I am waiting for the movie based on “Jaws” and “Moby Dick” called, “Wars”.

Wars will be our silent killer.  No one is paying atention to a large part of the world.

I think that there is something about the nature of humans that dictates we cannot have unending war.  Maybe it’s sanity, maybe it something far greater.  Maybe “Peace” is not a goal but an underlying demand of nature. 

Fuck these Social Darwinian nuts. 

Let’s have a count.

Soon the killers become the killed and then what?

A little paraphrasing here:

All the world is tired and wary, everywhere I go.

Way down upon the Swanee River, that’s where I long to go. 

JD says,

“Hark! am I hearing distant bugles? No, its only wishful thinking. Man the barricades boys! here come the heathens!

“(Its only symbolism, no offense to heathens intended, some of my best friends are heathens.)”

——————————————-

None taken! I’m a heathen.  I used to have pipe dreams.  Then the observations of some my knowledgeable, insightful friends told me that that is not who I am.

I am a blue collar slob with a little learning, and a little learning is a dangerous thing. 

Well, if the end point of learning is to be a weak-wristed, excuse-making dillettante, I’ve drunk enough from that Pyrrhean Spring. Gimme da booze and let’s have at it.

(As my Swedish uncle used to cry, “Olly genarchy!” but that’s all neologism.)

Most people have carved out some sort of existence and whether they settled for less or not, that is it their lives.  Who am I to take issue?  I don’t proselytize. 

But I do think that these grand schemes that are being foisted upon us by the grand few in the name of security and safety are beyond the ken of these mortal knaves, these schemers.

JD continues,

“Damn! [T]trying to alleviate discomfort can drive you nuts! The issues that confront us are not at all humorous, they are more serious than a heart attack.”
—-
I am waitin’ for the big one, as Redd Foxx used to say.  The big one begins with a squeeze on the chest.

Now, I’ve heard that each person cashing in plastic bottles will be given a 1099 form, and if they collect more than $600 in a year, they will be taxed. a la Health Insurance.

My Brother-in-law died in 2009 of a heart attack at the age of 62 shortly after losing $300,000 of his invested retirement with the help of Merrill Lynch.

(I still want to know what happened to Pierce, Fenner and Smith?)

Everyone’s gotta see the Robin Williams movie from the 70s or 80s on “,Popeye, the Sailor Man.”  For a goofy take-off of a cartoon character, it’s prophetic.

In the words of Popeye, “That’s all I can stands.  I can’t stands no more.”

JD,

“As a general rule, radical surgery does not cure the disease, it only spreads the disease throughout the body.”

I have to agree with you on that one.

I thought Obama was in perfect company, He is the Drone killer of Afghanistan, pakistan and Yemen soon Somalia. Yes any president of the USA, Regan butcher Nicaragua, Clintons watch, 8000 dead 33,000 raped in Haiti,Bush killing in Iraq, both Pres.Bushs and Now Obama supports the coup that is killing people in Honduras,So Amy please, Obama or Barry, HE is in like minded company, Alfred Nobel would be proud, peace thru killing, drones can kill anyone anywhere, Now does that not make you feel safer. Hate to be a party pooper, but USA Biggest killer, since the fireball of Tokyo March 1945,Hiroshima, Nagasaki,and on and on, yes greatest killer of All. Fraud, phoney,  Bay of Tonkin,to get into vietnam war, killing 2 million vietnamese 56,000 american soldiers or maybe 911 another self inflicted wound,the endless war is the goose that lays the golden egg.

They’re more serious than a heart attack

Garth

Radical Surgery

“Radical surgery is almost always worse than useless. It is a desperate, and almost certainly vain attempt…for the patient…the pain and suffering may be appalling…remaining lifespan may be reduced…surgery ceases to be a sensible option…what is the surgeon going to cut out? When does the surgeon quit cutting?”

As a general rule, radical surgery does not cure the disease, it only spreads the disease throughout the body.

I would prefer a holistic therapy, to achieve remission, and hopefully, recovery.

All this symbolism is obnoxious isn’t it? Winning hearts and minds to positive goals seems like a futile endeavor sometimes, but it doesn’t seem rational, or courageous, to surrendor to negativity,  doing so can only be counter productive.

Instead of building a strong and united force to oppose, many of us have been undercutting that unity.

Shooting oneself in the foot may be a good way of getting out of going into battle, but it’s not a good way to go into battle.

The 3rd party cavalry won’t be riding in to save the day, we’ll have to make do with the same tired old troops, but maybe, if we’re tactful, we can strengthen their resolve.

Hark! am I hearing distant bugles? No, its only wishful thinking. Man the barricades boys! here come the heathens!

(Its only symbolism, no offense to heathens intended, some of my best friends are heathens.)

