ardee, October 4 at 9:01 am,

Blah——what this word defines is the content of YOUR posts.

ThomasG, October 3 at 7:56 pm #

I think it rather telling that you and your alter ego, errr ‘sister’ both come up with the phrase of the week exactly at the same time..Today it is “amorphous nonsense”. I cannot wait to read the next telling example of why it seems logical that you two are really one.

By the by, jackass, “bah” is not exactly designed to make any political point. What that response does is prove your inability to back your made up shit.

ardee,

Back to amorphous nonsense, I see.  In response to amorphous nonsense, the proper answer is——blah.

ThomasG, October 3 at 6:46 pm

Do you really wish to continue in this childish vein? How about a post containing a reference to the thread?

This is the third time you have responded to an honest assessment of your posts with a single and stupid word…‘blah’. If you do not wish your posts to be subjected to the analysis of others you could simply not post them.

Further, you did indeed threaten the existence of this forum if all did not abase themselves before the all powerful Oz..err Martha, err Thomas…..whoever the hell you think you are today.

ardee, October 2 at 6:33 pm,

Your post had all of the depth of a mirrored surface, ardee.  What happened to your usual diatribe of amorphous nonsense?

ThomasG, October 2 at 2:12 am

About as profound and insightful as you ever get….Why did you not capitalize and embolden it?

ardee,

blah.

There is a park in Los Angeles, MacArthur Park, that would be a perfect
place for you, ThomasG, to spout your blatherings.  You might
even get an audience who will listen to you. 

ardee, you are so funny.  Do you think anyone who says Blah and
cannot speak coherently can bring anything down with such inane
ramblings?  Not even a dipshit.  He has a god-complex.

I posted on the Hedges forum that I had not seen the exchange betwixt
N-G and MA.  It must have been a splendid revelation.  I
had an inkling there was some relationship, I proposed cousins.  But
now that the cat is out of the bag, I think the case is twins.  One
brighter than the other unfortunately.  It is obvious who has the high
beams.  It is sad when that happens to twins.

ThomasG, October 1 at 2:00 pm #

How very profound….now when exactly will this forum disappear?

ardee,

blah.

Shenonymous, September 30 at 10:28 pm

Do you, I wonder, recall that Martha responded to an exchange with night gaunt in exactly the same fashion as Thomas just did to you?

It does all seem to add up to a rather puzzling conclusion I fear…..the why of it remains a mystery though.

I still am awaiting the wrath of Thomas who , in one of his very first efforts here, noted that he had “brought down” several progressive forums that had dared disagree with him…....was that thunder I just heard?

In America, we need to figure out how to protect our hard-won right to vote from the influential control of well-monied interests. Money doesn’t vote; people do.  Ergo, money shouldn’t have a say in things, only people who have a vote.

In this sense, it’s easy to feel as if the voting is a more or less a charade due to the fact that lobbyists of both foreign and domestic money end up controlling things.  To a large extent, this is our challenge: how to wrest control from the hands of non-voting yet powerful interests.

http://www.leftista.com/index.php/2009/09/figure-it-out-first-then-spread-it/

Shenonymous,

Blah.

Laugher we have tread that ground before to more depth, earlier in
this forum.  However, it is almost always a good thing a new voice adds
itself to forums to speak on relevant topics. You may or may not know
the following.  I hope you are tolerant if this is something you already
knew.  Perhaps it could benefit someone else. 

Democracy really only works at the local or state level, not a national
level where the nation is an amalgamation of several sovereign entities,
such as states.  At the federal level all states have the same rights except
they have to come to agreements over common actions, hence the
representative system of the state who speaks on behalf of the state is a
formula.  Now it is true that if these representatives do a good job of
representing their states to the people’s satisfaction,  they are usually
reelected for whatever is the term limit in their state that can vary from
state to state.  If not, they are not reelected.  It is a common mistake to
think that the national, or Federal Government of the United States is
democratic.  As a whole entity, it is not.  It is a republic as you noted. 
However, Congress is run democratically and all members of the two
houses, called a bicameral (two chambers) structure have equal weight in
terms of voting.  Often in both houses, committees are formed to
dispense with the myriad of problems facing the nation and to be able to
expedite the process (although sometimes it is not so expeditious). 
Committees are composed of various members of a chamber and all
members are distributively assigned to particular committees.  These
committees then represent again a republic structure and make
recommendations to the entire body of their chamber.  Then the entire
chamber, say all of the members of the House of Representatives, once
again democratically vote to either pass the legislation or not.  Some
votes are decided on a simple majority, meaning 50% + 1, or a decision
on certain kinds of legislation are decided by some specified ratio, say
2/3 or 66% of the entire body.

So it can be seen from this construction that the US government is both a
democracy and a republic.  In essence, sovereign states are already like
independent countries that have agreed to unite for common actions.
_______

Some people are dazzled by numbers.  The larger the number the
brighter the dazzle.  It is, however, the dynamic of what use are the
numbers a being puts to them determines the ultimate value of the
numbers.  Numbers are merely counters to keep track of things. They
can be manipulated in a myriad of ways and for infinite reasons. They are
neither moral nor immoral.  The users of the programs to which the
number of dollars are put are the things that are moral or not.  The
degree then to which a program will help make life less harsh for
dispossessed or disenfranchised or aged or young is the degree to which
that program is moral or not.

