the Speech given to the ACLU by Seymour Hersh, who is trying to spread the truth:
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/07/post_1.htm
New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh the same individual that brought the truth of the My Lai massacre to the public has let the public know the truth again. The original torture story which had been a story since the red cross recognized the brutal tactics being used, but was not even TALKED about by the mainstream media until the New Yorker broke the story.
This is the most disgusting display of brutishness that we could possibly perpetuate upon innocent children. THIS IS A DEMOCRACY WE ARE ALL GUILTY FOR THE RAPE OF CHILDREN. When shit like this happens we need to step back and think about what THE FUCK WE"RE DOING IN IRAQ!!!!!!!
Think about this: so the CIA gets orders from the pentagon and defense department to obtain intelligence, because the soldiers don't know who the hell they're fighting(because there is no uniform for a guerilla/terrorist insurgency). So soldiers begin interrogation and CIA officers who are known to have been at the scene at Abu Ghraib and are pointed out in photos taken of the toture. Some sick individual somewhere in the chain of command had the idea to rape children for the safety of democracy.
These actions cannot be justified, the hiding behind the flag does not work when tactics such as this are used. The people of the United States will see straight through the red, white, and blue disguise. Anyone who truly believes in our constitution and the theory of democracy itself as the only rational governmental form of the right to self-determination need to step forward. Email your 2 senators and your representative let them know that you are against the raping of children and therefore want our country to leave the sovereign nation of Iraq THE HELL ALONE IMMEDIATELY!!!!
Your government's military raped children and video taped it
Your Leadership of the executive branch is trying to suppress the release of this video.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, and Powell must be brought to trial for their war crimes. THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS OPENLY FLOUTED THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS!
Sorry for the caps. I am just enraged by the fact that I stood by and did nothing as my country raped children, RAPED CHILDREN AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!!
No American would vote for the rape of children, WE MUST FIND THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE AND MAKE SURE THEY WILL NEVER OBTAIN A POSITION OF POWER IN WHICH THEY CAN PERPETUATE BLATANTLY EVIL ACTIONS SUCH AS THIS.
I am a post-modernist I don't believe in universal truth, but it does not get more obviously evil than the rape of children.
This is not just one child either, THIS IS SYSTEMATIC!!!! As the military continues to pretend it is doing something to the next ranking officer and as the yes men climb the hierarchy it reaches George Bush Jr. Himself.
The military has to fight against an enemy who does not wear a uniform or fight on a battlefield, this enemy acts and looks exactly the same as the people we are trying to protect.
It would be completely naive to believe that this prison is not populated densely(if they don't' comprise the majority) by innocent Muslims, whose only crime was being born in a different part of the world than you or I.
We can find solace in the fact that the mainstream media cannot ignore this forever. If they do then history books will pick up on it. WE NEED TO MAKE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO MOVE AS A NATION AWAY FROM THE PRECEDENT THE IRAQ WAR HAS SET.
Public relations disinformation campaigns, intelligence agency group-think, followed by pre-emptive military action, then systematic torture and rape, and finally endless troop presence(that's right Wolfowitz said we could be there until 2010).
I am not a believer in an omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, and infinite entity; but for those of you that do, you should start praying for your and your neighbor's soul, because we just sold it for a few dollars saved at the pump and replaced it with anti-Muslim fervor.
YOUR GOVERNMENT'S MILITARY IS SYSTEMATICALLY RAPING CHILDREN IN IRAQ
-Jimothy J. Jones
There has to be some good left in our country, please help stop this blatantly evil action.
Probably no one will even read this, but for that one person that does, make sure you tell your friends and family what is being done in our name in Iraq.
Sunday, July 18, 2004
Might as well start a blog
So I'm the only one that'll probably ever read this but whatever.
