The Lion, the Phoenix, and the
Serpent: To Renew or Revive, Looking Back on One of Five
Sun's
up, umm hummph, looks okay
The world
survives into another day
And I'm thinking
about eternity
Some kind
of ecstasy's got a hold on me
I had another
dream about lions at the door
They weren't
half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking
about eternity
Some kind
of ecstasy's got a hold on me
(Influenced
by The Place of the Lion (below) and one of those days when
the world
came close to ending. If we were not so "protected" from
knowledge
of such days we long ago would have made the world safer.
Our ignorance
and delusions are become more expensive daily.)
"No
mind was so good that it did not need another mind to counter and equal
it, and to save it from conceit and blindness and bigotry and folly. Only
in such a balance could humility be found, humility which was a lucid speed
to welcome lucidity whenever and wherever it presented itself." ...
"The comedy
--- but this was no comedy; the fierceness of the Lion was no comedy, nor
any of those other apparitions, unless the Lamb . . . The Lion and the
Lamb --- and a little child shall lead them. Lead them where? Even a little
child was in its own mind presumably leading them somewhere. Or perhaps
not, perhaps a little child would be content just to lead. The Lion and
the Lamb --- if this were the restored balance? Friendship --- love ---
had something in it at once strong and innocent, leonine and lamblike.
By friendship, by love, these great Virtues became delicately known. Apart
from such love and friendship they were merely destructive and helpless;
man was never meant to be subjected to them, unless by the offering up
of of his being to "divine Philosophy." In that very chair he had been
mocked by Foster for hoping to rule the principles of creation, and he
had answered that he had promised to do everything to help Damaris. How
far such a profound intention sufficed to rule these principles he did
not know --- more perhaps than man normally thought. The balance in things
--- the Lion and the Lamb, the Serpent and the Phoenix, the Horse and the
Unicorn: ideas as they were visualized and imagined --- if these could
be led . . . if . . ."
The
Place of the Lion, Charles Williams, 1931, Pg. 214
[Note: I am not
sure about reviving, but it was time to decide whether to renew the domains
for another year, so at least that decision has been decided and in the
past for now. New writings may come after some retrospections. This is
one of the latter, some of the best bits of a year of posts at TruthRevival.Org,
which actually for the moment at least, is still registered if not active.]
I have always been fascinated by
words, with their capacity to not only let us express ourselves, but that
they are the palette of how to frame what we have to think about. They
spring up when an idea or event comes up which we feel the need to express
to others. They are a paper trail, when recorded in a written language,
of where we have been before, when new concepts emerged which needed short
well-defined sounds of themselves, apart from all others, to be named as
a single and separate thing, a word distinct, self-inclusive. ...
In addition to writing as a non-expert
about words and my fascination with them, I have written about the danger
of polemic thinking, such as good and evil, because this leads to identical
actions of each side, supposedly for different causes or hoping for different
effects. Step back far enough and you see they are the same thing, use
the same methods, are two sides of the same coin, and ultimately the same
concept. ...
My fascination with words has framed
much of my life. In my teens I started writing poetry seriously and was
taken in with the concept of using multiple levels of meaning with the
fewest words possible, the swordplay of wordplay, the essence of communication.
That is what religions teach as well from the earliest of recorded histories,
using stories or parables to convey deeper meanings you cannot either say
outright because of the unquestioning times you live in, or that they need
to be embodied in people, real or imagined, to become relevant, fleshed
out, comprehensible. And that is the essence of deeper levels of meaning
to what is written, how different others might see it, for it is the diversity
of perception and what different life experiences possible readers bring
to bear which gives poetry and other types of attempted 'positive'
double-speech,
their supposed deeper levels. Saying two things at once, or more, or far
more with the same words, requires these other minds and mindsets to speak
to to give them these multiple meanings at once.
And you cannot speak to them without
knowledge of them. The tragedy of America in these days is the
'writing off' of other culture's views, especially upon our own
actions, as irrelevant and uninformed. To not want to see and know yourself
from other culture's points of views, I have said before, not only makes
you something ugly, something deformed in the light of general human development,
it is to write off their perspectives as meaningless. They might as well
not exist. And in that light as in so many other nations in the past, we
are doing 'good' to 'remove'
them.
It is a myth of the left and progressives
that Americans are peaceful and would never advocate genocide. They, the
left, are as wrapped in their own perspectives as much as the Neo-Conservatives
are in choosing to see the world according to their own beliefs rather
than see the uncomfortable reality of the situation around them. I know
to a great extent neither self-delusions of the left or right is absolute,
that both know their mindsets are false, but think by openly promoting
them whenever possible as true will make them real, or at least more real.
...
In China, the obvious threat is of
Western ideas of liberty, now ironically available in practice to their
own wealthiest elite at home, to single party rule. Yet at least there
is change going on there. America has become the dinosaur of political
change compared to almost anywhere else in the world, China, Russia, India,
the European Union (which most Americans know almost
nothing about), and has become notable in recent political evolution
changes only for its erosion of freedoms and increasing absence of regard
for human rights. Secret prisons, kidnappings, torture, election rigging,
funding and arming civil wars (all sides)
and terrorist groups in countries it does not like, holding people without
trials, spying on journalists, whistle-blowers, demonstrators, wrong voters,
and on and on. And keeping Americans ignorant of how the rest of the world
sees us now puts our own elites hold on power tenuous. Thus our "news"
networks
instead of informing us of our transgressions and slide instead mock the
rest of the world for being 'uncivilized'
and 'resenting our freedoms.' ...
And within that are the great lessons
of Eastern thought, Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen: the need to recognize the
limitations of languages, and by extension, of cultures, as contextual,
limited in scope to those they were originally developed within or for,
but needing constant expansion and having that past, that foundation, being
put in new contexts through new experiences and greater histories which
they cannot contain without constricting them. Constricted growth is as
close to death as it is to life. Growth must be free of the limitations
of languages, of single cultures, of single ideologies, of single types
of governmental or economic systems, or it is not growth at all, merely
attempted sameness, death of better ideas, preventing new words, new concepts,
new systems from emerging. ...
I began my own philosophical search
as a cultural relativist, have moved beyond it, yet am astounded and disheartened
beyond measure to see my own culture, America, slam cultural relativism,
as something trite, irrelevant, even a fashion without substance. It has
become a victim of its own hyped up self-importance, a media preaching
that ignorance is better than knowledge. There has been so much of a backlog
of falsehood, misrepresentation, propaganda, and outright self-destructive
lying to the American people by the Bush Administration of the 21st century
that as it begins to get exposed, has the potential to point us, and because
of our possibly undue influence or control over the rest of the world,
to point the world on a new and better path as we begin once more to speak
what we believe to be the truth. We need to try to know what is outside
of ourselves, what lies outside of our bodies, minds, beliefs, mindsets
and national borders, that is not irrelevant, not without truths of their
own which we do not destroy without destroying our own ability to grow.
