As I think about this present time, I am reminded of special days which I have grown to dislike over the years. One of those special days is, oddly enough, Christmas. Don't get me wrong - I am all for people taking time out of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ. What I choke on is being barraged by holiday music and holiday shopping advertisements from the day after Halloween until the day after New Year's. Another holiday I am not too fond of is Halloween (although I make sure to dress as a grown-up every year).
But the day which I have come to despise most of all in the United States is Election Day. Indeed, one of the most annoying aspects of life in the USA just now is the fact that we seem to be in a never-ending election season designed to produce maximal angst and fear among those who have to live through it. A particularly vexing element of this is having to cut through the games played by wolves who want to bury their real agenda behind a bunch of non-issues. Today's post will attempt to clarify the real issues at stake in the national elections, at least, as I see them.
Many of those who are campaigning for Donald Trump claim that a Trump presidency would bring world peace by ending American neocon attempts to expand American power throughout the world. Some of these people seek to paint Hillary Clinton as some sort of war criminal, either because some American operatives died at Benghazi after the U.S. had overthrown the lawful government of Gaddafi, or because Ms. Clinton had a personal Gmail account while she was Secretary of State. (If having a personal email account is a crime, you may as well throw many of us in jail, because we too have personal email accounts in addition to our work accounts.) Indeed, there are many mouthpieces trying by every possible means to make Mr. Trump palatable enough to get enough votes to win the Presidency. (Some of these people have actually tried to use the angle that he is "the lesser of two evils." They forget that by saying this they are admitting that he is evil.)
But if we take Mr. Trump at face value - especially concerning the statements and speeches which won him the Republican nomination - we see the real motive behind the Trump candidacy, and behind the efforts of the American right wing over the last decades. These efforts are coming to a head now, in 2016. For the central issue is the survival of white supremacy and First World hegemony. Trump and his supporters (along with the Murdoch and Breitbart media empires and American evangelical media) believe that this supremacy and hegemony are in mortal danger of being swept away, especially in the United States. Thus the candidacy of Trump represents a last-ditch attempt to stop the clock, or better yet, to reverse the clock of world history and to bring the 1950's back as a permanent state of world and national affairs. The 1950's hold special appeal for these people because these were the days in which white America dominated the world and Americans oppressed whomever they wanted to, without any fear of consequences or resistance. Americans who enjoyed the privileges of the 1950's grew to believe that they would never have a need for politeness, compromise, consensus, respect of differences, or the need to work harmoniously with others. And they even remade God into their own image (or for a while, as it seemed), as the God who "gave us this great land and promised us that we should rule the world!"
This has been the real agenda of the Right for a long time. This is the real agenda of the Right at this present time. This is what is at stake in the current election. And on a certain level, this agenda is not only national, but international in scope, although on the international level, there are some differences. (How many of you know that the far-right movements now at work in Europe are partially financed by Russia? See this also. And Russia is financing Trump.) On the international level, the agenda morphs into an effort to maintain the hegemony of the First World over the rest of the earth, by attempting to arrive at a gentleman's agreement over who is allowed to exercise control over particular "spheres of influence". The gentleman's agreement is then paid for at the expense of the nonwhite majority world, who get to enjoy continuing to be carved up by First World "spheres of influence" while being excluded from the concentrations of wealth which the nations of the First World have amassed by robbing everyone else blind.
The trouble with establishing such an agenda is that the factors which would cause such an agenda to succeed are now changing very rapidly. As far as the United States, the most recent census data shows that by 2020, the majority of children in the United States will be nonwhite. From 2011 onward, the majority of births in the United States each year have been nonwhite. Moreover, many of these children are multiracial. And they do not have the same agenda as the media outlets whose mouthpieces constantly demonize them as "terrorists," "heathen," "criminals" or "savages." They don't care about Benghazi or emails. They (and their parents) just want to live their lives in peace. But because the current masters of American society continue to engage in conversations which the future majority population doesn't care about, the current masters of America risk becoming irrelevant in very short order. This translates to a loss of power, if by power one means the power to bully, to oppress, to rob, to dominate, to impose oneself and one's culture on others.
The same trends are at work in Europe, which is why many European far-right groups have arisen to try to stop this process. It could also be argued that this is a motivation for the Russian intervention in Syria. Don't get me wrong - I think that the attempt by the West to overthrow yet another country should have been stopped. However, based on things I have learned and sources I have read over the last several months, I don't believe the Russians intervened out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather, to stop the influx of people considered nonwhite into Europe (and potentially, into Russia).
Trump supporters have the misguided hope that perhaps he can reverse the loss of white supremacy in the U.S. - perhaps by a massive increase in police shootings of unarmed black Americans, or perhaps by wholesale, indiscriminate deportation of anyone who looks foreign or has a non-English last name, even if they were born in the U.S. (Such deportations have happened before in U.S. history, by the way.) But there is yet another trend at work which cannot be stopped by any political leader on earth. And that trend is the continued impoverishment and decline of the global industrial economy owned and controlled by the nations of the First World. For that decline is driven inexorably by the depletion of the resources needed to make that economy run. Global production of all petroleum products is now past peak. Coal production is about to peak, if it has not already. The same is true of many other resources. This also translates to a loss of power on the part of those who were formerly dominant. How will the formerly powerful respond to the impending loss of their power? Their response will show whether they have learned to become decent people or whether they are still wolves.
In closing, I will mention the church service I attended today. It was at a Vietnamese church which shares a church building with a Hispanic congregation and a Karen (Myanmar/Thai) congregation. This Vietnamese congregation held a joint Vacation Bible School with their Hispanic brethren this past summer. Their youth groups have also had joint worship services together. A couple of Christmases ago, I visited this church and heard some of the Vietnamese children singing Feliz Navidad. I have also seen some of the Mexican members of the Hispanic church attending the Vietnamese Nativity service. Today, the Vietnamese pastor was preaching out of Romans 12:6-8, and he was talking about how there is tremendous diversity in humanity. He also mentioned that in the Body of Christ, that diversity is part of a unity. (I was also able to see his sermon notes on a church member's iPad, and in his notes the pastor had alluded to the great evil of trying to persecute each other over our differences.) The pastor and his congregation are not terrorists or criminals, but they have learned how to get along with others and how to be a blessing to others. Why is it so hard for mainstream America to learn this lesson? Could it be that America is infected by a terminal case of narcissism?
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Friday, September 16, 2016
I Don't Care About Benghazi
There. I said it. But why did it need to be said?
Many people have written about the campaign of Donald Trump that his campaign is entirely self-financed and that he is thus a self-made populist phenomenon. People who say such things conveniently neglect the fact that Mr. Trump is getting a lot of free publicity both from the American mainstream media (which is by now almost wholly owned by a handful of pathological people) and by well-placed members of foreign governments (among which is the government of Russia).
One big source of publicity for Mr. Trump is the Republican-controlled Congress, which has been trying very hard now for the last few years to make the American people outraged over the deaths of some American ambassadors to Libya, and to blame their deaths on a supposed failure on the part of the American State Department to provide them with adequate protection. But here's the thing. First, the U.S. overthrew the government of Libya in a totally un-justified act of aggression in 2011. NATO bombed Libya back to the Stone Age and turned millions of Libyans into refugees who have since been allowed to drown in the Mediterranean Sea or die of exposure in refugee camps in their desperate bid for asylum in Europe. So it's hard for me to get worked up over American operatives suffering a bit of collateral damage in their bid to make Libya an American possession.
But the attempt to stir up outrage over Benghazi stinks even more when one considers that the attack has all the makings of a false flag operation, complete with assigning of blame to "Islamic militants" tied to ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The fact that the Republicans are attempting to use Benghazi as a rallying cry shows that they are just as neocon as they accuse the Democrats of being. And the fact that the Republicans have no remorse for the Libyans whose lives have been wrecked by American aggression, along with the record of all the things Donald Trump has said over the last few years shows the real motivation of the Republicans and of all who support Trump: to establish a world and a nation subject to white supremacy, a world which continues to be victimized by the rich, the powerful and the privileged. What I care about is what these people intend to do to the rest of us - not only to the nonwhite, but to everyone who is poor enough to be counted as prey by these people. I care that the U.S. is in danger of being ruled by a maniacally malignant man who is desperately looking for a scapegoated group onto whom he can vomit his hostility. Excuse me while I gag.
Many people have written about the campaign of Donald Trump that his campaign is entirely self-financed and that he is thus a self-made populist phenomenon. People who say such things conveniently neglect the fact that Mr. Trump is getting a lot of free publicity both from the American mainstream media (which is by now almost wholly owned by a handful of pathological people) and by well-placed members of foreign governments (among which is the government of Russia).
One big source of publicity for Mr. Trump is the Republican-controlled Congress, which has been trying very hard now for the last few years to make the American people outraged over the deaths of some American ambassadors to Libya, and to blame their deaths on a supposed failure on the part of the American State Department to provide them with adequate protection. But here's the thing. First, the U.S. overthrew the government of Libya in a totally un-justified act of aggression in 2011. NATO bombed Libya back to the Stone Age and turned millions of Libyans into refugees who have since been allowed to drown in the Mediterranean Sea or die of exposure in refugee camps in their desperate bid for asylum in Europe. So it's hard for me to get worked up over American operatives suffering a bit of collateral damage in their bid to make Libya an American possession.
But the attempt to stir up outrage over Benghazi stinks even more when one considers that the attack has all the makings of a false flag operation, complete with assigning of blame to "Islamic militants" tied to ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The fact that the Republicans are attempting to use Benghazi as a rallying cry shows that they are just as neocon as they accuse the Democrats of being. And the fact that the Republicans have no remorse for the Libyans whose lives have been wrecked by American aggression, along with the record of all the things Donald Trump has said over the last few years shows the real motivation of the Republicans and of all who support Trump: to establish a world and a nation subject to white supremacy, a world which continues to be victimized by the rich, the powerful and the privileged. What I care about is what these people intend to do to the rest of us - not only to the nonwhite, but to everyone who is poor enough to be counted as prey by these people. I care that the U.S. is in danger of being ruled by a maniacally malignant man who is desperately looking for a scapegoated group onto whom he can vomit his hostility. Excuse me while I gag.
Saturday, July 9, 2016
A Brief History of COINTELPRO in America
Another week, another mass shooting in America. (Actually, there were several, but only one managed to be selected as worthy of national news coverage.) I overheard a couple of co-workers yesterday talking about what happened in Dallas on Thursday night. They were eyeing me during their undertone conversation, so, having no TV and blissfully unaware of Thursday's events, I strolled over cheerfully and asked, "What's up?" They proceeded to tell me, and to offer a number of opinions regarding how American society should view both Black lives and police lives. My next words must have shocked them. "Have you ever heard of a false flag operation?" I asked.
