Thursday, November 09, 2006

Ceremonies of the Horsemen



Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we'll come from the shadows. - The Partisan

What kind of world would greet Robert Gates' appointment as Secretary of Defense as a happy news item? Regrettably, this one. That's the true Bush legacy: diminished expectation, and delight and surprise at achieving debased, small victories that have to be handed to us.

I don't mean that we shouldn't take the good with the bad when we find it. But the good we can find is not as satisfying, enduring or as just as the good we should be able to make for ourselves. So yes, we'll accept the gift of Donald's Rumsfeld's overdue resignation, yet Rumsfeld instead deserves to receive the revolt of our conscience and the judgement of the dead. American and international law ought to deliver humanity's verdict, and that they won't or they can't is why we're expected to dance in the streets when heads are made to roll for our pleasure.

But this is a hydra-headed beast, and none of its heads are irreplaceable. With familiarity it may seem otherwise, which strengthens the illusion of revolution at every changing of the guards. But a palace guards' change is a ceremonial event, which once meant more than nothing, and now means less. Now, it's for the tourists.

For five years there have been worries that the Bush crowd would do more than merely steal elections; they would do away with them altogether. But this is to misunderestimate the nature of late American fascism, which still needs the sustaining fantasies of liberty and representative democracy. Gains by the gentler, junior partners of the Washington Consensus serve this end, and present the impression of change while changing nothing. (I anticipate more tragicomic found-humour in the spectacle of "yellow-dog" Democrats justifying a now uncloseted bipartisan agenda.)

The neocons have served their purpose, and probably outlived their usefulness, which is why men like Perle and Ledeen are doing a shameless volte-face on Iraq. They have been a shock to the system of America, and to Americans who hadn't realize what kind of system America had. It's been a five-year plan of radicalism, and perhaps now comes two years of something like stability. But not a rollback. Most Democrats don't have the interest in or the stomach for the fight, and many of them voted with the Republicans for tyrannical and bloody-minded measures that are not going anywhere, except burrowing deeper into the American routine.


By the way, don't miss this Associated Press story, "Startling findings in probe of Tillman's death". ("One investigator told the Tillmans that it hadn't been ruled out that Tillman was shot by an American sniper or deliberately murdered by his own men.")

108 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

here comes the chaos...perfectly on time again.

11/09/2006 01:51:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would call you a pessimist if I didn't agree with most of what you say...

Why is it that many people implicated in Iran/Contra are not only involved in government agencies today (Negroponte, soon to be Gates, etc.) but also those that are regularly on television spouting off crap at will (North, etc.)? God forbid convicted criminals of the state shouldn't be allowed on television, but if you even suggest this you're called a conspiracy nut.

11/09/2006 01:53:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Why is it that many people implicated in Iran/Contra are not only involved in government agencies today...but also those that are regularly on television spouting off crap at will...?

Because what's at stake here is the permanent establishment of the national security state and those (bad) actors who keep popping up are essential to the selling of the script. The same logic that places nun-rapists like Negroponte at the head of the intelligence apparatus and also precludes the possibility of Rumsfeld ever being tried for war crimes is that repudiating any of the bad guys would re-introduce the banned subject of the role of American imperialism into the carefully contained political "discussion" that hides the nakedness of the emporer.

When Osama tim Osman cited William Blum's Rogue State as the source of the legitimacy of insurrection, the real purpose of his gesture was to remove Blum's perspective from the so-called market-place of ideas. It's the same reason why Lou Dobbs is allowed to rail against the power of corporations as long as he even more strongly agitates against the disenfranchised who are forced by those same corporations to endure the danger and humiliation of sneaking into the land of the free to work at demeaning jobs for dehumanizing pay.

The Biggest Lie is that things just have to be this way--that climate change and the ensuing ecological disaster, as well as war, poverty and disease, are as unavoidable as the four horsemen who ride them (nevermind that the solutions are obvious and that the apocalytic equestrians go by the names G.E., Monsanto, Bechtel, and Pfizer these days.) The corollary to this Big Truth is that all those players on the stage who obfuscate it and are actually supported by it (very nearly everyone allowed on the damned stage, from the slathering stooges of the Right to the Peakers and the sold-out Greens on the Left, and yes, the Democrats) will do whatever they're told, in the service of the State.

This realization is no wallowing in despair, however; what you know can hurt them, or they wouldn't want you not to know it. If everyone knew it, the game would be won, by the good guys for a change. In fact, the bad guys fight an impossible battle, despite having all the weapons on their side: information will spread no matter how it's dammed.

A fire in the streets ain't like a fire in the heart...FZ

11/09/2006 02:39:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Living in Phoenix, the Pat Tillman story always seems to be in the news. This ASU/AZ Cardinal Boy's story of "patriotism" is well known.

I remember when they announced his death. Some better part of my intuition told me "They killed him." A month after the death we started to hear rumors of "friendly fire" and a not so patriotic Rambo-style death for this new martyr. Then, months later, members of the family came forward and said that Pat had severe second thoughts about the whole War on Terror and the reasons for why the US was in Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently, as communicated in e-mails to family and friends, he was thinking of coming back home and join the ranks of the anti-war activists (if there are indeed "ranks").

So, my intuition was right: Pat was neutralized. Instead of a troublemaker, they got a martyr. There was even talk around town here of naming the new Cardinals Stadium after Pat or even one of Phoenix's small mountains ala Lori Piestewa. Even now, there is still talk of this.

11/09/2006 03:17:00 PM  
Blogger Tsoldrin said...

How jaded we have become, with not a glimmer of hope peeking a ray through the storm clouds. One wonders if there was any possible outcome that would have been hailed with something more than a groan of apathy.

11/09/2006 03:23:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hilda - I think your intuition is in fine working order.

11/09/2006 03:44:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

CIA Gates was directly responsible for pressuring the 'electrification' into vote fraud for the U.S. vote, as in electric chair (death, unauditabilty).

Gates was on the board of VoteHere, actually the largest financial bloc of "vote machine companies" pressuring HAVA, according to Bev Harris.

Rumsfeld replacement (Robert Gates) was director of voting company
author: Bev Harris

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

[CIA linked] VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through.

HAVA was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer.

HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

Posted on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - 05:26 pm:
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will resign, reportedly to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates. Did you know that Robert Gates was involved in the voting machine industry?

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here: http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

I first became acquainted with VoteHere when I met a source, Dan Spillane, who is the wonderful guy that identified the Diebold source code modules for me after I found the Diebold files. He is the person who introduced me, and subsequently everyone else, to the odd role of The Election Center and R. Doug Lewis in the elections industry.

Spillane filled me in on The Livingston Group, VoteHere lobbyists, run by Bob Livingston -- the fellow that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt outed during the Bill Clinton blow job days. Larry Flynt offered a million dollars to anyone who could out a Republican congressman for adultery, and out popped peccadillos by Livingston.

Livingston couldn't live that one down, so he resigned his post as House Speaker-Elect and became a lobbyist -- but that's not all! He also launched a group called "Center for Democracy" which was going to "monitor elections." This group also featured several good old boys from the tobacco industry and some mining companies.

Former VoteHere test engineer Dan Spillane was looking into all this because he had been fired after he questioned the certification process on a touch-screen system in which he had identified 250 flaws. It was way back in November 2002 that Spillane told me, "The voting machine industry is a house of cards. And the certification and testing process is the bottom card in the house of cards."

But don't run out of the room to take a shower yet. There's more.

VoteHere, a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens), for some reason claims they were unable to prevent themselves from being hacked. In this alleged hack, VoteHere claims that someone stole their source code. Said source code was offered to me, an obvious attempt at entrapment which I refused to touch with a 10-foot pole.