"Terror is a product yah push
"Terror is a product yah push
I'm a truth addict oh $hit I gotta head rush
sheep tremble here come the votes
thrown from the throat new cages and scapegoats"
-Rage Against the Machine "VietNow"
-George Bush Jr. Has control of one of the two largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but cannot pronounce the word NUCLEAR. (new-klee-err) not (New-cue-ler). We all know someone must have mentioned this to him by now. So what did he do? Ignore them? Is he just to stupid? Or is it because the average apathetic ignorant will say they don't know how to pronounce it either so its a PR move to appear affable? Its probably just the arrogance that all bad things he has done slide out of the public consciousness as soon as he exploits 9/11 for political gain, its been working well, but the public is starting to catch on(just in time for the election EXACTLY like his oil baron father)
-According to the NODCP in Samuel Walker's book: "Sense and Nonsense about crime and drugs" 74% of those incarcerated for drug crimes in the United States are African-American, while this minority is 12% of the population and 13% of drug users. The drug war is a system of institutionalized slavery that has been used to oppress African-Americans since they were given political equality in the 1964 civil rights act. Since 1964 the prison population has quadrupled, the Prison Industrial Complex is growing at an incredible rate and privatization means that even businesses want a chance to lock people in cages for extended periods of time(because prisons will never close with the drug war being endless and all, privatized prison companies make a great stock investment).
Its very easy to stop racial profiling: Step 1:record the race of all traffic stops, searches, and arrests; Step 2: make records public; Step 3: public takes care of rest.
Its very easy to stop the incarceration of perpetrators of victimless crime: step 1: legalize all narcotics, step 2: legalize prostitution, step 3: legalize euthanasia
-Part of the coalition of individuals who vote republican are people that call themselves free marketers, these individuals are strong believers in Adam Smith's theories of an invisible hand that balances the market. These individuals voted to elect George Bush Jr. Who subsequently created a protectionist policy for steel, in a blatant attempt to win this swing state(Pennsylvania) when re-election comes. Also a huge amount of taxpayer dollars are being given as corporate welfare to the oligopoly known as the airline industry, this will sure help the free market's balance.
*If you support a free market George Bush Jr. Is not for you*
-Also part of this coalition are people who fear and hate bureaucracy and a large federal government, these individuals also voted for Governor George Bush Jr., who subsequently presided over the largest expansion of the federal government in history.
*If you are against expanding the federal government George Bush Jr. is not for you*
-The republican party strategists and the Bush Jr. Administration have decided to hold their convention later than any convention in history(September) and a few blocks from ground zero. They are NOT in any way trying to use the nation's worst tragedy in years to bolster their public support.
*If you think exploiting 9/11 for political gain is immoral the Republican Party is not for you*
-Homeland security asked for special powers to separate political conventions from the public, because of am ambiguous terrorist threat(I believe its called "chatter"). This is no way motivated by the massive amounts of people mobilized to protest at the Republican National convention(otherwise known as the 2004 battle of NYC), and the very few that will protest at the DNC.
*If you think dissent and freedom of speech should only be allowed when they praise the status quo the Republican party is for you*
-Along with these emergency powers there needs to be the ability to postpone elections. So if terrorists disrupt the democratic process, Homeland Security should have the power to do the same. Ashcroft admits there is "no specific intel"(real quote) about any plans to disrupt elections or the conventions, but of course there is what everyone has feared for hundreds of years: chatter.
*If you think the government needs to take powers from congress, the courts, and the people and centralize this power within the executive branch of the government, then the Republican party is for you*
-The US should give Iraqis full custody of Saddam so they can try their own tyrant, the only problem is they'll probably kill him, but it is their choice. I don't support capital punishment no matter how atrocious the crimes, which is why I oppose the death penalty when George Bush Jr. and Rumsfeld are tried for war crimes(for specifically violating the geneva conventions through well documented torture of prisoners). I instead support life without parole, hopefully he will then read a history book and learn about Vietnam, France's war in Algeria, USSR in Afghanistan, the American revolutionary war, etc... and learn not to send people in to an imperalist bloodbath that is unwinnable, because of the guerilla tactics used and the lack of public support in the occupied country.
*If you like torture of Innocents and history doomed to repeat itself then the Bush Jr. Administration is for you*
-Do you think when Rumsfeld went to Iraq to congratulate Saddam on his chemical weapons use in Halabjah, that he would be invading him 20 years later and trying him for the crime the US supported before and after?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm
-Reagan was so optimistic: He really believed Iran-Contra wouldn't be his legacy, but with so many of your administration indicted its hard to look clean. Remember a few ultimate ironies of Reagan's presidency:
1.Reagan could "not recall" many key facts when testifying about Iran-Contra and later developed alzheimers.