Assigning a dollar value to social programs is a somewhat difficult task. 
As the demographics are always increasing, and with resistance by
certain interested parties to putting brakes on that demographic,
projecting what the reality will be 5, 10, 20 years hence is almost a
ridiculous undertaking.  Only educated guesses using numbers, based on
statistics, based on projections of what kind of health care people receive
that will lengthen their longevity is the best that is possible.

Your love of bolding and writing your first
name with last name initial attached makes me think you are cousins. 

According to a post from Martha, some time ago, she and Thomas are brother and sister living in the same home, using the same computer. That they use a virtually identical style of posting, have virtually identical political beliefs, and an almost word for word similarity on many occasions leaves one to draw conclusions…Perhaps Siamese Twins? Perhaps something scarier? Perhaps just what they claim to be?

Are you so shallow that all you can see is the use of bold print?
ThomasG asks.  Yup, I am only .3 millimeters tall. Hardly any
room for 2 brain cells.  They have to work extra hard.

You seem to be blathering.  Sorry you don’t like what I say and are
reduced to name-calling.  We have our respective views.  You didn’t
answer any of my questions, so F’ to you.  I did use a capital letter
there, as a sign of capitalism which I think is an economic system not
ever gotten rid of regardless of how you rant against it.  I went through
this similar conversation with MarthaA without one instance of name-
calling.  We disagreed on certain issues and I have criticized her using
capital letters, and she criticized me for not agreeing with her, but we
were civil.  Are you related?  Your love of bolding and writing your first
name with last name initial attached makes me think you are cousins. 
Please consult her a bit more as she represents your views better than
you do.  I do believe she and I ended with our respective but similar
opinion that a blend of socialism and capitalism is the best.  We
disagreed on the percentage of each.  Do you understand the concept
of blend?  I learned a great deal from MarthaA, and I’ll thank her again
here.  Thank you MarthaA.  I’m still reading Gouldner.

I have apologized on various forums for the weird formatting that was
appearing on my posts.  I apologize here as I must have missed this
forum.  The combination of browser, computer, and text edit software
and Truthdip’s inability to convert the data coming in from my
computer,  and all fell into some psychosomatic conflict.  Probably due
to upgrade incompatibility.  My computer showed everything was
normal so I was not aware anything was amiss.  I’ve been posting using
the same equipment and software for years with no problemo.  A
couple of kind Truthdip people gave me some advice on how to fix it
(without any sarcasm).  And I have.  So what do I think about all that? 
Screw you.

Shall I start calling you names?  No, it is a sign of a weak mind which
you have just demonstrated.

Shenonymous,

The socialist resources of the population of the United States have been diminished by tens of trillions of dollars for socialized responsibility for privatized benefit and all your tiny little mind can concentrate on is bold print; does anything seem wrong with that to you? —— or, are both of your brain cells not firing with sufficient reliability that you can be aware of anything other than bold print?

Try to get a clue, there is a difference between “Socialism” and socialized resources.  Capitalism is dependent upon socialized resources for its survival and if you can get your tiny little mind off of bold print long enough perhaps your two brain cells can figure that out.

Shenonymous, Do you think your every other short 1 to 4 word 20 character line is not distracting?

Shenonymous,

Are you so shallow that all you can see is the use of bold print.

At present the United States has spent tens of trillions of dollars of socialist funds in pursuit of socialized responsibility for privatized benefit.

Get a clue!  You have a talent for parroting reflexive thought within a box of mirrors, but that does not impart understanding.

It you cannot understand the difference between a bogus socialist construct as a trope, and the use of socialist funds as taxes collected and spent by the government of the U.S.A. in the tens of trillions of dollars to bail out private interests as has happened in 2008 and 2009, you need to go to the corner, put on your littly pointy hat and let the grown ups deal with the problem, because you have nothing meaningful to say.

PSmith, September 30 at 4:51 am #
After listening to Howard Zinn explain it, how could it
not be a good idea?
=================================================
Of course.

Anarchist, but in a good way.

@ Ouroborus, September 30 at 2:05 am #

After listening to Howard Zinn explain it, how could it not be a good idea? -

Howard Zinn on Anarchism & Democratic Socialism - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ_AebxHAFA

But back to Arundhati Roy.

PSmith, September 29 at 6:37 pm #

I must add that I was particularly struck by the John
Pilger link you supplied. It reminded me that somebody
here referred to me as an anarchist; what amused me was
the word savagery was included with that accusation; as
though the two go together.

PSmith, September 29 at 6:37 pm #
As for a passport—we all carry the cross of having to
use travel documents—But that is no reason to give
our loyalty to the (very modern) mythical invention
of the nation state which is mostly a monstrous
behemoth - like the psychopathic corporation, but
writ larger if that be possible.
================================================
Agreed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
America _is_ an amusing country. Amusing but batshit
crazy—the Uncle-Fester-on-crystal-meth of countries—
never dull, never predictable and never something to
turn one’s back on.