Nevertheless, VoteHere claimed to the newspapers that they had supposedly "tracked" the hacker and had identified the hacker as an activist in the election reform community.

For some reason, it was decided that I should be investigated for this "hack" of VoteHere -- nevermind that I can't remember how to change the password on my own laptop. Therefore I was interviewed by the Secret Service several times about this. Curiously, they never seemed to ask any questions about VoteHere, only my role in finding the Diebold files and publishing the Diebold memos.

This nonsense eventually culminated in a gag order and a letter from the U.S. Attorney to appear in front of a federal grand jury with information on all the visitors to the Black Box Voting Web site. (As if they couldn't get that in less dramatic ways in post-Patriot Act America).

Attorney Lowell Finley went to bat for me on this. A reporter named George Howland from the Seattle Weekly got wind of it. When it hit the press, the investigation stopped.

VoteHere never sold any voting machines that I can find, but apparently did set up some deals to embed its cryptography into some voting systems. We found memos in the Diebold trash about VoteHere's crypto-crap, and Maryland Director of Elections Linda Lamone shows up in VoteHere-related letters. Sequoia Voting Systems signed an agreement with VoteHere, but its not clear to me whether they ever did anything about it.

Robert Gates stepped away from VoteHere shortly before he showed up in Chapter 8 of my book, Black Box Voting, in a short bit about the VoteHere company history. You can read that here: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a paper, pencil, and count by hand at the polling place than have former CIA director Robert Gates fooling around with my vote.

But that's just me.

-- Bev Harris
Founder, Black Box Voting

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/348947.shtml

11/09/2006 03:47:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had a great big exhale the other night, then I realized that the Pendulum was swinging the other way but who was doing the swinging.....
It really doesn't change anything just like you said. Different players in the same game. When we get tired of these faces they well give us new ones.
Maybe we will wake up or maybe we won't....tick...tick...tick....

11/09/2006 03:54:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As many of you probably already know, Gates is part of James Baker's, The Cat's Paw, coalition, and, in fact, was/is a member of the ISG (Iraq Study Group) created by the Institute For Peace (which is anything but....kind of reminds me of the Clear Skies Initiative).

Here's a link with more info. on that interesting organization.

http://www.usip.org/isg/members.html

It reminds me of the clean-up crew construct in Pulp Fiction. Gates is the equivalent of Winston The Wolf played by Harvey Keitel.

11/09/2006 05:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A little more on Mr. Gates' role at the CIA:


http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern04272005.html

11/09/2006 05:57:00 PM  
Blogger Vemrion said...

I just finished a post that dovetails quite nicely with this one. Here in MN there was some bitching, amplified by our friendly local corporate media source, about spoiler candidates.

I get a little pissy when people start questioning the wisdom of my voting choices, especially when it's some ignorant cunt who insists (baselessly) that if our third party candidate was not on the ballot that we would've voted Democrat. Please excuse the venom, but I think the points I've made echo what many of you have been saying in this forum recently; which is that this election doesn't change a thing.

http://weblog.timoregan.com/2006/11/instant-runoff-voting-and-big-fuck-you.html

11/09/2006 06:13:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

November 9, 2006 -- How many Democratic senators who voted against the confirmation of Robert Gates to be CIA director in 1991 will vote against him to be Defense Secretary?
The following current Senate Democratic senators voted against the confirmation of Robert Gates as CIA director on November 5, 1991: Max Baucus (MT), Joe Biden (DE), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Kent Conrad (ND), Chris Dodd (CT), Tom Harkin (IA), Ted Kennedy (MA), John Kerry (MA), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Carl Levin (MI), and Jay Rockefeller (WV).
Current Democratic incumbents who voted to confirm Gates included Dan Akaka (HI), Bob Byrd (WV), Dan Inouye (HI), Herb Kohl (WI), Pat Leahy (VT), Joe Lieberman (CT), Barbara Mikulski (MD), and Harry Reid (NV). Republican Senator Orrin Hatch did not vote.
These senators were concerned about the role of Gates in the Iran-Contra scandal and did not believe him to be suitable to head the intelligence agency. Word from veteran intelligence officers: Gates is dirty.
Robert Gates has always been a trusted consigliore for the Bush family. At the Pentagon, he will undoubtedly use his two years to clean up for Dubya and suppress incriminating information on the Iraq debacle -- all in a continuing effort to protect the Bush family legacy. His nomination should be rejected.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

11/09/2006 06:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

JEFF, THE NEW BOARD LOOKS LIKE IT GOT SHUT DOWN BECAUSE OF RESOURCES CONSUMPTION. GO LOOK, I CAN'T POST.

11/09/2006 07:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff, it seems to me you're a bit heavy on the pessimism. Sure, we cannot expect to reform overnight. But what we can do is to encourage the right sort of seeds of awareness. For instance, it's amazing what the Internet has become these past few years. Don't overlook this important educational tool, which I think has made a real difference. There are other important signs to consider - such as Michael Kinsley's book review in the NY Times last Nov.5, when he stated that the real problem of our society is "intellectual dishonesty." Here is a thread that must be vigorously pursued, and which can lead to the love of truth. America needs truth, it needs people who value the spirit of truth - starting with the truth of what's been happening since the Kennedy Assassination or even further back, with the so-called Federal Reserve. Along with this, we need to repair our shattered community. On the whole, I think it's a good sign that the American Establishment (what's left of it) is finally beginning to wake up from its torpor. They gave the country to the Jews and some of them are beginning to have second thoughts. We need to have an "identity catharsis" about who we are as a people. Taking the country back from the War Party and the Corporate Party is a big job that will take generations. But at least we can start by riding hard on the Democrats to renounce their silly liberalism that continues to divide and weaken the people. It is when people are weak that tyranny flourishes. We need to study how to make people strong and confident. Let's call for a Reality Party for a change.

11/09/2006 08:00:00 PM  
Blogger Tsoldrin said...

Shrub,

Interesting coincidence... as soon as I started reading up on Gates my exact thought was 'This guy is the Wolf, he's coming in to clean up... a sweeper!'

11/09/2006 08:09:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

They gave the country to the Jews and some of them are beginning to have second thoughts. We need to have an "identity catharsis" about who we are as a people...at least we can start by riding hard on the Democrats to renounce their silly liberalism that continues to divide and weaken the people...We need to study how to make people strong and confident.

Caryl,
No offense, but that's some scary stuff there--I couldn't help but think that if you substituted Social Democrats for Democrats, you'd have a pretty decent echo of the blood & soil/hard-working, honest German platform that Nazis used in their attacks on the "decadent" Weimar Republic in the '32 campaign. How did that all turn out?

I did like the internet theme, and I agree--it's vastly important--but suggesting an "identity catharsis" about who we are as a people makes me a little nervous. "A" people? Seems to me that we as a people have pretty much been unwitting accomplices in the most long-lived and dangerous empire in the history of genocide and environmental degradation. What is our exceptional, manifest destiny, anyway? (Any room for Macacas in there?) Please respond, as I'm very curious...

11/09/2006 08:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also, it's interesting that Gates was President of Texas A&M. I attended for a couple of years, and the Corp of Cadets make for a perfect pool of Manchurian Candidates from which to choose. In fact, the Corp was the reason I transferred. The majority of them were a couple of eggs short of a dozen....some of them were 11 and 1/2 short.

11/09/2006 08:34:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Throw the Jews down the well.....so our country may be free.....

11/09/2006 08:37:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When the final Chile-style coup d'etat finally comes, wrapped in the counterfeit-democracy-friendly facade of a Lone Gunman wiping out the Congressional Democrats in one fell swoop (to start anew with a hand-picked all-GOP Politburo), that's when I'll fondly look at Caryl's comment above.

Maybe I'll frame Caryl's quote, in preparation for that inevitable day.

