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TechnoratiThe Disease of Permanent War
It was a decline into permanent war, not Islam, which killed the liberal, democratic movements in the Arab world, ones that held great promise in the early part of the 20th century in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It is a state of permanent war that is finishing off the liberal traditions in Israel and the United States. The moral and intellectual trolls-the Dick Cheneys, the Avigdor Liebermans, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads - personify the moral nihilism of perpetual war. They manipulate fear and paranoia. They abolish civil liberties in the name of national security. They crush legitimate dissent. They bilk state treasuries. They stoke racism.
"War," Randolf Bourne commented acidly, "is the health of the state."
In "Pentagon Capitalism" Seymour Mellman described the defense industry as viral. Defense and military industries in permanent war, he wrote, trash economies. They are able to upend priorities. They redirect government expenditures towards their huge military projects and starve domestic investment in the name of national security. We produce sophisticated fighter jets, while Boeing is unable to finish its new commercial plane on schedule and our automotive industry goes bankrupt. We sink money into research and development of weapons systems and neglect renewable energy technologies to fight global warming. Universities are flooded with defense-related cash and grants, and struggle to find money for environmental studies. This is the disease of permanent war.
Massive military spending in this country, climbing to nearly $le1 trillion a year and consuming half of all discretionary spending, has a profound social cost. Bridges and levees collapse. Schools decay. Domestic manufacturing declines. Trillions in debts threaten the viability of the currency and the economy. The poor, the mentally ill, the sick and the unemployed are abandoned. Human suffering, including our own, is the price for victory.
Citizens in a state of permanent war are bombarded with the insidious militarized language of power, fear and strength that mask an increasingly brittle reality. The corporations behind the doctrine of permanent war-who have corrupted Leon Trotsky's doctrine of permanent revolution-must keep us afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear means that we will be willing to give up our rights and liberties for security. Fear keeps us penned in like domesticated animals.
Mellman, who coined the term permanent war economy to characterize the American economy, wrote that since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current, and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government. The military industrial establishment is a very lucrative business. It is gilded corporate welfare. It comes with guaranteed profits. Defense systems are sold before they are produced. Military industries are permitted to charge the federal government for huge cost overruns. Massive profits are always guaranteed.
Foreign aid is given to countries such as Egypt, which receives some $3 billion in assistance and is required to buy American weapons with $1.3 billion of the money. The taxpayers fund the research, development and building of weapons systems and then buy them on behalf of foreign governments. It is a bizarre circular system. It defies the concept of a free-market economy. These weapons systems are soon in need of being updated or replaced. They are hauled, years later, into junk yards where they rust. It is, in economic terms, a dead end. It sustains nothing but the permanent war economy.
Those who profit from permanent war are not restricted by the economic rules of producing goods, selling them for a profit, then using the profit for further investment and production. They operate, rather, outside of competitive markets. They erase the line between the state and the corporation. They leech away the ability of the nation to manufacture useful products and produce sustainable jobs. Mellman used the example of the New York City Transit Authority and its allocation in 2003 of $3 billion to $4 billion for new subway cars. New York City asked for bids, and no American companies responded. Melman argued that the industrial base in America was no longer centered on items that maintain, improve, or are used to build the nation's infrastructure. New York City eventually contracted with companies in Japan and Canada to build its subway cars. Mellman estimated that such a contract could have generated, directly and indirectly, about 32,000 jobs in the United States. In another instance, of 100 products offered in the 2003 L.L. Bean catalogue, Mellman found that ninety-two were imported and only eight were made in the United States.
The late Senator J. William Fulbright described the reach of the military-industrial establishment in his 1970 book "The Pentagon Propaganda Machine." Fulbright explained how the Pentagon influenced and shaped public opinion through multimillion dollar public relations campaigns, Defense Department films, close ties with Hollywood producers, and use of the commercial media. The majority of the military analysts on television are former military officials, many employed as consultants to defense industries, a fact they rarely disclose to the public. Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, was, The New York Times reported, at the same time an employee of Defense Solutions, Inc., a consulting firm. He profited, the article noted, from the sale of the weapons systems and expansion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan he championed over the airwaves.
Our permanent war economy has not been challenged by Obama and the Democratic Party. They support its destructive fury because it funds them. They validate its evil assumptions because to take them on is political suicide. They repeat the narrative of fear because it keeps us dormant. They do this because they have become weaker than the corporate forces that profit from permanent war.
The hollowness of our liberal classes, such as the Democrats, empowers the moral nihilists. A state of permanent war means the inevitable death of liberalism. Dick Cheney may be palpably evil while Obama is merely weak, but to those who seek to keep us in a state of permanent war it does not matter. They get what they want. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote Notes from the Underground to illustrate what happens to cultures when a liberal class, like ours, becomes sterile, defeated dreamers. The main character in Notes from the Underground carries the bankrupt ideas of liberalism to its logical extreme. He becomes the enlightenment ideal. He eschews passion and moral purpose. He is rational. He prizes realism over sanity, even in the face of self-destruction. These acts of accommodation doom the Underground Man, as it doomed imperial Russia and as it will doom us.
"I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect," the Underground Man wrote. "And now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even impossible for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, and only fools become something."
We have been drawn into the world of permanent war by these fools. We allow fools to destroy the continuity of life, to tear apart all systems, economic, social, environmental and political, that sustain us. Dostoevsky was not dismayed by evil. He was dismayed by a society that no longer had the moral fortitude to confront the fools. These fools are leading us over the precipice. What will rise up from the ruins will not be something new, but the face of the monster that has, until then, remained hidden behind the facade.
198 Comments so far
Show Allmoney and wars?
here you go..
corruption,
government, and military...
check out this website right here..an have a nice day..
http://www.wanttoknow.info/corruptiongovernmentmilitary
"Thomas More is a right-wing conservative posing as a progressive." (Gracchus)
Ridicules comment....Not true
If you mean that he is not a leftist extremist you are correct..But a right wing conservative..lol
Thomas More never claimed to be progressive. (As least "progressive" as you might consider that position to be.)
Try reading Thomas More carefully and you will find someone who recognizes no simple solutions for the problems of a complex world.(And he is correct)Like you, Thomas dreams of a better future. Unlike you, Thomas recognizes that many steps must be taken over time before any substantial change can be realized. Thomas recognizes no quick fixes. Also you will find Thomas himself is very complex....
Whether you agree with Thomas or if you disagree he will always treat you with more respect than you are showing him in your above comment.
You could say the same of some of the others on this site who are nice like him and are yet unfairly attacked at. It seems that on this site and most "progressive" and "liberal" sites and blogs, pragmatic people are to be demonized.
The republican Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the impending military/industrial complex back in the late 1950's. It has come to fruition. So much for party politics in America. Democrat or republican, they are all owned by big money interests and the democrats push back on single payer healthcare is proof positive of this fact.
The problem as it stands today is that much of America has been brainwashed to the point that they stand in direct opposition to their own welfare and interests. It is to the point that 10% of the population is on food stamps, 50 million have no health insurance and receive inadequate healthcare, and 90% of the population is one layoff away from disaster. This massive military/industrial complex is but one symptom of this burgeoning corporate fascist state.