Damn! trying to alleviate discomfort can drive you nuts! The issues that confront us are not at all humorous, they are more serious than a heart attack.

American foreign policy has not changed since the end of WWII.  It’s beyond the reach of the American electorate.

They want Obama to move to the middle.  That would take quantum leap to the left, and that ain’t gonna happen.

It’ll take a surgeons knife to cut out the cancerous growth in our midst.

If you don’t believe me, try burning a flag. 

When Pelosi said in 2003 or 2004 that she supports the ‘Truth’, O’Reilly of Fox conveniently misheard her to sy she didn’t support out ‘Troops.’  Only Al Franken of Air America exposed him. 

There’s not much one can do peaceably with so many in office who are willing to accept their pay and bennies and turn a blind eye to what has been going on.

History, I hope will, drive these bastards down to dust.  No other countries, save the US and Israel, believe in War as a first resort.

And why not?  If so many crazy people, I’d guess about 1% of the 300 million in the US want to bomb their way to so-called safety, then it’s a foregone conclusion that this shit ain’t gonna end without surgery.  Radical Surgery.

Rico Suave

Your placing the word “Ilk” in quotation marks puzzles me, so I’ll attempt to clarify my choice of words.

“Ilk” – definition; Type or kind.

As in,

People of a conservative/right-wing [ilk-type- kind] ignore or attempt to obfuscate the truth, if that truth is uncomfortable or inconvenient, and contradicts their ideological beliefs.

Or

People of a conservative/right wing [ilk-type-kind] sometimes attempt to obfuscate the issue at hand by shifting focus to words with easily defined definitions.

Granted the word “ilk,” meaning type or kind, is often used in a pejorative sense; that was my intent. Perhaps some linguistic sophistication is necessary in order to understand word meanings and usage. Clearly, your highlighting my usage of the word “ilk” is either a feeble attempt to discredit me and to obfuscate the issue at hand, or an indication of your retardation. My indicating that I think you are a lightweight and prone to supporting murderous policies should have given you a hint as to the reason for my choice of the word in question. Perhaps I have underestimated your intellect, if that’s possible. Perhaps in the future, when communicating with you, I’ll need to use simpler words, such as dummy, and bad person, and whatnot.

I actually thought that you would have the ability to research the document neither Amy Goodman nor I supplied to you. Apparently, I have overestimated your intellectual capacities (smarts) once again. Or is it that you are afraid to do so, because knowing the truth would cause you some discomfort. As I mentioned previously, and forgive me for being redundant (Repeating myself,) that discomfort would most likely be caused from the necessity of creating new rationale (Reasons) for supporting murder, and not from any moral concerns (Desire to be a good person.)

The documents are lengthy which prevents me from posting them here, and shamefully, I’ll have to admit that I don’t possess the rudimentary skills necessary to post links, but searching, “Kapossus, Allan Nairn,” will get you to where you need to go. I’ll warn you that the documents are written in Indonesian, which does present a problem, but unless you believe that a blogger inclined towards preserving his credibility, would intentionally post easily debunked documents, they should be given credibility.

“The authenticity of the documents has been verified by Kapossus personnel who have seen them and by external evidence regarding the authors and the internal characteristics of the documents.”

These documents provide some measure of “proof,” and they go far beyond simple “innuendo,” as you suggest.

Personally, I believe that you would have to have your skull busted by a Kapossus rifle butt, or personally witness the killing (As Allan Nairn’s was, and as he witnessed)before you would give credence to these documented proofs.

Oh well, your attitude, and attitudes like yours are very familiar to me. During the eighties U.S. trained, and sponsored, death squads dragged Central American citizens from their homes in the middle of the night, tortured and killed them, and dumped their bodies in landfills and waterways. In El Salvador alone U.S. backed paramilitary “Freedom Fighters” killed: The Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, (Because he publically asked them to stop killing people,) they also killed priests, nuns, university professors, students, union organizers, medical workers, journalists, human rights monitors, and peasants. The atrocities were well documented, but mostly ignored, with a ho-hum, who cares attitude, by most Americans.

Rico Suave (Cont.)

From Wikipedia:

“At war’s end, the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador registered more than 22,000 complaints of political violence in El Salvador, between January 1980 and July 1991 — 60 percent about summary killing, 25 percent about kidnapping, 20 percent about torture — most attribute almost 85 percent of the violence to State agents, private paramilitary groups, and the death squads. The Salvadoran armed forces were accused in 60 per cent of the complaints, the security forces in 25 percent, military escorts and civil defence units in 20 percent of complaints, and the death squads in more than 10 percent of complaints, and the FMLN in 5 percent of complaints…”

“Central America, 1981-87. Death toll under Reagan in El Salvador passed 50,000 and in Guatemala it may approach 100,000. In Nicaragua 11,000 civilians killed by 1968. Death toll in region 150,000 or more. Chomsky, N. (1988). The Culture of Terrorism, p. 29”

The grisly reality of Central America was most recently revisited on Feb. 25 when a Guatemalan truth commission issued a report on the staggering human rights crimes that occurred during a 34-year civil war.
The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human rights body, estimated that the conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s.
Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.