Maybe she is just a gatekeeping COINTELPRO grunt trolling here. But God knows, there genuinely are Disneyified saps & patsies out there, willing to sanitize the darkest, most grotesque & outlandish treason we've just been put through since year 2000.

"Treason doth never prosper, for if it prosper, None Dare Call it Treason." ...Sir John Harington was referring to the Nancy Pelosis of this world, who stamp approval on every Anthrax attack, every Vote Machine Fraud, every Supreme Court Coup D'etat.

But how sad that Harington's famous quote also encompasses the Caryls of this world.

God save the rest of us.

11/09/2006 08:47:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is something very special about Iran-Contra. It wasn't just one more government scandal like, say, Iraqgate. It was far larger, deeper, and more multi-faceted. In fact, the very name "Iran-Contra," is a kind of coverup, implying that it consisted of nothing more than selling arms to Iran and diverting the proceeds to the Contras.

I've been trying to get my head around it for a while, and I still can't say I have an absolutely clear idea of what was really going on. The best I can put it is that it was the test drive of a new machine which had been in the building for the previous 15 years or so, and that anybody who had been involved with the building of that machine was in on it.

At the heart of it was the coalition George H.W. Bush had been putting together starting when he was CIA director in 1976: The rogue CIA guys like Shackley and Clines. The Neocons. The warhawks and old-timey anti-communists and crazy generals, many of them left over from the China Lobby of the 50's and 60's. But those were just the core elements -- there were many other parties involved.

For example, the Israelis were there in spades. The aftermath of the 1973 war and the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 had set them to selling arms to anybody available, and they were dealing with both the Iranians and the Contras long before Mossad agent David Kimche got together with Bud McFarlane to bring the US into things.

The Arabs were involved as well -- most notably, Adnan Kashoggi -- mainly through their ties to Bush and the rogue CIA.

So was the World Anti-Communist league, which served as Ollie North's main conduit to the Contras, and with it a whole set of connections to European fascists (including P2), Latin American death squads, and the Reverend Moon.

There too were the New Rightists -- most of them alumni of Young Americans for Freedom -- who in the 70's had gotten pulled into groups like the World Anti-Communist League and in the 80's set up a slew of pro-Contra organizations, many of them entangled in some way with Moon's Unification Church. The names of members of those groups keep coming up in Republican politics (and particularly in GOP campaign psy-ops dirty tricks) every bit as often as the more senior and "official" representatives of Iran-Contra.

And then there's the drug aspect -- both the cocaine which got moved around as part of the Contra arms trade and the heroin which had flowed freely through Iran before the overthrow of the shah and with which Bush's rogue CIA guys were intimately involved.

And on top of that, BCCI -- which is to say arms, drugs, money-laundering, and dreams of controlling the world's economy.

And *all* these forces were part of Iran-Contra and using it as a test run, a first attempt to exercise their power.

As to the nature of what that beast really was, that's where I'm still straining to get a clear image. My best guess at this point is that it represented a coming-together of several different right-wing elements -- American, British, European, and East Asian -- which had decided in the wake of the 1968-69 popular uprisings that they had to shift their attention from the fading specter of communism to this new threat to their accumulated wealth and power

I believe also that a central aspect of this coming-together was a decision that they would have to operate by largely covert and special ops-type methods rather than by anything representing traditional warfare. Even the traditional CIA was too government-based and too straight arrow for what they had in mind.

Despite what some people like to suggest here, conspiracies are not eternal. They are born, they serve a purpose, and then they die along with their leading members. But older conspiracies do tend to seed newer ones. Whatever came together between 1969 and the early 80's had its roots in fascism (both European and Asian) and in the pro-fascist maneuverings of Prescott Bush, Allen Dulles, and their friends. However, most of its components were entirely new -- new as a coalition of formerly disparate elements, new in terms of its methodology, new in its immediate goals and objectives.

(Significantly, Dulles had died in 1969 and Prescott Bush in 1972 -- signs of the passing of the old guard.)

That conspiracy developed in the shadows through the 70's, gained public legitimacy and influence when Reagan became president, first flexed its muscles in Iran-Contra, and is now the hydra-headed monster that assails us from every side.

And *that* is why "Iran-Contra" means ever so much mere than merely some shady arms dealing involving the Contras and the Iranians.

11/09/2006 09:30:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I were Karl Rove...
Seeing that 1) the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't "fixable" without a total loss of face (and we don't want to fix them anyway, the plan has always been to be there permanently); 2) the economy is like a giant redwood completely infested with termites, just waiting for a good wind to bring it down; 3) another 9/11 wouldn't do any good at this point, since the current administration would (unlike last time) HAVE to take the blame; I'd:
1) let the Dems have power, or at least the appearance thereof; 2) let Hillary or some other stooge become President in '08; 3) in October of '10, right before the midterms, launch 9/11 II, and then sit back and watch as the entire nation crucifies those in power, and brings back "the ones that kept us safe all during W's reign" to save the day.
Of course, Karl and the gang aren't that devious or megalomaniacal. :D

11/09/2006 11:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

damn starroute,

now thats why I occasionally stroll through the comments section here. amazing fucking analysis (or beginning of one). i'm honestly shocked at how many times the phrase iran-contra comes up when you talk about geo-politics since the 80's. your idea of it being some sorta dry run makes way too much sense. I was just a kid when it happened so, to be honest, i don't know enough about what went on, but did anyone actually get busted, sent to prison, etc? i mean, who was the fall guy? anyway, badass fucking analysis

11/10/2006 01:05:00 AM  
Blogger OWN-the-NWO said...

Best blog you've written in a while, kudo's

11/10/2006 04:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Caryl said:

"They gave the country to the Jews and some of them are beginning to have second thoughts. We need to have an 'identity catharsis' about who we are as a people."


"Who we are as a people" includes Jews, like it or now, Mrs. Borat.

11/10/2006 04:42:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Typo - that should have been "like it or not"

11/10/2006 04:42:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Caryl Chessman?

11/10/2006 04:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Starroute said:

I've been trying to get my head around it for a while, and I still can't say I have an absolutely clear idea of what was really going on.


Robert Parry has a great rundown on the October Surprise stuff that gets into Iran Contra quite a bit:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00449.htm

11/10/2006 05:56:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Problem with words;

When I first mentioned love of country, that started a little flame up,I was thinking about the beauty of place, and about Mexicans, (and other third world folk) voting and being active in claiming the patrimony of their respective areas of the world.

The U.S govt. has never respected the sovereignty of others, and its citizens are responcible to correct this deficiency in its govt. The Mexican citizens are trying to control their own co-opted preditor, parasite, politicians; is it unreasonable to expect U.S. folk to do the same?

People here have interest in identifying the 'tasks' that our govt. must be called to. Good. Most of these depredations have been enginered by conservative elements. Fine. We here also know that the CTB have no idealogy other than power, and they will corrupt liberals as quickly as they will conservatives. Ok clear.

The liberal impulse has substance even if it is open to being co-opted, mostly by banks, material reductionist mentality, and scientism. So also the conservative impulse, which tends to be co-opted by religion and corporations. We the regular people have an obligation to resist this co-opting process whether our mentality is inherently conservative or liberal.

We do ourselves no service by identifing the negative as being the product of 'that competing ideology' rather than as being an element within our own ideology.

How we think is more important than what we think.

I am conservative by mentality, liberal in habit and I don't want to be identified with either.

Thanks for reading my stuff schrub, no worries if you do not get it, no one else does either, except maybe IC and a few Steiner people.

11/10/2006 08:03:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sounder,

Fair enough.....and I agree with a substantial amount of what you posted.

Metaphors can be useful, with the caveat that they are limited in their application.

