04.30.06
Posted in ...ism schisms, View points at 1:23 am by daMan
America seems to have a selective memory…
We make a big deal of how we "won the Cold War" — the political war between the concepts of Communism and Democracy. We claim that this victory entitles us to the self-appointed position of "leaders of the free world", whichever world that may actually be.
The "Cold War", so-called because it was mostly a battle of ideas, was supposedly waged to oppose the Soviet Union in its tendency to, among many things:
- violate the sovereignity of nations, via invasions, occupations and violent atrocities
- suppress personal freedoms of its citizens and those of its subject nations
- restrict the press, and the fair and accurate reporting of the truth
- imprison people without cause in their prisons, known as "Gulags"
- persecuting political and, especially, religious minorities in actions known as "pogroms"
The Soviet Union was an "invading force" — but the United States is a "liberator". Suppression of civil liberties was a crime in the U.S.S.R., but somehow is protection under the U.S.A. PATRIOT act?
During the Reagan era, we proudly boasted that chief among the positive differences between America and Russia was that Americans were free — free to speak and, more importantly, to speak out against their government should they choose. Now, citizens are accused of treason for exercising the very virtues we claim our brave sons and daughters are dying for every day in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.
The gravest atrocity of the soviet era in the minds of many was the imprisonment of thousands, if not millions, without trial or charge. But we now defend the very same behavior — despite the evidence of atrocities at Guantanamo and Abu Ghirab — in the name of "national security"…
What was the point of winning the "Cold War", if all we accomplished was to become the very enemy we struggled to defeat?
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02.28.06
Posted in ...ism schisms, Stop the f--king madness! at 7:07 pm by daMan
okay — lemme get this one straight:
"You cannot have one foot in the camp of terror and
the other foot in the camp of politics… [y]ou have to renounce violence." Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, in Cairo last week.
this sound pretty ridiculous, coming from the nation that endorses unilateral pre-emptive war as foreign policy…
the European Union has, again, broken ranks with ameriKKKa’s hard line reflex action, and decided to give nearly 150 million in short term relief. Hamas speaks out of both sides of its collective mouth, but thus far maintains it’s "Israel must die" rhetoric…
one has to wonder what the fuck is going on in the mind of anyone involved in this mess. Hamas seems willing to destroy it’s own people to maintain it’s "fuck Israel" attitude. Israel, meanwhile, seems poised to do everything in its power to live up to the image as heartless occupier that feeds Hamas’ popularity.
the U.S., so cornered by the bullshit that has passed for diplomacy since September 11th, 2001, fails to appreciate the hypocrisy of insisting that the Palestinians vote, and then punishing them for having actually done so.
unlike the past two U.S. Presidential elections, noone dispute the election results… the clearest evidence of legitimacy is that not even Hamas expected to win. so the question remains: what exactly does ameriKKKa mean by "nation building"?
is it empowering oppressed peoples to finally have truly democratic governments? or is it our way to tell put upon nations to bend over, so we can shove a hand up the ass of another puppet regime?
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02.09.06
Posted in ...ism schisms, Stop the f--king madness! at 10:02 pm by daMan
a young Iraq war veteran was shot several times after a car chase in California…
if it weren’t for two things, most of us would never have heard of this: that Elio Carrion was an Iraq war vet… and that the incident was videotaped…
[Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said] "We cannot make judgments on this shooting yet. It is not crystal clear, and if there’s any question left open, we can’t say whether Carrion or the deputy is wrong." The deputy’s conversation with Carrion in the seconds before the shooting is "critical," she said.
the lessons learned here are twofold:
- carry your cameras, folks — having the graphic truth on your side is the only way left to hold the power of the state in check
- the "shoot first, questions later" has spread from air marshals to cops chasing suspected car thieves…
"I found the images very disturbing," said Supervisor Gary Ovitt, whose
district includes Chino. "It did not appear that the passenger had done
anything to provoke the shooting, so I can understand why people are
demanding answers."
watch your back…
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02.06.06
Posted in ...ism schisms, View points at 7:05 am by daMan
damn — if i were a Muslim, i’d start to feel like a conspiracy theorist:
there are riots in Denmark… outraged Muslims have taken to the streets, reacting to "a cartoon of the prophet mohammed" — this is how the Western press is portraying it: in lockstep, karlrovian, terms of disinformation…
notice that no description of the cartoons in question is mentioned — as if to imply "those crazy f—in’ muslims: there they go again"… even if we ignore the fact that this full page of cartoons portray the single most important (human) person in the Islamic faith in a variety of, well… extremely disparaging ways
unless you’re completely ignorant of the tenets of the Islamic faith, you would realize that the basis for this outrage is the blasphemous nature of any graphic representation of "The Prophet"… you yourself may eat pork and shellfish, but if you invited an Orthodox Jew over for dinner, would you offer these dishes as sign of your hospitality?
this "cartoon controversy" is being portrayed as an issue of freedom of speech vs. fanatical intolerance — with Hamas elected in Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed yet still emerging as the dominant opposition party in Egypt, Iran being set up to dance the Iraq two-step, and cries for the U.S. to leave Pakistan — is this really the time for the West to fan the flames, and pretend not to see the fire spreading?