“ In 1965 the Indonesian military — advised, equipped, trained, and financed by the U.S. military and the CIA — overthrew President Achmed Sukarno and eradicated the Indonesian Communist Party and its allies, killing half a million people (some estimates are as high as a million) in what was the greatest act of political mass murder since the Nazi Holocaust.” Dr. Michael Parenti

Let’s not forget Charlie Wilson’s, Reagan’s, Carter’s, Brzezinski’s, and other right-wing idiots war in Afghanistan, and that war’s horrendous and long lasting consequences.

Throw in few million dead Indochinese, and grossly understated casualties from other Cold War and post Cold War U.S. foreign policy actions, too numerous to mention, and you’ll start to get an understanding of real reality, and not the false reality you and your ilk attempt to promulgate.

Rico Suave (Cont.)

From Wikipedia:

This is a partial listing of alleged human rights violations in western New Guinea under Indonesian rule (currently comprising the provinces of West Papua and Papua). A number of these are included in the report to the Indonesian Human Rights Network by the Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School. Though visits to the region by the media are not encouraged, the findings of a journalist who visited in 2000 is listed below.

•  1966-67: Aerial bombing of Arfak Mountains
•  Jan-Mar 1967: Aerial bombing of Ayamaru and Teminabuan areas
•  1967: Operasi Tumpas (operation obliteration). 1,500 alleged dead in Ayamaru, Teminabuan and Inanuatan.
•  Apr 1969: Aerial bombing of Wissel Lake District (Paniai and Enarotali area); 14,000 survivors escape into the jungle.
•  May 1970: Massacre of women and children by Indonesian troops. Witnesses reported seeing a woman gutted, her baby dissected on the spot and the baby’s aunt pack-raped.
•  Jun 1971: Mr Henk de Mari reported that 55 men from two villages in North Biak were forced to dig their own graves before being shot. Published in Dutch daily De Telegraaf Oct 1974.
•  Unknown: 500 Papuan corpses found in jungle Lereh District, south west of Sentani Airport, Jayapura region.
•  May 1978: Five OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka) leaders surrender to save the village they were caught in. They are beaten to death with red hot iron bars and their bodies thrown into a pit latrine. The 125 villagers were then machine gunned as suspected OPM sympathizers.
•  Jun 1978: 14 corpses found shot, West of Sentani Airport, Jayapura region.
•  Jun 1978: 6 women pack-raped, shot, and then had their vaginas stuffed with sweet potato leaves and red berries after death following suspicion of collaboration with OPM. Babuma Village, Kelila District, Jayawijaya.
•  Jul 1978: 122 people (116 men, six women) fled into jungle with ABRI (Indonesian “red beret” military) in pursuit. The villagers were captured, had their hands and feet bound, were weighted and bagged, then dumped at sea. Merauke area.
•  Unknown: North Biak, 12 people shot after receiving permission to leave camp to collect sago for a village feast.
•  1981: 10 killed, 58 disappear without trace. Paniai Region.
•  Jun-Aug 1981: Operasi Sapuh berish (Operation Clean Sweep), populations of Ampas-Waris and Batte-Arso villages bayoneted and left.
•  Sep-Dec 1981: estimated 13,000 killed in the central highlands.
•  Jul 1984: Naval, air, and ground troop assault of Nagasawa/Ormo Kecil village, 200 dead.
•  Unknown: Naval shelling of Taronta, Takar, and Masi-Masi coastal villages; survivors fled towards Jayapura; under Dutch in 1950 each village had 1500 to 2000 population.
•  mid 1985: 2,500 killed in Paniai area of Wissel Lake district, including 115 from Iwandoga and Kugapa villages massacred by troops 24/6/1985; 10 people, the village, food gardens, and livestock of Epomani village, Obano Sub-district; 15 people, village, and livestock of Ikopo village Monemane district; and 517 people, 12 villages, food gardens, and live-stock of Monemane.
•  1986-87: 34 known persons shot, Paniai/Wissel Lake District.
•  2000 Prison, Torture and Murder in Jayapura for illegal journalism
•  2001 Theys Eluay, president of the OPM, is kidnapped and murdered by Indonesian soldiers.
•  2002 Theys Eluay’s murderers are given a two-year prison sentence.
•  2010: Indonesian military are video taped torturing Papuan farmers by kicking, burning genitals, and threatening to cut a man’s face and neck; the Indonesian government admits culpability.