It is up to each and everyone of us to examine this current slide and to develop a higher consciousness that is required for a socialist revolution. This is not a revolution of guns and mayhem but a revolution of the mind. Our corporate fascist enemies have made socialism a dirty word in America today. This fact alone should set off alarm bells in all of America. Think carefully and spread the word.
snydly
WARISM.
RESIST AND DEFEAT WARISM.
DON'T BUY ITS STUFF. EACH DOLLAR COUNTS. IT RUNS ON OIL.
Chris Hedges says that "permanent war is a parasite that devours the heart and soul of a nation". If you get rid of a parasite, it is quick and the results are generally good. I think permanent war is more like a tumor or calcification, infiltrating and invading every tissue of our national body. Removing it will not be easy. It has become intertwined, part of the structure.
So much of the contention on this thread comes from the limited opportunities people have, the way that military projects dominate the universities and the economy. There are weapons plants and military suppliers distributed through many communities in many states. There are hundreds of smaller companies and services that feed into or rely on business from the weapons and soldiering industries. I believe it is getting worse. The local peace group has had to change its campaign against military recruiting in High Schools. The military is no longer sending recruiters to schools. Enlistment is up. Young men and women are voluntarily signing up in larger numbers because they have lost hope of getting a normal job.
The owners typically make spectacular profit margins on military contracts and so they will resist cuts in military spending. Politically they, and their paid-for legislative toadies, will sabotage any search for peaceful approaches to the world. But the workers too may feel threatened by reductions in weapons production or other forms of military spending. Sometimes such spending is the central source of employment in a community, especially as family farms decline.
This is a reality we have to face if we want to build up support for changing the economy from war-based to peaceful. These jobs are important to people who have a family to feed and no cushion of wealth. Therefore the concept of CONVERSION and RETOOOLING needs to be developed.
As the article mentions, for example, nobody here is producing subway cars. There is no quick profit incentive to invest in downtime and conversion of a plant that produces tanks to one that produces subway cars. The profit margins for useful goods tend to be much lower than for war goods, which can be justified by urgency and panic rhetoric. Yet public transportation is another way to increase safety and security. It would reduce our energy needs and soften the push to invade everywhere that has oil and gas. It would spare the world some carbon flooding and help stabilize the ecosystems or at least slow down the changes.
SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES is what we need as a massive political and economic goal. On a personal level, we can refuse to work for the most heinous enterprises. Like Sioux Rose, we have worked only for good or neutral enterprises, and so have our children. We have not become rich or even comfortable, but we are OK. Thanks to special public High Schools and the library, we are educated. We live in New York, where there are a variety of choices.
While the current structure remains in place, many, especially in smaller towns and cities, will feel they have little choice. This has to be taken into account by the peace movement if we are to build support for the massive task of removing the horrible dead weight and drain of the war economy that is suffocating our spirits and laying waste to much of the world.
Joe
J O E,
An inspired post, with practical aspects for resolving tension here on CD and in the world. Kudos to you.
Besides undoing the monstrous intertwining of a society previously dedicated to warmongering, we must realize that "our" corporations have been very busy dismantling America's infrastructure, because they are in no manner any longer patriotic to the people.
Ironically, as is shown in the patterned growth of vines, we people live together much more productively and happily when we wrap around each other in our families and society's embrace -- whereas the errant offshoot withers and dies without having given any fruit. Society's interdependency and spiritual connection is as in the vine ( as in the Bible ), where individuals flourish and have greater meaning when intertwined together.
Man is a social being, and society may better serve our needs when this is recognized and integrated into our work lives as well. We need each other, but can no longer tolerate abdication of corporate responsibilities to the bigger world we all share.
The Corporate credo is vectored profit, and that definitely includes obtaining leverage to restrict worker and society's independence and ability for organization changes contrary to those "global-gobleization" interests. Once familiar American brands, have uprooted their connections to community, and view America as purely a consumer base, a materialistic pseudo-farm for harvesting -- w/o much care to re-plant and leave fallow some space for continued growth and production -- and the future.
"American" corporations need to take their fictitious person hood seriously as an implicit responsibility to Americans, not exclusively to profit while also actively avoiding legal taxation and improving our shared environment. If corporations choose to continue to ignore the needs of Americans, then we need to pass new laws to treat them as foreign adversaries of the workers and the America people, and install whatever incentives are needed, for them to return to supporting the local people and stable economy.
The dismantling of the structure of profiteerism, must also include the advancing the sharing of productivity gains with the workers, as similarly providing enhanced family leave and vacation benefits, and supporting the organization of workers to provide proportional leverage in a cooperative shared means of production. The benefits to society will be seen to easily outpace any "bottom line" equivocation, and workers will be happier, and more effective in their overall lives and satisfaction.
A significant portion of 'on the books' strategizing ( profit margins ), makes terrible use of corporate techniques that externalize the ( not so ) hidden costs to society, like : pollution, lack of investment in alternate energy forms, worker satisfaction, and outsourcing jobs to countries with even less worker's rights. This must be balanced out, which requires characterizing and analyzing many crucial societal factors now ignored for unshared profits.
We must redefine and legislate what is PROFIT for SOCIETY's overall needs , and then the system will naturally through positive feedback -- make that real.
Namaste
Your writing is complex, but when I finally read it carefully, it had many good thoughts. : )
Joe
Very well put. A peaceful man who stays a peaceful course. It takes a lot of courage to face a bad system but it will take a more united front to defeat it. The system has been so far so successful at keeping us weak and divided. Exploiting each other's weaknesses is what the MIC is strongly counting on to keep winning. We really do got to get out of this MIC prison hell.
Bring America Back !!!!....Hey, Chris Hedges, just like the Swine Flu, once the US Military-Industrial Complex gets rolling it is a contagious Beast to stop !!! You see, it exists to make Wars !
****I don't think Hedges even mentions the best Warnings we ever had about every problem we now have with our addicted M_I Complex. It was all in former President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell speech !! Here we had a 5 Star Army General cautioning us to heed his warnings about the evils and powers of a runaway govt-corporate structure.
****We elected a Saviour to put a Stop to the Beast, and He did most specifically Promise to deal with, and to Change the Culture of Corruption in DC !
But No, so far Barak Obama has been swallowed by the Beast we expected Him to Slay. He must know who Ike was, right ?
Permanent war: it's our natural state. We humans were born to kill, to destroy.
Eventually we'll destroy ourselves. It's a fitting reward for an evolutionary failure.
We won't be missed!
www.dangerouscreation.com
Will the conservative fools lead us over the precipice before direct and decentralized Global Online Democracy (G.O.D.)can save us?
A lot of bickering among folks in this thread. It does not tell us anything about the content of the article.
or does it tell us everything about it?