From the looks on their faces, I could tell that this was not a possibility they had considered, even though one of them acknowledged that he knew what the term means. I consider this to be a shocking failure of our outlets of culture and media to inform adults who have the right to vote, who live in what is supposedly the "most powerful country on earth," and who therefore should be much better informed. Consider this post to be my attempt to rectify this deficiency.
I want to begin by introducing a potentially unfamiliar term to you. According to Wikipedia, COINTELPRO "was a series of covert, and at times, illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic political organizations." The COINTELPRO operation was conceived under FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Note the words, "discrediting" and "disrupting." If you read the Wikipedia article, you can see the United States from the 1950's to the 1970's as a nation whose favored members enjoyed the greatest privilege the world had ever seen - yet that privilege was built on the backs of those peoples of the world who had been violently oppressed in order to build that privilege. So the favored members of American society lived in a great deal of insecurity and felt horribly threatened by the presence of any voices challenging their privilege and the oppression on which that privilege had been built. They were frightened by those voices which were asking for a more equitable life for all. COINTELPRO was designed by the FBI and others as a way to discredit and neutralize the voices of those who protested the oppressive order set up by the United States and other First World nations. Read how COINTELPRO especially targeted the leaders of the Black Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's. One of the tactics of COINTELPRO was the use of agents provocateurs, paid police agents used to attempt to incite protest organizations to engage in illegal activity so that law enforcement would have a justification for arrests.
One thing to note: there is at least one case on record of undercover police being implicated in staging violence by protesters against police during a political rally. I am sure there are many more cases that can may be discovered by an enterprising researcher. I leave that as an exercise for the reader. (You might start here, here, here, here, or here. Goodness gracious, I think I've done a lot of the work for you!)
Now a funny thing happened in the 1970's. In 1971, the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI managed to break into an FBI office, and stole several files which contained records of the COINTELPRO operation. (See this also.) They then dutifully leaked these records to the press. Many press outlets refused to publish the leaked documents, but they eventually were widely circulated, and the FBI was forced to ostensibly "end" COINTELPRO. But like many things that are evil (including sewage leaks), the basic mechanisms of COINTELPRO never really ended. They just went underground. (See what was done in the 1980's to environmental protest groups, for instance.) Indeed, the Wikipedia article cited at the beginning of this post shows that from 1980 onward (and especially during the presidency of George W. Bush), there has been a sharp revival of COINTELPRO-like operations.
As far as the Dallas sniper incident, note the following details:
I agree with her.
From the looks on their faces, I could tell that this was not a possibility they had considered, even though one of them acknowledged that he knew what the term means. I consider this to be a shocking failure of our outlets of culture and media to inform adults who have the right to vote, who live in what is supposedly the "most powerful country on earth," and who therefore should be much better informed. Consider this post to be my attempt to rectify this deficiency.
I want to begin by introducing a potentially unfamiliar term to you. According to Wikipedia, COINTELPRO "was a series of covert, and at times, illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic political organizations." The COINTELPRO operation was conceived under FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Note the words, "discrediting" and "disrupting." If you read the Wikipedia article, you can see the United States from the 1950's to the 1970's as a nation whose favored members enjoyed the greatest privilege the world had ever seen - yet that privilege was built on the backs of those peoples of the world who had been violently oppressed in order to build that privilege. So the favored members of American society lived in a great deal of insecurity and felt horribly threatened by the presence of any voices challenging their privilege and the oppression on which that privilege had been built. They were frightened by those voices which were asking for a more equitable life for all. COINTELPRO was designed by the FBI and others as a way to discredit and neutralize the voices of those who protested the oppressive order set up by the United States and other First World nations. Read how COINTELPRO especially targeted the leaders of the Black Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's. One of the tactics of COINTELPRO was the use of agents provocateurs, paid police agents used to attempt to incite protest organizations to engage in illegal activity so that law enforcement would have a justification for arrests.
One thing to note: there is at least one case on record of undercover police being implicated in staging violence by protesters against police during a political rally. I am sure there are many more cases that can may be discovered by an enterprising researcher. I leave that as an exercise for the reader. (You might start here, here, here, here, or here. Goodness gracious, I think I've done a lot of the work for you!)
Now a funny thing happened in the 1970's. In 1971, the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI managed to break into an FBI office, and stole several files which contained records of the COINTELPRO operation. (See this also.) They then dutifully leaked these records to the press. Many press outlets refused to publish the leaked documents, but they eventually were widely circulated, and the FBI was forced to ostensibly "end" COINTELPRO. But like many things that are evil (including sewage leaks), the basic mechanisms of COINTELPRO never really ended. They just went underground. (See what was done in the 1980's to environmental protest groups, for instance.) Indeed, the Wikipedia article cited at the beginning of this post shows that from 1980 onward (and especially during the presidency of George W. Bush), there has been a sharp revival of COINTELPRO-like operations.
As far as the Dallas sniper incident, note the following details:
- Not only were police shot, but protesters as well. (How very similar to what happened in Maidan in the Ukraine just before the Western backed coup that plunged that country into civil war.)
- Initial reports stated that several snipers were involved, and a number of Black men were arrested. However, the official police story against these men fell apart, and the official narrative was changed to implicate only one man, who, of course, "died in a gun battle with police" after managing to fire on police from several positions in a superhuman feat of mobility.
- Police responders and media were conveniently on scene to provide an instant high-drama "response" to the incident.
- The man who has been implicated as the lone sniper is conveniently very dead right now, and therefore cannot stand trial.
- The dead man was implicated in less than 24 hours after the incident, in contrast to the many unreported mass shootings (defined as shootings in which four or more people are hit), in which police don't find a perpetrator for days or weeks.
- The dead man's race and supposed political ideology were used to attempt to implicate and scapegoat entire group of people in order to justify the ongoing oppression and violence practiced by a dominant majority against this group.
I agree with her.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Zombies of London
Image taken from The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches, Heinrich Hoffman, 1858.
(I offer my apologies in advance to Warren Zevon.)
One of the ways in which personality-disordered people sometimes garner lots of attention to themselves is by committing suicide in a slow, dramatic way. Imagine, for instance, someone climbing in broad daylight to the very top of the arch of the Fremont Bridge in Portland, Oregon, while wearing a bright fluorescent lime-green clown suit. Picture him swaying precariously over the Willamette River while screaming his intentions through a bullhorn to all and sundry for an hour or so. Then, after traffic has shut down in both directions, while drivers are out of their cars staring raptly skyward, and news crews swarm like bugs in helicopters all around the bridge, watch him jump off and make the biggest (and last) splash of his entire life as he hits the water.
.jpg){kind=link}
That's how Great Britain seems to me in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. While I have been following the rise of far-right racist ultranationalism in Europe over the last few years, I hadn't been watching Britain very closely. Much of what I know has been hastily gleaned from news over the last two weeks. Many of you may know far more. Yet things have played out pretty much as I might have expected, and the British are now getting their very own taste of the outworkings of damnation.
Here's what I know so far:
- The breeding ground of the Brexit campaign consisted of the frustrations of many Britons who were experiencing the loss of the standard of living that had been promised to them under a "free market", capitalist economy. They felt that their country was at the mercy of a foreign bureaucracy over which they had no control. In this, as an observer in the USA, I'd have to agree somewhat with them.
- That frustration was fed and amplified by the fomenting and encouragement of completely unrealistic racial and national pride, violent racism and dangerous xenophobia. Immigrants - especially the dark-skinned, and especially the Muslim - were targeted and blamed for the unraveling of the British working class and middle class. (But surprisingly, that blaming extended to the targeting and blaming of white Eastern Europeans as well.)
- The cheerleaders of the campaign to scapegoat immigrants - the same who championed the entire Brexit campaign - were a handful of doofus fly-by-nighters, among whom were Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and Nigel Farage. They played a classic scapegoating game of the type seen in textbook cases of dysfunctional families where the family member who is causing the greatest damage manages to deflect blame onto a family member who has no logical connection to the suffering which the family is experiencing. Farage, Gove, and Johnson are members of Britain's wealthiest class, and it is the predatory policies which this class has championed, not only in Britain, but worldwide, which are causing the suffering now being experienced by ordinary Britons. (For an example of predatory policies, try looking up the word "austerity" and the phrase "income inequality.")
- It is also coming out now that many of the claims made by these men during the Brexit campaign were in fact lies. Indeed, Nigel Farage has admitted that some of his claims were false. I think he feels free to admit this because he feels that his victory is now secure. Also, the Brexit campaign led directly to the murder of a British member of Parliament in a killing that had a distinctively American style, as a gun was used by a disgruntled Angry White Male to do the killing.
And now that enjoyable position, and all that depends on it, has all gone up in smoke, set on fire by the architects of the Brexit. Other nations are already re-thinking their reliance on British financial services. The British pound has already suffered a drastic decline. The Brexit architects have, in the space of two weeks, already shown themselves to be incapable of governing a country. (Hey, man, if your feet can't reach the pedals, you shouldn't be behind the wheel.) The Brexit is already threatening a serious increase in trouble for an economy that was already in trouble. (See this, this and this, for instance.) And the Brexit vote has fractured the British body politic - perhaps incurably. Britain is about to find out in a hurry that it is no autarky, no self-sufficient paradise.
I know that Schadenfreude is a sin, yet there is something in me right now that feels more than a little satisfaction. It is a dark satisfaction, the kind that a researcher or scientist might feel when reality validates a theoretical model, even though that model has predicted something horrible. For the troubles that Britain has gotten itself into are a direct validation of Galatians 6:7 - "Don't be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption..." It is also bitingly funny (more bite than a very strong and bitter cup of espresso!) to think of how the Brexit champions will cope with the damage they've done, now that they are running out of scapegoats. Think of the doofus right here in the USA who is pulling similar scapegoating stunts in a bid to capture the White House this November.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
A Bag of Smashed Chips
News is like cheaply made clothes, sometimes - it's flashy and new for a week, then starts to fade alarmingly, and before you know it, there's a hole in your trousers at the knees. So it is with the Orlando shooting and the uses certain people tried to make of it. I was fully intending to write a long expose of the uses which the campaign of Donald Trump was trying to make of the shooting (although I wasn't really looking forward to the task; there are a lot of weeds yet to chop down in the backyard and I'm tired). But events have taken a turn which seems to have resolved a great deal of what I was going to say.
It is well known that the campaign of Donald Trump has made the scapegoating of minorities and immigrants of color a central feature of its strategy for winning the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. In this, Trump has mirrored many European leaders, who, faced with the inevitable loss of the wealth and power of their respective nations, have sought to blame that loss on a supposed overwhelming influx of supposedly savage, half-human invaders commonly known as "immigrants" and "refugees." It is well-known that Europe and the United States created that flood of immigrants and refugees by smashing the home countries of those refugees into bits and digesting those bits for food.
(To channel an old, rather dumb sci-fi TV series, "They say there's no devil, Jim, but there is...right out of hell! I saw it!...It destroys planets, chops them into rubble...")