Having knowledge of these sorts of things is discomforting, to say the least. I can understand your desire to remain stupid.

QUOTE (of an avatar, being a painting of many shades of (D)espicable blue):

“Counter productive radicals can not breathe without choking out venomous sputum.

Why don’t you take your arrogant, self ordained elitism, and nihilistic crap and flush it down the toilet, and try to imagine something that may lead to more positive outcomes, and not to chaos, mayhem, and ultimately to a more severe proto-fascism.”

______________

Since WWII, America has had far too few radicals, who have worked hard attempting to have elections serve the proper function that elections could have and should have served — to provide a peaceful means to address social needs, end injustices, and promote actual change for good — rather than have elections be what they are, which sadly is merely the choosing of between either corporate party (D) liberally or corporate party (R) conservatively **HOW** to perpetrate every evil. It is not the too few radicals who cause chaos.

Liberals persuade people who say they don’t want war to vote (D), for perpetual war.

Liberals persuade people who say they want Single-Payer to vote (D), against Single-Payer.

Liberals persuade people who say they want a swift and responsible response to climate change (a truly existential problem) to vote (D), to instead provide pollution swap speculation profits for banksters… while the permafrost becomes impermanent, and all the glaciers disappear.

The liberals, who have so viciously suppressed non-corporate alternative voting, have corporate state compliantly ensured that elections can’t possibly serve any good purpose now.

It is the many millions of liberals, who stalwartly (D) voted to regularly ensure that either none, or the least possible change (for good) would ever occur, who have made great chaos and violence inevitable.

There’s nothing “proto” (primitive) about the more sustainable fascism that liberals have created. It’s a highly evolved fascism… something only liberals could really appreciate.

Rewind to November 2008 when Obama was elected and many were elated, John Pilger said Obama will be no different on foreign policy…

John Pilger was right - and I was wrong!

David J. Cyr

“Only a self-deluding liberal could ever be shocked to discover yet another heinous crime a Democrat POTUS is committing.”

I am one progressive, who sees only a coalition between the center and left as having any hope of defeating the Right, and providing any semblance of progress, I am not at all shocked by another heinous crime by a U.S. President. I, and I would suppose Amy Goodman, have been aware of these heinous crimes for over half a century. Your accusation that we are self-deluded is presumptuous to say the least.

“Did Obama ever in his maniacs’ imaginings promise to close down John F. Kennedy’s School of the Americas, which still exports torture and this state’s sponsored terror?”

I’ll suggest that never in John F. Kennedy’s imaginings did he foresee the maniacal entity he was creating, and that Obama appears to be nothing more than a well meaning misguided fool, not a maniacal imaginer.

“The maniacs may have imagined it, but that’s just as much off the table (liberal majority control governing unthinkable) as actual healthcare is.”

So are you saying that the liberal “Maniacs” might have imagined it, but considered it undoable under current political realities, and that it would only be possible when those political realities change for the better?

“Why do “progressives” keep referring to the mandated increased profits for greater denial of care as being a “healthcare reform” accomplishment?”

Maybe because the healthcare reform is better than the old system in many respects and because the healthcare reform was all that could be accomplished under current political realities; and because they see the healthcare reform as only a framework to be improved upon when political realities permit.

“Liberals cannot breathe without lying.”

Counter productive radicals can not breathe without choking out venomous sputum.

Why don’t you take your arrogant, self ordained elitism, and nihilistic crap and flush it down the toilet, and try to imagine something that may lead to more positive outcomes, and not to chaos, mayhem, and ultimately to a more severe proto-fascism.

So what else is new?  Roosevelt played footsie with Stalin as did Truman.  Tricky Dick, after vociferously denouncing Communism, got in bed with Mao and his band of mass murderers.  Let’s not forget, too, that our government did nothing to stop Brown Brothers Harriman from sending teams to build both the Russian heavy industry and the Wehrmacht in almost certain preparation for the slaughter of WWII.

It’s possible Indonesians are criticizing their officials for dealing with the mass murderers who dropped the only Atomic Bomb ever used and most recently has slaughtered men, women, and children in an inexcusable war of aggression in Iraq.

Consider these:
1. The first black president on a predominatingly race-conscious nation,
2. Who inherited a load of sour and evil results of a “conservative” deceitful Republican administration without any social conscience whatsoever.
3. Who immediately felt the pressures of a failing national/international economy with corporate Wall-Street-minded advisers exclusively telling him what to do.
4. Under the always reactive policies dicated by money, he laid aside (deserted?) campaign promises made to the people in favor of following advisers, including the Pentagon big-shots.
5. Eager to “succeed” as “the first black president etc.” (lots of baggage in that phrase) he proposed bi-partisanship to people who had no intention whatsoever to bi-partisan with him—the first black president?  Are you kidding me?
6. The people are yelling at him from all sides. They don’t even grant him partial success with the Health Bill. Guantanamo still isn’t closed, habeas corpus still isn’t restored, Afghanistan isn’t going well, Iraq is a disaster area and nobody loves us.
7. Feelings of helplessness all ‘round—in the Oval Office and in the local state, city and county offices. And throughout the Blogosphere, whatever that stands for.