“When the soul of man is born in this country there
are nets flung at it to hold it from flight. You talk
to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try
to fly by those nets.” - James Joyce - A Portrait of
the Artist as a Young Man

Amen!
================================================
Amen, indeed! Okay, enough cut and paste; you are
also correct about the people of foreign lands
accepting Americans. They do, for the most part, recognize the difference between government and “the
people”. Before I left I read 3-4 books a week; books
in English are far and few between here. I have recently found a site that offers free, complete books, that can be downloaded. Fortunately
I have internet and enjoy your posted links. Thanks and cheers.

An answer to Arundahti Roy’s opening question might be found in the fact that “democracy” among the domesticated peoples is based exclusively in philosophy and ideology (just make-believe, if we want to be honest), including some “major” religious systems.  This effectively guarantees that it will become completely artificial and institutionalized, and thus subject to all the “self”-interested manipulations that even purely abstract regimes are prey-to.

The men who drew-up the rhetorically sophisticated enabling architecture of the U.S. of A. did attempt to find the ultimate ‘author’ of its democratic features in a deified “creator,” who’d endowed “all men” with equal “rights” to a voice in their own and state affairs. This kowtow to divinity was no-doubt necessary at the time to give an appearance of “higher power” legitimacy to their enterprise….and some of ‘em might actually have even believed it.

Among the Native Nations of Turtle Island on-the-other-hand, the inalienable need for parity, between Persons and Peoples, resides entirely within our Human Nature itself, and springs from our given Organic Function within the Living arrangement of our Mother Earth.  As components of Her natural immune system we must be free of any CONtrived and imposed restrictions that interfere with our ability to respond to “foreign” entities whose motives and methods present here as “disease.”

The most famous allamerican acknowledgement of this natural fact can be found in the motto “Live Free Or Die!” which got debased, instead, into just another trite “revolutionary” platitude.  So it was ‘in-the-beginning’ inevitable that subject/citizens today would come to enjoy whatever “rights” they have as the gift of some kind of institutionalized “power” structure that has taken-over as the sole “legal” repository of “sovereignty”....nevermind the cloyingly ubiquitous lip-service still paid by their overseers to “wethepeople.”

Compounding this fraud, of course, has been a CONstant barrage of propaganda aimed at keeping captive peoples CONvinced their degenerate CONdition is simply a CONsequence of their fatally flawed “human nature.”  This continues to have the effect of CONfining most of them to reliance-on and belief-in some super- or non-human agency for relief and/or ‘salvation,’ from the worsening suffocation they suffer here in these latter days….and to view with CONsiderable suspicion their own Humanity. Not so surprising since the entirety of their experience of it has been as inmates of a death-dealing CONtraption designed and operated to exploit, abuse, and exhaust them.  The atomization of “individual”-ism has taken them out of their natural Organic Form of Living Community, further crippling their capacity for mutually beneficial responses to intended-to-be terminal asaults on their organic integrity and all Native Life here.

“Modern” tame two-leggeds had best look past the smoke-screen of the ideological/institutional/electro-mechanical apparatus that is the “engine” of their doom.  They must remember their freedoms are rooted in Nature, their own and all Nature, and not mere artifacts of some “enlightened thinkers,” which have since “the founding” been corrupted and marketed by their never-nearly-as-loftily-inspired successors as mere commodities available to those who have the price-of-admission.

Live free or die is the self-enforcing Natural Law, Sisters and Brothers….and it is your own true and essential nature to follow it.

HokaHey!

Gmonst said: ThomasG, Just my opinion, but your use of bold is distracting and detracts from understanding your argument.  You could probably get your point across better by using the same words without the bold.

I dunno, Gmonst. I mean he is using the same extreme Left concept as someone like MarthaA, but ThomasG has so much more punch and pizzazz then that piker MarthaA.

I mean, ThomasG is taking it to a whole ‘nother level.

While MarthaA would merely used lots of caps and could barely figure out how to use bold print, ThomasG not only uses bold, but he used bold caps for real EMPHASIS 

And at just the right time, ThomasG is going to bust a whole new move. Can’t you feel the anticipation, Gmonst? I feel something for sure.

At the right time, ThomasG will go to the max… italicized capital letters in bold print, for the COUP DE GRACE!

THE BEST AMERICANS

@ Ouroborus, September 29 at 7:00 am #

To be American is to be the product of that land. “These are the eyes of the land, these are the arms of the land. These are the hands of the land. What else?” - Joseph Campbell, paraphrased.

As for a passport—we all carry the cross of having to use travel documents—But that is no reason to give our loyalty to the (very modern) mythical invention of the nation state which is mostly a monstrous behemoth - like the psychopathic corporation, but writ larger if that be possible.

> As an expatriot I’m loath to admit I’m an American, but still reluctantly do, on the rare occasions I’m asked.

My sympathies. It is easiest—as Chomsky said—to come from a small country with a corrupt government. Then people are under no illusions about their government. It hurts most when there are myths, and not-by-accident illusions and a huge difference between the myth and the reality.

Rick Steves pointed out that in all the last eight years of travelling in Europe he was never treated unkindly because he was an American. People in the rest of the world don’t blame the Americans they meet for the actions of the US government. They realize that the US government acts abroad in ways that most US people abhor. Noam Chomsky has given us the statistics to back that up too. - Rick Steves in Iran - on being an American there -

http://www.ricksteves.com/iran/

America _is_ an amusing country. Amusing but batshit crazy—the Uncle-Fester-on-crystal-meth of countries—never dull, never predictable and never something to turn one’s back on.