A central feature of that smashing has been the use of scapegoating to justify the smashing and the resultant inhumane treatment of the smashed populations. A central feature of that scapegoating has been the portrayal of the target populations as fanatically, destructively insane people controlled by some ideologically insane organization which wants to attack the West solely because it "hates our freedoms!!!", and which we must therefore smash and attack first. Thus we have forced the populations we want to smash and loot to serve as mirrors reflecting back to our eyes a Doomsday Machine which the West is actually guilty of being. But to perpetuate the lie we have told ourselves about ourselves and about the populations we have decided to target, we have invented bogeymen which are supposed to represent the populations we have targeted. Thus ISIS has come into being, just as Al-Qaeda came into being, and has served the same purpose for us that we caused Al-Qaeda to serve until Al-Qaeda outlived its usefulness.
ISIS was used as a justification for attempting to smash Syria - but a funny thing happened along the way. A large number of Syrians, Libyans and North Africans became refugees and fled to the countries of Europe to escape the smashing, and to be fed some of the crumbs of the loot which Europe and the United States had stolen from them at gunpoint. Europe - pure as the wind-driven snow and special, oh, so special - could not tolerate having dark-skinned, unchurched refugees in their midst, so a number of rather inexplicable incidents started to occur in Europe over the last year and a half - none of which made any strategic or tactical sense, and all of which were blamed on "ISIS agents masquerading as refugees." (See this and this for a catalogue of some of these incidents.)
As I said, these incidents made no tactical or strategic sense if they were actually perpetrated by Muslims trying to destroy the West, for the same reason that if you are actually trying to kill a bear, it makes no sense to do nothing more than hit him across the snout with a hickory switch. All that does is make the bear mad at you. But these incidents made perfect sense if their purpose was to rouse Europe and the United States into taking drastic steps toward fascism - steps like trying ever harder to find some justification for invading Syria and any other Muslim or African country they could get their hands on, and closing their borders to refugees in order to "protect themselves" from further attack.
So in the wake of supposed Muslim attacks by "ISIS", a bunch of European nations closed their borders to immigrants (especially dark-skinned immigrants) and refugees, and the United States followed suit - especially in Southern states. And a few incidents occurred right here in the USA in order to add momentum to the push by certain elements in this country to preserve a pure "American paradise" that did not have to share its ill-gotten gains with the people it had robbed at gunpoint and smashed.
But another funny thing started to happen. An increasing number of people began to view all the supposed attacks by ISIS as false-flag operations, self-wounding operations carried out by well-placed Americans in order to gain sympathy for their narcissistic agenda. (I have spent several months looking at Uncle Sam as a narcissistic personality, but really, the more I think about it, there is also more than a hint of borderline personality disorder at work in the mainstream American psyche.) Now things are at the point where whenever a supposed "ISIS attack" is publicized by the American mainstream media, it is met by a growing and deafening chorus of skeptics like me who are shouting "False Flag!" And mainstream media outlets - which at first ignored us, then made light of us - are now having to take time to answer us seriously. (See this for instance.) But that is not helping them, because the fact that they must now take serious time for serious answers means that people are now having to seriously consider our arguments. The fact that we must now be taken seriously means that we have won a victory.
The result of that is that many of the associations between Omar Mateen and ISIS which were made by the mainstream media in the first few days after the Orlando nightclub shooting have been carefully and quietly scrubbed from the ongoing narrative of that shooting. To associate that incident with ISIS is to give one's credibility the kiss of death.
And Donald Trump - who has become the American embodiment of all the right-wing, racist intolerance which has revived in Europe - has found that the Orlando shooting has not helped him. Rather, his insane remarks in the wake of the shooting have actually hurt him. (See this, this and this.)
Meanwhile, this weekend we are seeing in Britain the sort of consequences which begin to unfold when a bunch of people who think they are All That And A Bag Of Chips cut themselves off from the rest of the world. What if that sort of people wins control of the United States this November?
It is well known that the campaign of Donald Trump has made the scapegoating of minorities and immigrants of color a central feature of its strategy for winning the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. In this, Trump has mirrored many European leaders, who, faced with the inevitable loss of the wealth and power of their respective nations, have sought to blame that loss on a supposed overwhelming influx of supposedly savage, half-human invaders commonly known as "immigrants" and "refugees." It is well-known that Europe and the United States created that flood of immigrants and refugees by smashing the home countries of those refugees into bits and digesting those bits for food.
(To channel an old, rather dumb sci-fi TV series, "They say there's no devil, Jim, but there is...right out of hell! I saw it!...It destroys planets, chops them into rubble...")
A central feature of that smashing has been the use of scapegoating to justify the smashing and the resultant inhumane treatment of the smashed populations. A central feature of that scapegoating has been the portrayal of the target populations as fanatically, destructively insane people controlled by some ideologically insane organization which wants to attack the West solely because it "hates our freedoms!!!", and which we must therefore smash and attack first. Thus we have forced the populations we want to smash and loot to serve as mirrors reflecting back to our eyes a Doomsday Machine which the West is actually guilty of being. But to perpetuate the lie we have told ourselves about ourselves and about the populations we have decided to target, we have invented bogeymen which are supposed to represent the populations we have targeted. Thus ISIS has come into being, just as Al-Qaeda came into being, and has served the same purpose for us that we caused Al-Qaeda to serve until Al-Qaeda outlived its usefulness.
ISIS was used as a justification for attempting to smash Syria - but a funny thing happened along the way. A large number of Syrians, Libyans and North Africans became refugees and fled to the countries of Europe to escape the smashing, and to be fed some of the crumbs of the loot which Europe and the United States had stolen from them at gunpoint. Europe - pure as the wind-driven snow and special, oh, so special - could not tolerate having dark-skinned, unchurched refugees in their midst, so a number of rather inexplicable incidents started to occur in Europe over the last year and a half - none of which made any strategic or tactical sense, and all of which were blamed on "ISIS agents masquerading as refugees." (See this and this for a catalogue of some of these incidents.)
As I said, these incidents made no tactical or strategic sense if they were actually perpetrated by Muslims trying to destroy the West, for the same reason that if you are actually trying to kill a bear, it makes no sense to do nothing more than hit him across the snout with a hickory switch. All that does is make the bear mad at you. But these incidents made perfect sense if their purpose was to rouse Europe and the United States into taking drastic steps toward fascism - steps like trying ever harder to find some justification for invading Syria and any other Muslim or African country they could get their hands on, and closing their borders to refugees in order to "protect themselves" from further attack.
So in the wake of supposed Muslim attacks by "ISIS", a bunch of European nations closed their borders to immigrants (especially dark-skinned immigrants) and refugees, and the United States followed suit - especially in Southern states. And a few incidents occurred right here in the USA in order to add momentum to the push by certain elements in this country to preserve a pure "American paradise" that did not have to share its ill-gotten gains with the people it had robbed at gunpoint and smashed.
But another funny thing started to happen. An increasing number of people began to view all the supposed attacks by ISIS as false-flag operations, self-wounding operations carried out by well-placed Americans in order to gain sympathy for their narcissistic agenda. (I have spent several months looking at Uncle Sam as a narcissistic personality, but really, the more I think about it, there is also more than a hint of borderline personality disorder at work in the mainstream American psyche.) Now things are at the point where whenever a supposed "ISIS attack" is publicized by the American mainstream media, it is met by a growing and deafening chorus of skeptics like me who are shouting "False Flag!" And mainstream media outlets - which at first ignored us, then made light of us - are now having to take time to answer us seriously. (See this for instance.) But that is not helping them, because the fact that they must now take serious time for serious answers means that people are now having to seriously consider our arguments. The fact that we must now be taken seriously means that we have won a victory.
The result of that is that many of the associations between Omar Mateen and ISIS which were made by the mainstream media in the first few days after the Orlando nightclub shooting have been carefully and quietly scrubbed from the ongoing narrative of that shooting. To associate that incident with ISIS is to give one's credibility the kiss of death.
And Donald Trump - who has become the American embodiment of all the right-wing, racist intolerance which has revived in Europe - has found that the Orlando shooting has not helped him. Rather, his insane remarks in the wake of the shooting have actually hurt him. (See this, this and this.)
Meanwhile, this weekend we are seeing in Britain the sort of consequences which begin to unfold when a bunch of people who think they are All That And A Bag Of Chips cut themselves off from the rest of the world. What if that sort of people wins control of the United States this November?
Sunday, June 19, 2016
A June Commentary on the Flux of Election-Year Events
I noticed this week that someone posted a recent comment on my post, "The Breakup of Pathological Spaces." I also noticed two other things: first, that my site traffic has recently gone through the roof, and second, that my commenter made a few violations of my comment policy. The first violation was in posting anonymously. (Normally, I don't publish anonymous comments. Google ID or equivalent is required.) The second was in throwing some profanity into his (her?) comment. I only publish comments that are written in family-friendly language. Call me old-fashioned, or a "prude", but I have my reasons, and no one has been able to talk me out of them.
However, when someone puts up a spirited disagreement with one of my posts, I am strongly tempted to give them a hearing, even if they violate my policies. So I have decided to reproduce Mr. (Mrs.? Ms.?) Anonymous' comment below (with some minor edits):
"A rather foolish contortion of NPD to fit your "America so evil" narrative. On another note, calling what happened in Orlando a false flag is disgraceful to us gays (yes I am gay, and a liberty-lover just the same), I really should be commenting on that post but alas its to the same end. How can you honestly imply American culture is at-large more narcissistic, more sociopathic than the self-righteous dogmatism of Islam, which could [care] less about the freedoms of women, gays, any free thinking person, of freedom of spirit and heart? Sure the power elites ripping the world to shreds are sociopathic slime, but western individualism is not simply narcissism. Collectivism is at the heart of all governmental evil in this world. Baffles me to think people are still defending muslims who hide their immorality, sadism and vitriol behind their [garbage] religion, playing the victim at every corner until they're in every corner of western civilization because of the white man's pathological on..."
(Here Blogger cut off the rest of the comment. Anonymous, whoever you are, if you want to finish your thought, feel free to submit the rest of what you wanted to say - subject to my comment policy, of course!)
But for now, I have a few answers to the comment from Anonymous. As to the assertion I have made that mainstream American culture is increasingly narcissistic and sociopathic, just look at how widely the ideals of selfishness are preached nowadays - through the mouths of entire political parties (Republicans and parties to the right of them); through mainstream American evangelicalism which venerates predatory capitalism, American exceptionalism and white supremacy; and a "press" which is no longer free, but wholly owned by a handful of sick rich people (Rupert Murdoch being one of them) who want to reproduce their disease in as much of their audience as possible. (Ever heard of Ayn Rand?)