What would you do under the same circumstances? God love us, we ain’t got a clue! None of us. 

Campaign Finance Reform Now!  anyone?
Bring ‘em home from Afghanistan Now!  anyone?
Rescind the recent Supreme Court ruling on corporations as “persons” able to contribute unlimited amounts of money to policital campaigns?
Form a “viable” Third Party Now!  anyone ?
Have a beer and watch the finals?
I wonder what’s on Oprah. . . . .

Only a self-deluding liberal could ever be shocked to discover yet another heinous crime a Democrat POTUS is committing.

Did Obama ever in his maniacs’ imaginings promise to close down John F. Kennedy’s School of the Americas, which still exports torture and this state’s sponsored terror?

The maniacs may have imagined it, but that’s just as much off the table (liberal majority control governing unthinkable) as actual healthcare is.

Why do “progressives” keep referring to the mandated increased profits for greater denial of care as being a “healthcare reform” accomplishment?

Liberals cannot breathe without lying.

ilk;

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-
oe-daum3nov03,0,6935737.column

JDmysticJD:

Why didn’t Amy include any of this in her article?

My “ilk” likes concrete proof, not inuendo.

Even the “evidence’ in your post only showed tenuous guilt by association.

And, you obviously missed the entire thrust of my post. I have ZERO clue about the nature of Kopassus. And Amy Goodman didn’t provide me with any. It could well be they are seriously murderous thugs, but you wouldn’t know it from her article or your post.

Are you an expert on Kopassus, or are you just too credulous?

By the way, what is my “ilk”?

the truth of who and what he really is, never ends.  he’s the gift of betrayal that won’t stop giving….

Can anyone tell me whether there are any ingredients of U.S. foreign policy beyond Exploitation of Resources Available in Other Countries—and that, by whatever means necessary?

Gobble, gobble!

tropicgirl, November 10 at 7:18 pm Link to this comment

Amy, the incessant hand-wringer, can’t even get out of the box, as she denies any questions about 911, the mother of all future violence “insurance policies”.

Fake media just trying to keep their jobs. If you can’t warn people about what is really wrong, Amy, just give it up.

You can’t hand-pick the truth. No. Even you.
———————————————————————

On this I agree with TropicGirl.

The more that Chomsky tries to dispel the knowledge that is right before us and the more that Goodman tries to ignore the nagging question of who done it on 9/11: the more it becomes evident that the 5 Jews cheering in the rooftop in NJ, Silverstein’s saying to “pull it” about Building Seven of the WTC, the more it becomes evident that Isreal and the Wall Street croks were involved.

It’s now a war between Wall Street, City of London, Isreal, the Catholic Church versus Russian Oligarchs, Chinese Commnuists, Brazil and Venezuela.

They want to focus on Iran. In otra mot, they ‘ll show the rest of the world what American technology and Isreali zeal can do.

Grow your gardens, harness the rainwater.  There might be an end to this bullshit, but we won’t like it.

Look at what the French influence is doing to Haiti.

Their God might be on their side.

sorry, the dunham post goes with that story.

Amy, the incessant hand-wringer, can’t even get out of
the box, as she denies any questions about 911, the
mother of all future violence “insurance policies”.

Fake media just trying to keep their jobs. If you can’t
warn people about what is really wrong, Amy, just give
it up.

You can’t hand-pick the truth. No. Even you.

Ann Dunham was involved because HER MOTHER was known
to have been involved, in Hawaii, in a DEEPLY
involved CIA Mecca, created in Hawaii, in the
educational system and other systems, after WWII.
They thought they were doing the right thing perhaps.

But O-Stupid is nothing but a tool of the globalists,
with absolutely NO values, morals, backbone or
knowledge of what being American is.

And, by the way, you don’t attend Indonesian schools,
from what I understand, the way Obama did, without
citizenship.

But if you are looking toward the CIA ties, look to
the white grandmother first. Remember, they had a
“special” relationship. Ha!

since the planet belongs de facto and by the will of u.s. constitution—and not
to mention by the command of u.s. god—to u.s., it has the might and, thus,
the right to do with it as it chooses.

and since we know there is no such animal as “truth”, but only american truth 1,
russian truth 2, chinese truth 3, etc., american truth 1 shall prevail as long as it
is backed by mightiest military power.