“When the soul of man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.” - James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Amen!

But to be an American is also to be one with these great men and women, who have done so much to advance peace, justice, understanding and ‘comity among nations’.

Noam Chomsky - http://www.chomsky.info/

Howard Zinn - http://howardzinn.org/default/

Iris and Stan Ovshinsky - Who Killed the Electric Car, Berkeley Speech? - @ 13.30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DYxoacwuxg#t=13m35s

Amory Lovins - http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid41.php

Joseph Campbell - Power of Myth, Mythos? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU5wd6XpljA
- JCF - http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php

Harry Wilmer - organized Facing Evil conference 1987. Author of book of same name. Seen in Wisdom of the Dream.? - Facing Evil - http://books.google.com/books?id=RHfB0owCzRcC

All of them American—All of them magnificent—All of them applying St. Francis’s dictum “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” - Amory Lovins.

THE BEST AMERICANS
John Pilger - “I once asked a friend, the great American war correspondent and humanitarian, Martha Gellhorn, to explain “anti-American” to me. “I’ll tell you what ‘anti-American’ is,” she said. “It’s what governments and their vested interested call those who honour America by objecting to war and the theft of resources and believing in all of humanity. There are millions of these anti-Americans in the United States. They are ordinary people who belong to no elite and who judge their government in moral terms, though they would call it common decency. They are not vain. Theyare the people with a wakeful conscience, the best of America’s citizens. They can be counted on. They were in the south with the Civil Rights movement, ending slavery. They were in the streets, demanding an end to the wars in Asia. Sure, they disappear from view now and then, but they are like seeds beneath the snow. I would say they are truly exceptional.”

Power, illusion & America’s last taboo - 4 July 2009 - John Pilger -

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=545

Thanks for your thanks. Much appreciated.

I will still fight for what is right and what is good for my country, but frankly, I’m tired. Eight years of Bush almost did our country in, including myself.

It is no fun speaking out against injustices when no one seems to listen or are willing to actually go out on the streets and fight.

I’ve demonstrated a few times but see its futility as long as I have cohorts who are dumb as dirt and proud to stay that way (and willing to embrace all right-wing dogma, such as the stupidity of gov is all bad) about the important issues of health care reform, individuals rights, torture, racism, etc.

How do you counter Republican leader who care nothing about the suffering of the people while they denigrate ideas outside their agenda. How do you counter Democrats scared of their own shadows, legislatively reacting to every hair-brain idea thrown out by mentally-challenged Republicans like Wilson.

I had some hope for a Democrat majority but we are also fighting a corporate media that leans toward the rich corporate interests and a right-wing media that is proto-fascist.

Our democratic institutions are failing us because they aren’t democratic enough.  What happens is the people who give power to the democracy need to be informed enough to demand the kind of regulation of democracy which is needed to see that it continues to serve the people.  Its clear that money in politics and the ability of the political elite to serve as power brokers has to be limited in some way.  My personal opinion is that money should be driven from politics completely.  All elections publicly funded, no option about it.  All candidates who can make it on the ballot get the same funds.  No other revenue can be spent to aid the election effort.  All candidates must be included in publicly televised debates and given equal time to speak.  No politician holding public office can receive gifts beyond a certain modest concession which allows for normal types of gifts from family and friends on holidays and birthdays.  No other benefits, perks or vacations provided from third parties.  That would at least be a start.

Ah, Arundhati Roy, “hollowed out democracy” and “the
theft of language”.  This goes well with her interview
on DemocracyNow recently. http://www.democracynow.org

As an artist, I hear her call….

Was capitalism really created?  It seems like a natural growth and institutionalizing of normal human primate behavior.  I have something you want and you have something I want lets trade those somethings.  As society grows trading for corn for tools or whatever becomes cumbersome and money is the natural evolution of that.  I have heard of monkeys in India that will steal your glasses and trade them back for some fruit.  While not quite capitalism (actually rather close to modern capitalism), it seems to show the intrinsic tendencies from which capitalism arose.

Arundhati Roy wrote a quite intelligent and prudent piece, which assures that most leaders won’t read it.

She saw some hope, but democracy has mutated so far toward greed, narcissism, and self-interest that a global view for survival probably can’t happen. Perhaps command countries like China will have enlightened leaders that mandate change.

The beasts millions of years ago were probably destroyed by outside forces. We can and have created our own forces for suicide, a death, long term by our government and business standards—beyond six months to a year.But they are conditions our myopia won’t allow us to see in advance, in spite of all the warning signs.

The ‘invention’ of democracy pre-dated the ‘invention’ of capitalism.  Had it not, had democracy post-dated capitalism, democracy would probably have been constituted much differently.

Capitalism is a system which ‘staggers’ from crisis to crisis - it’s the nature of the beast - and democracy as it now stands is an extremely slow moving behemoth, certainly not conducive to dealing with crises. 

The obvious solution to the mess we’re presently trying to survive under is to invent a new political/social/economic system - the biggest roadblock to accomplishing that being the belief that god invented democracy and capitalism. (which no man can put asunder?)