What I see happening day in and day out is nothing short of rape.....and I can't just ignore it....I feel compelled to holler rape everytime I see it.

The problem is, in order to stop and prevent the current and future rape, we need the lot of humanity. In otherwords, we need their cooperation, as well as ours...because we're all in this together.....as inhabitants of this planet (why I took umbrage with your Love of Country Statement).

The challenge is in gaining that cooperation. First, and foremost, we must convince people of what you and I, and the majority of the others here already know, in a general sense, and that is a monumental task.

I live and work side by side with people who are absolutely clueless to any of this.......and don't want to have a clue....yet we need them in order to shift the paradigm.

That's why I continually fall back to the conclusion that until the Bread & Circuses are removed, and people genuinely start suffering again, en masse, there can and will be no meaningful change from the ground up.

Believe me....I want it to be different....and I'm willing to engage in an effort that would make it different....but I must also remain a realist and understand that the odds are slim to none.

11/10/2006 09:25:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They've got technology beyond the imagination of the missing trillions of pentagon money. The wars and 9/11 are just a fun little way they have of raising the price of energy to suck every last bit of value out of the human race until we notice the money isn't there any more. What are all the humans working toward? What is the goal of using all these resources? If you don't question the purpose of Life, then any 2-bit tinpot can create a charismatic illusion of patriotism or nationalism. That's why religion is so popular among the violent. Violence flows downhill, so if you create the One Most Powerful God, then you get to perpetrate violence on everyone because they can't prove you aren't the Chosen Peeeeepul.

11/10/2006 09:51:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ben Franklin thinks you should be strapped if you want to be free.

Precisely why Iran is making every attempt to go Nuclear.

11/10/2006 10:53:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The following looks like an interesting read on Gates.

It's entitled Above the law & behind closed Gates: the nomination of Robert Gates to director of the CIA by Murray Waas.

Here's the link:

http://www.bolerium.com/cgi-bin/bol48/100257.html

Considering Starroute's theory coupled with the fact that George Bush, James Baker, George Shultz and Company are near death, would it be outlandish to suggest that 911 was the test-run for the next ramped-up phase and passing of the torch?

Maybe they're not so much test-runs as they are innaugural programs (Christenings) for the latest and greatest to whom the torch is passed.

11/10/2006 12:10:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Starroute’s analysis was brilliant, and yet, like any one take on a big, spinning web of intricately connected conspiracies, themes, and memes, there’s always room for further parsings. Starroute opens (and closes) her analysis by declaring that Iran-Contra …wasn't just one more government scandal like, say, Iraqgate. It was far larger, deeper, and more multi-faceted. In fact, the very name "Iran-Contra," is a kind of coverup, implying that it consisted of nothing more than selling arms to Iran and diverting the proceeds to the Contras, but then she tries to contain the scope of Iran/Contra with this: despite what some people like to suggest here, conspiracies are not eternal. They are born, they serve a purpose, and then they die along with their leading members.

I think that there is some confusion in terminology happening here—that fact that the same actors (who are not necessarily the ultimate planners) are still around and are still spinning their webs would seem to indicate that Iran/Contra is more of an operation within a greater conspiracy than the conspiracy itself. Or, take Gladio: are the fake terror ops of the ‘80s and the Belgian massacres Jeff has described really distinct from the overall framework of the “left behind” anti-communist conspiracy planned by the mad generals, or are they all just parts of the same monstrous plan? The more we discover about the connections between these events and their perpetrators, the more it seems to me that it’s all part of the extra-legal, anti-democratic plan of the state-within-the-state to manipulate politics and populations with a crazy admixture of clandestine operations and Orwellian politicking.

The awareness of this side of reality, the sweaty backside, where the real deal goes down, is what is essential before any meaningful change can occur. When Shrub and Sounder talk about “working with the other side,” they’re right—it is necessary, but nothing will happen when 40% of the populace still believes the myth of American Exceptionalism. Exposing this, revealing the inner workings of the secret state is not just Jeff’s crusade but everyone’s mission because without it, every “truth” will be empty, every compromise doomed by the veils of obscurity that hang in myriad distortion between us and the facts.

11/10/2006 12:14:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just thought of something. After the flood, God promises never to bring that must devastation again. The implication is that there will never again be the extent of evil that there was back then.

Or that humanity has now evolved to a point of greater self-determination so that waiting for a deus ex machina is no longer in the cards. It's up to us hobbits to Fight the Power.

11/10/2006 01:34:00 PM  
Blogger Tsoldrin said...

The deluge or flood story is lifted from ancient Sumerian mythology and predates 'God' by several thousand years. ;)

11/10/2006 02:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Starroute’s analysis was brilliant

I wouldn't go that far. It was interesting, but not brilliant.

Also, I agree with you concerning your take on it. Actually, what you posited was an extremely close approximation of my sentiments.

11/10/2006 02:08:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tsoldrin said...
The deluge or flood story is lifted from ancient Sumerian mythology and predates 'God' by several thousand years. ;)


Very true, Tsoldrin. It appears to have been co-opted.

However, loopholes were created. I was raised Catholic, and we were taught that God meant that he would never destroy the majority of the Earth's inhabitants by flood.......other means were still an option was the implication, i.e. fire, ice, etc., etc.

Don't you just love loopholes?

11/10/2006 02:12:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So they sacrifice a big fish,asif it matters now.They are so out of touch.
If they did it any earlier it would not have saved any ground.
Even the pending hanging of Saddam timely delivered for domestic consumption gave them no boost.
Or Kerry playing LEFT field for the gipper.
The corporate media was saying look at that (R) upswing.



As Lincoln said,"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."


Three heads for one. Certainly a Herculean task ahead one would think.

Not to forget the false paradigm of DEM/REP.

You know what they say...
Nothing really matters anyway...

Not much change as far as I can see.

11/10/2006 02:42:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on , among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.

Nona Shrub a poopoo le anu

11/10/2006 02:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Which poster on the Forum is the heckling Anony? Anyone want to venture a guess? I'm convinced that it's somebody from the main Forum....and, perhaps, someone who posts to this comments section under another name.

Yeah, calling someone a whiny, shitty anus is critical thinking at its best. Absolutely BRILLIANT, in fact.

We were finally making some headway and posting some solid material when along comes numerous spams and the heckling Anony. For all of you who are paying attention, if I didn't know better, I'd say that it was by design.

11/10/2006 03:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There was even talk around town here of naming the new Cardinals Stadium after Pat or even one of Phoenix's small mountains ala Lori Piestewa. Even now, there is still talk of this.

Sweet Mother of Jesus!!

See what I mean?

We are so, so far from a paradigm shift.....I don't see how it's possible to bridge the divide.

Circuses.....that's what it is....and that's why Tillman's name is even known. Eschew the freakin circus.....it's how they keep us in line.

11/10/2006 03:16:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

So, practical steps to be taken, or, which way forward:

Impeachment Now, Compromise Later, or Let’s Just Call the Whole Thing Off?

This is the crucial question as to whether the November Surprise is the voice of democracy or just another act of collusion between the two wings of the corporate security party. The argument for the absolute importance of impeachment proceedings is very nicely summarized at TomDispatch.com
And has to do with reversing the dangerous precedents set by BushCo (denuding the constitution, de-legitimatizing the concept of war crimes, etc) while the case for sweeping the outrages under the rug are popularized by the smarmy Howard Dean assuring Jon Stewart that “we’re just not going to do that!” (bolstered by fears of President Cheney, despite the inevitability of Tricky Dick II also being tarred & feathered by the same brush.)

Read the argument at TomDispatch and see if you think there’s any way forward without being honest about what these bastards have been up to; personally, I think the sort of “compromise” suggested by the Hipster Democrats represented by Stewart & Dean smells a little too much like the same gestank we’ve all gotten used to over the years. The election’s over!! Or, do we have to triangulate the odds for the next one already and, regrettably, overlook the inroads fascism has made up the skirt of Lady Liberty?