2. Reagan was a religious fundamentalist quoting scripture and a republican, but he supported stem-cell research.....After he got alzheimers.
3. Nancy Reagan started the campaign: "Just say no":During the Iran-Contra affair the administration hired thugs to fly the arms to the death squads of Nicaragua, once there they thought "why in the hell would I fly back with an empty cargo plane?", So they filled their planes with Cocaine and brought it back to the United States. It found its way to California, just in time for the 1986 crack epidemic that brought us the new weapon to oppress minorities: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing laws(like locking them up longer will stop the profitability of the drug trade).
-The same criminals that worked for Nixon are still in power, The people that used terror to gain political capital with McCarthyism are trying the same method, using terror to gain political capital with threats of imminent terror. The parties don't matter when it comes down to protecting our liberties and the continued survival of humanity. Unilateral blatantly imperialist actions only anger the entire international community. The unabashedly Orwellian administration is so surreal sometimes its incredible: cutting veterans benefits on memorial day, Dick swearing at a senator on the same day a bill that raises the fine for swearing is passed on broadcasts, justifying intervention by pointing out a UN charter was violated when in fact intervention violates a UN charter, or arguing that religious fundamentalists like Bin Laden are a danger, but Ashcroft and Falwell are infallible.
The era did not start with September 11th, it started the day the US decided to give the terrorists exactly what they want: a response that went fully overboard. ok lets see when does civil and violent disobedience work: civil disobedience in the 60s sometimes took the form of sit-ins at lunch counters. In this form of protest of Plessy v. Ferguson(JimCrow) black and white civil rights activists would sit at a lunch counter together. The local teens and young white men then proceeded to dump food and abuse these individuals(Imagine a young Strom Thurmond and a young Trent Lott and you get the idea) We all know Trent believes African-Americans are less then human and therefore animals, but then this abuse is captured on camera and the picture begs the question:"Who is the real animal?"
Ok now when does violent protest work? Lets take Arafat the only man to address the UN with a gun in his belt. This individual may not openly admit it now, but he was an accomplice in acts of asymmetrical warfare against Israel. Of course any country has the right to defend itself from a blatant clear and imminent danger. In this example though the PLO used suicide bombing tactics(which enact violence on the individual thus the suicide part of the phrase, but also projects a great deal of violence and death outward indiscriminately, and thus the bombing facet of the phrase). After a campaign of suicide bombing Israel's reaction seemed overwhelming and international opinion placed Arafat at the head of a legitimate organization and he started to shun violence as a means to a Palestinian state. The violence gained him legitimacy only as long as the reaction was so atrocious it made the initial attack look like someone sneezed on the country then the act of terrorism was a success. Also this helped restrain future attacks, because of Arafat's legitimacy he was able to try his best to rein in some of the organizations previously violent to use non-violent means.
sheep tremble here come the votes
thrown from the throat new cages and scapegoats"
-Rage Against the Machine "VietNow"
-George Bush Jr. Has control of one of the two largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but cannot pronounce the word NUCLEAR. (new-klee-err) not (New-cue-ler). We all know someone must have mentioned this to him by now. So what did he do? Ignore them? Is he just to stupid? Or is it because the average apathetic ignorant will say they don't know how to pronounce it either so its a PR move to appear affable? Its probably just the arrogance that all bad things he has done slide out of the public consciousness as soon as he exploits 9/11 for political gain, its been working well, but the public is starting to catch on(just in time for the election EXACTLY like his oil baron father)
-According to the NODCP in Samuel Walker's book: "Sense and Nonsense about crime and drugs" 74% of those incarcerated for drug crimes in the United States are African-American, while this minority is 12% of the population and 13% of drug users. The drug war is a system of institutionalized slavery that has been used to oppress African-Americans since they were given political equality in the 1964 civil rights act. Since 1964 the prison population has quadrupled, the Prison Industrial Complex is growing at an incredible rate and privatization means that even businesses want a chance to lock people in cages for extended periods of time(because prisons will never close with the drug war being endless and all, privatized prison companies make a great stock investment).