The truth will begin to be let out
more and more. We in the West, we need to demand a media that shows us
to us as the rest of the world knows us, so we may see what they do and
we do not. To see ourselves from the most points of view. To see ourselves
from the most points of approximations or representations of truth that
may not be true in individuality, but in sum, in total, in the view we
are purposely now kept from seeing, comes as close to the truth as we will
ever get without retreating into our own unquestioning assumptions, dogma,
propaganda, hubris, and self-delusions. We have become and have been led
by the embodiment of such a dark path of willful ignorance. Yet a new path
has already begun. It is young yet, this truth telling, and its fate depends
upon the actions of millions of others to survive against the legacy we
have spun, yet I have faith in it. I have faith that it will grow, that
it will survive, and it will dominate the lies, at least in the short term,
and at least of the recent past.
In defining the No Maas moment as
when a new, more critical angle is taken by the press corps which threatens
to add to, or fuel, the rising popular discontent, I have long ago decided
that such a moment in the USSR occurred when the Lithuanian TV station
was attacked on-air by Soviet troops. Not only was it a blow to the growing
independence of the press under Gorbachev's Glasnost program, it was a
threat pointed at the press itself, an outright desire for control.
At such turning points, which need
not to lead to effective political changes or upheavals to be considered
turning points, the press begins to favor the popular movements which previously
were ignored, marginalized or demonized in their coverage, or simply shut
out completely. It often involves journalists willing to put their careers
on the line, their family's security, and even their very lives on the
line. They, as much as they can, go off-script, say "We
were lying to you before, don't believe what we were telling you. We were
being used. Until we are fired or arrested, we will try to do better from
now on, or at least for as long as we can financially hold out."
...
Indeed,the abuses of this Bush Administration
are so far reaching in their criminality even the Democrats can appreciate
that exposing them would be a threat to national security and our image.
What they don't realize is that that image outside the concentric bubbles
of the Washington beltway and American ignorance of the relevance of other
countries legitimate views of us as out-of-control, is long dead anyway.
Likewise, our very national security is no longer served by keeping covered
these festering and poisonous actions, treacherous when not treasonous.
Yet instead, greed to those who make
their careers and tax cuts, their access to power and all its perks and
privileges possible, and even loyalty to that common grouping that politicians
and those who cover them now can be thought to comprise, these have kept
them from openly asserting that what they are being asked to put out they
often know to be lies and disinformation. The backhanded
'corrections'
about previous lies are meaningless, when they are even called outright
lies, because it does not affect, or has not yet affected, the ability
to put out new ones completely unchallenged.
America's No Maas moment this April,
if it indeed proves in hindsight to be one, is interesting because of its
timing in relation to the impending attack on Iran, intended not only to
silence such quibbles, such as "who killed who"
or "who spied on who" or "which
government leaders committed which felonies or treasonous acts against
the Constitution," but rather instead shift the debate to who is
trying to undermine our leaders ability to manage his self-imposed World
War III. Without nerve such a stand now is the ultimate brand of futility.
Yet when has honor had anything to
do gauging the chances of success?
I will write the Dalai Lama article
soon I hope, the one I thought of on the bus not so long ago, and I will
try to tone it down as best I can. I do not wish to offend anyone, least
of all him. I will try to find the time to touch the most important bases
of what I think should be said soon, as waiting too long, the muse dies.
Through the time until recently when
I was forced to remain silent, not easy for me, I found refuge in these
words I wrote. "Hesitation is a myth. You know somewhere
inside yourself what you will do if you have enough time to do it by the
time you are ready to do it. If you do not have the time to do it by the
time you are ready to do it, perhaps it ought not to have been done."
If only it were always that easy.
Too much left undone by myself and others has made the future that much
harder and more difficult. While I am usually the first to say,
"Yeah, right on, make it as difficult as possible," one does not
have to look far to see how many near and far suffer the brunt of the pain
our inactions, and the suffering it causes. Lucky are those can be detached
from the sufferings of our mistakes spreading like wildfires, but for those
who still have hopes invested in the future, detachment and silence is
becoming untenable. Much now ought to have been done that wasn't, so being
ready or not is becoming less of an issue everyday.
It is a spiral that has its end when
one realizes that those being repressed now will write their own histories
one day. Every one of the hundreds of thousands, soon to be millions, of
innocent deaths done, "collateral damage,"
by our present criminal wars of aggressions, any one of them could be that
nation's Christ, that innocent victim of barbarous injustice to rally their
culture for generations upon generations against what we have put them
through, that hell, while we literally piss on their graves when saying
it we were doing it to "help" them. They are
waking up. Their sense of history will show their truths, truer than the
ones we try to plant in their media, stronger than the leaderships or types
of governments we "approve" of for them, and
they will prevail where they should, in their own lands, as hopefully we,
the self-critical ones, will one day prevail again in our own.
The courage of the weak I have seen,
those who stand up to the strong, not by confronting them, just trying
to live without being unreasonably taunted, yet never willing to do what
the majority would, to be complicit in that wrongness, to me I know this
as the strongest strength. By what I went through, at times by choice,
cannot compare to what others more unable to blend in, unable to protect
themselves, have gone through with a dignity through their worse taunting,
their greater humiliations, and though shaming all those who laughed at
them in ways the crowds could not see or would ever admit, outshone without
measure those who mistreated them, the 'stronger',
the 'popular', the ones everyone wanted to
be with, if only to be left alone and not taunted or abused by them....The
only question was which way to lose which would have kept the most pride
intact.
... You cannot make a wrong battle,
an unjust fight right by 'winning' it, for
that is a contradiction in terms. There is no 'collateral
damage' in this war. There are no 'accidental'
civilian deaths. There is only murders, being done by them, being done
by us. Children no less valuable than our own, no less sacred, no less
worthy of every opportunity this world has to offer being killed every
hour in a conflict which could be de-escalated the moment we as a people,
through forcing our reluctant and cowardly 'representatives'
simply
to admit it was wrong. Not that it was a bad judgment, not that it was
poorly executed. It was wrong, morally wrong, inexcusable, reprehensible,
and entirely for the wrong reasons.
To this America must rededicate itself
to, to creating such a future democratic order that codifies the values
in practice that we still mouth in rote, yet have been as of late abandoning
in droves. We must reaffirm that freedom of thought, of expression without
fear of being labeled a terrorist or of recrimination, the rights of citizens
to oppose governments, even our own, when they think they have erred, and
one that curtails any rights only when in the most extreme cases imaginable,
and never without debate and consent of those who lose or are asked to
give up such rights. Such orders and world governments will come about
one day, and if this dark present is any guide, they will come about over
our objections and not by our examples, or with our aid.
America has become like an old king,
unwilling to pass on the kingdom to our heirs, forgetting that it was only
given to us as a loan, was not and never to be ours to own.
It was one of those times I picked
the right battle at the right time for after trying to punish me at the
Principal's Office (4th grade), it was determined
I had that right and she had to back down and allow me to wear it in class.
