Fun With Lloyd and a Snake

Today is Monday, 16 November 2013.

Yesterday, Dick Lipschitz posted on his Wall the following:  “Well, here’s a thought for the day…”, accompanied by a poorly-manipulated image, floating around the Interweb, showing a smiling President Obama in a Nazi army uniform.

          Following is an interchange between Steven Python (nee Grossman), a Seminar/Lang alum, and myself.  Steven Montano need not concern us here.

STEVEN  Fact: Obama supports the Palestinian Authority negotiating positions versus the Israeli positions.  Fact:  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, spiritual leader of the Palestinian Muslims, spent WW2 in Europe, where he helped to organize a Muslim SS unit to hunt down the Jews of Yugoslavia. He also opposed any exchanges of Jewish children for German POWs, thus sealing the childrens’ fates in the camps.  Therefore, Obama supports --- in a very real and not at all hypothetical way, [my correction:  elementary consistency requires that this should be a “---“, and not a “,”] the direct war aims of Nazi Germany.

          STEVEN  Once again, Lloyd has his head up his ass with his arrogance, as well as the arrogance to speak for dead Jews --- much like his Fuhrer, Herr Obama.

LLOYD  So, Steven, in essence:  Lloyd = Obama = Hitler.  That what you’re saying?

STEVEN  You’re really good at linear thinking, aren’t you [my correction:  “,”] Lloyd?  Unfortunately [my correction: “,”] it’s never that simple.  Your postulated equation well explains how you’ve adopted your views, though.

          LLOYD  In other words, you lack the courage to answer a simple yes or no question, with yes or no.  Instead, you posture.

          STEVEN MONTANO Man, I hate being ignored.

          STEVEN  Lloyd:  You might be in the business of asking stupid questions, but I am not in the business of answering them.  I will use them to interpret the mindset of the person asking them.

          LLOYD  In other words, a lack of courage.

          STEVEN MONTANO  Lloyd, by what I have read, you lack the courage to use facts in your diatribes.

STEVEN  I wouldn’t draw equivalencies.  I do see common cause between the three.  Is that sufficient answer for you, O annoying Okie?

STEVEN Steven [Montano]: He can’t even cite facts, much less use them.

STEVEN MONTANO  Yeah, I noticed.  What is funny is whrn [my correction:  “when”] Laloge encourages him to do more buffoonarie [my correction:  “buffoonery”].

LLOYD  “equivalencies.”  “common cause.”  You cower behind words, which is a lack of courage. 

STEVEN  Lloyd:  Funny.  I never thought I‘d find someone whom I of all people could lecture regarding the problem of seeing the world in absolutes.  I seriously doubt that your childish insinuations carry any weight with any objective reader, though perhaps your amen corner will give you a pass.

LLOYD  So, if I understand your scrambled verbiage, exterminating Jewish children, for example, is not a question that one should see in absolutes.

STEVEN  As usual, you do not understand shit.

STEVEN  Lloyd:  Aren’t you expecting the grim reaper soon?  Is this the best you can do with your remaining moments on this earth?

LLOYD  You follow the same pattern:  blustering grand statements lacking all support, followed by evasions and cowering behind more tangled verbiage. Isn’t it about time for the act of surrender:  “Fuck you, Lloyd”.

STEVEN  I think you spending your time like this is you fucking yourself.  I can just sit back and smile.

LLOYD  Obviously, you are unaware that “my” interactions with you are the product of an experimental robotic writing program, with an IQ of 83.

STEVEN  That must be about 9” into you.  How’s it feel?

_______________________________________________

Stay classy, Steven!

The Twin 9-11s:  Part One

Today is Wednesday, 11 September 2013.

The 9-11 instantly recognizable to almost everyone in the United States Empire (U.S.E.) is not the original 9-1l.

The original 9-11 occurred almost 30 years before the second.  The original 9-11 was well-known to people in South and Central America, and in Europe, but the facts about it, even its very existence, were ruthlessly stamped out and ignored in the U.S.E.

The reason?  Because the terrorists behind it were from the U.S.E.