As for the assertion that calling Orlando a false flag is disrespectful to the victims, there are people who for years have called 9/11 a false flag, yet these people meant no disrespect to those victims. False flag operations do hurt people - that I acknowledge. Yet the attempt to investigate the question of why a thing happened must rest on a truthful examination of facts, because it is the body of facts which determines why things happen and who the perpetrators are. Asking "Why" is not disrespectful to the victims, nor is it disrespectful to pay careful attention to who benefits from a thing that has happened or what use (political and otherwise) is being made of that thing. Your statement about being disgraceful is a non sequitur.
Lastly, regarding Islam, let me tell you something. I am a Biblical Christian, and not a Muslim. I will never convert to Islam. However, I think that Islam has been set up as a convenient scapegoat for decades, complete with its convenient stereotype of the typical Muslim as some emotional, crazed, violent fanatic who goes around killing people solely because he "hates their freedoms!!!!!" You are a self-professed homosexual, and yet it is ironic that you are spouting the same sort of stereotyped cliches that the American Religious Right spouted after 9/11. (Here are two books to check out: The Blood of the Moon, and Islam Unveiled. The latter book must have set a world speed record for being written and published within a few short months after the 9/11 attacks. (It was published on January 1, 2002!) Rather odd, considering that for a long time, the typical time to publish a book from the finishing of the author's manuscript was two years.)
A closer look at the reality of Islam in the world today - if you actually care to take a look - will reveal a much more diverse body of practitioners than you may have realized. You will understand that there are divisions within Islam that are very similar in many ways to the denominations of Christianity. You would also have discovered a host of Islamic countries where the values of community and hospitality are so deeply ingrained in the culture that Western visitors are blown away by the kindnesses they receive. (Check out some bicycle touring blogs if you don't believe me - like "To Catch A Rainbow (Somewhere In Iran)", "Iran Alborz Mountains", and TravellingTwo.)
Anonymous, you've been living in a toxic bubble of American propaganda for too long. Step away from the Kool-Aid, please...
For the rest of my readers, my next blog post will describe the ways in which the campaign of Donald Trump has been using the Orlando mass shooting.
However, when someone puts up a spirited disagreement with one of my posts, I am strongly tempted to give them a hearing, even if they violate my policies. So I have decided to reproduce Mr. (Mrs.? Ms.?) Anonymous' comment below (with some minor edits):
"A rather foolish contortion of NPD to fit your "America so evil" narrative. On another note, calling what happened in Orlando a false flag is disgraceful to us gays (yes I am gay, and a liberty-lover just the same), I really should be commenting on that post but alas its to the same end. How can you honestly imply American culture is at-large more narcissistic, more sociopathic than the self-righteous dogmatism of Islam, which could [care] less about the freedoms of women, gays, any free thinking person, of freedom of spirit and heart? Sure the power elites ripping the world to shreds are sociopathic slime, but western individualism is not simply narcissism. Collectivism is at the heart of all governmental evil in this world. Baffles me to think people are still defending muslims who hide their immorality, sadism and vitriol behind their [garbage] religion, playing the victim at every corner until they're in every corner of western civilization because of the white man's pathological on..."
(Here Blogger cut off the rest of the comment. Anonymous, whoever you are, if you want to finish your thought, feel free to submit the rest of what you wanted to say - subject to my comment policy, of course!)
But for now, I have a few answers to the comment from Anonymous. As to the assertion I have made that mainstream American culture is increasingly narcissistic and sociopathic, just look at how widely the ideals of selfishness are preached nowadays - through the mouths of entire political parties (Republicans and parties to the right of them); through mainstream American evangelicalism which venerates predatory capitalism, American exceptionalism and white supremacy; and a "press" which is no longer free, but wholly owned by a handful of sick rich people (Rupert Murdoch being one of them) who want to reproduce their disease in as much of their audience as possible. (Ever heard of Ayn Rand?)
As for the assertion that calling Orlando a false flag is disrespectful to the victims, there are people who for years have called 9/11 a false flag, yet these people meant no disrespect to those victims. False flag operations do hurt people - that I acknowledge. Yet the attempt to investigate the question of why a thing happened must rest on a truthful examination of facts, because it is the body of facts which determines why things happen and who the perpetrators are. Asking "Why" is not disrespectful to the victims, nor is it disrespectful to pay careful attention to who benefits from a thing that has happened or what use (political and otherwise) is being made of that thing. Your statement about being disgraceful is a non sequitur.
Lastly, regarding Islam, let me tell you something. I am a Biblical Christian, and not a Muslim. I will never convert to Islam. However, I think that Islam has been set up as a convenient scapegoat for decades, complete with its convenient stereotype of the typical Muslim as some emotional, crazed, violent fanatic who goes around killing people solely because he "hates their freedoms!!!!!" You are a self-professed homosexual, and yet it is ironic that you are spouting the same sort of stereotyped cliches that the American Religious Right spouted after 9/11. (Here are two books to check out: The Blood of the Moon, and Islam Unveiled. The latter book must have set a world speed record for being written and published within a few short months after the 9/11 attacks. (It was published on January 1, 2002!) Rather odd, considering that for a long time, the typical time to publish a book from the finishing of the author's manuscript was two years.)
A closer look at the reality of Islam in the world today - if you actually care to take a look - will reveal a much more diverse body of practitioners than you may have realized. You will understand that there are divisions within Islam that are very similar in many ways to the denominations of Christianity. You would also have discovered a host of Islamic countries where the values of community and hospitality are so deeply ingrained in the culture that Western visitors are blown away by the kindnesses they receive. (Check out some bicycle touring blogs if you don't believe me - like "To Catch A Rainbow (Somewhere In Iran)", "Iran Alborz Mountains", and TravellingTwo.)
Anonymous, you've been living in a toxic bubble of American propaganda for too long. Step away from the Kool-Aid, please...
For the rest of my readers, my next blog post will describe the ways in which the campaign of Donald Trump has been using the Orlando mass shooting.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Reichstagsbrand II
Image taken from The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches, Heinrich Hoffmann, 1858
So there was another mass shooting this weekend, and as usual, I found out about it several hours after it happened, since I have no TV. And once again, an Arab with ties to ISIS is being blamed for the massacre. And once again, I am inclined to think that this was a false flag attack. For one thing, the alleged assailant is no longer alive to stand trial or to defend himself. (How convenient!) For another thing, the alleged assailant proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS just before the attack, and as I have written previously, ISIS has served the United States well as a conveniently manufactured bogeyman (just as Al-Qaeda did before ISIS). Indeed, there are too many similarities between this attack and previous highly questionable "terror attacks" that have taken place within the last two years.
For those who think that all Arabs - or all Muslims - are incredibly emotional, fanatic, and stupid, consider this. Any sane person does not pick a fight with an opponent unless there is a good strategy for winning. Senseless, high-drama "terror attacks" perpetrated by the Muslim world do not fall into the category of a good strategy for winning. Rather, those who perpetrate such attacks merely strengthen the hand of their adversaries. If the Muslim world was actually trying to pick a fight with the West (or especially, with the red-white-and blue Cowboy on a White Horse), surely they would use a smarter strategy than this.
So who benefits from such terror attacks? Is it not the same people who have worked tirelessly in Europe to demonize immigrants and refugees, in order to exclude them and loot their countries? And who now is the chief spokesman and proponent of pushing the United States to do the same thing? The spokesman I am thinking of has indeed gone into full loose cannon mode over the last 24 hours. He has made himself the point man for a group of people who have long been used to supremacy and a unipolar world which they regarded as their oyster. Now that such a world is slipping from their grasp, they are full of rage and terror. Such emotions can move people to do some really creepy things.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Bem Vindo, Brasil
This post will be short. I am a bit stressed right now, having a computer programming assignment and a couple of reports I have to finish for school. I am a lousy programmer.
But I recently checked my blog, and found that I had gotten a lot of traffic from Brazil. To those of my readers who live there, I extend a hearty welcome. Your country seems to be going through interesting times just now. I know that Brazil, in collaboration with other countries, has been seeking to move away from the use of the American dollar in international trade. (See this also.) And I know that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is under intense political attack just now. A coincidence? (Hardly, I think.) I wonder who is funding and orchestrating the attacks. I also think that it would be premature to write Ms. Rousseff off as a casualty.
The nasty thing about an empire trying to overthrow foreign governments in order to protect its hegemony is that every time the empire tries such tricks, the foreign governments learn lessons from the experience, which they apply in defending themselves from being eaten by the empire. Learning and applying those lessons to future overthrow attempts makes it harder for the empire to prevail in future attempts. It's like going into the ring against a bully who knows only a few tricks and who repeats them over and over. If the bully targets you, and if you have learned lessons from studying his past fights, you can befuddle him by thinking outside his box. (One application of lessons learned is that American NGO's - including religious and missionary organizations - are being kicked out of an increasing number of countries.)
So stand strong, Brazil! Don't let the United States eat you for lunch. One thing the U.S. cannot do this time around is foment a "democratic resistance" in Brazil in an attempt to legitimize a government that is the thuggish tool of rich people, as they tried to do in Syria and the Ukraine. Most Brazilians simply won't tolerate that sort of thing.
But I recently checked my blog, and found that I had gotten a lot of traffic from Brazil. To those of my readers who live there, I extend a hearty welcome. Your country seems to be going through interesting times just now. I know that Brazil, in collaboration with other countries, has been seeking to move away from the use of the American dollar in international trade. (See this also.) And I know that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is under intense political attack just now. A coincidence? (Hardly, I think.) I wonder who is funding and orchestrating the attacks. I also think that it would be premature to write Ms. Rousseff off as a casualty.
The nasty thing about an empire trying to overthrow foreign governments in order to protect its hegemony is that every time the empire tries such tricks, the foreign governments learn lessons from the experience, which they apply in defending themselves from being eaten by the empire. Learning and applying those lessons to future overthrow attempts makes it harder for the empire to prevail in future attempts. It's like going into the ring against a bully who knows only a few tricks and who repeats them over and over. If the bully targets you, and if you have learned lessons from studying his past fights, you can befuddle him by thinking outside his box. (One application of lessons learned is that American NGO's - including religious and missionary organizations - are being kicked out of an increasing number of countries.)
So stand strong, Brazil! Don't let the United States eat you for lunch. One thing the U.S. cannot do this time around is foment a "democratic resistance" in Brazil in an attempt to legitimize a government that is the thuggish tool of rich people, as they tried to do in Syria and the Ukraine. Most Brazilians simply won't tolerate that sort of thing.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Pressed by Pressing Business
To regular readers of this blog, I extend a hearty welcome, and a hearty "Thank you." However, I must also extend an apology. School and work both have me so busy right now that I can't see straight. So I will have to take a break from blogging for the next eight weeks, unless it's something that I can say quickly in a few sentences. For those who want to leave comments, I will try to publish them as quickly as possible, but be forewarned - it might take a few days.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
The Unexpected Consequences Of An Under-Noticed Addiction
This post will be short. I am almost choking to death on grad school and work, and today I am more than a little sleep-deprived. But in keeping with one of the more recent themes of this blog - namely, the tracing of the outworkings of the moral consequences now being reaped by Western society - here is something for readers to chew on.