There was no being dragged off in hand-cuffs and charging a child with
disruption of the peace for wearing a symbol of peace, no need for lawsuits,
no suspension needing to be appealed to the Supreme Court. I had rights
then. I had the right state Peace was a better path than War, and I had
a right to wear it proudly around my neck at school if I so chose, and
no one, at least at that time, could take that right away from me, at least
not succeed in that attempt.
Times have changed no doubt. The
President of the United States of America himself had no compunction against
going on national television and telling people they ought to be careful
what they say in public from on now. Those who publicly question an illegal
war of aggression, even great-grandmothers carrying posters of peace symbols,
are monitored by the police, and if one is in the army, one can be suspended
or imprisoned for speaking out against even an illegal war. There is no
one backing up those who choose to rebel in the name of peace today, at
least not at the highest levels. The higher up you go now, the more insanity
and suspicion and fear rule the day and the minds of the new 'deciders'
on
what is and is not proper self-expression these days.
Perhaps I was hoping for someone,
if that was the case, if they are not so apolitical to not even think,
to every last man and woman or boy and girl, to make a symbol of peace
on their own poster or placard on their own graduation day of their own
values, maybe just one might have tried to sneak one into the picture.
Or spontaneous peace signs of the fingers if that was not possible before
each and every picture was taken. But I fear that that has been taught
out of them, or not taught to them. It is more likely they could have made
such symbols, and simply thought not to, or even more likely, did not think
of it at all.
.. Television, society at large,
so many factors make people think they know what people would or would
not say or think about many things, often asking them seems superfluous
or unnecessary. Worse yet is when we are so caught in believing in a culture's
predispositions that we do not even question to ourselves what we really
think about things because we think that there is no need. Its what we
should think, ... and never reflect on why or how we came to settle into
such perspectives unquestioningly in the first place, or never realize
consciously we have done so. ... When we get caught up in that, we become
blind to those standing right in front of us, and unfortunately only even
notice those people whom cannot be pigeon-holed because we can tell their
experiences or perspectives touch upon things we cannot readily say we
know or understand, those are the only ones that stick out at all as being
noteworthy or memorable.
When this happens, when the unusual
or unexpected cross our paths, when the time is right, they are the best
means of growth we will ever get, not only to learn about something new,
but reawaken that connection in yourself to asking the most basic of questions,
"what
happened to you," "what did you think about it," "how did you get here,"
"what did you learn from it?" If not to tell you, believe it or
not, they live to tell and communicate that to someone, and we honor them
not by remaining silent, but by occasionally risking getting our heads
bit off by letting them know whenever they are ready to tell us, that we
are eager to hear that.
What is interesting about the above
quotes is what "would happen" "if" without
mentioning or sufficiently imploring that such is already the case. The
fact is it is the official position of the government of the United States
that says all of these "terrible" things they
write about as if in hindsight or as if it can be avoided, are already
the law of the land and are indisputably going on, and that no one has
to fear arrest or accountability on doing or having done such things on
behalf of the adminstration, ever. The US openly has stated the Geneva
Conventions do not apply, and that while it does not "torture"
or "kidnap" people, it does "alternative
interrogations" and "extraordinarily renders"
people for such treatment, (and sometimes to places
where they can be "legally no mincing words about it"... tortured, though
it is usually conveniently out of our hands at that point ("they promised
they would not "torture" them" beyond somebody's definition of the word)).
It is not that the President asking for such rights, legal or not, because
they are ongoing, recognized as policy with the full sanctioning of the
Justice Department and the Congress, and despite some rare exceptions,
even the courts.
The "political
system" of the United States, with few squabbling and ineffectual
protestations considered "partisan" really
has no problems with these things. And the American public and the Military
are getting used to it as well, for the more such things are exposed and
nothing is done to stop it, the more "legal"
it becomes, rightly or wrongly. The fact is the full weight of the US government
will be in trying to appeal the Al-Marri decision, and it is the official
position of the acting authorities that despite whatever misgivings this
or that lower courts or even the Supreme Court may have, such things will
continue, have continued, and will be continued no matter what the courts
throw up as roadblocks.
The problem is, for those whom these
are more than just stories, they are heavily indoctrinated or raised to
defer to those who play such super cards of unquestionable authority. He
is God, he is Jesus, he is Superman, he is the President, he is the King,
he could not possibly be leading us astray / taking advantage of us / trying
to wreck our economy / country / reputation. Such blindness makes it so
damn easy, no matter how much you warn people about it, they just never
are willing to wrap their little heads around the concept.
EVERYONE has good and bad in them,
possibly in equal measures. These can be brought out in numerous ways under
extremely varied, and sometimes extreme circumstances. And to those who
think they are above or beyond such mistakes or transgressions of their
self-image, it makes it that much more tempting and fun to do to them.
Even the most holy god-like people among us can be broken, and Lord knows
there has been enough studies done on torture to know which buttons to
push in people to bring out the worst. Others are intuitive and can sense
weakness in others, blindness, and can zero in on how to manipulate them
without even having to torture large numbers of people in their cultures
to know how to do so.
The wisest people in the past knew
this to be the case. No one is to be trusted with vast amounts of power.
It is not the man (or woman) but the position
itself which corrupts, corrodes, and destroys their very souls. Trying
to obtain that much power is weakening and suspect in itself, holding onto
it for long is fatal to the goodness inherent within anyone.
The stronger or more immune one is
by office or social structure from the rules that govern others which do
not apply to oneself, the longer one can go on making mistakes and not
paying a price for them, the more people one can harm or destroy with lessening
guilt, and literally the weightier the misdeeds grow, the more able one
becomes to shrug them all off and deceive oneself more than it is possible
to deceive others, no matter how great their "power".
That is the moral which has ceased
to be passed on. It needs to be embodied in others, it needs to be played
out endlessly from one generation to the next. It is in the cards so long
as people defer to anyone. The greater the prostration, the greater the
havoc wrecked by those who claim a title no one should hold, a sole decider,
savior, judge, juror, and executioner.
For awhile, America, for all its
many many faults, did push back against this. The king and even the notion
of a divine right of kings was overthrown, and the President was subservient
in power to the legislature. This new model was held up to a world ruled
by claimers of divine right to rule and pass on that right to their heirs
or chosen heirs.
Now this has reversed itself. America
itself has asserted it has a divine right to rule given to it by God. Though
it speaks of "democratizing" the world, the
"democracy"
it entails is one subservient to Washington more so than to its own people,
and even the best PR firms of Madison Avenue cannot make the complete lack
of legitimacy of the Iraq or the Palestinian governments to do what its
people wish against American interests look "democratic"
except to the most ardently mislead and uninformed about the reality on
the ground. America has now permanently poisoned the very word "Democracy"
for many all over the world, by such unthinkably flagrant and destructive
misuse, far beyond any means to see it in any other way than intentionally.