Really, ThomasG?  What manifesto do you get your understanding from?  Do you know that
you do not have to bold so much to make your point unless of course your points are weak and you
hope that will make them more forceful?  Another poster uses capital letters that way too, another
radical socialist, but to very little avail.  You may enjoy socialism, I don’t know where in this country,
since it is hardly a condition in the US unless you want to call the social programs Medicare, Social
Security, etc., a socialistic condition, then I would say not really since even with those social
programs, which does distribute some of the wealth, but certainly does not interrupt any private
person who has the money to own property.  I happen to support those social programs. 

Socialist ownership of property is not private ownership.  Show me one successful country where the
state owns all the property and people live prosperously, and happily.  Yes, the choice is who owns
the property… and the capital.  Socialism as you propose is a dying concept.  Eat more jello so your
fingernails will be stronger for holding on.  Do you have a bank account? If you do, please go
directly to the bank and turn in all your earnings and assets to the state in which you live?  Is that a
state in ‘Merika?  Which rock do you live under with all your neighbors and countrymen?  As I’ve
already said.  80% of ‘Merkins’ prefer capitalism, 20% socialism.  If you are in ‘Merika,’ you are in
the wrong country.

ThomasG, Just my opinion, but your use of bold is distracting and detracts from understanding your argument.  You could probably get your point across better by using the same words without the bold.

OzarkMichael, you make a mistake when you try to turn it into a left/right issue.  The left/right thing is just another way to keep people who have the same basic needs from cooperating with each other.  It is the very corruption and use of language, the buzz words the misapplied labels, the hyperbolic charges that open this divide up.  Fascism is a good example, both sides use it a lot and I feel its nearly universally misapplied because what ever is called fascist is usually not coalescing around imperialistic national identity. The distortion of language is seen by politicians on both sides of the aisle.  Whenever Obama says, “now if you look at what I said” it really means he is about to reinterpret what he said so that it says something slightly different than the on the face meaning.  The best magicians at the language game keep it subtle.  I think its an increasing problem that is more and more making meaningful dialog and actual solving of problems nearly impossible. 

The “I” was a leftover from a sentence I thought I had cut out.  That was a witty zing though.

Shenonymous, September 29 at 6:29 am,

The choice between Capitalism and Socialism is a false choice —— capital is indifferent as to who owns capital.

A socialist can own and benefit from capital as well as socialist institutions.

The REAL choice is the choice of who owns capital, private interests or socialist interests.

Those who perpetuate the myth that the only choice is that choice between Capitalism and Socialism are doing nothing more than diverting the dialogue away from private ownership of capital as opposed to socialist ownership of capital——private ownership of capital that is in the best interest of the greater greed of a minority of the population or socialist ownership of capital that is in the best interest of the greater good of the majority interest of the population.

What is CAPITAL? ——answer this question and then ask yourself, why does an asset that provides a revenue stream have to be owned by private interests, rather than socialist interests?

I think by now that anyone not residing under a rock, without ever coming out into the light of day, knows that socialist interests bear the responsibility of maintaining the value of capital owned by private interests, why on earth, when socialist interests are responsible for maintaining the value of capital would socialized interests not be interested in direct ownership of the “assets that provide a revenue stream” for which they are made to be responsible for maintaining the value of?

OzarkMichael, September 28 at 9:23 pm,

And your point, a fascist by any other name is still a fascist; why would anyone at all be interested in calling a fascist, a fascist by any other name? ——like a dead skunk, the fascist would stink just as bad.

After having to wade through the most reverend Chris Hedges latest screed, it is refreshing to read a writer who actually has something to say; this is certainly the case with Ms. Arundhati Roy.
Ever since The God Of Small Things gained international attention, anyone familiar with her fiction writing knows that she has always been finely tuned to the disruption and destruction of local culture caused by corporate globalisation. She seems to have a knack for succinct descriptions of modern situations. For example, she once said that “terrorists are those individuals who do not believe that governments have a monopoly on using violence to achieve political ends.”
I have not read a more apt description of the Taliban as “as resurgent medieval-Islamist Taliban (fast gaining legitimacy, despite its insane brutality, because it is seen to be resisting an occupation).” Which seems to be something President Obama can not fully grasp, surrounded by his free market neophyte wonder boys who believe “smart” troop deployments at the right locations, is what is required in winning “the right war”.
As a small brown skin woman from India, Arundhati Roy is fully ware of the cosmetic significance of the first U.S. President coming with an African background. But most likely, she is also fully aware that whether it is the Af-Pak war, or securing the Olympics in Chicago… for the folks at the top, it is all just one big bloody game.

Just to clarify my previous post; I have the utmost
respect for the commitment and courage of the G20
protesters and the government is doing everything it
can to marginalize them; but not in my eyes. Never!

ardee, September 29 at 6:01 am #
Thanks for the link. Ms. Roy is a terrific asset in
the struggle of all people to win free of the
clutches of world wide unrestricted capitalism.
===========================================
I agree; but if you listened to her description of
the “encounter killings” by the police it isn’t
hopeful. There in America the G20 protesters are
marginalized to an ineffectual blather of
malcontents. Even Obama speaks of them as misguided
and lacking the understanding of the wonderfulness of
the G “20”. So, with America reduced to internet
addicted “slacktavists” what hope do we have? Ms. Roy
laid out the repressive legal situation in India and
I applaud her courage. Why is it, in the third world,
it’s the women who stand up against the odds? Who
show genuine courage? That thought just occurred and
I have no answer.