In previous posts (see here and here), I commented on the shrinkage of broadcast and cable television, and hinted at the possible emergence of a culture in the West which is no longer influenced by Western mass media. I'd like to explore that thought in greater detail some other time. But today, for those of you who are still plugged into the electronic beast known as mainstream media (including not only "news," but all other forms of mass entertainment), I've got some disturbing words to say.
First, I've recently discovered that neuroscientists over the last two decades have been pointing out a disturbing link between excessive consumption of electronic entertainment and the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Here is an article from CBS (ironically!) which reports the findings of a study connecting excess TV watching in youth to cognitive declines as early as middle age. Here also is a link to a Washington Post article which describes the same study.
And here is a link to an article which shows that as far back as 2001, American neuroscientists were aware of such a connection. In that article, one of the researchers, Dr. Robert Friedland, is quoted as saying, "...[it is possible for television to be intellectually stimulating], but probably that is not what is happening most of the time, especially in America, where people watch an average of four hours a day. I think it is bad for the brain to watch four hours of television a day. The brain has been honed by evolutionary forces to be active, and learning is an important part of life. When you watch TV you can be in a semi-conscious state where you really are not doing any learning."
And it gets even better. A study published by the Royal Society in 2015 linked excessive playing of video games to the onset of changes in brain structure that diminished grey matter in the hippocampus, leading to an increased likelihood of development of neurological or psychiatric disorders later in life. One such likely neurological disorder is Alzheimer's.
I would also like to suggest a link between excess consumption of electronic entertainment and the unmistakable rise in the number and percentage of personality-disordered people in Western society. (What? You haven't noticed?!) Finding proof of such a link is an exercise I will leave to you, the reader. (Hint: How do you describe spending hours of time in voyeuristic spying on narcissistic, histrionic, and borderline personalities trying to wipe each other out week by week? I call it "watching soap operas" or "watching 'reality' TV," or in extreme cases, "watching the U.S. Presidential election campaigns." Watching lots of that stuff eventually rubs off on a person.)
In previous posts (see here and here), I commented on the shrinkage of broadcast and cable television, and hinted at the possible emergence of a culture in the West which is no longer influenced by Western mass media. I'd like to explore that thought in greater detail some other time. But today, for those of you who are still plugged into the electronic beast known as mainstream media (including not only "news," but all other forms of mass entertainment), I've got some disturbing words to say.
First, I've recently discovered that neuroscientists over the last two decades have been pointing out a disturbing link between excessive consumption of electronic entertainment and the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Here is an article from CBS (ironically!) which reports the findings of a study connecting excess TV watching in youth to cognitive declines as early as middle age. Here also is a link to a Washington Post article which describes the same study.
And here is a link to an article which shows that as far back as 2001, American neuroscientists were aware of such a connection. In that article, one of the researchers, Dr. Robert Friedland, is quoted as saying, "...[it is possible for television to be intellectually stimulating], but probably that is not what is happening most of the time, especially in America, where people watch an average of four hours a day. I think it is bad for the brain to watch four hours of television a day. The brain has been honed by evolutionary forces to be active, and learning is an important part of life. When you watch TV you can be in a semi-conscious state where you really are not doing any learning."
And it gets even better. A study published by the Royal Society in 2015 linked excessive playing of video games to the onset of changes in brain structure that diminished grey matter in the hippocampus, leading to an increased likelihood of development of neurological or psychiatric disorders later in life. One such likely neurological disorder is Alzheimer's.
I would also like to suggest a link between excess consumption of electronic entertainment and the unmistakable rise in the number and percentage of personality-disordered people in Western society. (What? You haven't noticed?!) Finding proof of such a link is an exercise I will leave to you, the reader. (Hint: How do you describe spending hours of time in voyeuristic spying on narcissistic, histrionic, and borderline personalities trying to wipe each other out week by week? I call it "watching soap operas" or "watching 'reality' TV," or in extreme cases, "watching the U.S. Presidential election campaigns." Watching lots of that stuff eventually rubs off on a person.)
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Brussels Flappin' In The Wind
I have been so buried under school work that the alleged Muslim/Arab "terror attack" in Brussels has barely registered with me. However, I have noticed not only the usual chorus of hysterical Anglo and European voices screaming about how Europe is being destroyed by immigration, but I have also noticed new, formerly seemingly trustworthy voices joining the chorus. Some of these voices have been lately singing the praises of Donald Trump. From now on, I deem all such voices to be suspect. I believe I know the source of the angst of these voices: namely the realization that there is an inseparable link between the emergence of a multipolar world and the emergence of a multicultural and multiethnic society. This means the inevitable erasure of unequal access to material resources, the end of special privileges for a dominant group, and the emergence of a world in which each person will have to treat his neighbors with respect and learn to share and take turns.
Hence the "terror" temper tantrums we see. For the emergence of a world such as I have just described is an absolute horror to many people who have had everything their way for a long time, and who have been able to dominate all the other peoples of the earth. In their horror, the world's privileged people are punching themselves in the face in order to provide a pretext for what they want to do to everyone else, in a desperate bid to hold onto their position of unjust wealth and privilege.
It's a shame, really. For the wealth and privilege of those who have exalted themselves by oppressing the poor will come to an end, sooner or later. As for me, I am reminded of Psalm 146:3: "Do not put your trust in princes, each a son of man in whom there is no help."
Hence the "terror" temper tantrums we see. For the emergence of a world such as I have just described is an absolute horror to many people who have had everything their way for a long time, and who have been able to dominate all the other peoples of the earth. In their horror, the world's privileged people are punching themselves in the face in order to provide a pretext for what they want to do to everyone else, in a desperate bid to hold onto their position of unjust wealth and privilege.
It's a shame, really. For the wealth and privilege of those who have exalted themselves by oppressing the poor will come to an end, sooner or later. As for me, I am reminded of Psalm 146:3: "Do not put your trust in princes, each a son of man in whom there is no help."
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
A Feline Antidote
For those of you who regularly follow my blog, my apologies for the rather light posting over the last few weeks. I have some serious writing to do regarding my graduate project and so my time will be taken for a few weeks more.
But I noticed several days ago that some members of the supposed "alternative", non-mainstream, "non-Empire" blogosphere have been endorsing a particular Presidential candidate. They have taken a few of his statements over the last several months - especially his statements regarding foreign policy - as some sign that this man is some sort of genuine alternative to the narcissism and imperialism that characterizes those who want to be the President of the United States.
I don't think so. Consider the statements which this man made very early on in his campaign - statements directly threatening certain ethnic groups, Latin American nations, and adherents to a certain religion (namely, Islam) - and consider that he made such radical statements in order to gain popularity. Consider also the kinds of people among whom he immediately became very popular. One may say, "Well, he had to say such things in order to become noticed, but he really didn't mean them..." For those who say that, consider Anton Chekhov, who is reputed to have said, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off..."
Consider also that some of those now endorsing this man previously advised us to "...show disrespect for [the] liturgical actions of..." those who currently run the electoral process. To me, that includes disrespecting every last one of those who run things, because the only way to become prominent in American national politics nowadays is to have lots of money (and to be a fantastic liar). So Donald Trump is supposed to be financing his own campaign. So what? Anyone with access to that kind of money is part of the system, even if he claims to be fighting the system.
So I don't buy those who - wittingly or unwittingly - have become sheep dogs for a wolf. I hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings by saying this, because I hope rather to engender constructive dialogue. But sometimes hard things must be said.
If anyone wants to know whom I have endorsed for the Presidency, he or she can find out here.
But I noticed several days ago that some members of the supposed "alternative", non-mainstream, "non-Empire" blogosphere have been endorsing a particular Presidential candidate. They have taken a few of his statements over the last several months - especially his statements regarding foreign policy - as some sign that this man is some sort of genuine alternative to the narcissism and imperialism that characterizes those who want to be the President of the United States.
I don't think so. Consider the statements which this man made very early on in his campaign - statements directly threatening certain ethnic groups, Latin American nations, and adherents to a certain religion (namely, Islam) - and consider that he made such radical statements in order to gain popularity. Consider also the kinds of people among whom he immediately became very popular. One may say, "Well, he had to say such things in order to become noticed, but he really didn't mean them..." For those who say that, consider Anton Chekhov, who is reputed to have said, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off..."
Consider also that some of those now endorsing this man previously advised us to "...show disrespect for [the] liturgical actions of..." those who currently run the electoral process. To me, that includes disrespecting every last one of those who run things, because the only way to become prominent in American national politics nowadays is to have lots of money (and to be a fantastic liar). So Donald Trump is supposed to be financing his own campaign. So what? Anyone with access to that kind of money is part of the system, even if he claims to be fighting the system.
So I don't buy those who - wittingly or unwittingly - have become sheep dogs for a wolf. I hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings by saying this, because I hope rather to engender constructive dialogue. But sometimes hard things must be said.
If anyone wants to know whom I have endorsed for the Presidency, he or she can find out here.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Some Videos of People From Different Backgrounds Actually Getting Along With Each Other
I have some ideas for a few rather lengthy posts which I'd like to compose sometime in the near future. But tonight, I'm trying to read a difficult mathematical text for school, and I haven't the time or brainpower for much of anything else. So I'll just share a few YouTube videos of people from multiethnic backgrounds engaged in a fun, worthwhile cultural exchange. Enjoy.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Killing A Predator - Nonviolently
Among the animals there are natural-born predators - animals who are specifically designed to live by eating other animals. They are incapable of relating to certain other animals as anything but a food source - a fact which, no doubt, causes a great deal of stress in the animals who are regarded as food by the predators. After all, nobody likes being eaten, or living under the constant threat of being eaten. What if among humans, there are people who can't look at their fellow humans in any other way than as something that would look good between two pieces of bread? How should the rest of humanity look at such human predators?
There are a few possible responses one could choose. The first would be to be on the lookout for those in our midst who are natural predators, and who are incapable of being reformed, and to physically attack and destroy these people before they can make a meal out of you. The trouble with this, however, is that some predators have used this justification for accusing and attacking people who were not a threat to them, in order to prey on them. Or, we could let the predators run society so that they could shape society into the form most advantageous to them. (This is the model adopted by the United States from 1776 until now.)
But what if you were bound by a moral code that prohibited you from doing violence to your fellow human beings, even if some of them were predators? Would that mean that you had to passively offer yourself up to be eaten whenever you met a predator? Surprisingly, opinions are divided on the answer to this question.