We are the ultimate bad Superman destroying our own reputation inestimably.
Though many have rightly claimed
that this destruction is not limited to this present Bush Administration,
that it is merely continuing policies begun by both Democratic and Republican
Presidents and Congresses, the idea of democracy, what vestige of it still
remains at home, is that a change of administration can herald a change
of direction. "That is not us anymore," a
new President is thought to be able to proclaim upon taking office. "I
will undo these mistakes or at least try to make them right," one
can hope a new President will promise. The bad Superman has been vanquished.
The good Superman has returned and we must look to the future and give
back the trust.
But the trust will not return. There
was no bad Superman from an alternate Universe to blame our mistakes on.
No Democratic candidate currently running is advocating anything drastic
enough or different enough to justify belief in any significant course
change to how the US has conducted itself these last 6 years. The lies
will continue, either from a different Republican
or Democratic white man or woman, or from
a Black man or Hispanic President. Pre-emptive war will not be
"off-the-table", threats of regime change of countries that displease
us will continue, arms races desired by the corporations which control
both parties will increase for the state subsidized guaranteed profits
they will generate, and the world will not have much more reason to trust
us later than now.
But they will have to, we think.
Our musical chairs, feigned course changes or slight alternations deemed
to give to our home population that hope that the future will get better,
we think will still spill over to the rest of the world. We do spend countless
billions to plant positive stories in foreign press about ourselves, and
they get to watch our own propagandized channels and "entertainment"
shows (which praise our armed services / CIA / Presidency,
etc.) without cost to our government. It is inherent in people to
want to hope though. They want to give us the benefit of the doubt that
we will not be overthrown completely and plunge the world into a hellish
power vacuum, though every day we are inching toward making more and more
of the world think, "how could that possibly be worse
that what we are offered now?"
To much of the rest of the world
though, they have it bad enough that that end, the end of American hedgmony,
cannot come soon enough. Among the richest countries, though our image
is tarnished, they remember how we took the heat and did the dirty deeds
during the Cold War to keep their economies safe. They may not be grateful
and they may realize more than our own citizens how we were getting rich
off of that conflict through raping most of the developing world through
puppet governments terrorizing their own publics, but they have much stake
in keeping the US-based economic system healthy. They want to believe the
myth if not the reality of the good Superman is not dead, or at least that
a less psychotic one is on the way. Their continued positions as higher
than the rest of the world in comforts and economic advantages depend on
it. But to more and more of the rest of the world every year, they see
only the benefits of our continued implosion.
The problem is, and I have tried
to emphasize this as much as the dangers of attacking Iran, the unpredictability
of weapons development. New types of weapons are evolving in ways that
will not only put current ones to shame, but will be cheaper and more widely
available. Every system of government may soon come apart at the seams.
Russia has recognized one avenue pending with trying to limit the availability
of its major ethnicity's DNA, but that is simply impossible and even laughable
with so many diasporate Russians. America, other than sort of having a
"ruling
class" of whites which its government might seek to protect, is
less at risk, but China has both the greatest vulnerability and is the
greatest threat for developing such ethnicity based DNA biological weapons,
and also was the first to unlock the code of human DNA as well. Yet biologicals
and other types of weapons we can name today are merely the tip of the
iceberg of what is in the works for the next 50, 20, or even 10 years.
Neo-Cons and generals unfortunately
have deluded themselves enough to think that having enough weapons pointed
at every corner of the earth, even from space can protect American hedgmony
but that is beyond even the most wishful thinking. Other than mass liquidation
of populations so massive that a word stronger than genocide will have
to be formulated, in the end it will as now only create more hatred and
more unacceptable risks to all but those profiting from making the weapons
systems. Armistice, the most hated and feared word of those running America
today, at the tops of BOTH political parties, is the ONLY course of survival
that has even a negligible chance of long term success. The only question
is how many will have to die before the real discussions begin.
I have seen countless reasons why
and how the police and courts have been used now to target people for investigations
who have been deemed inconvenient to powerful people or interests, and
once the police become used as a weapon, you no longer have any semblance
of living in a fair and just society. (I see something
you bought used may or may not have been stolen, You may or may not have
known that email attachment / download link may have let to illegal software
or other material (easiest way someone can be set up or to scare the shit
out them just with spam because even trying to erase it can be a crime)
(I was in Florida when a judge blew his brains out in his office when arrested
for pornography legal in most of Florida except for his town, gotta love
Florida's sense of "justice" and "morality"), Voters on your list may have
given false names / false addresses (especially those non-entities called
homeless people who rank right up there with felons) and your candidate
/ employee / volunteer may or may not have known about it, Your article
/ post may or may not have incited or may or may not possibly incite someone
to commit a crime if it was critical of the government / President / police
/ courts, XYZ Corporation, a millionaire, billionaire, rich people in general,
anyone powerful in general, etc. and been read by someone prior to committing
a crime, and everyone's favorite reason for a criminal investigation, You
might have lied about cheating on your wife). Once investigations
of ANYONE can be launched on spurious grounds because of questionable reasons,
once selective enforcement of laws is used to political ends, or powerful
or rich people are excluded because they are more able to fight back and
have the dubious nature of why they were targeted exposed, or have connections
which would make such charges or sentences go away later, you do not have
a country or legal system which is not ultimately controlled by a gang
of criminals.
There were two things relevant to
this which I learned from studying Russia and the Soviet Union recently
in the FSU. One of which is how the Communists took control of Eastern
Europe. Most Americans like to think it was violently, though force and
the threat of force were obviously factors. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan,
the occupation forces in Eastern Europe were already on the ground and
in their countries. A compromise was worked out with the newly reconstituted
governments, through intimidation but "legal"
that because a significant number of the people were legitimately Communists,
and since the Soviets were there, that a power sharing arrangement would
be worked out. "Just give us control of the police,"
was basically what was requested. With that, obviously, they were able
to steal everything else. A few questionable elections later, and low and
behold, everything was safely in their hands.
Another is how criminals now outsource
their protection enforcement to the police. Why kill someone or try to
destroy their lives if they cross / displease you when you have a corrupted
legal system which will not only do it for you, but which includes its
built-in insurance against police questioning? It is the ultimate criminal
one-stop-shopping. When innocent people routinely die in jail awaiting
trial on obviously set-up or bogus charges, or when merely the threat of
being charged with a specific crime is so damaging to ones life or would
devastate their families financially, and when asking the police for help
is basically dealing with the same loose knit organization of cooperative
actors, criminals and police and politicians are all on the same page and
profit from the same convergence of interests.
But that is Russia, you might say.
Big Bad Scary Russia. That could never happen in the good ol' US of A!
People have a sense that the attorney scandal was the tip of a greater
manipulation of the legal system. Some even suspect that it could be part
of an overall strategy that includes illegal wiretaps and databases that
log all phone and computer activity cross-referenced by things like race
and voter affiliation.