Israel talks of withholding the… taxes they withhold "on behalf of " the Palestinian people unless… wait a damned minute: unless what, dammit?
like Hamas or don’t… hold fast to the belief that "once a terrorist, always a terrorist"… whatever you feel, the moneys in question belong to the Palestinian people… is this really the way to convince a group sworn to destroy Israel to change its mind? and to damn the entire Palestinian people… even due to an understandable fear of Hamas’ potential… is to stereotype them all as terrorists….
are all whites racist? are all jews rich? are all blacks criminals? everyone would admit that these statements are the grossest of stereotypes… but somehow… its okay to not only portray all Muslims as terrorist – but to therefore regard them as deserving of our violent, "pre-emptive" responses — and to feel free to disrespect their religion, and blaspheme their prophet….
which part of this doesn’t look like a crusade?
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01.26.06
Posted in Poli-tricks, ...ism schisms at 11:47 pm by daMan
it was, admittedly, a "Hobson’s choice": side with Israel’s impulse to forbid elections in the Jerusalem, and risk derailing the "peace process"… or allow elections, even though it meant allowing Hamas to participate…
in the end, elections were allowed; spreading democracy in the Islamic world is, after all, is the reason finally settled upon as justification for ameriKKKan intervention in Iraq, so to have opposed democracy in Palestine would have called the entire Iraq intervention into question…
the gamble was that Hamas’ participation would be a calculated risk… well, now you see why i don’t gamble. NOBODY, not even Hamas, expected them to WIN…
but they did, and as the results roll in, none of the parties involved have a clue what the future will hold:
- Isreal does not trust Hamas as far as they could throw an F-16, and with good reason: this is a group that, even after the elections, maintains that the destruction of Israel is among their fundamental principles
- the current U.S. regime is between a rock, a hard place, and a sticky wicket: on the one hand, a substantial contribution to mid-east peace would be its legacy, outliving and outweighing any results in Iraq; on the other hand, there’s no way it can support Hamas as it is currently known, even if they are the legitimate leaders of the Palestinian territories; on the third hand, if the U.S. makes good of its threat to withhold the half-billion dollars of support to the Palestinians, this could contribute more to the destabilization of Israeli-Palestinian peace than any other factor
- Hamas will find that its one thing to shoot rockets and set off bombs, and something else again to function as political leaders. Despite all their "Israel must die" rhetoric, Israel must also be paid to keep electricity and fresh water flowing in the territories
much is made of the fact that Israel will not deal with terrorist, with very little mention of the fact that, from the Palestinian’s perspective, they are an occupied people, and see their violence not as terrorism, but resistance.
this is not to justify the excesses of Hamas’ brutality, but simply to point out that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter… as plausible as it is for Israel to portray itself as the victim, it belies the fact that, prior to the formation of Israel in 1948, some of their greatest heroes were considered terrorists by the same nations which are now their staunchest allies…
given enough time, all sides change… each July 4th, we celebrate our victory over England, now our #1 lackey ally… the Soviet Union Russia, the very reason we became the nuclear power we are today, is now an ally as well… so, who knows what the future may hold?
judging from the past, a gambling man would not bet on these results improving the mid-east situation, but one can always hope…
G*d only knows… let’s hope G*d knows something good, and decides to share the news sometime soon…
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01.22.06
Posted in ...ism schisms, View points, Stop the f--king madness! at 11:48 pm by daMan
has the heat affected their brains: what is up with these fuckwits in the "Middle East"???
so what comes next? Iran, encouraged by the fact that the U.S. is stretched too thin to even consider a militrary response, continues not only to develop it’s nuclear program (which is, quite honestly, its own business to do if it so pleases) but poppin’ smack about Israel, which is just plain stoopid on a variety of fronts…
…Israel, never known to back down from a fight, considers a pre-emptive strike thinking, foolishly, that this will be a replay of Iraq 1981
it won’t be. unlike the ‘81 sneak attack, Iran is ready, and damned near daring Israel or anyone else to attack or invade… the United States, thanks to the hubris and overreaching of the past few years, has lost it’s most valuable bargaining chip: the credible threat of overwhelming military response…
Iran is revealing that it has been paying attention to current events, particularly those of it’s neighbor to the east: unless you’re prepared to defend yourself, the U.S. will do whatever it wants to… Israel has learned as well: as long as you say "war on terrorism", anything goes…
if this war of words heats up, we may end up with only ourselves to blame; both World Wars started over much less than this…
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01.16.06
Posted in ...ism schisms, View points at 12:58 pm by daMan
no references, no punchlines… just a few straight-up questions that i’d seriously like some answers to:
- just who exactly are "the terrorists"? and how, precisely, will we determine when/whether we’ve "beaten them"?
- which is more important — what we intended to do, or what we ended up doing?
- are we represented, or ruled, by those in
Tweedl Washington? - how many innocents, foreign and domestic, is it "acceptable" to kill in pursuit of a phantom enemy?
if you’re paying attention out there — and assuming you actually
give a fuck — let me know….
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