If you asked me what I thought, I would tell you that I am a Christian; therefore, I am prohibited from physically attacking those whom I recognize as human predators. On this point, the New Testament is quite clear, if one is willing to take what it says at face value. But where opinions diverge is on the question of whether we are obliged to keep constant company with predators, once we see that their fangs and claws have come out. One school of thought would quote Luke 6:27-36: “But I tell you who hear: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you...", and would say that our duty is therefore to embrace every opportunity to do good deeds to abusive people, even going so far as to choose to remain in situations where we must endure long-term abuse, in order to have the opportunity to minister to abusive people. This is how an acquaintance of mine counseled me after I told him of my recent decision to leave the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, after I had heard some statements from some of their clergy who tried to justify the many police shootings of unarmed African-Americans over the last few years. The acquaintance told me that I should stay with the Lutherans in order to "minister" to them, in the hope that "the Holy Spirit might reach them." I didn't take his advice. But it is the sort of advice that tickles the ears of the sort of people who want some of us to be like the central character in Uncle Tom's Cabin.
For there is another school of thought which says that placing yourself in situations of long-term abuse is sometimes a codependent behavior, and is not a sign of health on your part, but rather of pathology. For such a response on your part enables the abuser to continue with his dysfunctional behavior. ("Enabling" can be defined as "removing the natural consequences to the addict of his or her own behavior.") So while I do indeed submit to Luke 6:27-36, I am also guided by Matthew 10, where the Lord sent His disciples out to do good to a nation which He knew would not receive His message. There He says, "Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise (some translate this as "shrewd") as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men..." Someone who is shrewd is smart or clever in a practical sort of way; he or she has an ability to understand things and make good judgments, and he or she possesses hard-headed acumen. (In the original Greek, the word translated "wise" or "shrewd" is the Greek word φρόνιμος , or, "phronimos.") In Matthew 10, the Lord also told His disciples that if their intended audience rejected the message of the good deeds done to them, the disciples were to leave them and move on to someone else. And He said, "But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next..." (Emphasis added) In other words, don't stick around.
Things get even clearer when the abuser calls himself or herself a Christian. For 1 Corinthians 5 says that we are not to associate with anyone who is called Christian if that person practices certain sins, among which are scheming to steal other people's stuff (which is a rough working definition of covetousness), or threatening other people in order to rob them (which is a rough working definition of extortion). In other words, we are called to separate ourselves from those who are hell-bent on being abusive. (That also applies on a certain level to abusive nations that call themselves "Christian".)
What if the abusers own the major institutions of society, and own the playing space in which the great game of economic advancement is played? Then separation will not be without cost. But those who do separate themselves will discover an amazing thing, namely, that they can indeed live outside of the system, if they are willing to stop wanting the things the system has to offer. In other words, they discover that they don't need the things the system told them they needed. 1 Corinthians 7 commands us not to make full use of the world, since this world is passing away.
So let's bring this to the realm of secular geopolitics. The United States and Britain have, for the last sixty or so years, sought to refashion the world into their own personal possession, a united Anglo-American empire rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the British empire, on which "the sun never set." They have imposed the dollar on the world as the world's reserve currency, the de facto currency of international trade. They have enforced monetary policy via the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and have made the world into their oyster, an oyster which has only one choice, namely, to be eaten. For they have made the pursuit of all other options impossibly painful for the oyster (or so they thought).
But the oyster is now discovering that it does not have to be prey. Syria (with a great deal of help from Russia) has just successfully resisted Anglo-American attempts to dismember it. Iran recently announced that it will no longer conduct international trade with any other nation in dollars, but will trade in euros from now on. China has announced that it will no longer peg its currency exclusively to the U.S. dollar, but rather to a basket of currencies. (See this also.) Russia and China are now trading with each other in Chinese yuan and not in U.S. dollars. Other nations are also now ditching the dollar. (See this also.) And even inside the U.S. there is an increasing number of people who are unplugging from the system, financially and in other ways, by adopting simpler, more frugal lifestyles. (One such development: note the swelling numbers of people who don't have a cable subscription, who don't even watch Netflix, and who don't have a TV. Note also the very successful boycotts of year-end holiday shopping by African-Americans over the last two years.) Such developments - not widely reported in Anglo-American media - must be giving a lot of hunger pangs to the predators who want to eat the oyster.
And this - the fear of starvation - is one big reason why predators start getting nervous when the prey begins to leave the pathological space created by the predators. Just as no prey likes to be eaten, no predator wants to die of starvation. The other reason why predators get nervous when their prey leave them has to do with the dynamic that emerges between predators once there are no longer any prey among them. Along those lines, last week I was fascinated to hear a TED talk by Margaret Heffernan, author of Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore The Obvious At Our Peril. In her talk, she described an experiment performed by William Muir of Purdue University, which involved two groups of chickens. Chickens might prey on worms and bugs, but they normally don't prey on each other. However, Muir took both groups of chickens through six generations of his experiment. With one group (the control group), he did nothing but feed and care for them in the usual way. However, in each generation of the second group, he separated out from them the best and most productive egg-layers (also known as the "super-chickens"), and used them as the breeding chickens for the following generation. After six generations, the control group - the flock of mostly average chickens - was happy and thriving. However, in the group which was subjected to selective breeding, by the sixth generation, only three of the "super-chickens" were alive. The rest had pecked each other to death.
There are a few possible responses one could choose. The first would be to be on the lookout for those in our midst who are natural predators, and who are incapable of being reformed, and to physically attack and destroy these people before they can make a meal out of you. The trouble with this, however, is that some predators have used this justification for accusing and attacking people who were not a threat to them, in order to prey on them. Or, we could let the predators run society so that they could shape society into the form most advantageous to them. (This is the model adopted by the United States from 1776 until now.)
But what if you were bound by a moral code that prohibited you from doing violence to your fellow human beings, even if some of them were predators? Would that mean that you had to passively offer yourself up to be eaten whenever you met a predator? Surprisingly, opinions are divided on the answer to this question.
If you asked me what I thought, I would tell you that I am a Christian; therefore, I am prohibited from physically attacking those whom I recognize as human predators. On this point, the New Testament is quite clear, if one is willing to take what it says at face value. But where opinions diverge is on the question of whether we are obliged to keep constant company with predators, once we see that their fangs and claws have come out. One school of thought would quote Luke 6:27-36: “But I tell you who hear: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you...", and would say that our duty is therefore to embrace every opportunity to do good deeds to abusive people, even going so far as to choose to remain in situations where we must endure long-term abuse, in order to have the opportunity to minister to abusive people. This is how an acquaintance of mine counseled me after I told him of my recent decision to leave the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, after I had heard some statements from some of their clergy who tried to justify the many police shootings of unarmed African-Americans over the last few years. The acquaintance told me that I should stay with the Lutherans in order to "minister" to them, in the hope that "the Holy Spirit might reach them." I didn't take his advice. But it is the sort of advice that tickles the ears of the sort of people who want some of us to be like the central character in Uncle Tom's Cabin.
For there is another school of thought which says that placing yourself in situations of long-term abuse is sometimes a codependent behavior, and is not a sign of health on your part, but rather of pathology. For such a response on your part enables the abuser to continue with his dysfunctional behavior. ("Enabling" can be defined as "removing the natural consequences to the addict of his or her own behavior.") So while I do indeed submit to Luke 6:27-36, I am also guided by Matthew 10, where the Lord sent His disciples out to do good to a nation which He knew would not receive His message. There He says, "Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise (some translate this as "shrewd") as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men..." Someone who is shrewd is smart or clever in a practical sort of way; he or she has an ability to understand things and make good judgments, and he or she possesses hard-headed acumen. (In the original Greek, the word translated "wise" or "shrewd" is the Greek word φρόνιμος , or, "phronimos.") In Matthew 10, the Lord also told His disciples that if their intended audience rejected the message of the good deeds done to them, the disciples were to leave them and move on to someone else. And He said, "But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next..." (Emphasis added) In other words, don't stick around.
Things get even clearer when the abuser calls himself or herself a Christian. For 1 Corinthians 5 says that we are not to associate with anyone who is called Christian if that person practices certain sins, among which are scheming to steal other people's stuff (which is a rough working definition of covetousness), or threatening other people in order to rob them (which is a rough working definition of extortion). In other words, we are called to separate ourselves from those who are hell-bent on being abusive. (That also applies on a certain level to abusive nations that call themselves "Christian".)
What if the abusers own the major institutions of society, and own the playing space in which the great game of economic advancement is played? Then separation will not be without cost. But those who do separate themselves will discover an amazing thing, namely, that they can indeed live outside of the system, if they are willing to stop wanting the things the system has to offer. In other words, they discover that they don't need the things the system told them they needed. 1 Corinthians 7 commands us not to make full use of the world, since this world is passing away.
So let's bring this to the realm of secular geopolitics. The United States and Britain have, for the last sixty or so years, sought to refashion the world into their own personal possession, a united Anglo-American empire rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the British empire, on which "the sun never set." They have imposed the dollar on the world as the world's reserve currency, the de facto currency of international trade. They have enforced monetary policy via the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and have made the world into their oyster, an oyster which has only one choice, namely, to be eaten. For they have made the pursuit of all other options impossibly painful for the oyster (or so they thought).
But the oyster is now discovering that it does not have to be prey. Syria (with a great deal of help from Russia) has just successfully resisted Anglo-American attempts to dismember it. Iran recently announced that it will no longer conduct international trade with any other nation in dollars, but will trade in euros from now on. China has announced that it will no longer peg its currency exclusively to the U.S. dollar, but rather to a basket of currencies. (See this also.) Russia and China are now trading with each other in Chinese yuan and not in U.S. dollars. Other nations are also now ditching the dollar. (See this also.) And even inside the U.S. there is an increasing number of people who are unplugging from the system, financially and in other ways, by adopting simpler, more frugal lifestyles. (One such development: note the swelling numbers of people who don't have a cable subscription, who don't even watch Netflix, and who don't have a TV. Note also the very successful boycotts of year-end holiday shopping by African-Americans over the last two years.) Such developments - not widely reported in Anglo-American media - must be giving a lot of hunger pangs to the predators who want to eat the oyster.
And this - the fear of starvation - is one big reason why predators start getting nervous when the prey begins to leave the pathological space created by the predators. Just as no prey likes to be eaten, no predator wants to die of starvation. The other reason why predators get nervous when their prey leave them has to do with the dynamic that emerges between predators once there are no longer any prey among them. Along those lines, last week I was fascinated to hear a TED talk by Margaret Heffernan, author of Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore The Obvious At Our Peril. In her talk, she described an experiment performed by William Muir of Purdue University, which involved two groups of chickens. Chickens might prey on worms and bugs, but they normally don't prey on each other. However, Muir took both groups of chickens through six generations of his experiment. With one group (the control group), he did nothing but feed and care for them in the usual way. However, in each generation of the second group, he separated out from them the best and most productive egg-layers (also known as the "super-chickens"), and used them as the breeding chickens for the following generation. After six generations, the control group - the flock of mostly average chickens - was happy and thriving. However, in the group which was subjected to selective breeding, by the sixth generation, only three of the "super-chickens" were alive. The rest had pecked each other to death.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
The Machinery of Looting: A Case Study
Over the last few weeks, I have been describing how the machinery of looting built by the U.S. and Europe has worked to enrich Europe and America at the expense of the rest of the world. This is the reason why the calls of some wealthy people with loud voices to restrict the entry of refugees and immigrants into the European Union or the United States (or the other four of the Five Eyes) are so immoral.