But say how these leaked blatantly
illegal programs still ongoing might fit together and not be just a happenstance
string of random "bad apples" and still yet,
though far more probable than just being "accidental
coincidences" and you will still be written off as a "conspiracy
theorist". There is a pattern to what is going on now in terms of
illegal activity specifically directed at key people, and the US attorney
scandal, the "Terrorist Surveillance Program,"
(aka the felonious illegal wiretapping at the
direction of the President program), and others which were leaked BY
THE PEOPLE DOING THEM who were chosen for their LOYALTY TO BE TRUSTED WITH
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THEM because it was inconceivable that they would leak
such information because of political and psychological profiling, they
are the least of which could be uncovered by any uncorrupted legal system.
Unfortunately, we know we don't have one.
"Obstruction
of an investigation" is no longer a crime if done by the right people.
"Blackmail"
is no longer a crime if done by the right people. Countless other crimes,
can be, are, and will be excused if done in the name of covering up other
crimes done by the Executive branch or any other actors they have contracted
to do things on their behalf if contrary to the law and/or Constitution.
The commuted sentence of "Scooter" Libby was
a message just like a Mafia hit is meant to send a message. Cross us and
there is no means to which we will not go to cover our tracks.
I had mentioned in the previous post
how the former Speaker of the House considered Alberto Gonzales's actions
amounting to blackmail or intimidation. People have recently alleged that
the Vice-President's office has been trying to blackmail or "pressure"
not only members of Congress and their staffs, but members of the President's
staff as well. The level of criminality festering under the surface is
incalculable while instead of creating the means for these crimes to be
exposed, quite the opposite is occurring and new means are being devised
everyday to retaliate and new threats of retaliation upon those who might
wish to try to come forward. They not only would be abandoned by a President
who would otherwise be their saving grace for crimes they did at his direction,
but they risk being set up for things they did not do, or have to fight
false allegations they know or fear, with overwhelming reason, would be
thrown at them by the police or by the press, depending upon their level
of importance and visibility.
I said in RCP2
that things are changing, and they are. Ground has been given to letting
out the truth, and if it were not for many brave people who have been willing
to put their lives and careers on the line against the machinery of their
own government and police being co-opted and used to illegal ends and to
cover up illegal activities by the heads of their own agencies and of the
Executive Branch, and I am certainly not one to say it has not been enough.
You cannot ask people to do what you know will bring the wrath of illegal
retaliation against them for speaking out and doing what is right, and
that ultimately they are correct by almost every rational view for remaining
silent. For me, I had a glimpse of where that road leads, of where remaining
silent will take us. If others cannot see it, or pretend not to, that is
ultimately their matters alone.
For that reason, I will not say that
the "Family Jewels" was not enough. It was
something, and something is always better than nothing, which was what
we had before, and reason to think would always in the near future be the
case. But something far darker is on the horizon and I must now venture
into the Iranian topic.
During the Cold War, it was convenient
that if the world was destroyed, no one would know who was to blame. It
made it all so nice and simple. If anyone would be thought to be responsible
for an Armageddon that could be trigger by simply a computer error or human
error, most around the world would have assumed it was the Soviet Union,
at least by the West, which to most in the West, IS the world.
Now the tables have turned, and for
good reason. Most the world outside of America knows the US has been launching
wars of aggression which our own Nuremberg lawyers have said were no different
than Germany or Russia's illegal invasions, but Americans, those who bother
to care share the President's same contempt for International Law. Why
should we be "bound" by what may not be in
"our
nation's" best interests? ...
How much more close could any country
be to saying the truth does not matter. That we will do the most grave
and serious things, up to and including actions that will cause thousands
of innocent deaths, based upon faulty and questionable "evidence"
which
we will not even allow to have contrary verifiable evidence be submitted
into record by our legislators, even if it is accepted as potentially true
by a press always sympathetic to misinformation the other way. For them,
even that bending of reality was too much. For our Congress, it was just
fine and completely unquestionable, regardless of its accuracy.
They have learned much from the President,
and we as a country have learned nothing yet from the last 6 years of how
the truth has taken a backseat to police, press, politicians, and pundits
who can be pressed and made to dance like marionettes to things everyone
knows to be based upon lies and political manipulations, yet no one is
allowed to complain about safely. Yet what or who is really safe in such
an environment?
There is a difference between being
able to win elections and being fit to rule. Especially nowadays when it
is technological technocrats, spin-doctors (liars),
Madison Avenue admen, and blatant propagandists that have the most influence
during political campaigns which have become so much about gaining and
spending obscene amounts of money in a cycle of corruption that makes direct
kickbacks to mobsters look circuitous and complex by comparison. Money
is raised by making promises to corporations, often those most "influential"
who control the media, for the purposes of their help which both parties
fall over themselves to improve their stranglehold and monopolies on the
airwaves which are given to them freely by the state, raise millions of
dollars which they give back to these companies in purchasing advertising
for campaigns. Then there is the political "technologists"
who prune voter lists of legitimate voters for spurious reasons, disrupt
the campaigns of rival candidates, put out fabrications to the medias they
are purchasing ads with and allowed to make unsubstantiated or wholly fictitious
claims out during campaigns which receive little scrutiny if they are "major"
or "serious" candidates in the eyes of the
press who judge relevance by the size of their campaign chests.
Were it not bad enough for these
people whose job it is to bend laws and break rules, being given free reign
once every two or four years to do their duty and wreak havoc, trying to
"purchase"
and "control" the democratic system, blur
the facts and tilt the scales of justice to get their man into office,
but they now have put up their feet as the "managers"
of government themselves. Since leaders are now constantly required to
run for reelection almost on the day they take up office since the price
of elections is so high, campaign managers and media advisers become chiefs
of staff, presidential advisers, able to fire and marginalize career diplomats,
government lawyers, FBI and other law enforcement agencies, all for political
ends. Those who run the elections, most often by the most dubious legal
means and methods possible, now run the government itself.
And when this comes out as a
"bad thing", when this penchant for law breaking and public manipulation
by constantly lying and leaning on those media corporations they have an
insidious if not incestuous relationship with becomes public by those who
know nothing about governing but everything about manipulation and deceit
becomes let upon the light, when it is finally coming out how the courts
and police have been corrupted by political apparachniks comes out, what
does those who have any ability to rectify it do? They have party line
votes with their own campaign managers advising them how to proceed based
upon their own calculations of how much they can "spin"
what is going on to provide them with votes or more influence or more campaign
contributions for the next election cycle of course! What else would they
do, conduct themselves according to their duties under the Constitution?
No, they ask themselves what would Karl Rove do far more than what would
a statesman do. ...
Not only that, but Congress would
be complicit in the deaths of all who might die due to a Gulf of Tonkin
type incident for failing to respond to that threat which has been pointed
out relentless to them as of late as a real possibility. The US, democracy,
liberty, and our military are now dying a slow death, and Congress seems
content to due little else besides non-binding resolutions, meaningless
censures and contempt charges that will be openly ignored by an administration
that not only holds the President above the law, but anyone he that works
for him or that he designates too is above the law, and that all rights
under the Constitution given to anyone else, he can revoke at his discretion.