TheRealFish, September 28 at 11:55 pm #
And thanks most to the silent majority that allowed
itself to be driven to silence by a feral few of
greed blinded, inhumane and soulless top 1
percenters, who succeeded in making Orwell’s writing
be not a cautionary tale but rather an exercise in
prescience.
====================================================
And there it has been and stays. A nation of
slacktavists (I didn’t coin that, but it speaks
volumes).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PSmith, September 29 at 4:50 am #

Thanks for all the work you put into your post. I
remember Pinter’s Nobel speech and was as impressed
then as now. With kudos to the few G20 activists; the
last time Americans earned their right to their
freedom was 30-40 years ago on the streets of
America. As an expatriot I’m loath to admit I’m an
American, but still reluctantly do, on the rare
occasions I’m asked.

Selling her book and speaking of India, Arundhati Roy’s essay is used
by participants in this forum as a comparative with the USA if not
directly then by implication.  The United States’ form of government is a
federal constitutional republic with some democratic characteristics
having 50 states and a federal district, Washington, D.C.  It is the
independent sovereignty of the states that makes direct democracy,
technically called “pure” democracy, unworkable in a country of this
size.  The mistake is to think that this country is anything but a
collection of distinct principalities, each with a different character of
their own.  It is an aggregate of unique and separate political bodies
organized for civil rule and government.  To be a workable whole
entity, it has to be a representative republic. It is more possible within
the confines of a state’s borders to be more directly democratic.  So
there are two forms of government going on simultaneously, the
federal unified states and the independent variously governed
sovereign states.

Socialists insist that economic democracy through economic equality
and public ownership of production is the only foundation upon which
a true political democracy can be erected.  Counter to that and what is
currently the case in the United States is the idea that equality of
opportunity, or capitalism, can be maintained through political
democracy alone.  One in five Americans think socialism is better than
capitalism.  That is one way of putting it.  The other way is four in five
prefer capitalism. While there is a lot of talk about the vices of
capitalism, it has its virtues and more people over the millenia
everywhere have in any final analysis chosen equal opportunity over
economic equality.  It has to do with the human spirit.

Most citizens in any country are not interested in the structure of their
government.  In the United States 23% of those eligible don’t vote.  We
could say legitimately they deserve what government they get.  Of the
population of 307,574,500, about 64% are eligible to vote.  That is
nearly 197 million people.  15% are eligible but are not registered.  Of
the 169 million who are registered, 86 million are democrat, 55 million
republican, 28 million others.  77% of registered voters voted in the
2008 election.  Voting does not necessarily indicate interest in the
structure or run of a government.

Ouroborus, September 28 at 8:57 pm

Thanks for the link. Ms. Roy is a terrific asset in the struggle of all people to win free of the clutches of world wide unrestricted capitalism.

NEOCON NAZIS Contd

To the point. Finally.

HAROLD PINTER
Harold Pinter saw and wrote about what Arundhati Roy describes - the oppression of the victim by the oppressor using language many years ago, in Mountain Language -

http://www.crimesofwar.org/cultural/pinter01.html

He also saw completely through the US Reality Distortion Field—tm Steve Jobs of Apple - marketing genius, but truth? HA!—“You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.” Harold Pinter’s Nobel Acceptance Speech - an evergreen piece of brilliant truth-telling -

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5779318336871023559

His introduction of Noam Chomsky was equally pithy. “But he will not be bullied. He will not be intimidated. He is a fearless, formidable, totally independent voice. He does something which is really quite simple but highly unusual. He tells the truth.” Harold Pinter Introduces Noam Chomsky. St. Pauls Cathedral, London, 2002. -

http://tinyurl.com/6o8sqh

REICH (-WING)
The Neocon Nazi thousand year reich now lies in ruins, lasting four less than Hitler’s version (1933 - 1945), with the civilizations it destroyed surrounding its corpse - Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S. -the irony is stunning. They set out to destroy any nation that could oppose them and succeeded only in destroying themselves. And US.

Better for the world. What did we expect, anyway, from third raters like Bush the Boy Emperor, Bush pere - ‘Bush the slightly less stupid’ - ‘famous left-wing historian’, ‘Pumphead’ Cheney, Rummy by name and rummy by nature, Feith, Addington, Wolfowitz, Perle and the other war criminals. Now facing uncertain futures. Just like some other dirtbags from history - Nuremberg Executions of Nazi Leaders for ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ and ‘Crimes Against the Laws of War -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSJcXPCxlzI

NEOCON NAZIS Contd

AFGHANISTAN
Tortured to death for driving a taxi while Afghan, like Dilawar. -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilawar_(torture_victim)

One hundred more known dead - tortured to death. -

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/ex-state-dept-official-hundreds-of-detainees-died-in-us-custody-at-least-25-murdered/

27,000 MISSING MUSLIMS
Are they alive or are they in mass graves? - Robert Fisk - “There is just one little problem, though, and that’s the “missing” prisoners. Not the victims who have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.”