I dunno. As some have pointed out, it speaks of the permanent war and I'm afraid they're right.
maxpayne;
It might speak of permanent war, or it might be an alternative to actually fighting them. I've seen a lot of jaw jaw on this thread, but not really much war war. I suspect that were all of us able to speak face to face, we'd be much more civil in our conversations. (myself included, although on this thread I've been good - mostly, kinda...)
A bank is built with bricks and Mortar. Just because the persons who run the bank may be culpable of fraud, we can hardly claim the bricks and Mortar played a role.
There certainly are degrees of culpability in any wrong. If I am the man that gave a young boy a loaded gun with which he shot his friend with, I am certainly more culpable then the miner who dug up the ore that made the gun.
At the same time if a poverty stricken family in India sells a Child into servitude , who am I to pass judgement on them unless I was in their shoes?
What it comes down to is the personal choices we make along with our personal circumstances. We do HAVE choices. Our choices have consequences. Most of us that post on these boards have MORE choices then most people do thus we have a greater responsibility to make the right choice.
These are good things to keep in mind.
Joe
This is a strange thread of comments today. I'm not sure why maxpayne is being criticized so much nor why he needs to be defending himself. Unless you are living in a cave, naked, and surviving off of green nettles and drinking water from a mountain spring, you are part of the problem.
Ever look at the overwhelming complexity of all the aspects that have gone into the event leading to typing a post here at CD? The source of power that fires up the computer? the power grid? the plastics and toxins in the computer? the source of those elements and the slave labor that has supplied those elements? What about the vehicle you used to drive down a road that destroyed numerous ecosystems so you could go to the mall and buy your nifty computer? and the source of the gas to fire up that vehicle?
All that and more so we could argue in some digital no man's land from our air conditioned offices and living rooms.
As I have said before, the one area that many diverse people, groups, and organizations can unite is the anti-war movement. Lefties, most libertarians, many religious groups, labor groups, and nearly everyone, are sick and tired of all the war. Can we put aside ideological stances and unite around a cohesive antiwar movement? We need to continue to educate ourselves and others that it's the war funding, and war waging, that is ruining the economy, the environment, destroying millions of lives, and threatening the entire planet.
Imagine the possibilities if instead of spending for war we spent it on social programs (for the socialists) and gave the rest back to individuals, or better still never stole it in the first place (for the libertarians). There's enough for everyone damn it!
"Unless you are living in a cave, naked, and surviving off of green nettles and drinking water from a mountain spring, you are part of the problem."
oh gawd, this is the best line I've read in awhile....lol! thanks rebel.
These are very good points. Everything we do has consequences, often hard to see or measure. For example, as we use our computers and cell phones, we are contributing to the carbon footprint and helping to support rape and murder in Congo over coltan mining.
The virtuous individual has an important place. But let's get over ourselves. Most of us on the computers here are damned privileged and unaware of what we are using up, what hardships others experience to support our lifestyles.
Is the answer to go herd goats on a mountain? No - because it is impossible. Should we resist over-consumption and complicity in war? Yes, AND just as important find ways to listen, to reach out to others in a friendly and non-arrogant way so they will join in.
Joe
R E B E L N O W,
On the front lines of dispute, there is an idea that any position will innately spur on and nourish its opposite -- so that the more we resist, the more it persists.
Out of Being in Scarcity, defense creates offense, and vice verse ( as well as separation, fear & hate ) -- these are the techniques that have failed humanity for all time.
Out of Being in Abundance, we create joy, love, empathy, compassion, connection, acceptance, alignment, compromise, collaboration, and cooperation -- these are techniques that engender harmony and peaceful resolution of disputes.
As to the idea of antiwar, you will find that pro-peace is affirming a positive, compared to negating a negative -- and although logically "equivalent", the two are polar opposites in effectiveness.
One really cannot create a negative, and our minds actually rebel at attempting to do so, perhaps knowing that antiwar requires and co-creates more war.
To the purely rational thinker, there is no apparent difference between pro-peace and antiwar positions -- but to the poet, mystic and seeker of life's undercurrents of meaning -- one approach carries the seed of its own destruction, and thus will always fail.
¿ Is it not about leading with our best foot going forward first ?
Namaste
Okay, Pro-Peace it is.
"That's all nonviolence is - organized love", Joan Baez
You're right. I guess I got carried away defending myself here although I have had unexpected help and thank you and them for trying to bring some reasoning here. You make a powerful argument that correctly explains our inevitable addiction to the natural resources we use on everything. Even some people who claim to be living in a trailer house have to fill up their homes with gasoline as usual. With what you said, we should be paving the way towards replacing petroleum with hemp, algae, and carbon negative light sweet crude oil from bug waste. If the anti-war movement had been more united and focused, a lot of us working in DoD would be likely working elsewhere because by then more non-DoD related businesses would have to offer more good jobs. Today's antiwar movement is nothing like the one back during the days of the Vietnam war.
"If the present war arouses among the reactionary Christian socialists, among the whimpering petty bourgeoisie, ONLY horror and fright, ONLY aversion to all use of arms, to bloodshed, death, etc., then we must say: Capitalist society is and has always been horror without end."
- Lenin, October 1916
shawn berry,
it's really not my job, nor my purpose, to try and "convince maxpayne and others like him..." and personally, i could care less if he or she is progressive or liberal or conservative or christian. one can hide behind any cloak they choose. if i respond to a post, shawn berry, you can be sure of three things: i will address them directly, and i will have read, and re-read, their post(s) several times, and i will most certainly have read and re-read, and re-read yet again, my response to them before i post.
humanitarian? you want to discuss humanity while we're busy discussing war?
maxpayne: "... i should be able to make it some time..." and "... so that my wife and i can snatch enough..." if you'd like, i'll be happy to go over, sentence by sentence, the last two days worth of bullshit hypocrisy posted by maxpayne.
there are many ways to respond to a post. some use the sugar-coated version, some use vinegar. and if you don't care for my writing style, i suggest you do one of two things: get yourself a copy of common dreams' posters' guidelines, or the next time you see a post beginning with the name "lino" just skip over it. if this "cult" you refer to carries too much salt for your personal taste, go find another ocean to swim in.
oh, yes, take off your rose colored glasses and then we'll discuss reality.
and nathan, if you visited here more frequently you'd know what thomas more is really all about.
I see that you still haven't learned your lesson or manners but you think you're the boss of this site? I have the right to post as do you but I also have the right to offer my suggestions for improvement as do you. I could tell you to get lost but I'm far more civil than you'll ever be. You're the one who needs to remove those cultist goggles of yours first and clean your foul mouth up while you're at it. I noticed that someone, not me, flagged your vulgar hate comment and you deserve it. I don't see how you and some others on this site can waste time making a hobby out of badmouthing others on this site when you don't even know them. Your utter hatred and violence shows that you are no different from the Far Right cultists. Consider thinking about it if you dare. I didn't bring up humanity. You're the one who invoked it first and you sir are no humanist. You are the reason we're all in this perpetual war and you know it.
maxpayne May 18th, 2009 9:26 am
"I strongly agree that we need to bring back our manufacturing base and go local. Unfortunately, on yesterday's post, I noticed a lot of very hostile folks mislabelling themselves as "progressive" and calling for those of us currently with no way out to give up our jobs, call ourselves guilty, and go homeless and butt naked. If these same foul brains would get out there and help us fight for a better infrastructure and decent paying jobs for more people, then those of us working in jobs in the defense sector or even related to it will have a better chance of switching securely without oversacrificing ourselves. If more progressives and liberals would learn to be civil and sympathetic to the plight of others and actually help pave the way for long term cures instead of imitating rightwing bullies, we all would win and the war machine would be put to a peaceful rest."