Its very easy to stop racial profiling: Step 1:record the race of all traffic stops, searches, and arrests; Step 2: make records public; Step 3: public takes care of rest.
Its very easy to stop the incarceration of perpetrators of victimless crime: step 1: legalize all narcotics, step 2: legalize prostitution, step 3: legalize euthanasia
-Part of the coalition of individuals who vote republican are people that call themselves free marketers, these individuals are strong believers in Adam Smith's theories of an invisible hand that balances the market. These individuals voted to elect George Bush Jr. Who subsequently created a protectionist policy for steel, in a blatant attempt to win this swing state(Pennsylvania) when re-election comes. Also a huge amount of taxpayer dollars are being given as corporate welfare to the oligopoly known as the airline industry, this will sure help the free market's balance.
*If you support a free market George Bush Jr. Is not for you*
-Also part of this coalition are people who fear and hate bureaucracy and a large federal government, these individuals also voted for Governor George Bush Jr., who subsequently presided over the largest expansion of the federal government in history.
*If you are against expanding the federal government George Bush Jr. is not for you*
-The republican party strategists and the Bush Jr. Administration have decided to hold their convention later than any convention in history(September) and a few blocks from ground zero. They are NOT in any way trying to use the nation's worst tragedy in years to bolster their public support.
*If you think exploiting 9/11 for political gain is immoral the Republican Party is not for you*
-Homeland security asked for special powers to separate political conventions from the public, because of am ambiguous terrorist threat(I believe its called "chatter"). This is no way motivated by the massive amounts of people mobilized to protest at the Republican National convention(otherwise known as the 2004 battle of NYC), and the very few that will protest at the DNC.
*If you think dissent and freedom of speech should only be allowed when they praise the status quo the Republican party is for you*
-Along with these emergency powers there needs to be the ability to postpone elections. So if terrorists disrupt the democratic process, Homeland Security should have the power to do the same. Ashcroft admits there is "no specific intel"(real quote) about any plans to disrupt elections or the conventions, but of course there is what everyone has feared for hundreds of years: chatter.
*If you think the government needs to take powers from congress, the courts, and the people and centralize this power within the executive branch of the government, then the Republican party is for you*
-The US should give Iraqis full custody of Saddam so they can try their own tyrant, the only problem is they'll probably kill him, but it is their choice. I don't support capital punishment no matter how atrocious the crimes, which is why I oppose the death penalty when George Bush Jr. and Rumsfeld are tried for war crimes(for specifically violating the geneva conventions through well documented torture of prisoners). I instead support life without parole, hopefully he will then read a history book and learn about Vietnam, France's war in Algeria, USSR in Afghanistan, the American revolutionary war, etc... and learn not to send people in to an imperalist bloodbath that is unwinnable, because of the guerilla tactics used and the lack of public support in the occupied country.
*If you like torture of Innocents and history doomed to repeat itself then the Bush Jr. Administration is for you*
-Do you think when Rumsfeld went to Iraq to congratulate Saddam on his chemical weapons use in Halabjah, that he would be invading him 20 years later and trying him for the crime the US supported before and after?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm
-Reagan was so optimistic: He really believed Iran-Contra wouldn't be his legacy, but with so many of your administration indicted its hard to look clean. Remember a few ultimate ironies of Reagan's presidency:
1.Reagan could "not recall" many key facts when testifying about Iran-Contra and later developed alzheimers.
2. Reagan was a religious fundamentalist quoting scripture and a republican, but he supported stem-cell research.....After he got alzheimers.
3. Nancy Reagan started the campaign: "Just say no":During the Iran-Contra affair the administration hired thugs to fly the arms to the death squads of Nicaragua, once there they thought "why in the hell would I fly back with an empty cargo plane?", So they filled their planes with Cocaine and brought it back to the United States. It found its way to California, just in time for the 1986 crack epidemic that brought us the new weapon to oppress minorities: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing laws(like locking them up longer will stop the profitability of the drug trade).