However, there is the aristotle’s “apodictic” truth; ie, absolute certain truth, that
no nation has the right to attack another country under no known
circumstances.

i see that my spell check rejects not only the word “apodictic” but also
“timocratic”.
these explain a lot; thus not used! tnx

The word ‘gravitas’ seemed to come into common usage a few years ago, and it’s implication, while W served in the Oval office was painfully obvious.

We needed a President with gravitas.  Not only, someone who could speak the King’s English, but could also make sense, orate, look good and have the right credentials.

And then along comes Jones. 

Walking down Boylston Street in Boston in 2004, he patted the speech in his breast pocket and reassured his aide walking alongside that he held the Weapon of Mass Deception.

Now, we have ‘Gravimento’ instead of Gravitas.  Still sounds good to those true believers and the dull of senses, but he’s a cross between Gravitas and a pimento.  That’s red part of the olive that used to be served in an olive martini.  That’s the part you picked out with the toothpick, and it was left to dry on the paper napkin.

Obama is a nothing, if there ever was one.  The Ford Foundation-Columbia-Harvard pedigree can be quite beguiling to those of the ilk.

I remember an AA meeting in Cambridge when a published writer in the Christian Science Monitor leaned to her friend and remarked about tthe female speaker, “Bryn Mawr!”

That’s part of what this shit is all about.  Status.  Greed. Envy. Of the high achievers.

There’s are two sayings about MIT, another Cantabridgian institution that exemplifies the whole schmear that should shed some understanding about where we are today.

M-I-T, P-H-D, M-O-N-E-Y

And when you have the M-O-N-E-Y you can buy stuff.  The one with the most stuff when he dies, wins.

Glory, Glory Halleluia, always knew it was comin’ to ya.

Money is the most powerful thing in the Universe.  At least a Universe bereft of ideas.

Rico Suave

Your weight is even lighter than Lafayette’s. You attempt to deny the undeniable by using convoluted rationales.

By Allan Nairn
Jakarta, November 9, 2010.

“Secret documents have leaked from inside Kopassus, Indonesia’s red berets, which say that Indonesia’s US-backed security forces engage in ‘murder [and] abduction” and show that Kopassus targets churches in West Papua and defines civilian dissidents as the “enemy.’”

“The documents include a Kopassus enemies list headed by Papua’s top Baptist minister and describe a covert network of surveillance, infiltration and disruption of Papuan institutions”

“Kopassus is the most notorious unit of Indonesia’s armed forces, TNI,  which along with POLRI, the national police, have killed civilians by the hundreds of thousands.”

5 minutes of research could eliminate your willful ignorance; the documents in question are available on the web. Knowing your ilk as I do, I’m fairly certain that you will dispute the authenticity of the documents, but you can not dispute the events of recent history, nor reports by the United Nations, and human rights organizations regarding Indonesian atrocities, and U.S. Foreign Policy perfidy.

Doing the necessary research to eliminate your ignorance would require some time and commitment, but I’m also fairly certain that you are comfortable in your ignorance, and that the truth would cause you some discomfort, not enough to dissuade you from your support of murderous policies, but discomforting just the same. After all, you’d have to come with wholly new set of rationales in support of murder.

Lafayette

You expose yourself as being a lightweight, and a person who possesses a Neocon mentality. The philosophical question you pose clearly demonstrates such.

“So, why should we become upset when human rights are violated so heinously elsewhere? Where is the benefit, pray tell? (Question posed philosophically.)”

The “Benefit” of criticizing our government for supporting perpetrators of heinous human rights violations is obvious to all except lightweights such as yourself, and Realpolitik Neocons.

Only a simplistic lightweight would make the following statement.

“Then, one day, an absurd young American, whose ascension to the presidency of the US was more accident than purpose, decided that he would spend the lives of young Americans to unhinge the despot. He did so not out of any deep respect for the travesty of human rights in the despot’s country. But simply revenge. The despot had tried to kill his father by infiltrating a hit-squad to assassinate him in a place that the father was visiting.”

Like a simplistic lightweight you willfully ignore the actual consequences of removing the brutal dictator (Our former ally) in terms of heinous human rights violations. Need I list the data pertaining to death, destruction, and the squandering of resources, human, financial, and political?

Your simple minded blathering continues with:

“And, today, are Americans, still righteous, particularly proud of having toppled the despot? No, not particularly. Because we were “lied to”. How dare they!?!”

Righteous Americans are not proud of our invasion of Iraq because of the consequences of that invasion; consequences that continue today, and may well continue for decades to come. Only in the future will the actual consequences of that invasion be quantifiable, and that quantification is gruesome today, and will be more gruesome tomorrow.

I don’t enjoy insulting people; I’d like to be able to say something nice about you. For example, I believe you’re smarter than a third grader, but if I offered such a compliment, it would be disingenuous on my part.