If Congress cannot find "high crimes and misdemeanors"
in
that, they no longer have eyes to see, no longer a consciousness with which
to think, and have already surrendered to the President any authority to
decide anything they previously thought they might have had. In that case,
I would agree with the President if he suspends Congress completely. They
will have become a costly illusion of democracy and a waste of money.
People have come forward against
this administration's wrongdoing and it may as well have been to a firing
squad. The press has been threatened when doing its job correctly, uncovering
illegal programs, and other times has been rewarded for raking over the
coals anyone who profoundly displeased the administration. Whistleblowers
against Bush have been told to go to hell by the Supreme Court. And Congress,
by not beginning hearings on impeachment has told them don't bother, no
one will watch your back. Silence your conscience, it is ok, make your
deal for a pardon, the Decider will have your back, and Congress is just
one more entity that will throw you off the pier if you try to come forward.
Their hesitation has made their immunity and protection worthless in the
face of a 'unitary executive', and the President's
favor is beyond measuring in cost, it is literally your life and the lives
of your children at his discretion, and sole whim.
I am including the 60's
quotes from the new index page for PolSci.com coming up as they framed
the world as I saw it growing up. It was not a world of belligerent posturing,
with countless threats being volleyed at other countries by us to do as
we say or else facing our "shock and awe"
bombing campaigns. It was a world in which we knew where it stood, knew
the consequences of potential wrong mistakes, and knew that the consequences
would be shared by all, rich and poor alike. The Lone Ranger, the Calvary,
Jesus, nor God will save Mankind in the last reel. It is something each
of us must do whatever we think will gain us a little traction against
to keep it running another day before it all falls apart. Fall apart it
will, fall apart it must, but hopefully not by us, and hopefully not because
of us.
Quadranine
is moved up on the site because it is the best one I did and it is now
restored to its original form. In the last thing written in that notebook
was the following line, "A survey of the belief systems
people have and the courses of action these beliefs impel them to take."
It says little to others perhaps, but to me, that sentence speaks volumes.
We are set on courses of "fated" destinies
because of what we have bought into, and cannot reconsider while moving.
The faster we are moving, the less perspective we have and eventually those
movements and those "ends" are all we see
and know. I know nothing is fated and all "ends"
can be changed. Ideology is what makes us human, separates us from other
species, but it is ultimately to be chained to past ways of thinking at
the expense of the future and of freedom.
Like planets on a collision course,
the United States and humanity itself are going to reach a point to have
to choose to rethink everything and alter and postpone the "inevitable"
collision
of cultures and countries, economies and armies. That sidestepping is easier
than anyone thinks, and even if it not successful, it will probably begin
soon because otherwise it would be unlikely to be meaningful. And as anyone
who has ever contemplated dinosaurs trying to dance, win or lose, succeed
or not, it is at least good for a laugh, and hopefully for all others and
for our own sakes, life itself will remain good for a laugh, and not a
Greek tragedy.
I know that whatever his motivations,
the environment is the big issue, probably the biggest issue which will
define the even bigger issues of the economy and of wars, and how they
interrelate. For now the worlds economies are based around war as the solution
for environmental problems, and those wars will further destroy the environment,
if not completely destroy it. It would make far more sense to give an environmental
prize to a peacemaker than it would to give a peace prize to an environmentalist.
"Citizen
Gore" is no peacemaker. Whether "Candidate
Gore" is more than just a hope of meddlesome Nobel selection committees,
and much else of the world outside the United States, that is in the hands
of the other Decider, or the Great Decider (or the
Great Pretender ("Who started out so young and strong, only to surrender"-Jackson
Browne).
This is a difficult time for me personally.
I was abruptly awakened from a deep worried sleep by a phone call, only
to find my mind was stuck on a phrase I wrote many years ago. Its strange
to find that your mind is still working when you are that tired and out
of it. Stranger for me to think it is going over things as seemingly as
unimportant as words. Now, on a more personal level, words are less important,
but what they trigger, or fail to, or fail to prevent, they are never unimportant.
The conceptual and the actual are intertwined, always.
The phrase was "our
nature of cherishing borders." It is to me key to many things. The
dividing lines between us and them in ones own country and between other
countries are always the flashpoints, they are as conceptual as the walls
which make us feel free to make fun of and see the person next to us as
"the
other". And they are lines in the sand, and lines on maps. The "border"
it was about though, is the border between life and death, the dividing
line my mother is crossing now. All that that has dredged up positively
and negatively, images, memories, and moments in time, and I discover when
getting a call in the middle of the night with news, my dreaming is about...
words. The full stanza I had to
look up and finally decided to write this post out. I put that one and
the one after it below.
The past is a mask
hiding the face of the present
as it tumultuously shakes all present
order
leaving us to gape
and assign values to its fury
attesting to our nature of cherishing
borders
What is is the facade
of forces which enable it to be
and this effrontery of seeming irrefutability
lacks the definition of tangency
and the perspective of eventual
ends
stripping all our understandings
of credulity
I do not mean to dwell on the dark
pasts of these religions, but for many many people this is not the past
at all, this is still how they frame and interpret the world around them.
Torture, human sacrifice, they are inseparable from these faiths. They,
inadvertently or not, teach them. They may say they are bad, but that even
God does it, or allows it, under "certain circumstances."
My first "taught"
exposure to torture as a child, the earliest Gold Standard of torture,
besides the Crucifixion, was the whipping of Jesus, acted out in glorious
Technicolor, to enlighten three and four year olds
(as far back as I can remember) like me of the world I now inhabited.
It was not long before that standard was surpassed for me by my own government,
but the earliest impressions still remain.
But it is not the past that concerns
me. The future is all that I think of because within that, the future,
the past is given whatever value it might have, could have, but only when
it is looked at honestly. I have gone on more than a few times about how
Revelations has NOTHING to do with Jesus, not what he said, not what he
taught, and it was added onto what was otherwise an attempted "Buddhist-like"
spin on a Middle Eastern religion. It was added later, it was antithetical
to the whole point of Christianity, and it was done to terrorize people
as much if not more, than to "enlighten" them.
And that "addition" to the New Testament has
led to genocides in the past, and if not corrected, will lead to more,
long after the current one contemplated, if that one doesn't eliminate
the possibility for more by eliminating humanity itself. ...
To know how the Christian faith has
evolved (another word Fundamentalists hate)
over the centuries, to think that this kind of darkness, this kind of "positive"
possession, is the end result for millions of "the
Faith," this is almost unbearable. For those who truly have loved
Christianity, have seen it grow, it is as heartbreaking it is for Americans
to see the United States becoming the world's largest promoter of torture,
of torture without charges or trials, of potentially lifelong detentions,
and of a leader who is not only above the law, any law except what he chooses
to recognize, but also can be a judge, juror, and executioner for every
other living person on the planet. They are the same kinds of heartbreak,
the same sort of endless disappointment.