-The same criminals that worked for Nixon are still in power, The people that used terror to gain political capital with McCarthyism are trying the same method, using terror to gain political capital with threats of imminent terror. The parties don't matter when it comes down to protecting our liberties and the continued survival of humanity. Unilateral blatantly imperialist actions only anger the entire international community. The unabashedly Orwellian administration is so surreal sometimes its incredible: cutting veterans benefits on memorial day, Dick swearing at a senator on the same day a bill that raises the fine for swearing is passed on broadcasts, justifying intervention by pointing out a UN charter was violated when in fact intervention violates a UN charter, or arguing that religious fundamentalists like Bin Laden are a danger, but Ashcroft and Falwell are infallible.
The era did not start with September 11th, it started the day the US decided to give the terrorists exactly what they want: a response that went fully overboard. ok lets see when does civil and violent disobedience work: civil disobedience in the 60s sometimes took the form of sit-ins at lunch counters. In this form of protest of Plessy v. Ferguson(JimCrow) black and white civil rights activists would sit at a lunch counter together. The local teens and young white men then proceeded to dump food and abuse these individuals(Imagine a young Strom Thurmond and a young Trent Lott and you get the idea) We all know Trent believes African-Americans are less then human and therefore animals, but then this abuse is captured on camera and the picture begs the question:"Who is the real animal?"
Ok now when does violent protest work? Lets take Arafat the only man to address the UN with a gun in his belt. This individual may not openly admit it now, but he was an accomplice in acts of asymmetrical warfare against Israel. Of course any country has the right to defend itself from a blatant clear and imminent danger. In this example though the PLO used suicide bombing tactics(which enact violence on the individual thus the suicide part of the phrase, but also projects a great deal of violence and death outward indiscriminately, and thus the bombing facet of the phrase). After a campaign of suicide bombing Israel's reaction seemed overwhelming and international opinion placed Arafat at the head of a legitimate organization and he started to shun violence as a means to a Palestinian state. The violence gained him legitimacy only as long as the reaction was so atrocious it made the initial attack look like someone sneezed on the country then the act of terrorism was a success. Also this helped restrain future attacks, because of Arafat's legitimacy he was able to try his best to rein in some of the organizations previously violent to use non-violent means.
How about another example: the FARC; certain members of the FARC had been engaged in Guerilla warfare(Different from Terrorism, because to stage Guerilla warfare one must have property, military barracks, and a formal command structure, it is similar to terrorism in the fact that it is asymmetrical warfare [Another obvious delineation is the extent to which an organization will indiscriminately kill, since Guerilla warfare is essentially hit and run tactics on infrastructure, military and government; blowing up a whole bunch of random people on the street is not Guerilla warfare]). Some members denounced violence and started a party called the UP or Patriotic Union party. Their violent acts had made the public aware of their agenda and they used this to attempt to reform the government through peaceful means. (Many UP members were assassinated, hunted down by para-militaries that the government does not try THAT hard to keep under control, under the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Often these clandestine paramilitaries are the ones who can do the military's "dirty work". Although this example failed in the end, the violence did work to establish enough public opinion to get UP party members elected in the first place.
Sometimes violent action works though, it grants legitimacy to an opinion, by making people aware of it. It also reminds people that if they are marginalized and not given the right of self-determination through elections or even after this their opinions are not represented in the least, these individuals will take up arms to have their voices heard.
So what would be the ideal conditions for Osama Bin Laden in respect to 9/11, what would really help him achieve his agenda.
-Well for starters the leader of the country you attack can have direct business connections to your family which hurts said leaders credibility(just a bit) and makes sure conspiracy theories abound and will multiply over the years.
-A hardline presidency is needed to ensure a mandate from the reactionary constintuents, this condition was granted by the supreme court of the US in Bush v. Gore.
-The public media goes in to hibernation allowing a centralization of power in the executive branch and destroying the advantage democracy has when it comes to war: people who have to die for a war want to make sure it is well worth it, but congress granted sweeping power to the executive branch.
-Also it would help if the leader of the country attacked is a religious fundamentalist himself and has no problem justifying his war by peppering his speeches with references to his Christian God.