How sad it is that just because one man was honest and came forth and admitted who he worked for that he is treated no different from OJ Simpson. We can talk all we want about the liberals and Democrats in Washington empowering the moral nihilists but we must first examine ourselves and each other. We all do things that our progressive ideology despises but that does not have to make us criminals. There are millions of workers who have to work in DoD because there is no nonDOD related job worth picking at. It is a tremendous disappointment to see even the Far Left show their cultism and hatred towards even their own fellow allies such as maxpayne who admits his progressive and liberal side and trash him with all spiteful and vulgar remarks. I have seen these same people do it to Thomas More and I'm surprised to see him putting up with this. Until we progressives and liberals stop our childishness and cultism, all we'll be doing is wasting bandwidth trashing each other or engaging in petty narrow-minded talk as usual. We can all preach about growing local veggie gardens and riding our bikes to work but not everyone has the time or energy to grow their own veggie garden because of the system they're in. And riding a bike to work isn't always possible thanks to our broken public transportation system and long distances for some people. If you're travelling more than 10 miles to work, bicycles are not always feasible and unlike Europe, there is rarely a bike path let alone a biking tunnel to conveniently ride through on. I find it morally disgusting that Sioux Rose and lino get to spew their vulgar hate talk and everyone's ok with it but when maxpayne is trying to make his case and he's not vulgar, he is unfairly attacked at and pronounced "guilty" as if he were OJ Simpson or something. Maybe most of the same old posters on this site surely do posess the DISEASE OF PERMANENT WAR !
Sioux Rose
SHAWN BERRY: I did not "spew vulgar hate talk." I expressed a very clear position as per the MIC and ANYONE who works for it. I do not see any way a progressive would work for that organization. There have been some assaults on my character for stating as much. And in my view, you are just apologists for the status quo, people who argue for the same masters who keep you in chains. You don't want to look at alternatives, and yeah, I showed a little passionate disgust about this particular situation. So what. One can be spiritual AND have emotions, and watching the constant images of dead persons, especially children, against having to witness more $ going to the MIC/DOD, when all the worthy things this nation and others requires are rejected, THAT is what angers me. Being upset about these injustices hardly warrants the evaluation some in this forum have tossed my way. I have personally had enough of this "discussion." It's more a shooting gallery, but it initially began a day prior as a discussion based on seeking to enlighten. I should have quit there.
"I do not see any way a progressive would work for that organization."
I've come across progressive-minded people who have worked in various controversial locations not because they wanted to but because they had little other choice. Perhaps it is long time for people to come clean and make no bones about where they work, what they use to work with in life, and some things so that we could better understand the problem. If all we see are "perfect" people on this site while in the real world it's all mixed and imperfect for you to tolerate, nothing will be solved. Even if you don't work for the MIC, how do you power up your home trailer that you live in? You fill it up with gas and where do we get it from? Since we can't grow our own biofuels or have local independent gas stations, you're going to take from the big oil gas stations who in turn get the oil courtesy of the MIC. Now if you can grow your own algae oil for fuel, then more power to you but I don't think you've got the time or money or resources to get that going. If you want to stay angry and fixed, have at it. However, it would do you good to actually learn to respect others for some of the ideas they share with you. I looked you up on this site and countless times you spoke against individualist behavior and yet I don't see you acting any differently so what am I supposed to do, say you're "perfect"? I don't think so. We all have weaknesses and we're only human so we're just going to have to settle down and come clean.
Now, we don't know maxpayne in full. He could have come here and told us that he works as, oh say, a sales clerk and you and others wouldn't have pounced on him and ignored his good side. Every person has a good and bad side. I came across a few of your earlier posts from months ago where you discussed and even agreed with some others about the need to take gratitude seriously. I'm not here to force or tell you or anyone else what to do or say but I would suggest that we each give credit to the best of each and everyone and see what can be done to correct the wrongs or get around them if they cannot be corrected. Otherwise, the only thing we'll end up doing is getting stuck in this infinite loop of self-defeat.
PEACE
When I first became a computer programmer (after a 6 week course - having kids, I could not afford to stop working and go to college) the only jobs a newbie could get were with banks and brokerages. I got a job working for a giant central clearing house that served to handle stock and bond transfers between all the major banks and brokers. I worked there for 5 years. It was a raw education in the technical operations and culture of high finance. I was a fly on the wall. I was a forensic accountant with access to all kinds of secret files and holdings. I could see the crazy volume of bond issuances for everything down to school jungle gyms, the way the country was becoming trapped in a tar pit of debt and deficit spending, especially on the local level at that time. I could see the crash of 86 coming and I moved my little 401K to fixed income. I could see the culture of saying what was expedient, how careerism worked, who and what got ahead. With only a high school education, my pay went from $12K to $50K, the golden trap.
Today's young people often face choices of no job or a job doing things that they are not so happy about. Those who have no financial backing (first one in the family to go to college) and are laden with education debts will take those jobs and feel lucky.
I hope they learn something and look for another path once their debts are paid.
Joe
Nobody said you had to watch all this bad news. I don't watch the grusome mess all the time because I already know that it exists but that doesn't make us "status quo apologists". You need to lighten up, relax, and take it easy. Even Ralph Nader had to take money from defense contractors to fund worthwhile causes when nothing else was available. If there's something I don't really understand about all that you write, maybe I'll figure it out over time. Right now, I don't feel convinced.
It's rather hilarious the way Sioux Rose can be so hypocritical. First she says that you have a choice to give up your job and do nothing. Now you shoot back and tell her that she has a choice to watch or not watch the grusome footage. I guess we're all hypocrites in something or other. Don't take it too hard on SR. She can be very difficult to understand and often writes very abstract astrological bullshit. It's too bad she has her gang of cultists defending her. This is another reason I often don't feel like coming here.
I guess this forum can get way too exclusive in nature.
"She can be very difficult to understand and often writes very abstract astrological bullshit. It's too bad she has her gang of cultists defending her."
Now you went too far.
Ok Shawn Berry, now we are getting somewhere. You are critical of the system. Good. The system needs fixing. How do you propose to fix it? Perhaps this is the starting point of a constructive discussion among all of us where we do not have to be critical of each other. I am patiently listening.
Don't expect me to give you a quick proposal but what needs to be done is first getting the progressives and liberals united.