It’s my belief that simple minds such as yours are dangerous, and share in responsibility for heinous violations of human rights.

Please allow me to parse Ms Goodman’s article. This in no way is an endorsement of Kopassus or US support for it. It is a critique of Amy’s use of inuendo and guilt-by-association techniques to make an argument without attaching a shred of proof to it.

“...tens of thousands of civilians have been murdered and where Kopassus is most active”. Notice not a single specific example of Kopassus killing any of those civilians, yet Amy wants us to make that connection. I’m not saying Kopassus didn’t kill any civilians, but neither does Amy say they did.

“Kopassus ...rationale was fighting terrorism, but the documents show that Kopassus in fact systematically targets civilians.” First, how many “terrorists” are NOT civilians. And second, “systematically targets” is not the same as “kills” or “murders”, so Amy can’t give an example of Kopassus actually killed anybody, though she wants us to draw that inference.

“cell-phone videos ...showing torture being inflicted ...at the hands of what appear to be members of the military.” “Appear to be”? Where’s the proof it was Kopassus? There is none, but Amy wants us to draw that inference.

Did Kopassus poison Munir Said Thulib? Amy doesn’t say, but having wound the watch in the previous paragraphs, she expects us to draw that inference.

I repeat, this is not a commentary on Indonesian repression or whether we should be aiding Kopassus.

It is a commentary on Amy Goodman’s lazy, sloppy journalism.

ANOTHER VIEW

RL: My most serious concerns about Obama are not the domestic policies ... but his foreign policy in which he betrays himself as no better than Bush.

Learn two things about “foreign policy” as regards the American presidency:
* It does not count for diddly-squat to the American people, particularly at elections.
* It does project America’s power world-wide, but simply maintains the expectation that, as the world power, we assume the mantle of “policeman to the world”. Is that best for American interests? Zat is ze kwestion.

You perhaps missed Obama’s speech in Cairo and have certainly overlooked his well-balanced approach towards Israel, which is both appropriate and long overdo. Why do you think America is hated by grassroots fundamentalist Muslims? Because we are modern-day “Crusaders”? Not in the least.

We are despised for our persistent, unequivocal support of the Israeli state and its illegal occupation of the West Bank. This fact alone is the reason that alQaeda is able to recruit dimwitted suicide bombers throughout the Middle-east to fight (our boys” wherever they may be).

In the minds of Muslim terrorists, Uncle Sam is suggest asurrogate of the Israeli state that dispossessed their “Palestinian brothers” and are starving them in Gaza.

If we are supposedly so concerned about Human Rights, we should look more clearly at the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Settling that conflict by (1) guaranteeing a Palestinian state (within its own confines) that (2) recognized the integrity of Israel would start America down the road to reconciliation with the Muslim people.

Once that is accomplished, the US will have had a great victory against Muslim terrorism as well.

POST SCRIPTUM

Don’t forget that, since the agreement negotiated by Jimmy Carter, America still funds both Israel and Egypt to the tune of about half a billion dollars per year. (Read the last paragraph here regarding the Camp David accords.)

Are we getting our money’s worth? We can threaten to pull out both fundings ... and perhaps put pressure particularly upon the Israeli state presently run by some Right-wing nutters.

This situation is a near hopeless one with Obama, and reveals what may be the most serious problem associated with “party affiliation.”  Obama has been a profound disappointment.  Yet many people particularly many liberals, fear expressing that view, because it is seen to undermine the president’s influence and respectability.  Nonsense!  A president has no influence and respectability, other than that for which he has given factual evidence.  Obama is a failure as a president, and the past two years have made this all too clear.  But if we discarded parties altogether, and allowed or demanded that politicians represent their unique and individual views about one another, the political scene would gain a credibility and validity it sorely lacks at this time.  If we cannot honestly judge our politicians, our views are mere “party” politics withuot reference to a politicians actual accomplishment, and tends to perpetuate mediocrity in our politicians and mendacity in ourselves.  There is a group that has been formed named “What the hell has Obama accomplished.”  I listened to a few of these very young true believers.  Obama was said to have “signed” a bill, for which his loyal followers gave him credit.  But the bill had no effect, it was simply a signature, without real-world effect, yet he was honored for the mere signing, and this “signature” was included among his “accomplishment.”  Give me a break.

ONCE UPON A TIME

gerard: There are terrible human rights problems all over the world, including in the United States

Spot on. And there is not one helluva lot that any one us can do about it.

There was once a middle-east dictator who managed, though from a minority ethnicity in his country, to install himself as a dictator.

His murderous career is littered with the cadavers of thousands upon thousands of people. The total number is in the hundreds of thousands. People he had killed to arrive to the pinnacle of power and people he assassinated to remain there. He was the devil incarnate.