Robert Fisk, the same incensed honourable man who fearlessly reported the Sabra and Shatila genocide of Arial Sharon who, after the Israeli inquiry, was fired as Israeli Defense minister and forever more branded a war criminal. Would that there be such an inquiry again, in the U.S. -

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-has-to-pay-for-eight-years-of-bushs-delusions-1001092.html

Clive Stafford Smith: “US Holding 27,000 in Secret Overseas Prisons; Transporting Prisoners to Iraqi Jails to Avoid Media & Legal Scrutiny,” on Democracy Now. Click on Real Video Stream - main video corrupted. What a surprise. Not. -

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/19/clive_stafford_smith

CONVOY OF DEATH
Afghan Convoy of Death - US genocide -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Massacre_-_the_Convoy_of_Death

OPERATION CONDOR
It reminds us of the Nixon/Kissinger Pinochet coup in Chile and the Caravan of Death -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_of_Death

John Pilger - War on Democracy - Pinochet’s coup - concentration camp - torture -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRn7VaOyi8Q#t=01m16s

And of Operation Condor and the tens of thousands of Argentinian disappeared, many inhumanly dumped out of aeroplanes into the Atlantic ocean whilst drugged but still alive. Sister Stella Calloni - Operation Condor

http://www.elhabanero.cubaweb.cu/2008/noviembre/nro2396_nov08/nac_08nov826ingles.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

And the difference is? There is _no_ difference. Certainly not to the dead. Nor to the wounded. Nor the victims of the torture.

NEOCON NAZIS

@ OzarkMichael, September 28 at 9:23 pm #

Determined not to get it, eh, Ozarks_Where_The_Only_Virgins_Are_Where_Sisters_Run_Faster_Than_Brothers?

The following _are_ fascist in their inspiration, proto-fascist in their application of those inspirations and Nazi in their use and application of torture. See the last eight years for details. - Neocon Nazis. Re-Thuglicans. Zionazis (thirty years in their case, since the Sabra-Shatila massacre by Ariel Sharon - Robert Fisk - video -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pWwkVfbY10#t=01m04s ).

Israel’s Sabra-Shatila Genocide -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre

Which genocide makes the epithet ‘fascist’ sound quaint and easy-going.

TORTURE
Compare Klaus Barbie’s tortures and murders and the Nazi death camps to the US’s tortures and murders and their death camps. There is _NO_ difference. Except for the US’s insufferable self-righteousness and sickening unwillingness to face their own evil. Just like their Middle-East proxy Israel.

“I don’t mean to abuse you with verbal violence, but you have to understand what your government and its agents are doing. They go into villages, they haul out families. With the children forced to watch they castrate the father, they peel the skin off his face, they put a grenade in his mouth and pull the pin. With the children forced to watch they gang-rape the mother, and slash her breasts off. And sometimes for variety, they make the parents watch while they do these things to the children.”

“We do not parachute teams into the Soviet Union to haul families out at night and castrate the father with the children watching, because they have the Bomb, and a big army, and they would parachute teams right back into our country and do the same thing to us - they’re not scared of us.” -

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/StockwellCIA87_2.html

John Stockwell - http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/John_Stockwell.html

Video - John Stockwell -  “Third World War” - Forty years of Secret Wars of the C1A - 6 to 20 million killed -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ioJGMCr-Y

WORLD WAR 2
What was done -

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Natzweiler/SOEagents.html

Who and How? - Klaus Barbie -

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Barbie.html

Protected By and Escape Organized By - Guess Who - US (un)intelligence. -

http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/barbie-irr-file.html

The Queen of F Section and her search for the missing agents of SOE. -

http://www.64-baker-street.org/also/also_vera_atkins_her_story.html

THE ‘EL SALVADOR’ OPTION
Spare a thought also for those slaughtered in particularly gruesome fashion in the ‘El Salvador’ option carried out in El Salvador (naturally), Iraq and now Afghanistan - Murder, Torture and Genocide by US trained death-squads until the locals sue for surrender. Killed like this - John Pilger - Torture is _so_ American - School of the Americas - Archbishop Romero -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5L1VdlktOw#t=01m17s

If I didn’t know that India (because of its long subjugation) as a rule is fairly fluent in English, I would wonder if it is that George Orwell’s writings didn’t translate well to their language.

I’m not critical of Roy’s observations. They are spot on. However, there also seems to be a feeling of near-surprise in the words.

Orwell’s 1984 was a figurative doctoral dissertation on how language is subverted and perverted to serve evil intent.

The Ministry of Peace, anyone?

It has been 30 years since I last read that work. Little did I realize Orwell’s prediction was only off by about that 30 year span.

Thank you, Reagan Revolution. Thank you, religious right movement. And thanks most to the silent majority that allowed itself to be driven to silence by a feral few of greed blinded, inhumane and soulless top 1 percenters, who succeeded in making Orwell’s writing be not a cautionary tale but rather an exercise in prescience.

Fat Freddy’s cat called himself by his real name. (and only a cat knows its own real name) which if I remember correctly was

Fat Freddy Scat!

Gmonst said Only the “na nana na na I can’t hear you” is polished into seemingly legitimate arguments which are really just as foolish as the childhood banter.  Many can see through the BS, but few can do anything about it, and most get too bored by it all to care.  I

“I” what? Were you just too bored to finish?

A. Roy wrote: This theft of language, this technique of usurping words and deploying them like weapons, of using them to mask intent and to mean exactly the opposite of what they have traditionally meant, has been one of the most brilliant strategic victories of the tsars of the new dispensation.