Shawn Berry
Ummm, I'm not so sure that having a board where everyone agreed would be as stimulating as the discussions we've had on Common Dreams. FreeRepublic has such an echo chamber. I don't agree with everyone on Common Dreams - I've been guilty of saying some truly horrible things to some people - but I would rather live with the occasional flamefest than to see posts and users subject to the same artificial conformity that one sees on the rightwing sites. I'd rather people said what they think, even if they think stupid thoughts from time to time...
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind debates and all but there has to be a limit to all the wacky behavior at some point.
I agree. But what will be the central cause to unite us?
This is one of the reasons I don't come here very often. I often times wonder if it's the progressives and liberals losing or the conservatives winning that's the problem. I think it's a combination of the 2. I could envision conservatives reading through all this rubbish and laughing so hard until their ribs fall apart gloating with victory that the progressives and liberals have sunk to their nasty low. I was accused of being nasty on this site and even when I apologized, I was still unfairly attacked. When I do preview this site from time to time, I notice more of the same old people who are familiar talking to each other but all too often trashing newcomers unless there's something really attractive about him or her to the point of making a splash. In most cases though, the new user ends up isolated. There are a few good people such as Thomas More to try to bring some negotiation and unity from time to time but this forum has become way too cultist and I don't see who really stands to benefit from all this childish war mongering.
There's often a general problem I've noticed when it comes to trying to unite progressives and/or liberals and this has been stated here and in other similar sites and blogs. The path to unity first starts out with putting aside differences and appreciating one another for similarities. A lot of personal animosity and negativity only breeds more and the more of it there is, the harder it is for progressives and liberals to win on anything. I didn't know that newcomers often are not welcome nor the kind of bias you mentioned but I can see where it shows. Your big mistake is getting too personal with those people who might not be friendly to you. You find a better way to counter their arguments and make your case without attacking them personally. I have noticed on this forum and often times on similar forums, right and left, when everyone is afraid to argue effectively, they'll just say "Ignore X". Just ignoring people when you can counter their points is often cowardice in itself. If you want to enjoy posting here, I suggest you respond only to people who might be a little more friendly to your postings and not to known enemies of you. Now, in my case, I could care less who likes or hates me because I'm only here to make points with my comments, not start relationships or divisions. If you apologized and they were still mean and loud, sorry to hear that.
"They'll just say "Ignore X". I said that to someone today, someone who normally makes thoughtful comments, but who was showing irritation. It is sometimes wise to ignore people for a while when they are getting on your last nerves. Otherwise there is a tiresome atmosphere of bickering.
Joe
dearest maxpayne in the ass,
it's so really not about you getting along with most of the posters here. it's just that, as a general rule, we here on common dreams tend to stand back and let each other fight their own battle(s) with the intolerable pains that come drifting thru here from time to time.
do yourself, and all the rest of us, a huge favor. go and take care of your wife, as you've claimed you needed to do, on this, your day off from work, with pay, no doubt. then, after caring for your wife, do us all a favor by going back thru your posts here, carefully re-reading (and comprehending, if possible) what it is you've attempted to say. then, perhaps, you will see the circle of bullshit you find yourself, waist deep, wading thru.
now you blame everything on "the progressives and liberals" of this country. you, clown, are nothing more than yet another loudmouthed whore sucking on the military industry complex's tit, waiting for your next paycheck, no doubt counting the days until you retire, and so blatantly obvious to anyone here who's following your hog-the-comment-board-and-fuck-them-if-they-don't-like-it-'cause-i've-got-mine-and-screw-them-if-they-think-they'll-get-any-of-it mentality
"... quite a few local small business customers that aren't dod related. if it weren't for me..." like fucking manna from heaven.
next time, try leaving your "white male" christianity out of the discussion. you are no more christian than your fellow christian hypocrites.
ps - consider yourself now to have had the opportunity of coming across someone who, because of his political and environmental and humanitarian beliefs, lives in the arena of low paying jobs that you so despise. you fucking arrogant and ignorant asshole. go back to work.
My my my ! Such obnoxious writing, no? I don't see how you expect to convince maxpayne and others similar to him with such vulgar writing. You need to take some remedial writing skills sir. Your very defensive writing shows that you're in denial mode in refusing to understand reality. maxpayne isn't blaming anything on progressives and liberals. Apparently, you did not even bother to read his posts but instead copy SR's vulgar posts and paraphrase. How do you expect to help progressives and liberals win at anything when all you and some on this site engage in incessant hate talk? If you're as "humanitarian" as you claim to be, I sure don't see it in your vulgar trash writing. Go get some mental counseling sir.
Thanks Shawn. I didn't even want to respond to that post by lino himself. I saw your other message where you complimented my comment and thank you too. If lino wants to show its bad behavior, who am I to stop such trolls. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut and not admitted that I work for DoD related but if they wanna treat me like I'm a fugitive criminal or such crap, I can't stop them. I don't know these people to begin with but their very rude and uncivil behavior shows that they really are not interested in fighting for progressive/liberal causes but instead hell bent on shooting anyone they can and enjoying their hate talk. The Internet was supposed to unite us all, not divide us all. I mean here we have the power of the Internet to give us live and real time news and reporting and plenty of forums on major progressive and liberal sites to get more people to come together and yet here we are even with a strong majority of Democrats in the House and Senate and still no go at single payer healthcare and it looks like that that legislation is dead in the water. I thought the purpose of CD was to inform, inspire, and ignite change for the common good, not be a battle ground for petty disputes, insults, and warmongering against us all. This is generally a great site and I like what the articles have to offer and say but I do find a lot of the posters very obnoxious and often out of tune with their attempts to frame some of us as "guilty" until proven innocent. If these forums are gonna be more closed-minded and cultist in behavior, I see no future for progressive/liberal causes.
Most of these people commenting very rudely and without civilty would often act less shitty in real person. When it comes to forums and blogging, postive thinking and writing generate fewer responses while negative writing often generates plenty more. There are a few good people on this site. I am always told that progressives and liberals are supposed to be very smart and all that but a lot of the childish and threatening rants prove otherwise. Sometimes if one posts a very rude response to your post, it's usually best to leave it and wait for someone else to respond but if no one responds, give it a counter thought and don't let the enemy drag you into the mud.
Excellent points max.
Based on the article and the comments on this thread, it looks like war corruption has spread down to us just by looking at this war thread going on here. I may not work for a defense contractor but I'm already guessing that because I drive an SUV for business purposes to carry heavy cargo to and fro at work that I too am guilty of sucking up to the war machine because it's a gas guzzler right? Methinks Sioux Rose is shouting too much and needs to get some sleep.
Sioux Rose's out of control anger reminds me of one of the users on this site, JenniferBedingfield, who used to be so loud, emotional, and totally obnoxious. She was a die-hard Naderite and always tooted the horns for him. She's a sore loser and since I haven't seen any posts from her on some of the recent days, my guess is that she was banned from this site for foul and childish behavior. Those of us who tried to get her to shut up and learn to compromise were hounded by her Naderite defenders. She's probably just a bedwetting crybaby on proazac. Sioux Rose has a tendancy to pick friends and blacklist her perceived enemies. People like JenniferBedingfield and Sioux Rose need to learn to shut up and compromise. If they have to give up a lot, then so be it. Why should she preach to you and maxpayne when she doesn't follow her own advice? Maybe Sioux Rose has a problem with men or something but like JenniferBedingfield, Sioux Rose is nothing more than the butt of jokes. She probably mooches off her sister's fortune like a welfare queen even as she claims to be on her own.