In 1970, in Chile, Salvador Allende Gossens, of the Socialist Party, was freely and democratically elected President, advocating a nonviolent revolution for social justice.  Allende subsequently adopted a fundamentally neutralist policy in the Cold War between the U.S.E. and the U.S.S.R.  These positions did not, to say the least, sit well with the Manichaean Cold Warriors of the soon-to-be-disgraced Nixon regime and Central Intelligence Agency. 

The U.S.E. National Security Advisor, Heinz Alfred “Henry” Kissinger, may or may not have said, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist through the irresponsibility of its own people,” but the statement captures the mentality and values of the Nixon regime quite precisely.

Virtually from the moment President Allende took office, CIA began encouraging his overthrow, which finally occurred in the military coup of 11 September 1973 --- the first and original 9-11. Allende, after offering armed resistance, was either assassinated in La Moneda, the Presidential Palace, or committed suicide to escape torture and murder.

Thus came into power, willfully soaked in blood, the brutal fascist military dictatorship headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which for the next 17 years would trample human, political, and civil rights into the ground, control all media, establish reactionary political and economic policies which would result in the impoverishment of millions, and with impunity jail, torture, and/or murder tens of thousands.

(There he goes again, some may say:  “fascist”.  For years, many in the Chilean military hierarchy had encouraged, in officer’s messes, the prominent and loving display of portraits of Adolf Hitler.  If that is not a sign of sympathy for fascism and Hitlerism, nothing is.)

May those who implemented and/or supported the coup be disgraced and damned for all eternity.  The Museum of the Bourgeois salutes all who resisted, particularly President Allende.  The Museum of the Bourgeois stands in solidarity with all who suffered, in any way, because of the evil of the American leadership.  If we respect and embrace decency and justice, they should all be tried and imprisoned for life.

Vinceremos!

La lucha continua!

On Attacking Syria

Today is Thursday, 5 September 2013, the birthday of my Friend.

First, let’s examine some popular objections to military intervention in Syria.

Missile strikes wouldn’t do much good. 

It depends on targeting choices.

For example:  some claim that the bulk of the Syrian air force has been flown to Iran, and is therefore “safe”.  Yes, the planes would then be “safe”.  However, what if they returned after a strike to cratered runways on which they cannot land, fuel dumps, ammunition dumps, repair shops, and attendant infrastructure destroyed, command-and-control centers in rubble and on fire?  Should they then land on the Hafez al-Assad Memorial Expressway, refuel by means of jerry cans and a bucket brigade, and receive orders on their iPhones?

Ditto for tanks and helicopters.   Hide them as effectively as you wish, but they have very little utility without intact fuel and ammunition dumps, and repair facilities.

All major military HQs and command-and-control centers should be attacked and rendered unusable.  Again, hide the staffs and some equipment, and let them work out of secondary bunkers, 50-foot-long trailers, concealed wherever, etc.  The chain-of-command would thereby be degraded, and swiftly decay even further.

Same goes for the Syrian equivalents of KGB.

And etc., etc., etc.

It’s none of our business.

In August 1945, the American military machine and empire bestrode the world like Colossus.  The United States Empire (USE) swiftly began attempts to enforce its will upon the entire world, and particularly upon the Middle East, more often for evil than for good.

Deliberately blanking out uncomfortable knowledge before the current moment is ethically reprehensible, and even evil.  And, what is done to one’s neighbour today, may be done to one tomorrow.  Fabricated ignorance does not deflect History from biting one in the ass.

Maybe the Syrian rebels did it, to manipulate the USE.

This is not the Iraq of 2003, when the Bush-Cheney regime fabricated “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for war.  Syria is known to have had chemical weapons for many years, and to have used them before.  Like his dictator father before him, Bashar al-Assad is completely ruthless and without scruple. The only reasonable question is how many Syrian civilians were murdered by the chemical weapons of the Syrian regime, not if.

Conspiracy theorists, fabricating notions out of thin air, claim that the rebels did it, using poison gases supplied by Saudi Arabia.  Or was it “The Jew”?  Or the “Grey Aliens” from the Zeti Reticuli binary star system, operating from their vast bases in caves beneath the New Mexico desert?