This week I want to provide a case study of one such instance of looting, namely Haiti. Here then is a repost of an essay I wrote shortly after the Haitian earthquake of 2010 (an earthquake which many suspect was caused by undersea oil extraction activities that are remarkably similar to fracking). In the aftermath of the disaster caused by that quake, the U.S. sent over 10,000 troops tochase aid workers from other countries out of Haiti (including many doctors sent to Haiti by Cuba, a nation which produces some of the finest primary care and emergency doctors on earth), in order to protect the assets of foreign companies which had operations in Haiti. Oops! - er, I mean, to help the "democratically elected" government of Haiti "deal with unruly, rioting crowds and restore order."
Thankfully, many of the foreign interests who "own" assets in Haiti are now on the ropes economically, as I wrote in a previous post. And many of the customers of these foreign interests - upscale people in America and Europe who inhabit the upper-middle-class and the strata above this level - are now falling down from the lofty perches they have made for themselves, as I wrote here. That includes engineers and scientists, lawyers, owners of private schools as well as the parents who send their kids to these, middle managers in various corporate sectors, entertainers and news talking heads, sports stars, and investment bankers. And to the endangered occupation list, you can also add police officers, prison correctional officers and private prison employees. I leave the verification of that last sentence as an exercise for the reader.
This week I want to provide a case study of one such instance of looting, namely Haiti. Here then is a repost of an essay I wrote shortly after the Haitian earthquake of 2010 (an earthquake which many suspect was caused by undersea oil extraction activities that are remarkably similar to fracking). In the aftermath of the disaster caused by that quake, the U.S. sent over 10,000 troops to
Thankfully, many of the foreign interests who "own" assets in Haiti are now on the ropes economically, as I wrote in a previous post. And many of the customers of these foreign interests - upscale people in America and Europe who inhabit the upper-middle-class and the strata above this level - are now falling down from the lofty perches they have made for themselves, as I wrote here. That includes engineers and scientists, lawyers, owners of private schools as well as the parents who send their kids to these, middle managers in various corporate sectors, entertainers and news talking heads, sports stars, and investment bankers. And to the endangered occupation list, you can also add police officers, prison correctional officers and private prison employees. I leave the verification of that last sentence as an exercise for the reader.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
The Case Of The Moth-Eaten Inverness
"Then He said to them, 'Watch out, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.'" - Luke 12:15
Back when I was a kid in what my generation called junior high school (that's middle school for you who are now kids), it was the job of the English teachers at our school (who would now be called "language arts teachers" in most places in our country) to pour what our society called "culture" into our pubescent brains, by means of making us read "literature" whose origins were almost entirely British or American. This "literature", packed into 7th and 8th grade anthologies called "readers", contained a large assortment of the kind of stories that would bore most 11 to 14 year old boys to tears. However, these books did contain a few inclusions from more spicy authors. (As an aside, I remember one English class in which we were told to read a slow story about a complicated adult situation and to analyze the feelings, emotions, and responses of all the characters. I just couldn't bring myself to be interested, so I flipped ahead to a Mark Twain story, and spent the rest of the period trying to stifle frequent snickers and chuckles while the rest of the class wondered what was wrong with me.)
One of the more spicy authors included in my "reader" was Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. These stories naturally appealed to me, as they involved danger, solving mysteries, and catching bad guys. But there was a side effect to these stories which I did not notice until many years later. For Sherlock Holmes was presented as the sort of heroic character which one might naturally expect to be produced by British society, a society which was itself presented as the most refined, intellectual and "civilized" society on earth. Thus were the tastes, customs and culture of upper-crust British society presented as the pinnacle of human development. And Sherlock Holmes became a pinnacle of civilized fashion (at least when he was out in public), as a representative of the British gentleman class.
When this gentleman class (and its American cousins) deigned to look at members of other cultures, it was usually with extreme disdain - disdain especially at the tokens which those other cultures used to honor those members whom they deemed to be worthy of honor. Thus the civilized Anglo upper crust despised the feathers of the headdress of many Native American warriors, and refused to learn the meaning behind that headdress or the significance of the honor it represented. This disdain extended to the art and music of various African tribes and nations, the food and religion of many Latin American countries, the rites of passage experienced by Australian aborigines in their cultures, the rituals of respect and honor of elders embodied in many Asian cultures. After all, why was there any need to respect these? The Anglo-American culture (and its European cousins) had conquered all, and in conquering all, had shattered the soul and identity of these other cultures, producing generations of people who no longer knew and who were therefore not comfortable with who they actually were. The most these "lesser" peoples could hope for was to somehow learn to become a feeble, dark reflection of Sherlock Holmes, with his trappings of civilization: his Inverness cape, his cravat, his briar pipe, his various habits. Or, to learn to be the 20th-century reboot of Holmes, namely, James Bond or any of the other macho spies with expensive tastes and really cool stuff who were spun off from him. Or, failing that, simply to live large like the Anglo-Americans and the Europeans who had managed to fill their lives with really cool possessions.
And this is what I began to realize many years after my exposure to Sherlock Holmes: that Holmes, and the smug, upper-crust society he represented, were guilty of the very things they had despised in the cultures they conquered and subjugated. And this guilt extended far beyond the veneration of the tastes of a couple of glorified fictional Anglo action-adventure heroes. How was the fixation of 19th and 20th century British upper crust on their fashions any different or better than the reverence of any other culture for its tokens of honor? To call one such reverence idolatry would be to automatically condemn the other reverence. Who says that the tastes of a violent British spy who likes his martinis shaken, not stirred, are any better, more refined or more "civilized" than the tastes of anyone else on earth?
This leads to a larger question, namely, why anyone should consider the culture of Europe or the Anglo-American empire to be any better or more special than any other culture, especially when that claim to specialness rests on nothing more than having acquired more stuff than any other culture. European and Anglo-American claims to specialness have come to rest on the possession of more, better and cooler "stuff" than anyone else has come up with, and this possession of "stuff" has even produced class consciousness and social stratification within European and Anglo-American society - a social identity based on creating a material paradise for one's own class while excluding everyone who is deemed to be beneath one's class. But as the Good Book says, "...we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can't carry anything out."
And even in this life, those who have based their identity on their stuff can lose it all, thus losing their identity in the process. That has already begun to happen to the Anglo-American empire and to Europe. The process is driven by the cold, hard limits to the global industrial economy which I mentioned in a previous post, and which others have explained in depth. (See this, for instance.) There is nothing that can be done to stop it. The loss is striking at many who are, no doubt, very surprised at the losses they are suffering, as seen in the following links:
- "Nationwide Layoff Watch: Biglaw Firm Cuts Headcount; Attorneys Among The Victims," Above The Law, 14 January 2016
- "Nationwide Layoff Watch: More Lawyer Jobs Slashed Due to Weak Market," Above The Law, 28 October 2015
- "21st Century Fox Looks to Cut $250 Million In Film, TV Staff," Variety, 1 February 2016
- "Catholic University Turns to Buyouts and Layoffs to Cut Spending," Washington Post, 16 April 2015
- "Cal Considers Sports Budget Cuts, Layoffs To Close Big Deficit," SFGate, 10 February 2016
- "Declining Enrollment At University of Phoenix Suggests Much Leaner Apollo Ahead," AZCentral, 5 October 2015
- "The Demise of Private Schools," The Atlantic, 2 September 2015
- "The End of Middle Management?", BBC, 25 June 2015
- "Mergers and Layoffs Strike The Semiconductor and Wireless Industries," IEEE Spectrum, 31 July 2015
- "More Bank Layoffs: Barclays Is Reportedly Cutting 20% Of Its Investment Banking Staff," Business Insider, 4 December 2015
- "Layoffs Watch 2016: If You Work At A Bank, Gird Your Loins," Dealbreaker, 14 December 2015
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Requiem For A Shovel And A Hole
In my last post I said that Europe and the United States are being helped to involuntarily give up their thievery of other peoples' resources, by means of the global collapse in commodity prices. In saying that, I meant such things as this:
- "A Wave of Bankruptcies About to Hit Coal Industry," Oilprice.com, 12 April 2015
- "Mining Stocks Are Getting Killed As Gold, Metals Plunge," CNN, 27 July 2015
- "Current Financial Distress Of Metals and Mining Sector More Acute Than Oil And Gas Industry According to September ABI Journal," American Bankruptcy Institute, 16 September 2015
- "Ukraine Mining-Metal Sector On Verge Of Bankruptcy," Russia Insider, 24 April 2015
- "Mining and Metals: Weathering The Storm No More," Lexology, 29 October 2015
- "African Minerals, London Mining And The Fall Of Sierra Leone's Iron Ore Sector," SteelFirst, 10 March 2015
- "Nathan Tinkler Declared Bankrupt, But Claims He Can Pay," Australian Mining, 10 February 2016
- "China Economist Warns Major Miners May Collapse in 2016," Australian Broadcasting Company, 17 December 2015
- "Why Bankruptcy Might Be The Mining Industry's Last Best Hope," Bloomberg, 2 December 2015
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Will The Real Invader Please Stand Up?
Conversations between some people can seem a lot like beating a dead horse over and over again until the horse has been turned into equine hamburger. This is especially true when one party in the conversation is trying to communicate the truth, and the other party has made up his mind to refuse to understand that truth - presumably, because it's to the other party's advantage to not understand. As Upton Sinclair once wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." So it seems to be with many who are commenting on the influx of refugees from the Mideast and North Africa into Europe.
Most of these commenters have written at great length of the dangers of letting said refugees (dirty, uncouth and savage "invading hordes") into the pure, precious, civilized sanctuary that is supposed to be Europe. Indeed, such charity has been characterized as "committing suicide" (culturally, I presume) by at least one highly placed Eurasian politician. Granted, there are Europeans who - very, very grudgingly - acknowledge that maybe, just maybe it is a good and moral thing to give a little bit of sanctuary to the Arab and Mideastern refugees whose homelands Europe has recently helped to destroy. Yet many of these same Europeans object fervently to letting black Africans into their special precious sanctuary.
Well, okay, if that's the way you want to be, fine (although I am of African descent, and I am black!) But have you thought of asking why Black Africans might want to emigrate to Europe in the first place? If so, I have some ready answers to such a question. In an earlier post, I described how forced migrations of peoples result from the robbery and plunder of those peoples by a nation skilled at robbery which then concentrates the majority of the resources of nations within its own borders, leaving almost nothing for those nations which it has robbed. When we look at what European nations have done to Africa, there are plenty of examples of this process. I will name a few recent cases for you to chew on.