Sir,
Out of order and totally unfair to Sioux Rose. You owe an apology....
I hate to be a little ugly at times but we need to be honest here. Tell Sioux Rose to apologize to maxpayne for attacking him without understanding him first. And I already apologized to emotional bedwetters such as JenniferBedingfield but what did that do? She kept screaming and crying on and now the poor loser has fallen apart as Sioux Rose admitted. Apologizing to Sioux Rose will only reward her bad behavior of misjudging and engaging in character assassination so I offer no apology to her. When Sioux Rose can learn to be pragmatic and less emotional, then I might apologize.
Sioux Rose
NN: Having read your indictment of the likes of Nader, Chomsky and Naomi Klein, castigations based on FALSE criteria, I guess I am in good company. You are a complete ass hole. There. And there will be NO apology.
"You are a complete ass hole. There. And there will be NO apology."
Ok, now you've really sunk yourself to his level on this one. Up until then, ok.
Sioux Rose
NEBRASKA NATHAN: I have a running file of accolades from this site and a long resume of published credentials. What have you EVER contributed? How dare you judge me? I am against the war-state and its machinations, and if I was a bit hard on Max Payne, it was due to his not getting anything from a previous thread, and thus wasting time arguing for a position I find to be untenable. Also, I resent when anyone takes my words or position out of context and misconstrues what I have stated. One can be sued for that. It's called libel. There have been times in my life when I have been paid $2000 PER article. By its equivalence I have contributed HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars in content to this forum. If you can't relate to my basis for knowledge, just pass my posts on by. I have never seen fit to respond to anything you've stated as nothing struck me as particularly original, brilliant, or evocative. Anyone who writes anything of meaning will tend to be controversial, particularly in these new Dark Ages. If I attract controversy, so be it.
Jennefer wrote to me via personal email. She had a health breakdown, as has JW VEREZ. A little compassion is in order there. You also have no right to define her based on your very limited intellectual span and narrow capacity for conjecture. Let your words speak for you as mine do me. You are in no position to offer a bio on anyone else. What hubris, fool!
"How dare you judge me?"
I am not an elitist or a purist like you. I can judge people just like you always do so how what's to dare?
"There have been times in my life when I have been paid $2000 PER article. By its equivalence I have contributed HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars in content to this forum."
Name me one article you wrote that's on this forum. I come here only so often thanks to loudies such as you, Red Rick, JenniferBedingfield, and similar crybaby bedwetting purists.
"I have never seen fit to respond to anything you've stated as nothing struck me as particularly original, brilliant, or evocative. Anyone who writes anything of meaning will tend to be controversial, particularly in these new Dark Ages. If I attract controversy, so be it."
So on the one hand, you're fine when some people attract controversy that agrees with you but you can't handle other points of view? Very stupid and immature. I was going to respect what you write on this site despite finding it hard to understand all that astology bullshit but now that you've pushed it, I find your writings nothing but pure abstract trash and out of touch.
"Jennefer wrote to me via personal email. She had a health breakdown, as has JW VEREZ. A little compassion is in order there. You also have no right to define her based on your very limited intellectual span and narrow capacity for conjecture. Let your words speak for you as mine do me. You are in no position to offer a bio on anyone else. What hubris, fool!"
Oh boohoohoo ! Too bad ! The poor loser deserved it because like you, she was nothing but a bedwetting crybaby who constantly shouted and pissed off others on this forum. I find some of her emotional rantings just as difficult to comprehend as yours. Both of you need remedial training in writing. Anyway, I hope she stays that way and never comes back. She's way too mentally disturbed and can't learn to shut up and compromise. No wonder she can never find a man. At least that's one less crybaby purist this site needs. LOL ! OOOOOOOOOOO ! LOL !
NN, you are nothing but a cruel and insensitive creep for having insulted Sioux Rose very blatantly. It's bad enough that JenniferBedingfield had to get persecuted and tortured at by the Obamabots on this site and on alternet.org and yet you have the nerve to insult the people on this site ! You seem to take sadistic pleasure hurting others for fun don't you? How dare you insult Sioux Rose like that and how dare you wish ill of JenniferBedingfield. Both of them are sweethearts and the best this forum could ever offer. You, on the other hand, are the totally childish brat and your OOO and LOL crap shows just that. You already got nailed for insulting Jennifer and myself and you still haven't learned, have you?
Sioux Rose
CARLA: Thanks for the support. What a feeding frenzy as these fools defend the MIC and take criticism of it and its enablers as a grounds for character attack. And most of it deflection... totally off topic. I guess some of the boys here are John Wayne wanabes. As much as I despise Nancy Pelosi, as someone said on another thread, she's the one taking the heat for the torture scandal. All these tough boys but they like to attack women, and can't take responsiblity for their own actions. Use all form of false witness and wonder why I don't show deference? No wonder so many in this forum use false names and change them like chameleons. I smell their tracks. Cowards.
Please do take a moment to laugh … the article title The Disease of Permanent War, along with Blackwater changing its name to Xe, etc.
CD is a little microcosm of our world: unrelenting battles and name changes to protect the guilty.
I agree that once again the prototypical male domination of female, is a huge root to trip on and attempt to deal with.
Speaking of Neanderthals, I just read that the latest CSI-like research on bone markings indicates to some scientists, that some of our humankind ancestors ate the Neanderthals into oblivion.
Blessings,
Namaste
Wow, Radiant, check you out - your comment got flagged.
I guess the topic of hunting man-meat is a no-no (unless we're talking about Desperate Housewives).
Namaste,
Yep, that sure sounds like the Homo sapiens I know!
But the "huge root to trip on" you refer to on "Sock-Puppet-Users" is not always so huge!" That's why they use multiple roots! If you bundle them all together you get a whole member! :-D
Man! This thread is really bottom shelf. Talk about "Night of the Neutered NeoCons!"
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Look Sioux. I know you're upset at odd differences out there but you're labelling some as "guilty" by association is only making you worse. So what if we work in odd locations, own gas guzzlers, or whatever as long as it's for our survival which could help you or someone associated with you in return. You can't blame the little guy for everything when it's the system that needs repair. In life, getting a little practical isn't a bad idea. Getting too purist can cause you to crash. Maybe that's what happened to poor Jenny? Sometimes we all have to do the wrong things to win justice but that's life. Nobody's making a bio about you. Your personality is judged by the way you treat others of diverse backgrounds and ideas and so far you're failing at it. Try to improve.
N E B N A T H A N 1,
Your posting exposes more about yourself than about SIOUXROSE.
Please do consider ( perhaps less vindictively ) taking your own advice
"learn to shut up and compromise."