As much as Christianity has called
any other type of faith, heathens, pagans, devil worshippers, they have
through the diversity and growth over the centuries, become such a wide
brush, it in many aspects has become in many measures and from many angles,
infected with the worst of what they accuse others of. Knowing this, seeing
this, ACKNOWLEDGING THIS, is the only path to rid itself of this, the only
means of redemption possible.
And for America, this too is the
only path of true redemption. When is America going to give guided tours
of its (hopefully soon to be "former") torture
chambers in Eastern Europe, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere as Russia and
its ex-client states torturer's apprentices have done? Are we even on track
for such a truth awakening? Do we even conceive it to be possible anymore?
In the very same countries where
the Soviet Union tortured people, we have set up shop, though doubtlessly
"renovated"
and "technologically improved." Is there a
single credible candidate for Congress or the Presidency that would say
we ought to educate our public of the torturing done in their name, done
supposedly for their benefits, so they might have a REASON to ask that
we stop this decent into inhumanity, or will they all continue the farce
of denial, acquiescing that what people don't know won't hurt them (but
will kill many others)? ...
I also remember around that time
reading of a person who was "questioned" in
Afghanistan in the presence of a CIA "observer"
who, the interviewee, was hung in mid-air by his arms tied behind his backs
for days and on occasion beaten until he finally died from the pain as
his arms separated from their sockets. The kicker is that the CIA observer
noted that he was most likely completely innocent. All without so much
as being charged with a crime, never mind convicted of one. Compare that
to Jesus, who by all measures, perhaps inadvertently or on purpose, inspired
people to revolt and was given at least a trial before being tortured to
death. This person by admission was mostly likely innocent, not with evidence
to be charged, and still no crime was committed in torturing him to death
since it was the "good guys" dishing it out.
"Rudy
would do it" as the bumper sticker saying goes. Many people were
turned over to them simply to get the reward money, or as a good way to
say goodbye forever to someone you did not like or owed money to.
But according to Rudy's logic, if
we had done that, it might not had been torture.
I am not pointing fingers at anyone.
It is a dangerous world we live it. Torture being done, scientists perfecting
it. People have been promoting it here on TV or making it palatable to
the general public and are getting multi-million dollar salaries in return.
But others have silently, and some no so silently, rebelled against this.
It is in them and in their lives the hope of any bright future is to be
found. Some when asked to torture, to murder unjustly, to go on TV and
say how it is debatably reasonable to do such things to people who quite
possibly are completely innocent to "possibly" "save"
others, namely yourselves from some threat, real or imagined, they quit.
Others, they do something else. If
they are not brave or secure enough to quit, they do what they are asked,
but they do it badly. They, though purposeful ineptitude, choose to leave
behind a record for the day when a new leadership is in charge who would
wish to right the wrongs (or at least recognize them)
of the past. It is apparent to all the world now and to themselves, the
Democrats in America are no such people. They, in the equivalent of terms
of the USSR, would shoot those who would come forward just as much as the
previous dictatorship would, they would build towering structures over
the mass unmarked graves, and they would bury the past crimes completely
and forever.
Where others saw the "most
incompetent administration ever," I saw a group of people seeing
the atrocities going on all around them and did the best they could to
try to walk the middle ground, those who did not quit outright and those
unlike those without consciences, they did what they were asked as badly
as believably possible, but so far, to no avail.
It probably does not matter if Rudy
"if
we do it, it is not torture" Giuliani becomes the next President,
or Hillary Clinton, or Dick Cheney. The mantra is the same. The bodies
will stay buried. Torture will become more mainstream. Trials, when allowed
at all will become more farcical to the greater ratings and laugh tracks
of the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Those who did the unconscionable
will watch their superiors who ordered it all go not only unpunished, but
becoming more wealthy and respected than ever because of it all, and they
will only have what remains of their own consciences to be propped up by
the fact that they, at least, did not do it well, and that if anyone of
power ever had cared worth damn, it all could have been exposed and stopped.
For people (Congress)
supposedly reacting out of constant fear thrown at them, fear of their
constituents thinking they are weak, fear of a right wing press that even
Republicans lawmakers admit being terrorized by, fear of terrorist attacks,
but seemingly completely without fear of handing over every last scrap
of power the mythical magical wondrous "Founders"
gave to their positions and legislative bodies.
Seemingly their jobs now are to tear
the Constitution to shreds, put little pieces of it into things called
"bills" to send to the President so he can veto them and make its
destruction the new law of the land.
Habeas Corpus? A bill not a writ.
Congressional approval needed to attack Iran? A Constitutional mandate
or directive, and a foundation of our Republic? No, sing it from School
House Rock, "I'm just a bill, a little ol' bill,
but I might be a law, ... someday." Smack down veto threat, and
little ol' bill (and Separation of Powers)
goes away. Not today thank you, can't tie his hands. Can't let a Declaration
of War make the world an unambiguous place without undeclared wars, unrecognized
occupations, and unmentionable, literally, US war crimes.
The fear that motivates Congress
and America these days is not even good fear. What are good fears you ask?
Good fears make you act to eliminate what you are afraid of. Common sense
you cannot eliminate terrorists if terrorists can become anyone or anyone
can become a terrorist.
You cannot spy on everyone all of
the time (though they will make a ton of money trying),
you cannot control every country's government (though
they will kill a lot of people trying), and you cannot make everyone
afraid of your weapons, not even while you are using them on people. You
can, when you are done with an orgy of death, that attempt at making the
world submit to your non-existent authority, ditch the fear by trying to
make peace with them. That is how you kill fear, at the source.
The source of fear is not people.
The source is, as many have countlessly said before, and will say later,
fear is created by what you do not, cannot, and choose not, to understand
or acknowledge. The fear we have is real and warranted because somewhere,
in the back of our minds, we as a nation are aware of the truth of the
terrors we are giving the world while claiming we do not see it ourselves.
The greatest fears we have, and rarely
as Americans will we admit, is that our fears are justified. That just
because our Washington Press buys the fact that if the White House does
not admit something, it never happened, or is left in a less-defined gray
zone between what is real and what is not. That there are things we are
doing now, things we are responsible for, which we should not, but will
not doing stop either. And that it will come back to haunt us if it is
not already on the way.
... Waking up and confronting THAT
fear, that good fear, that can inspire people to wake up and do something
to counter it, that is always just around the corner.
... Yet reality is never shut out
completely, even in the most extreme instances referred to above. One must
know and constantly be workings against what one knows but is choosing
not to acknowledge. This knowledge becomes fear, becomes dread, becomes
the dark recesses of where we choose we ought not to look at what we as
individuals or as groups, societies, countries, or cultures, are doing
to others. And worst of all, that knowing or acknowledging that we have
surrendered our right to question it openly and effectively without fear.