Tsars? Is Roy talking about the Obama administration?

It has allowed them to marginalize their detractors, deprive them of a language to voice their critique and dismiss them as being “anti-progress,” “anti-development,” “anti-reform,” and of course “anti-national”—negativists of the worst sort.

heh. I guess she really is talking about how Leftists marginalize their detractors on Healthcare and their opposition on Cap and Trade.

But Ms. Roy, I want to point out that most Leftists go for the gusto pretty quick, and you cant get find a more negative label anywhere than the Leftist favorite dismissal…. “Fascist”.

ardee, September 28 at 7:50 pm #

Son of a gun; Ms. Roy is on Amy Goodman’s show. Here’s
a link;
http://www.democracynow.org/

What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximizing profit?

This, in a nutshell, is the kernel of Roy’s cogent criticisms of our democratic institutions. One of the chief architects of our own democracy, Thomas Jefferson, noted that he believed a revolution was going to be necessary every so often if the people wish to keep their freedoms.

Seduced by wealth, or rather by the tantalizing promise that wealth can be obtained if one works hard or long enough, has been the touchstone of our acquiescence to the theft of our real democracy by the forces of unbridled free enterprise, which,  one must understand, is hardly free at all.

I applaud the insight of Ms. Roy, regret that her opinion of those enslaved by the myth that they are really truly free is spot on, and wonder what exactly it is going to take to overthrow the usurpation of what should have been a fine and enduring institution, our Democratic Republic.

I would also suggest that Tomdispatch.com is a fine source of terrific articles for those interested, Tom Englehardt being a great resource. I would also recommend to he who refuses a spell check, to stop refusing, it detracts from the points being attempted.

Roy wrote a beuatiful novel THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS and is a beautiful woman.  Since she is also a leftist it is hard not to be predisposed in her favor.  But the arguument is not sharp here.

The electoral system was never anything more hisstorically than a guise for the rule of plutocracy, who made the crucial power decisions.  What has changed is not the formal rep system, but the goals of the ruling class.

The US political and economic systems are obsolete and non-competitive in the world arena.  So the ruling class is making its profits by increased exploitation of the population, rather than by expanding the economy.  This results in increasing inequality that can only be maintained by violence, both domestically and aborad.  And this violence by increased gunmen can only be legitimated by fear induced delusion.

In agrarian polities, if you defied Devine or earthly power, you would have your sorry ass thrown in the Great Lake of Fire by a Benevolent but pissed Deity. But, with notably exceptions, people are not afraind of God or the Devil anymore. In capitalist economies the fear is induced politically. “The Terrorists will get you if you don’t watch out!” 

Originally this was, amazingly, highly effective, regressing the American population through fear who desired a political Savior to Defend them.

People actually believe, still yet, that the Terrorists are out to get them and we need a trillion dollar military to prevent them.  And wars, “killing them over there so they won’t kill us over here.” The low intensity wars provide a diversion to allow the ruling class to steal anything not nailed down, both from the Muslim oil states and from the American population.

So the truth industries, the legal system, the cultural system, all bear on the electoral system to neutralize it between the Good Cop-Bad Cop parties, making the population powerless against ruling class predation.  As marx predicted, the inequality has increased hisotircally, to the point currently where the pretense of Democracy has gotten so threadbare that we can see through it.

So its a question of developing a mass mobiization in a political system whose aim is to dispower the population.  But this occurs not because democracy is any worse than it ever was, but that the ruling class is more avaricious and is committed to smash and grab.  And the Democratic institutins are completely devoid of people power, as they largely were before.  So its a matter of creating institutions that empouwer the population.

Democracy exists in the democratic ideals of the majority population for which democracy stands.

What happens after democracy is democracy, if democratic ideals persevere in the majority population and, if the majority population stand up for, agitate for and demand democracy as their idealism of choice.

Democracy does not guarantee democratic ideals will be honored by elected representatives in a government.

Democratic ideals in the majority population that en masse stand up, agitate for, demand and vote for democracy, guarantee democracy.

What happens after democracy is democracy, if democratic ideals in the majority population are stood up for en masse, voted for en masse, agitated for en masse to guarantee democracy—and those whose idealism is democracy are committed to forcing elected representatives to make and enforce law and order that represents the majority population’s democratic ideals.

Those who want democracy have to be prepared to fight and die for democratic government that legislates and enforces law and order that represent their democratic ideals; those who shrink from their responsibility to democracy will NOT have democracy.

The author of this piece is spot on with the takeover of language.  Words have ceased to mean what they mean.  Those who support the continued power structure just say what they want, interpret laws how they want, and in short make language subjective in its meaning.  Any attempt to correct these distortions is met with more distortions.  Its like nuclear bomb of red herrings.  Idiotic ideas, interpretations, and fears are given a trumpet through corporate media.  To refute them all is impossible and the refutations are only distorted and brought into the bizzaro world of absurdity.  Often the public dialog brings back memories of grade school interactions with the knee-jerk emotionality and lack of reason.  Only the “na nana na na I can’t hear you” is polished into seemingly legitimate arguments which are really just as foolish as the childhood banter.  Many can see through the BS, but few can do anything about it, and most get too bored by it all to care.  I