Harrumph.

It won’t make any difference anyway.

And ignoring Shoah worked so well, didn’t it?

Congress must be involved, right?

Wrong.

Of all the military activities of the USE, there have been only 5 Congressional declarations of war, and 13 approvals of military engagement.  That Congress must have ANY involvement in military action has not been the norm since 1789 and the inauguration of G. Washington.  NOT ONCE did Congress ever express the slightest interest in declaring, authorizing, or approving the most important USE war of all:  the conquest of and the genocide against Native Americans.

Isn’t this just a quagmire like Iraq?

NO!  That is the same as equating apples and zebras because neither are minerals.  Let’s look at the history.

Ca. 1988, “neoconservatives”, including Dick Cheney, began trumpeting the notion of attacking Iraq (in a war of criminal aggression, under international law, which the USE has undertaken to obey), claiming that its conquest and occupation would be a walk-over, and arguing that the rest of Middle Eastern nations would scare easily, and thus become vassals of the USE, fearing that they also would be invaded, conquered, and annexed to the USE.

That criminal enterprise turned out sweet, didn’t it?

A limited attack on the al-Assad dictatorship, on the other hand, would be an enforcement of international law, which the USE has previously, by binding treaty, committed itself to carry out.

C’mon, be serious:  one thing always leads to another.

Ah, hiding behind “Fate”.  Under such non-reasoning:  if you, dear reader, were to be repeatedly gang-raped and left for dead by a gang of male thugs, well, since whatever happens is what was supposed to happen, and ”everything happens for a reason”, then neither prosecution nor punishment should attach to them, leaving them free to do it again.  And again.  And again…

And the speculation that a limited military strike MUST lead inevitably to a wider war is just that:  speculation.

Yeah, but it’s not like the victims were Americans.

If you don’t believe that common humanity is more important than artificial nationalist, religious, or etc. distinctions, then I pity you and I fear you, for you are capable of any crime against anyone.

But United Nations authorization is required under international law.

So, were a nation to commence another Shoah, and a permanent member of the Security Council were to veto any attempt at a military defense of the imperiled Jews, the world should simply throw up its hands, microwave some popcorn, sit back, and watch the extermination?

If the Security Council is blocked, particularly by an ally of the criminal nation, sometimes civil disobedience on an international scale is warranted and imperative.
____________________________

Advocating USE military action, even for the best of causes, does not come easily to someone such as myself, who has fought USE imperialism for over 40 years.  

In this case, however, I must take a decision such as that of the great German Lutheran theologian and ethicist, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He knew that ALL killing is wrong, even that of cold-blooded mass murderers.  But, he believed that cowardice and vacillation had driven History into a dead end, and that only the assassination of Hitler, and the violent overthrow of his regime, could open History to a hopefully-positive path forward.  Therefore, he took an active part in the conspiracies to remove Hitler, culminating in the failed attempt of 20 July 1944.  He paid with his life, being hanged on 9 April 1945.

I therefore advocate a carefully-designed and limited military attack on the Syrian dictatorship, in an attempt to insure that it can never again murder by means of chemical weapons.  I accept responsibility for the deaths of innocents which would occur, but I believe that this is better than merely watching.

Why Do Republicans Hate Nicklescare?

Today is Saturday, 24 August 2013.

What the hell am I talking about?

If one had to pick a single component of so-called "Obamacare" which drives Republicans wild, it would be the Individual Health Insurance Mandate (IHIM), which they regard as the virtual Spawn of Satan.

Problem is, IHIM is neither the Spawn of Satan nor the spawn of President Obama.  Who's your daddy, then, IHIM?

Don Nickles.

Who??? 

Conveniently forgotten fact of history:  the IHIM was first proposed as the Law of the Land by Senator Don Nickles (R - OK).  That is:  REPUBLICAN from Oklahoma.  Don (may I call you Don?) introduced the Consumer Choice Health Security Act (SB 1743) on 20 November 1993.  Don was joined by 24 REPUBLICAN co-sponsors.  (Don found the idea in a report from the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation, "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans", published in 1989.)