The world is a better place through sharing and our beautiful diversity of thinking -- choice, intention, and attitude are our very powerful freedoms to live as we please -- and those abilities represents much more of our individual realities than most realize ( ~ 10% what happened, 90% what we made of it ).
____________ O _ U _ R ____________
_ R E A L I T Y _ I S _ O N L Y _ O N E _
_______ O F _ T H E _ M A N Y ______
_ P O S S I B L E __ I L L U S I O N S _
Namaste
Nebraska,
I actually like a lot of what Sioux Rose and Jenniferbedingfield have to offer on this site. Sioux may be angry at my owning an SUV but then she'd best be angry at the country for being addicted to them. Anyway, I understand that and I respect her anger. I understand their anger and emotions and I really don't believe those two ladies deserve to be overly insulted. Who knows what each of them went through? It's none of our business. I'm not here to get personal on anybody but here to discuss articles and issues related to it and help moderate somewhat.
We are the Zombie Caterpillar and they are the Parasitic Wasp.
We have no federal government. We are ruled by an entity that, even if we somehow ejected it from our nation, would, and easily, rule the planet from anywhere it deeded to operate from. Its weapons are worldwide. Its bases are worldwide. Its finance is worldwide. They even operate from the highest ground: Space.
The human force of the most deadliest are now centralized.
What it might bestow upon the rest of humanity at this point is anyone's guess. Personally, I see some culling to begin at some point.
Orwell's comments re "permanent war" in the "War is Peace" section of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR are worth reviewing in this regard.
smendler,
It's just amazing how accurate Orwell was isn't it? He just should have titled it "2014." We now live in a police state staring at the "telescreen" hoping it isn't watching us (PC's can now do this.)
Well, no matter. For me and my house, we shall serve the Constitution.
TJ
"The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No Nation could preserve it's freedom in the midst of continual warfare." - JAMES MADISON, Political Observations, April 20, 1795.
You got that right. We're in Orwellian hell where even some people who call themselves "progressives" are no less warmongers than those they accuse of.
The quality of life in the empire, excuse me the fatherland, but that's not correct either, the home land is unsustainable. Just as the article describes, choices are made for the short term by a hierarchy who spreads fear in a way that paralyzes the majority of the populace into a state, that when given the choice to survive or hold onto antiquated value systems they chose the same paradigm that is slowly killing everything.
On the other side of this dilemma we have those that can think for themselves, but cannot come to a consensus on the basic premise's that could begin the long term choice making process. That leaves only the dogmatic rhetoric that continues to be thrown about, this continues to keep us separate.
History, ancient and recent seems to point in the direction that operating within the structure of all but a few cultures, not many of their inhabitants could make these choices. This culture along with its abusive hierarchy will not have ability or courage to make those long term choices for the survival of its populace.
The problems facing the inhabitants of this island while not insurmountable are beyond solution by the choice makers of whom we scrutinize on these and other political pages, and no amount of critique is going to change them.
Civilization as we know it is irredeemable; it is not sustainable and never has been. That the effects of the poor choices made hundreds( maybe thousands) of years ago are now just coming to light, only shows that the inhabitants of this culture could not then with the knowledge they had acquired perceive the unanticipated consequences of their choices now facing the humans who have to live with those choices.
War is a choice, pollution is a choice, deforestation is a choice, degradation of the land mass is a choice, degradation of the oceans is a choice, boiling water with flesh killing radiation is a choice, living sustainable with our fellow humans is a choice, being a soldier slave is a choice. These choices will be the hardest we make and the wrong choices will most likely not affect anyone but our children, and grandchildren.
We now return you to you regularly televised world.
Sioux Rose
CLASH: Good post, however, as per your last paragraph where you delineate ALL the issues that simultaneously face us, isn't it disingenous to then make a lack of consensus on WHICH issue to claim as most noteworthy the central problem? You know the line about herding cats. The right wing is by nature into following rules, the father-figure and lining up in formation. That is THEIR program. Progressives are usually responsive to a NUMBER of issues and they are all important. And we see persons aggregating around these causes.
I agree that many of the conditions that have become established go back hundreds, even thousands of years if one takes into account the powerful socialization instrument utilized by the orthodox patriarchal religions. After all, these have set demarcations between tribes, implied that stupidity and avarice on the part of human beings (and the outcomes those behaviors generate) are indicative, or point the way to "God's" will. Religions have taught the lie of "dominion over" and turned nature into "private property."
Between Marilyn Ferguson's "The Aquarian Conspiracy," with insights from Alvin Toffler's, "Future Shock," added to the experimental directions taken by the thousands who attend "The World Social Forum," we cannot presume that the shortcomings of yesterday's paradigm hold or can limit the answers for what is currently evolving. The possible continues to astound us. Necessity is the Mother of invention and there's a whole lot of necessity going round!
Sioux Rose;
Apology's for not being able through the written word to convey that it is my premise that all these issues and more take center stage, and all are of like importance. That failure to address anyone of these problems may lead to the same disastrous out come for future humans.
This premise presumes that while any thing is possible, history is an indicator of how choices are made and perceived. The history's of choices made by an abusive hierarchy are clear in their effects on the native, non-native, non human populations, and the land mass they presume to own. Focus is the determining factor if we are determined to change the present paradigm, and those of us who are free people have to agree finally that this culture is killing us, and that historically all attempts to stop or slow down this system while having momentary effects have failed. The question I propose is, what is it going to take before we begin to defend ourselves against this abusive culture? For myself I am ready to walk.
Sioux Rose
CLASH: No apology necessary, friend. Don't you think more and more people are getting it, walking away or being forced out their niches as banks played domino games with their mortgages, or insurance agents tossed a coin on their access to health care, or politicians made noise about caring while leaving most out to dry, including the beloved "help our troops." The betrayals have only just begun; but out of the losses come new and better choices, and there are so many inroads into these new avenues happening in South America, a few in India.
Years ago at a Unity Church lecture the minister explained that consciousness was like an ocean liner. Once we change it, like that bulky vehicle, it takes time to implement the shift in actual logistical direction(s). With or without humanity's vote, the forces of nature, the global economy, and the proliferation of senseless war are causing a karmic trifecta. I don't believe the status quo will be ABLE to remain.
It's always good to have an attitude of gratitude, so when I have the luxury of a pizza and a glass of wine, or can sit and watch a DVD gotten for $3 at the local flea market I tell myself, THESE are the memories that one day may be like vitamins for the soul... as we remember what were relatively good times, should the whole thing come crashing (like Goliath falling) down around us.
Some may get the direct impact of a tidal wave (perhaps even literally), while others may have to cope by treading high water. It's doubtful than any of us will be entirely removed, particularly if we have open hearts and empathy for the changes taking place. Sometimes a storm must come to cleanse the air and soil before new life can grow.
Frank
I think the best way to put your idea into action is for the United States to emulate the idea behind one of my buttons which wisely observes:
"Draft the rich-it's their war[s]."
The upside to permanent war is that a handful of American corporations get to pocket billions and billions of present and future taxpayer bucks!
We're Number One in arms sales! Whoo hoo!