Dying is easy then, when having to
live daily in denial at the obvious and increasingly frequent greater and
growing injustices, and with the ever changing definitions of the official
Newspeak insanity, and still yet choosing to think or consider oneself
a rational being. It becomes then, the living is what is hard. Unless of
course, you batten down the hatches, forget about any or all possible consequences,
and try to let out on (what you think are)
the right occasions what you know that others, by choosing not to acknowledge
will get themselves, and possibly yourself too, killed.
Yet it is an irony, (not
that we do not have rights to other things like say papertrailess electronic
unprovably rigged elections, or papertrailess (warrantless) searches and
off-the-books investigations of anyone,) that we expouse the concept
of rights in the first place. We clearly have no idea of the definition
of the word, which makes it easier for us to completely misuse and misunderstand
it completely. To most Americans, as taught by our media and fictional
TV shows, our rights are not really rights at all.
Oh, we will say if we have them,
they are "right" and if we do not have them,
they are not "rights" but beyond that myopia,
we think that rights are rescindable, and therefore, are some new form
of animal not yet living in a dictionary. Rights are not for everyone.
"Rights" are things that do not belong to terrorists, terrorist
suspects, or other people deemed by us to be "bad
guys." Countless numbers of our television shows, fiction and news,
pose the question, "what about the rights of the
victims?" This escapes the logic, as we usually do, that those who
took them away from others, victims, were CRIMINALS, and doing so, taking
them away is or should be, by definition, A CRIME. ...
Europe for instance, can berate Iran
for "interfering" in the government of Iraq,
by supposedly sending in weapons and occasional troops, while in the same
breath completely ignoring our illegal invasion, hundreds of thousands
of troops and "support" (mercenaries, cooks, drivers,
and on rare occasions, even interpreters), gigantic semi-(must
stick with Newspeak)-permanent bases, an indefinitely long planned
occupation regardless of local opinion about it, and oh, arming both sides
of a civil war there without limits or outside checks and balances on who
we give or sell arms to. No irony there in the least.
Europe's hypocrisies pile up as quickly
as our own, but they do it to support Europe's being allowed keeping the
"classical"
definition of rights, those that apply to everyone. Well not everyone.
They can protest potentially blatently rigged elections in Russia, but
not Florida or Ohio. They can condemn attempted outside influence over
Ukraine but not Mexico. They know the rules, and generally keep their strict
adherence to the antiquated "quaint" notion
that "rights" apply to everyone, get this,
"all
the time", basically to their own citizens without demurring to
our looser, more fun definition of being for only those who we say have
them. Unless of course, we select some of THEIR citizens to not have them.
Then they can, must, and have done, quickly forked them over to us to ship
them off to some third world hell hole to be tortured indefinitely and
without charges. Their
"rights" definition
does not come on the cheap you know.
To say that rights are not absolute,
that they are not "all the time" and certainly
not for all people, means basically, they are not "rights"
at all. As any American, European, Canadian, Australian, British subject,
(or
worse, someone without any of the "like us" cover) who has been
rendered by us to another country to be tortured can tell you, what they
were told THERE is the truth. "You have no rights."...
Our concepts of
"rights," as more like privileges; the privilege to be not tortured,
not to be kidnapped, not held without charges in secret, these now will
spread more and more because basically we, at the point of gun if need
be, have redefined them as being subjective and optional for the entire
world. General Musharraf in Pakistan can say he will keep Martial Law (declared
last week) going while he puts together hasty elections in less
than 2 months time. President Saakashvili, President of Georgia can and
has said the same. The unprecedented Soviet-like "State
of Emergency" (declared also last week) will stay in effect until
he sees "a requirement to lift it," possibly
not before new hasty elections also in less than two months time. And that
is just in American defined or supported "Democracies"
in the last week!!!
Add to those a collapse of the "Cedar
Revolution" we supported in Lebanon, our supporting of the President
of the Palestinian territories in completely suspending its Parliament
and declaring Martial Law after the elections which we had triumphed as
proof of our democratizing, but did not go as planned so this was justified,
and you get the gist of how our "democratization"
of the world is going. (And those are just in the
areas we claimed to have been our "successes". You literally don't want
to know about Somalia and a few other places things went far worse than
we saw fit to talk much about, never mind brag about.) And Europeans
will cheer the presence of these new, if under martial law elections, if
we say so, as being progress and how praise much democracy is blooming
around the world, on cue.
And not the least of which, how swimmingly
our democratizing of Iraq, the crown jewel in our efforts to give the world
our wonderful new and improved definition of "Rights"
has
gone. No where else on Earth, literally, has seen our new definitions of
"rights"
and "democracy" played out so fully to the
shocked silence of Europe and anyone else trying to keep off of our "shut
up or we will democratize you" radar or list. Not only our President,
but even those who just want to be President and have a chance, can and
do openly talk now about how the leadership of that "sovereign
country" whose "legitimate government"
wants us there, had better shape up, privatize its oil resources to our
oil companies, or see that it "ought to be replaced."
Not to mention that that government must continue to ignore the 66%-75%
of its own public that wants our troops out of their country immediately
or as quickly as possible. ...
... I have no illusions about the
brutality of Iran's current definition of "rights"
or
its regime, nor what they do to people there who do not agree with them.
What is at issue is our definition
of "Democracy," the real dictionary definition,
that nations are free to determine their own system of governments, say
things we don't like, even do things we don't like, even if it seems to
us as evil. To claim that Iran is "interfering"
in Iraq is a sick joke compared to what we have done there and are continuing
to do there daily. To say Iran is a threat to us or to a nation, Israel,
which has already stealthily developed hundreds nuclear weapons of its
own, is also untrue. Iran is no threat to us, nor to Israel, nor will it
be anytime soon. We want to take out, as we have said repeatedly in other
venues, any nation which might soon reach a position to challenge our increasing
control over our "new backyard", the Middle
East. End of story. The true one anyway.
Attempts at redefining languages
to permit us to do everything we say or believe to be wrong is inexcusable
because it is not our RIGHT to do so. Meanings of WORDS, HUMAN RIGHTS,
they are universal concepts, defined among and agreed to by a MAJORITY
of ALL PEOPLE or they are LIES. No one nation is their guardian, much less
one that evades such definitions or tries to redefine them according to
its own liking or its present circumstances.
Torturing meaning, torturing truth,
is as bad or worse, than torturing people, and that too is inexcusable
under EVERY regime. And the greater one nation's supposed "power,"
one would think goes with it their greater ability be able to adhere to
the laws, international laws written by and large BY THEMSELVES, literally,
and in their own favor.
The greater too, with greater power,
would be their increased responsibility to set an example that international
laws and human rights are inviolable under ANY and ALL and EVERY POSSIBLE
circumstances, or they are LIES. And if you don't know the meaning of inviolable,
look it up, because neither apparently do the present US Executive Branch,
its Congress, and often its Courts.
3/31/08 - 9:59 PM
© 2007/2008 By Jared DuBois
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