So, by rights, it should be named "Nicklescare", not "Obamacare".  (Or "Nickle-scare", but that's another story.  Heh heh.)

As we all know, it's common for males to father offspring they later spurn and deny.  But, in this case, let's give credit where credit is due.  It's not "Obamacare", but "Nicklescare".  Or, perhaps we should say, "Republicare".

So why do Republicans hate Republicare?

Well, for one thing, Don Nickles is whitie, and Barack Obama is Black.

Hmmm.

The False Supremes

Today is Tuesday, 25 June 2013.

Once again, the five illegitimate members of the Roberts Court have irrevocably disgraced themselves and permanently soiled their reputations, through gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, pretending that the Confederacy ... pardon, the states of the Olde South ... have completely changed and become colour-blind.

Why are they false and illegitimate members?

Scalia and Kennedy were "appointed" by Ronald Reagan, who committed high crimes and war crimes in the instance of the Contra War, among other things.  Clarence "Sexual Harasser" Thomas was appointed by George H. W. Bush, also responsible for high crimes and war crimes, among other things.  Roberts and Alito were "appointed" by George W. Bush, who stole the Presidency.  

Thus, the current Supreme Court has five members "appointed" by Presidents who earned removal from office and imprisonment, thus invalidating all their Presidential powers and acts.  And who woulda thunk it:  it's those five who voted to gut the VRA of '65.

The Dirty Five should be immediately removed from the Court, and made subject to imprisonment, allowing the five vacancies to be filled by a legitimate President.

This Is the World We Have Chosen

Today is Thursday, 6 June 2013.

"Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the enigmatic figure at the center of the worst American war crime in recent memory, admitted for the first time on Wednesday [to] deliberately killing 16 Afghan civilians last year, most of them women and children."  [The New York Times, 6 June 2013]

Staff Sgt. Bales had suffered a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, yet the command structure continued his combat deployment.  In a military court, Staff Sgt. Bales said, "There's not a good reason for why I did the horrible things I did."  His memory of the killings is only partial.

This is what we must expect.  Soldiers with brain injuries, who are forced back into combat, are subjected to stresses far beyond that of other soldiers.

This is not the case, of course, with their civilian commanders.  In this instance, the War Against Afghanistan has been fought on the cheap, since the real interest of the Bush-Cheney/Cheney-Bush regime was the Conquest of Iraq, in what was supposed to be a walk-over war which would secure overwhelming American hegemony in the Middle East for many decades to come.

Didn't quite work out that way.

While Bush and Cheney and their minions prepared a war of aggression (a high crime under the Nuremberg Principles), their lives went on as before:  instead of Meals Ready to Eat and canteens of field-purified water, the Aggressors feasted and swilled Champagne.  They should be serving life in prison, not such as Staff Sgt. Bales.

But then, this is the world we have chosen.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/us/sergeant-robert-bales-testimony.html?_r=0]

Rewarding Failure

Today is Tuesday, 4 June 2013.

"Should further reform be necessary, I urge that military commanders remain central to the legal process," said General Martin E. Dempsey (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff).  "The commanders' responsibility to preserve good order and discipline remains essential to accomplishing any change within our profession.  Reducing command responsibility could adversely affect the ability of the commander to enforce professional standards and ultimately, to accomplish the mission."  (In testimony given on 3 June before the Senate Armed Services Committee.)

Given that women have been eligible to serve in the military on an equal basis, including as commissioned officers, since 1948, it is obvious that having 65 years for commanders to enforce military discipline such that males raping women has ceased to be a common occurrence ... either the commanders are incompetent, or they rather fancy rape themselves, or they view all women as objects and property, meant by Fate or Design to serve males sexually.

The Joint Chiefs should have no second chances.  The Joint Chiefs should be court martialed and, after having done their time at hard labour, dismissed with dishonourable discharges, and stripped of their pensions and all other benefits.  Should lower-ranking commanders not undertake the strongest efforts to stop all forms of sexual harassment and rape in their units, they should enjoy the same fate as their "betters."

The military culture of rape would be easy to eradicate.  Obviously, some evil males wish it to continue.