11/10/2006 03:36:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

starroute is just getting us back to different tentacles of the The Octopus [The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro] the recycling of different operations using the same cast of characters. Concentrate on the cast. You are unable to bring charges against the performance itself (the conspiracy), only the individual actors in them.

The same Octopus can be seen in the recent "New Life" homosexual pastor evangelical scandal. (in the comments there)

and WELL! ain't there no mo!
Seems something important was posted here that made someone upset: cause the whole post--Jeff's and everyone's comments--has been wiped away:

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/10/just-drive-by.html

The Octopus has just spewed some ink and escaped...

Did you do that Jeff?

There should be a Baconian boardgame called:

"Six Degrees from George Herbert Walker Bush..."

11/10/2006 03:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, it seems almost impossible to bridge the divide, but the bridge is slowly forming.

When latent lesbain AZ governor Janet Napolitano (who "won" again last Tuesday in a landslide)decided to change the name of Squaw Peak to Piestewa Peak, she had to strong-arm the Board of Geographical Names to do so and got the mountain's name changed. Janet did this because she said that the name of the mountain with its use of the word "Squaw" - supposedly from an Eastern Woodlands native language meaning "cunt" - was offensive to Native Americans. The natives I know in Phoenix are indifferent to the White Man's place names, so it didn't matter to them either way. Janet wanted to the change to honor "the first Native American woman killed in combat" (yeah, right; I guess fighting FOR the US side) and she did it with very little resistence. Now, people are calling the mountain Squaw Peak again (including me) and there has come into question the whole matter of Piestewa's heroism. Let's see, she left her kids behind on the reservation, went to serve her Masters in an unjust war and when she got to Iraq she was part of a convoy that took a wrong turn, got ambushed and because many in the group hadn't cleaned their weapons many jammed, including Lori's.

A lot of people don't see the hero here and the same with Tillman. Slowly it is changing.

Before I leave let me say that both deaths are TRAGIC and NEEDLESS, however based on choices of the individuals involved, and I mourn with their families. What we are doing with those deaths is more tragic, however.

11/10/2006 03:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hilda,

Thanks for posting that.....interesting stuff...and not surprizing.

The real tragedy for me are the greater than 600,000 deaths of Innocent choldren, woman and men in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the countless more who are suffering and continue to suffer. My focus is on them in this debacle. Their loss is the real tragedy....not the loss of Pat Tillman and that other chick who chose to go kick some ass in the Middle East.

It's that Love of Country construct that causes us to mourn our own, rather than the innocents abroad, and it's that Love of Country meme that motivates the likes of that chick and Tillman to volunteer to be unwitting mercenaries for Corporate America. I cannot, and will not support them by honoring their loss. Let's implore potential recruits not to join the military, rather than offering them discounts and subsidies for joining.

11/10/2006 04:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Germany is seeking to charge Rumsfled, Abu Gonzales, et al over torture.

Karpinski will testify on the behalf of the 11 plaintiffs, which include al-Qahtani, the supposed 20th "hijacker".

Sorry if this has already been posted...

11/10/2006 05:06:00 PM  
Blogger Peter of Lone Tree said...

"I cannot, and will not support them by honoring their (Piestewa & Tillman) loss."

Shrub, have you read by Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother? Perhaps Pat was having second thoughts.

11/10/2006 05:44:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Peter,

Yes, I realize Pat Tillman was having second thoughts, and I believe Hilda's, and others, contention that he was "knocked off" is not only plausible, but probable. He was a political football, no pun intended....okay, pun was intended.

My concern is that people focus on the personality (Pat, the hero football player), regardless of whether it's the Right, or The Left.

I used to frequent and post to IIDB, a Forum for Atheists and Skeptics, many of whom were devout leftist liberals, and they cannonized Tillman as their Hero because he not only disagreed with the war, but because he was an Atheist. I called some of them on their apparent idol Worship, and they told me how intelligent he was and some threatened me....that's how rabid they were. How intelligent can one be to impulsively suit up and run full steam ahead into a situation you did not properly survey? Anyone with half a brain would realize that Contemporary War is at the behest of Corporate America. Had he never heard of Smedley Butler....the Vietnam War, etc., etc.

It's the cult of personality that I have a problem with and the blind support of the soldiers.

11/10/2006 06:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mmf!

11/10/2006 09:04:00 PM  
Blogger Civic Center said...

I'm feeling oddly optimistic, though maybe that's just because I live in San Francisco. If you're a witch at all, you can feel the recent pendulum shift towards the good. It's quite amazing.

And yes, anonymous, we Hobbits need to keep fighting, and yes, starroute, you're still my favorite commentator on the internets.

11/10/2006 10:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It would be nice to think that there's something providential about a nightmare that began on 9/11 and ended on 11/9 but numerology is never quite so obvious...hmmm?

Nevertheless if nothing more has been gained than all the people who only thought George Bush was stupid have finally and fearlessly come right out and said it, something very good indeed has happened.

But beyond this there is a far more serious problem behind most of our current events and it has being going on for quite some time.

That is quite simply US foreign policy and the kind of "economic gangsterism" it's turned into with the federal government, the military and the larger US corporations and multinationals all working in tanden outside of US borders and in any number of ways and means that are completely illegal within the US itself.

It's a vicious sydrome where political needs alone won't justify their actions; strategic military needs alone won't justify their actions; and economic advantages alone won't justify their actions but taken all together, almost anything can and seemingly is justified when it comes to interfereing with or even destroying the self-determination and cultural traditions of smaller developing nations.

How we go about breaking up that highly orgainzed crime ring and any others that work in a similar fashion is going to take some serious investment in International Law and developing organizations that are themselves international in scope in order to combat them.

One thing is certain. Very little assistance is likely to be forthcoming from any government.

11/10/2006 11:28:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Someone should tell Jeff that this Shrubageddon is ruining the comments sections. There should be a word limit for posts, there's too much spam, and this troll shrubageddon is ruining this site. He should go to the louge at the forum if he is into his banal chit chat. And no, I am not a member here. This is my second post. It's really a shame that he isn't banned. It used to be nice to read through the comments.No one wants to keep reading the same troll over and over again. It's like Neil Cavuto is moderating this blog's comments and he just won't ever stifle it.

He is the mind f*^% disinfo type.

11/11/2006 01:46:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hear, hear! to the suggestion that shrubageddon (and more than a few others) limit their posts, either voluntarily or via some mechanism devised by Jeff. some people seem to have entirely too much time on their hands, or perhaps an inadequately controlled case of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or perhaps an overly developed sense of either their own importance or their own brilliance, wittiness, or intellect. i second the notion---stay on topic; don't spend too much time stroking each others' egos or debating each others' equally insignificant quibblings; and try to understand that 95+% of us are here because of Jeff, not because you= too-many-of-whom-seem-to-have-too-much-time-on-your-hands. AND QUIT WITH THE INCESSANT STROKING OF EACH OTHERS' EGOS.

11/11/2006 02:08:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is something larger going on in the world that makes cynicism irrelevant and despair besides the point. I can only halfway grasp that "something larger" myself -- and feel even less able to communicate it. But I can offer a metaphor and a few indications.

First the metaphor: I fenced for a while. Never got very good at it, but I did learn a few useful things. One is that you never look at your opponent's foil -- you look at their hand. Their foil can be darting all over the place, is seen by you in foreshortened perspective, which makes it hard to tell a feint from an actual thrust, and is generally unreliable as an indication. Their hand, in contrast, doesn't lie. It broadcasts their actual intentions without fail.