-The most important thing that helped Osama was the invasion of a country that was not involved with the endeavor of 9/11. This spreads terror throughout the world(people are deathly afraid of the United States) and anti-American sentiment
The only thing that can hurt Osama is if a rational leader who lets public interest and international relations be his guide rather than Jingoists and Religious fundamentalists, which are Bush Jr.s guides.
Sometimes violent action works though, it grants legitimacy to an opinion, by making people aware of it. It also reminds people that if they are marginalized and not given the right of self-determination through elections or even after this their opinions are not represented in the least, these individuals will take up arms to have their voices heard.
So what would be the ideal conditions for Osama Bin Laden in respect to 9/11, what would really help him achieve his agenda.
-Well for starters the leader of the country you attack can have direct business connections to your family which hurts said leaders credibility(just a bit) and makes sure conspiracy theories abound and will multiply over the years.
-A hardline presidency is needed to ensure a mandate from the reactionary constintuents, this condition was granted by the supreme court of the US in Bush v. Gore.
-The public media goes in to hibernation allowing a centralization of power in the executive branch and destroying the advantage democracy has when it comes to war: people who have to die for a war want to make sure it is well worth it, but congress granted sweeping power to the executive branch.
-Also it would help if the leader of the country attacked is a religious fundamentalist himself and has no problem justifying his war by peppering his speeches with references to his Christian God.
-The most important thing that helped Osama was the invasion of a country that was not involved with the endeavor of 9/11. This spreads terror throughout the world(people are deathly afraid of the United States) and anti-American sentiment
The only thing that can hurt Osama is if a rational leader who lets public interest and international relations be his guide rather than Jingoists and Religious fundamentalists, which are Bush Jr.s guides.
Governor George Bush Jr. may have singlehandedly brought more recruits to Al-qaida then Bin laden's ideology ever could have.
I'm not sure I know why i'm starting a blog.
I just want to have something I can point to when my grandkids ask "What did you do during the Religious Zealots Era, when governments spent massive percentages of the budget on missiles to kill other human beings across the world who had different religious beliefs? "
and I can answer "Some people thought it was alright to kill for their religion or political beliefs. Some people even hid behind symbols such as the Crucifix or the Flag, but your grandfather saw right through the disguise and saw it for what it was: naked self-interest for oil and continuted world domination, perpetuated by the elites using the lower class as the cannon fodder. Most importantly it was violence not enacted in self-defense which is no better than the third reich's blitzkrieg."
More importantly I have blood all over my hands, I look around on trains and in elevators and this is what I see coating peoples hands: the blood of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis. As a democracy we all share responsibility for the path our country takes. It is hard for me psychologically to know that my government is systematically torturing citizens of another country, because of their religion. I need to feel like i'm doing something to not be complicit in the atrocities of overt imperalism and I will never perpetuate a violent action for political purposes on any human being, so maybe if I just complain a whole lot to the black hole of this blog I'll feel better(no altruism involved).
I also remember the Democrats are not our freinds, but if Gore had been elected this Iraq occupation would have never even been thought about. No one in government would have pushed for it and no one in the public would have pushed for it. So we need to take feasibility of morality in to account or should I say the Teleological calculus of our actions. By voting for Nader you can vote your mind, but those means lead to an end of ongoing jingoism. So the lesser of two evils is all we can deal with at this point. It may help change the two-party system even by slowly bringing Nader more and more votes, but throughout these many hardline presidencies the people will be suffering and not just mentally, they will go lose limbs(and life) for imperalism in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. So you cannot deny that the lesser of two evils is better than Governor George Bush Jr. who still holds the record for most executed under any governor in history even though he didn't even finish his second term, never granting a stay of execution even to mentally ill and mentally disabled individuals.
Some fox news anchor was espousing the value of war today how it creates great men and offers the opportunity for glory. Does my generation believe that war is a moral end in and of itself?
The thought is chilling, well anyway better enlist to become an officer before the draft is put back in to place in 2005 compliments of George Bush jr.
"Know your enemy"
-Rage
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible only make violent revolution inevitable."
-JFK
-Jimothy J. Jones the Second
any factual inaccuracies let me know)
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