And yet, righteous Uncle Sam did nothing to stop him for two/three decades that he remained in power.

He was just one of so many of that kind. Our real political concerns and objectives (aka RealPolitik) at the time were elsewhere.

Then, one day, an absurd young American, whose ascension to the presidency of the US was more accident than purpose, decided that he would spend the lives of young Americans to unhinge the despot. He did so not out of any deep respect for the travesty of human rights in the despot’s country. But simply revenge. The despot had tried to kill his father by infiltrating a hit-squad to assassinate him in a place that the father was visiting.

And, today, are Americans, still righteous, particularly proud of having toppled the despot? No, not particularly. Because we were “lied to”. How dare they!?!

So, why should we become upset when human rights are violated so heinously elsewhere? Where is the benefit, pray tell? (Question posed philosophically.)

My most serious concerns about Obama are not the domestic policies though they are nothing to celebrate, but his foreign policy in which he betrays himself as no better than Bush. What a fraud.

Obama, human rights? If he had a commitment or even a clue about human rights, he would have never run for president the way he did.

“The dream of capitalism is to co-opt people with
higher living standards without redistributing any
wealth. Without co-optation, widespread repression is
the only guarantor of gross inequality.”
(Holly Sklar)

“It doesn’t take a genius to pump up the GNP [of a
‘developing’ country] by burning down rainforests,
using slave labor and social repression to keep
things in place.”
(Hazel Henderson, economist)

“Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very
foundations of our free society as the acceptance by
corporate officials of a social responsibility other
than to make as much money for their stockholders as
possible.”
(Milton Friedman)

“This focus on money and power may do wonders in the
marketplace, but it creates a tremendous crisis in
our society. People who have spent all day learning
how to sell themselves and to manipulate others are
in no position to form lasting friendships or
intimate relationships… Many Americans hunger for a
different kind of society—one based on principles
of caring, ethical and spiritual sensitivity, and
communal solidarity. Their need for meaning is just
as intense as their need for economic security.”
(Michael Lerner)

There are terrible human rights problems all over the world, including in the United States, about which little or nothing is done.Innocent people spend years in jail or under death threats, or being starved or raped,because we are not speaking up in large numbers to support their human rights—to eat, to live,to work, to speak, to read and write and sing.
  It is patently true that, since the US brags so much about “democracy” and “freedom” and kills people ostensibly in order to “give” them those rights that we have a big problem we need to solve right here before we can have any international cred.
  Not that we should toady up to Indonesian dictatorship any more than any other place. But it is obvious that if we were tending to our own rights we would have a better platform for criticizing others. Instead, we are moving the direction of more suppression, not less.
  The reasons of course point to the power of corporate business behind our own government whose interests are almost entirely on making money from investments exploiting resources, here and anywhere else.  So long as we permit economic exploitation to be the most powerful influence in our own government, and do not demote money-making as our primary national goal, it is doubtful if human rights will be improved.  Quite the contrary. 
  The only hopeful thing we all know is that the need is great, and that eventually improvement leads to more improvement—here and elsewhere—but we have to begin.  And that means tens of thousands of US citizens caring enough about their government to save it from its worst instincts.
  It’s all so obvious that words are becoming more obfuscating than motivating.
  Are you helping to support what human rights organizations there are—small, struggling, under-staffed and overworked?  If not, why not, to bring the point home?

“While investigating the theory that Obama’s mama, Ann Dunham Soetoro, was a possible CIA covert operative stationed in Indonesia, Thailand and Pakistan, I have been taken in many directions. Most investigative paths led back to Southeast Asia. After a coup and the corporate “opening” of one of the most resource rich countries in the world, Indonesia became one of the poorest-per capita-nations in Asia, with low educational levels and enormous divisions between rich and poor .
I followed the connections between Peter Geithner (long time head of the Ford Foundation’s Asia Division) and Ann Soetero. The Ford Foundation in Asia is widely held to be connected to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Ann Dunham Soetoro worked extensively with the Ford Foundation as well as the U.S.A.I.D. and the World Bank, both considered sometime partners in covert operations. Barack Obama’s step-father, Lolo Soetoro was a high ranking military officer in Suharto’s Army and a government liaison between the Indonesian military government and the international oil industry.”

Connecting some dots: Geithner and Obama

The Story of Obama:  All in The Company—Part II

Suharto: A Declassified Documentary Obit

NYT on the Obama and Geithner relationship

(As reported on TD): Former US Ambassador to NATO, Robert Ellsworth, and a former Deputy Secretary of Defense:  “I’m just speculating [with President Obama in Asia]....It could be the firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile to demonstrate, mainly to Asia, that we can do that.”

The oligarchs at work.