Golly gee, frank, I never thought about it that way. So we do live in the most perfect of all possible worlds!
Actually, a perfect world would be the re-starting of a draft. Then we could spread more freedom to more freedom-haters while curing our rising unemployment situation...
Why in hell did Hedges include Ahmadinejad as a 'moral and intellectual troll'? Answer: Hedges is insane. In his last article he equated the US, the world's most advanced country, who has gone halfway around the world to attack a defenseless indigenous population, with those being attacked. He cast persons defending their own land as depraved murderers, and lamented that we were 'becoming like them'. If only. If the US stayed within its own damn borders their wouldn't be any war.
Ahmadinejad is doing what is necessary to defend his own country against what is by all odds an imminent attack by the US and/or the Israelis. He is a moral and courageous leader.
Plus, he tells the truth about the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine. For that he cannot be forgiven in the US media.
And, beyond that, he tells the truth about the holocaust. Why in hell does anyone who questions it get thrown in jail in Europe, in Canada, and in Australia? No discussion whatever is permitted in the US media or academia. What are they hiding?
perhaps this is a novel concept for you, but it's possible to be critical of *both/all* sides in a conflict.
"he tells the truth about the holocaust"? hmmmm.....
In a just world the voice of Chris Hedges would
be replacing that of Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes or Bob Schieffer on Face The Nation. But it is quite doubtful if the corporate media would allow a truth teller like Mr. Hedges to penetrate into the minds of the American public and to allow someone to be heard who dares to question and challenge the war mentality of the United States government.
"War is the force that gives our lives meaning." Read it and weep. Add (White) Male Supremacy; Gender Slavery (Malcolm X - No 2nd class only Free or Slave); Human Slavery; & Feral Oligarchy and you have described our culture wars, our insistence on Exclusion as the founding principle of our Society, and our final collective descent into feral bestiality as a people. It's NOT the Leaders - WHITE AMERICA MADE THOSE LEADERS. (White America: 87% in '65; 70% in 2000. Melanin deficient White America IS America.)
White America produced the society around us when they decided they wanted RMN to, "...put those filthy fucking niggers, those ugly fucking cunts, and those goddamned long hair commie pinko fucking anti-war protesters in their fucking place." That's a quote folks, I was there and it came out of White America's mouth from East to West and was said in more "polite media" in more "dignified" but no less virulent language...When White America chose Exclusion, they chose Hell On Earth...
45 years ago, waaay waaay back then, White America had the greatest distribution of wealth ever seen in 6000 years of human history. The END of poverty in this country forever was in sight, LIFETIME stable employment was on the horizon. Both of them now would not even be topics of conversation they would be established FACT in our society. White America had a major anxiety attack fueled by their perceived "total loss of identity". That identity was forged around White Male Supremacy; Gender Slavery; Constant War & the Rights of Conquest; and feral Oligarchy as the ultimate expression of sadomasochistic Authoritarian Patriarchy. Without these, White America (males) had/has NO identity at all.
The solution then is the solution now: Make an equal place for Everyone at the table (Everyone); reject war and the rights of conquest as anything other than arrested infantile development and possible symptoms of psychosis; and eliminate feral Oligarchy as a social class. That's it. That's all it takes. No more Nightmare Planet - and we would then fulfill the promise of our words if not our deeds.
Mr. Hedges points the way, follow the arrows...
Peece...
oops, dupe post. sorry
I'm surprised the article didn't mention the militarism of the former Empire of Japan. That was another nation that bowed before the alter of 'glorious war'. Like the usa the Empire of J was highly militarized and could only find meaning in attacking other countries. Unless the usa goes broke, the end of this process is another major war between industrial nations; one that will end with mushroom clouds, because no nation with nukes will go down like Germany or Japan did.
Your point about the Japanese Empire is well taken. Their brutality matched the Nazis, in spirit if not in numbers of victims. The Japanese militarists mostly came from the bottom of society since the military was the only way out of abject poverty. They came from the same place as our own militias, street gangs and fire-in-the-belly evangelical fanatics. And the result, as we all are living through, is precisely the same.
[Their brutality matched the Nazis, in spirit if not in numbers of victims]
I'm not sure about that, the Japanese didn't build death camps like the Germans did, but they certainly killed their fair share of people; e.g. the Rape of Nanking. China lost a heck of a lot of humans to violence during the 30s and 40s, and sorting out who was killed by the Japanese, the Nationalists or the Communists is just about impossible.
I don't think the Chinese have that much difficulty sorting out whether Chinese citizens were murdered by the Japanese or by others. And, by the way, the "Rape of Nanking" is some kind of US feminist relabeling of what the Chinese know as "The Nanjing Massacre" (my wife grew up in Nanjing and she should know). The Nanjing Massacre involved the murder of over 400,000 Chinese civilians (unarmed men, women, and children) by the Japanese with the express purpose of genocide to create living space for the Japanese. Few too Americans understand that the Japanese were every bit the genocidal maniacs the Germans were.
[I don't think the Chinese have that much difficulty sorting out whether Chinese citizens were murdered by the Japanese or by others.]
I think you'd find that the Communists blame most of the deaths on the Japs and the Nationalists. The Nationalists would blame the Japs and the commies. The Japanese - it would seem - would rather not talk about that period of history at all.
The term 'Rape of Nanking' is what was used in the original sources of the media and in most history texts. It wasn't just a 'feminist' issue, and if the event is now called the 'Nanjing Massacre' I'd say it was renamed by the people who wrote the chinese historys after 1949.
I suggest their brutality far exceeded the Germans, think of the Bataan Death March, The Burma Railway-where over 100,000 died in its construction, and the Japanese POW Camps had a death rate of 40%.
Brutality is brutality, the Germans matched the Bataan Death March with equivalant marches of Soviet POWs - I can't remember what the percentage of sov pows who survived the war was, I do know that Stalin had a good number of them shot or imprisoned as german spies and/or traitors...
That period of human history is quite bloody. We're quite lucky that we've not decended into a repeat of those times, given our history over the last few millenia however...
when the governing act in their own interests, and not the interests of the governed, their dependent consituents, the governing must be held accountable for their own acts, and the governed viewed as children, at best, chattel, at worst...political party is irrelevant, but to perpetuate the process of maintaining power via pseudo-choice...
the individual must battle three fronts: one, his own government working against him; two, his natural world divided up with no place for him but as a wage-earner; and, three, the psychological training he receives via the state to maintain his willingness to exist within such systems...
when you don't know what to do, petition your representatives...when that produces nothing, garden...gardening will produce good food...gardening will remind you of the inter-relatedness of all things...gardening will get you away from the evil tv, and out into the blessed sunshine, the warm dirt and the myriad creatures...
It is the crude, terrifying tirade of mediocrities who find their identities and power in the perpetuation of permanent war.
Toss Obama in there along with Bush and Cheney. In the area of permanent war, he's no less mediocre than they are, though he certainly loves to think that he is not.
Once again, Chris Hedges presents it in such an irrefutable way that it makes me want to help fix it. But where the hell do we start?