On the whole, all of us spend far too much time looking at foils and not enough looking at at hands.

In this case, the message of the hand and not the foil is that for over 200 years now, the established powers have been playing a defensive game. The French Revolution was the first thing that scared them shitless. The labor unrest of the late 1800's and early 1900's was the second. The New Deal with its attendant burst of populism was the third. The youth upheavals of the late 60's were the fourth. In sum, what we quaintly used to call in the 60's "people power" is the one thing that trumps the power of the elites -- and they themselves know it.

Paradoxically, one indication of how much it rattles them is that they've never been willing to speak frankly about it. Instead, they've set forth a sequence of elite conspiracy theories in which popular discontent is blamed on diabolical enemies of civilization -- the Bavarian Illuminati in the case of the French Revolution, vaguely identified foreign elements in the late 1800's (generally with a racist slant), Communists in the mid-20th century, terrorists now. Always outsiders with an axe to grind, and never the people themselves.

But this *is* a rearguard action. None of these theories are rooted in the facts people know to be true about themselves and the world around them, which is why they have to resort to spin and lies and bugaboos. And that means that ultimately, they can't stand.

What's really happening, I think, has nothing to do with sinister outsiders -- but also not much to do with oppressed peasants. At the core of it is the fact that the old elites were rooted in *owning* things -- whether land in the case of feudal elites or large clunking pieces of machinery in the case of capitalist elites. Either way, these days *owning* things is coming to count for less and less.

For example, this is a large part of what the battle over "intellectual property rights" is about -- a foredoomed attempt to carry over the concept of ownership (with all its attendance wealth and power) into a sphere where ownership is no longer relevant because we're no longer dealing in material objects.

And that means that the battle has effectively already been decided. We're not really fighting over how it's going to come out. Instead, we're fighting, on one level, over the details -- how cleanly and with how little collateral damage we can accomplish the change.

Beyond that -- and ultimately far more important -- we're fighting to have this epochal change in how humans live be not merely a shift in the material basis of civilization, but also the instigator of a change in human consciousness.

That part I don't think is inevitable. We could wind up living in an ecological paradise and still be as dumb as ever. We humans need to become *aware* on a level we've never been aware before -- as least not as a collectivity.

It's perfectly doable. For one thing, your average human is perfectly capable of understanding deep truths on the level of story that elude their comprehension on the level of intellectual discussion. That is why myths were invented -- to embody all the deepest wisdom of human experience in a universally accessible format.

But it's not a foregone conclusion. And that is why we need to keep our attention focused on the hand and not on the foil.

11/11/2006 02:57:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Unable to see the forest because of the SHRUBS

11/11/2006 04:56:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Come on anony 4:56, show us your voice.

Listen, I do not always care for the tone or content myself, but this is an open forum and you and I need practice at dealing with difficult people.

11/11/2006 06:14:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Listen, I do not always care for the tone or content myself, but this is an open forum and you and I need practice at dealing with difficult people.

That's pathetic, Sounder....you're now fully naked...and I'm not sure I like what I see.

Once again, you and your friends (the Anonys) can't seem to address the points I am making, but rather keep attacking me. It's pretty transparent.......and unintelligent. Critical thinking at its best, I suppose.

11/11/2006 06:35:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

HAPPY DAYS DEPT:
(from Glenn Greenwald)

"What was it that we were always told by Bush followers every time the Bush administration successfully dragged the country yet another step towards extremism and radical lawlessness? I believe the phrase was "elections have consequences." Indeed they do.

Eric Lichtblau has an article in this morning's New York Times as pleasing to the ear as any Mozart symphony:


The Bush administration escalated its defense of the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program on Thursday, even as Democrats in Congress vowed to investigate the program aggressively once they assume power. . . .

But Democrats sounded impatient to begin getting more answers after what they characterized as 11 months of stonewalling by the administration since the program was publicly disclosed last December.

“This administration first hid its domestic spying program from Congress and Americans for years, and when it was discovered, has ducked and weaved on its legal justifications,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who is to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Democrats take control.

Republicans have held out hope of getting such legislation approved by the full Congress during the lame-duck session, and Mr. Bush pushed anew on that front Thursday, calling passage an “important priority in the war on terror" . . . .

Emboldened by their electoral victory, Democrats said they believed it would be all but impossible for the Republicans to pass wiretapping legislation before the current Congress adjourns, or to win approval of separate legislation immunizing telephone companies from liability over their cooperation in wiretapping operations.

“There’s no chance of that happening,” predicted a senior Democratic aide for the House Judiciary Committee, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

Indeed, rather than move to authorize the program, Democrats said they would push in January to investigate how the program had been run and would seek legislation to restrict or ban outright the use of wiretaps without warrants.


Let's just repeat that -- "rather than move to authorize the program, Democrats said they would push in January to investigate how the program had been run . . . . "

There are three joyous things to note about this long passage:

(1) the article quotes Arlen Specter's views of this whole matter, but I don't need to include them in the excerpt because soon-to-be-former-Chairman Specter is completely irrelevant;

(2) the article prominently includes -- as do I -- the views of soon-to-be-Chairman Pat Leahy, because his desires with regard to whether investigations will proceed are all that matter; and

(3) there is no need to desperately search around for one of the so-called "moderate GOP Senators" to provide some glimmer of always-illusory hope that they will perform a miracle and dissent from the Leader, because while they are welcomed in the work to restore our system of checks and balances, they are no longer needed (and, in any event, I have no doubt that many of them learned from this election -- as they watched one comrade after the next be removed from the Congress -- that voters want independence from the Leader).

Elections have consequences. With elegant understatement, the article also includes this:


“If Congress has some hearings and digs into this, we may know a lot more,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing AT&T.


Indeed, we might. Right now, we don't actually know anything about how the administration has used the secret, illegal eavesdropping powers it seized for itself, because the program has been kept secret from the Congress, because the GOP-controlled Intelligence Committee vowed to investigate and then decided not to, and because the administration has repeatedly breached its promises to disclose information about the program and Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (another vulgar phrase never to be uttered again) allowed them to do so with impunity.

Presumably, there is some reason why the administration has been so eager to conceal all of this information about the NSA program and to block any investigation. Under our system of government, that's what Congress is for -- finding out. And it seems that Democrats understand that. From The LA Times:


"The American people sent a clear message that they do not want a rubber-stamp Congress that simply signs off the president's agenda," said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who is in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "Instead, they have voted for a new direction for America and a real check and balance against government overreaching." . . .

Now that they have the power of the subpoena, Democrats expect to be able to get the administration's attention. A number of senior Democrats have complained that the administration has ignored their inquiries.

Apparently, Democrats are according yesterday's "demand" by the President that the Terrorist Surveillance Act be passed by the lame duck Congress all of the respect it merits. And it is truly a miraculous sight -- almost surreal -- to read that the Democrats are going to block the President from having his "national security" wishes granted and instead investigate what he has been doing.

It actually feels like we have more than one branch of government again. The days of listening to the President make demands and then reading all of the GOP Committee Chairmen say what a superb idea it was and stress how important it is to do everything the President wants as quickly as possible seem to have come to an end. Much vigilance is required with regard to the Democrats -- that should not be overlooked -- and the administration will undoubtedly resist in all sorts of ways, but this is a superb start to restoring the basic mechanics of our system of government."

For all you naysayers on the board, get with the program. If you want to do something rather than type and whine, call your congressman and Senator and demand investigations into this Administration's crimes, and/or demand impeachment. The American voters just issued a resounding FUCK YOU to the forces of fascism, and now is the time to push the agenda of liberty.

11/11/2006 06:42:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

But it's not a foregone conclusion. And that is why we need to keep our attention focused on the hand and not on the foil.