First, there is the case of Nigeria, where the peoples who inhabit the Niger delta have suffered for at least two decades from the petroleum extraction activities of rich multinational corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell. The pollution, not only from routine oil extraction, but also from lax operations and oil spills, has severely degraded living conditions in the Delta, and has seriously disrupted indigenous ways of life that were far less destructive to the land than the changes which the Europeans have brought. Not only this, but the leaders of the Nigerian government have been installed by European and American multinationals for the purpose of keeping oil extraction costs low and profits sky high, thus insuring that the ordinary people of Nigeria will not benefit from the exploitation of their nation's resources. Many of these ordinary Nigerians have risen up in opposition to this exploitation, and are now being branded as "terrorists" and "insurgents." (See this and this also.) As their homelands are wrecked in order to satisfy the European and American thirst for petroleum products, where will these people go?
The Nigerian oil situation is but a very small subset of the issue of the way Europe and the United States look at the African continent and the peoples who reside there. I am thinking particularly of recent articles I have read in the financial press, as well as press releases by various mining companies which all describe Africa as a "treasure trove" of various things wanted by Europe and the Anglo-American empire. There are also a number of interesting "players" in the African resource-extraction market, such as African Minerals, a mining company based in Sierra Leone, which was sued by villagers in that country for violently evicting those villagers from land wanted by the company, along with violent treatment of its workers, including a fatal shooting of a worker by police. The incidents took place from 2010 to 2012. The head of African Minerals, a Mr. Frank Timis, led his company into bankruptcy in 2015, and is now embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with investors. Mr. Timis, who possesses dual Romanian and Australian citizenship, was also convicted twice for dealing heroin.
Then there is the matter of coastal African nations and the peoples who make a living on those coasts by fishing. They have a long-standing problem, namely, that European fishing operations have depleted their coastal fisheries to the extent that the locals can no longer easily make a living. When the locals try to oppose the overfishing of their own resource because they can no longer make a living, they are branded as "pirates." (See this also.)
Lastly, there is the issue of land grabs, either by foreign multinationals or by the local government proxies installed by these multinationals. Take Ethiopia, for instance, whose government is taken from a minority of the population, yet which uses its power (financed in no small part by the United States) to expel members of the majority Oromo population from their lands in order to clear the way for "development." (See this, this and this.)
The instances I have mentioned are but a small scratch of a very large surface, beneath which lies a very large reservoir of wrongdoing. These things are the means by which life in Africa has become a painful burden for many Africans, and the motivation behind their desire to escape to places where they may live in peace and safety. Peace and safety - two things for which almost every human being longs. And yet, there are those in Europe, who after plundering and destroying other peoples' homelands for the sake of enriching their own, can't seem to understand why those other people would want to seek peace and safety in Europe. Those who regularly read my blog know that I seek to promote mutual hospitality and Christian charity of all peoples one toward another. I really mean that. Sharing, mutual exchange, and learning from one another ought to be encouraged as much as possible. However, if Europeans don't want to have to share their precious society with "invading hordes" whom they themselves have created, then let them get out of Africa (and other places!). Stop looking at other people's homelands as a "treasure trove" to be exploited for the use of pure, special Europeans. Stop stealing other peoples' stuff. It is that simple. (You can even stop looking at the deserts of North Africa as an untapped solar resource, as far as I'm concerned. I am sure you'd try to find a way to exploit that resource without paying the inhabitants of the lands you used.) Once you all start leaving other people alone, you'll be free to give up your Munchausen-false flag complaints about other people trying to overrun or "de-civilize" your pure society. Fortunately, Europe and the U.S. are currently being helped (albeit involuntarily) to give up their thievery by the current collapse in commodities markets. After a while, in most cases, crime really doesn't pay. In the long run, it never pays.
Most of these commenters have written at great length of the dangers of letting said refugees (dirty, uncouth and savage "invading hordes") into the pure, precious, civilized sanctuary that is supposed to be Europe. Indeed, such charity has been characterized as "committing suicide" (culturally, I presume) by at least one highly placed Eurasian politician. Granted, there are Europeans who - very, very grudgingly - acknowledge that maybe, just maybe it is a good and moral thing to give a little bit of sanctuary to the Arab and Mideastern refugees whose homelands Europe has recently helped to destroy. Yet many of these same Europeans object fervently to letting black Africans into their special precious sanctuary.
Well, okay, if that's the way you want to be, fine (although I am of African descent, and I am black!) But have you thought of asking why Black Africans might want to emigrate to Europe in the first place? If so, I have some ready answers to such a question. In an earlier post, I described how forced migrations of peoples result from the robbery and plunder of those peoples by a nation skilled at robbery which then concentrates the majority of the resources of nations within its own borders, leaving almost nothing for those nations which it has robbed. When we look at what European nations have done to Africa, there are plenty of examples of this process. I will name a few recent cases for you to chew on.
First, there is the case of Nigeria, where the peoples who inhabit the Niger delta have suffered for at least two decades from the petroleum extraction activities of rich multinational corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell. The pollution, not only from routine oil extraction, but also from lax operations and oil spills, has severely degraded living conditions in the Delta, and has seriously disrupted indigenous ways of life that were far less destructive to the land than the changes which the Europeans have brought. Not only this, but the leaders of the Nigerian government have been installed by European and American multinationals for the purpose of keeping oil extraction costs low and profits sky high, thus insuring that the ordinary people of Nigeria will not benefit from the exploitation of their nation's resources. Many of these ordinary Nigerians have risen up in opposition to this exploitation, and are now being branded as "terrorists" and "insurgents." (See this and this also.) As their homelands are wrecked in order to satisfy the European and American thirst for petroleum products, where will these people go?
The Nigerian oil situation is but a very small subset of the issue of the way Europe and the United States look at the African continent and the peoples who reside there. I am thinking particularly of recent articles I have read in the financial press, as well as press releases by various mining companies which all describe Africa as a "treasure trove" of various things wanted by Europe and the Anglo-American empire. There are also a number of interesting "players" in the African resource-extraction market, such as African Minerals, a mining company based in Sierra Leone, which was sued by villagers in that country for violently evicting those villagers from land wanted by the company, along with violent treatment of its workers, including a fatal shooting of a worker by police. The incidents took place from 2010 to 2012. The head of African Minerals, a Mr. Frank Timis, led his company into bankruptcy in 2015, and is now embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with investors. Mr. Timis, who possesses dual Romanian and Australian citizenship, was also convicted twice for dealing heroin.
Then there is the matter of coastal African nations and the peoples who make a living on those coasts by fishing. They have a long-standing problem, namely, that European fishing operations have depleted their coastal fisheries to the extent that the locals can no longer easily make a living. When the locals try to oppose the overfishing of their own resource because they can no longer make a living, they are branded as "pirates." (See this also.)
Lastly, there is the issue of land grabs, either by foreign multinationals or by the local government proxies installed by these multinationals. Take Ethiopia, for instance, whose government is taken from a minority of the population, yet which uses its power (financed in no small part by the United States) to expel members of the majority Oromo population from their lands in order to clear the way for "development." (See this, this and this.)
The instances I have mentioned are but a small scratch of a very large surface, beneath which lies a very large reservoir of wrongdoing. These things are the means by which life in Africa has become a painful burden for many Africans, and the motivation behind their desire to escape to places where they may live in peace and safety. Peace and safety - two things for which almost every human being longs. And yet, there are those in Europe, who after plundering and destroying other peoples' homelands for the sake of enriching their own, can't seem to understand why those other people would want to seek peace and safety in Europe. Those who regularly read my blog know that I seek to promote mutual hospitality and Christian charity of all peoples one toward another. I really mean that. Sharing, mutual exchange, and learning from one another ought to be encouraged as much as possible. However, if Europeans don't want to have to share their precious society with "invading hordes" whom they themselves have created, then let them get out of Africa (and other places!). Stop looking at other people's homelands as a "treasure trove" to be exploited for the use of pure, special Europeans. Stop stealing other peoples' stuff. It is that simple. (You can even stop looking at the deserts of North Africa as an untapped solar resource, as far as I'm concerned. I am sure you'd try to find a way to exploit that resource without paying the inhabitants of the lands you used.) Once you all start leaving other people alone, you'll be free to give up your Munchausen-false flag complaints about other people trying to overrun or "de-civilize" your pure society. Fortunately, Europe and the U.S. are currently being helped (albeit involuntarily) to give up their thievery by the current collapse in commodities markets. After a while, in most cases, crime really doesn't pay. In the long run, it never pays.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
An Alternative View of China
2024 Note: Please forgive the pro-Russian bias in the 2016 version of this post. It has turned out that Russia has proven itself to be a nation of thugs ruled by a thug named Vladimir Putin, and that Russia is actually guilty of trying to turn the world into its global empire. Witness the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I still have great respect for China, although I'm somewhat less than enthusiastic about Xi Jinping. For a more up-to-date presentation of my views on Russia, please read the posts on Russia on the sidebar of this blog. Also, please note that the producer of the "Saker" podcast has shown himself to be a liar, a hired mouthpiece of Vladimir Putin.
A lot has been written lately in the financial press and in the "doom-o-sphere" about the supposed implosion of China's economy. If you read sources like the Wall Street Journal, or listen to people like George Soros, the current deflationary financial crisis which is sweeping the world is supposed to be hitting China especially hard. Yet there is an alternative view. Remember that China is one of the last large nations which is fighting to maintain its sovereignty in the face of efforts by the Anglo-American empire to wreck and subjugate it. Remember also the attempt at a "color revolution" which was staged in Hong Kong in 2014. I am also thinking of a podcast which I heard in which the speaker suggested that the West might try to punish China for its support of Russia during recent Western efforts to wreck the Russian economy. It stands to reason that the attempted punishment of China would be performed with the same tools used to attempt to punish Russia.
To be sure, China's economic policies could stand a bit of correction. It's not a sustainable policy to try to get something for nothing by attracting foreign investors to bet on perpetual economic growth in a finite country on a finite planet. A much better policy at this stage of the game is to voluntarily transition one's country to the kind of society that can function well and sustain itself even in an age of scarcity. That way, other countries can't hold you hostage. Nevertheless, I would not be willing to bet that China is ready to collapse. That doesn't seem to be a safe bet.
To be sure, China's economic policies could stand a bit of correction. It's not a sustainable policy to try to get something for nothing by attracting foreign investors to bet on perpetual economic growth in a finite country on a finite planet. A much better policy at this stage of the game is to voluntarily transition one's country to the kind of society that can function well and sustain itself even in an age of scarcity. That way, other countries can't hold you hostage. Nevertheless, I would not be willing to bet that China is ready to collapse. That doesn't seem to be a safe bet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)