Another way of saying keep your eye on the big picture, and don't get lost in the minutia....which is why I have asserted numerous times that quibbling over 911 Details at this point is losing the big picture just as sure as blaming everything on Bush's incompetency is short-sighted and foolhardy.

What I don't understand about your post is that, at least in my opinion, it seems to contradict your earlier post about Iran-Contra. You imply that there's been a Deep Conspiracy of the Elite in this latter post for 200 years, yet in the previous post you indicate that there are only little one off conspiracies here and there, and that there is no over-arching conspiracy which encompasses them all.

I'm surprized none of the Illuminists have chastized you yet concerning this latest post because it dashes their most basic beliefs.....and that usually brings fury.

We were taught the same thing in Basketball....keep your eye on the center of the opponent's chest....but that presupposes you are always on defense, and that we are in a perpetual competition....and that's where metaphors fail. The goal should be no competition....but rather, cooperation.

Tough challenge when folks here in America are bombarded with the Competitive Construct 24/7.

11/11/2006 06:55:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Schrub, are you trying to make me change my mind about you?

So, I went back to your 6:17 post and re-read Jeffs essay. I like your take on Tillman and Smedly Butler and it does relate to Jeffs theme. So, in this case, good content.

About the love of country thing that set you off earlier. I did not capitalize love or country because I'm speaking of a felt experience, sort of a resonating buzz connecting an internal expression of being to an external componant of being. Maybe like the feeling you had on that mountain before those Harleys disturbed your peace.

When you capitalized Love and Country you changed the context to reflect your chosen boogy man. While 'that' capitalized Country implies a call to arms, that is a product of a mentality that sees the other as a threat. (Inherent in Dualism).

From my POV you are taking a relative truth, (Love of Country is associated with militarism) and treating it as an absolute truth.
IE, if our mentality were to change then Love of Country need not lead to murder of people of other countries.

Anyway I think it was some American Patriot that said some shit about disagreeing yet defending to the death the right of another to have their say? Wow, those guys were freaks.

11/11/2006 07:48:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

starroute said;

"It's perfectly doable. For one thing, your average human is perfectly capable of understanding deep truths on the level of story that elude their comprehension on the level of intellectual discussion. That is why myths were invented -- to embody all the deepest wisdom of human experience in a universally accessible format."

We the Hobbits, through initiative, can break through the obscurantism created by instuitional structures that seek only to propagate themselves. Our 'myths' have been fractured and re-tribalized, and we need to shape new myths that are less open to co-optation by selfish actors.

11/11/2006 08:44:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

shrub -

No contradiction, really. To say that a struggle has been going on for 200 years is not to say that a single conspiracy has been behind it all that time.

Think about the various centers of struggle on the left over the last century or so. You had the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the gay rights movement, and others. All of these had connections with or took inspiration from one another. But they were also all fundamentally distinct, each with its own leaders and own core issues.

Things are not very different on the right -- just more covert and more bound by ties of family and financial interest than by idealism and altruism. But even among the old, monied families, every generation has its own concerns, and its own natural allies in pursuing those concerns.

The global right-wing alliance which was pulled together in the 1970's in reaction to the popular upheavals of the late 60's was something new and unprecedented. And the methods it used, drawing heavily on the CIA toolkit, were also unprecedented in that context.

Looking at the glove and not the foil does not exactly translate into looking at the big picture. The body can also lie -- fencers have a whole bag of tricks for things like seeming to be moving backwards while they're actually moving forwards. The importance of the hand is that it's the one spot that most accurately telegraphs intention. That's the real key.

11/11/2006 11:17:00 AM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

starroute's hand/foil metaphor is quite apt; I can say this without fear of excessively stroking either her ego or my own because the ideas under discussion are no longer "ours" once we express them. This is what people don't get about abundance economics: intellectual property rights is a prime example of the rearguard action of the old system trying to contain and suppress the emergence of the new way. This "new way" is actually not new at all--it has just taken a relatively long time to gain the momentum of popular discussion and a vehicle for its concrete expression. Thomas Jefferson, whatever his faults, really was a visionary in many senses of the word. On this topic he wrote something well over 200 years ago which is as apt as starroute's metaphor:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.


The basic idea is that costs will drop as efficiency increases to the point where prices, if not artificially maintained, approach nothing. Free. The first "concrete" application of this is in digital commodities, but it's not virtual, it's real, or at least as real as the transistors, chips and other physical devices which enable the digital economy, the cost of which keeps dropping, despite all the efforts to prop them up.

I realize that this might sound unrelated to the topic at hand, but it's not--it's just coming at it from another direction and it's also very difficult to grasp without some convenient metaphor, since we're so limited by what has always been (scarcity) that we can't easily wrap our minds around what's coming (abundance). It is obvious enough how manipulating scarcity gives the elite their hold over us, but in order to fully understand the next step you'll have to start by ingesting the argument from the "un-economists," while holding off for the moment the obvious concerns for dwindling resources and ecological disaster, which are also "solved" by the emergence of abundance.

Mike over at TechDirt gives a pretty decent overview of the subject in a post called
Economics Of Abundance Getting Some Well Deserved Attention. In the comments section you'll find a good sampling of the previously unitiated grappling with this seemingly paradoxical idea, while the links that Mike provides will get you to all the resources you'll need to assimilate it. This is what TPTB most want hidden, as it spells the end of their long, brutal exploitation. As such, it's a very dangerous idea. Fortified by this understanding, the hobbits will finally be able to melt the yoke of their serfdom in the fires of their own minds (which aren’t really their own, after all.)

11/11/2006 11:55:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Starroute's fencing metaphor is valid unless one is watching a three shell Monte game - no matter how vigilantly one watches the hand, it is unreliable as demonstrated by TPTB over the centuries. I'm not buying into the "Happy days are here again" current theme because voting between two evils just gets one a lesser evil.

The Dems are in, not because they presented a viable platform, but rather by default. What's most discouraging is Pelosi/Dean's announcement that there will be no impeachment process. But there will be more "hay" by way of a minimum wage increase to keep the sheep distracted. When there's been a repeal of the Patriot Act and certain parties are in prison, then I'll put my gladrags on.

While it's impossible to watch a three shell Monte game and know where the pea is, it is encouraging that people are noticing that they've been had and are beginning to exert their will as this last election demonstrated. How easily mollified remains to be seen. Gore Vidal said it best:

The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh," Vanity Fair, September, 2001

“But after a half-century of the Russians are coming, followed by terrorists from proliferating drug-related crime, there is little respite for a people so routinely - so fiercely - disinformed. Yet there is a native suspicion that seems to be a part of the individual American psyche - as demonstrated in polls, anyway.”

Meanwhile, Noreen Gosch has posted yet another truly disturbing picture of her son that she just received.

11/11/2006 01:31:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ssounder,

For the record, I wasn't capitalizing Love of Country to dis you in any way. As you have probably noticed, my use of capitals is not grammatically appropriate......I do it purposely for emphasis....often, unconsciously.

I don't like the love of country thing for many reasons.....militarism being just one of them. I feel it has served to fracture and fragment, meaning there are numerous countries in the world, and if everyone loves their own, it's needlessly difficult to unite and cooperate.

I agree with you that it doesn't have to be that way, but, nonetheless, it is that way and has been that way, and, so, we're back to where we always end up....and that is, how do we change that, which is where us fierce individualists depart, dramatically.

My experience in the mountains was just short of euphoric.....it touched my soul, if I have one. I can't say I loved what I saw because that would be to subordinate and objectify it. I will say that I respected and appreciated the relatively undisturbed Natural Surroundings, and the cacophony of those Metal Beasts belching their filth into the sky was like an arrow through the heart, because it was the antithesis of the respect and appreciation I exibited.

Is it possible to create an unco-optable Myth? I like Myths as much as the next person, but because they are often co-opted and distorted, they quickly lose their meaning.

911 is a Myth that has been co-opted, egregiously. I have a another personal story about that which I will share, shortly, but right now it's time for some Hoegaarden.

Regards,

Shrub -- The Shitty Anus

11/11/2006 03:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shrub -

Anything that descends into this realm of materiality becomes as corruptible as the rest of materiality -- and that includes myths.

The trick is not to become attached.

11/11/2006 04:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The trick is not to become attached.

I can't disagree with that, and, I don't, but how do we convince the majority to avoid attachment.

Afterall, Jesus is a Myth, and look at how that Myth has been co-opted. Try telling people that Jesus and Mohhamed are myths, and watch the reaction.

11/11/2006 04:34:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is far down in the posting and thus may not get read by many, but I feel compelled to respond to the two anonymous posters (1:46 am & 2:00 am) who criticized Shrubageddon for "ruining the comments sections", etc. Your comments reflect more on yourself than on the Shrubmeister.

As long as someone is contributing to and advancing the dialogue, what does it matter whether they post once or a dozen times? Shrubageddon may appear to be a hyperactive puppy, but he certainly seems to have the best of intentions. I haven't read everything he has written, but I usually agree with his comments and appreciate his sharing them. You complainers sound like middle-school bullies trying to get other posters to gang up on someone you don't like.

Regarding your calls to Jeff to ban and/or limit Shrubageddon, YOU are the one in danger of being thrown off the board. Rule #3 of the RI Posting Guidelines says that we are not to accuse another poster of purposefully spreading disinformation. Jeff asks us to contact him, if we have suspicions.

FYI, new folks, Jeff has banned posters before. As Shrubageddon has pointed out, please respond to his ideas without resorting to personal attacks. It is so boring when you anonymous folks start talking about other posters as being "disinfo agents" and/or "trolls."

I have been reading RI for over a year and a half and have never commented before because I didn't have anything new to add to the conversation. There are some incredibly bright folks on this board. I am proud of what Jeff has accomplished in bringing this community of thinkers together. Maybe one day we will all get to meet each other in the concentration camps. (Hope not!) As "et in Arcadia ego" reminded us, we need to keep focused on things of importance.

Shrubageddon uses a moniker that has negative connotations for most of us. (Yeah, yeah, the allusion to Armageddon is clever.) Maybe this is why he draws so much flak. Peace.

11/11/2006 04:42:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Then again, maybe it's just his fatuous comments.

11/11/2006 06:04:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

So Cuttle, it seems like we are back at looking for a better relationship to the process of the pre-manifest becoming manifest. Hmmm, what can we do with that?

Tapdance127;

I wish you would have said that before I said my thing this morning. When I said ; come on anony, show us your voice, I was trying to imply that their negative slam has no meaning without some contribution of their own. I failed, oh well.

11/11/2006 06:43:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tapdance127,

Thanks. That was what I was hoping some of the other regulars would do, as well, but I guess they figured I could handle it on my own (which I can and have), or that I somehow brought it on myself.

I know the heckling Anony has referred to me as a puppy dog, and so too has Sounder. That's their prerogative, I suppose, but I don't think it fits. I'd say it's more like Cool Hand Luke. It's a great movie, if you haven't already seen it. In it, they couldn't keep Luke down....he just kept coming back, again and again....until they killed him.

If you have noticed, I don't make a habit of insulting people who post here. I do insult general trends and behaviors in Society, and, on occasion, particular celebrities, but I refrain from insulting people here in order to maintain some semblance of civility, but also because it serves no real constructive purpose and it's cruel and inconsiderate.

I appreciate you taking notice and making a full faith attempt to get my back. That's a rare quality these days.

Please post more often. You sound like a very intelligent person, and I assure you, what you have to add is every bit as valid as anything anyone else has to add.

Adios,

Shrubageddon

11/11/2006 08:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish you would have said that before I said my thing this morning. When I said ; come on anony, show us your voice, I was trying to imply that their negative slam has no meaning without some contribution of their own. I failed, oh well.

Where you failed, Sounder, was by insulting me instead of saying what you just said to Tapdance127.

You took the opportunity to call me difficult, which wasn't necessary, and unwarranted.

You meant it as an insult, no doubt, but I take it as a compliment. My intention is not to be difficult...it is to be ME, so, if you view me being ME as difficult, I know I'm being true to myself.

11/11/2006 08:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Peter of Lone Tree, glad to see you back after a long absence. Will PM you.

11/11/2006 08:15:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anyhow, back to business. I saw an interesting piece on FOX News this morning. They showed a clip from the Jimmy Kimmel Show where they interviewed little kids and asked them what should be done to Saddam Hussein. You should have heard the responses...some, of which, were no doubt scripted. One said he should be chemically castrated, another said he should be dismembered and the parts roasted in an oven and boiled on a stove. The guys and gals at FOX News found this adorably comical.

Isn't that special??

Also, Just In Time (like the Inventory Method) the latest terrorist video was released thanking the citiznes of the U.S. for voting in the Democrats.

Hmmmm...I smell a rat.....the same rat I've been smelling for quite some time now, I'm afraid (not really afraid.....just a figure of speech).

And, finally, every Cable News Network this morning was running propaganda emphasizing the Honor The Soldiers meme.

What do "they" have up their sleeve....cuz we know it's something.

11/11/2006 08:23:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

schrub, you are difficult. That is not an insult, it is not a compliment, its an observation.

11/11/2006 08:51:00 PM  
Blogger AJ said...

"What do "they" have up their sleeve..?"

Word is the Pentagon is getting ready to call upon a large contingent of National Guard reserves back to a mid-east vacation.

11/11/2006 09:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well Srubster...

Somebody has to strir the pot. We don't want the common folks getting too enthusiastic untill that subtle shift in power from the far right to the not quite so far right takes place and the next big let-down comes along. "Le plus qui change"...hmmm?

The object is to keep the public slightly off balance. If they get too uppity they might start asking too many logical questions when someone poops on their party, literally and figuratively. Get pissed-off instead of afraid. Can't have that happening.

Bush & Co. still have more than ample time to throw any number of spanners into the works as the Brits would say.

Daring Dubious Dubya can still use his extraordinary and magical powers to conjur up a massive air strike on Iran in a flash (and God does apparently know what else), regardless of who's sitting in Congress come January.

The Pentagon will simply comply whether they have the cash to pay for it afterwards or not. That's Congress's problem just as it has aways been.

Dubya has so much empty space in that inflated head of his there's no telling what might run into the fan that circulates all that air around in that dead space for him. That's the story of his life.

Anything that crosses whatever passes for his mind always turns into some kind of flying shit that someone else always winds up wearing or cleaning up after him and there's no sign he's lost his touch for that...hmmm?

I don't think that most people really understand how the Bush clan and their pals actually operate. The name of the game is simply ransacking the US treasury for fun and profit.

In the off-season they tend to laundering their billions from dope and arms smuggling. And people wonder that what they need estates in Paraguay for...hmmmm? LMAO

But royally screwing all the "little people" over and having a damn good laugh at them for being such incredibly stupid suckers time and time again is how really they get their rocks off.

Everything is just a tool to be used in that game. It doesn't matter what ordinary people care about or what happens to them, they really couldn't care less.

They are pathological liars of the first magnitude, self-serving to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. Born and bred and trained to be the completely callous and black hearted bastards that they are, and proud of it! Not a decent bone in their bodies, as my old granny used to say.

The only saving grace is that they are abject cowards themselves. Everything they do has to underhanded and under the table.

They take a singular delight in turning people's best intentions and better inclinations against them while they're at it. Adds a little "spice" to the mix. That odd smirk the chimp dsiplays at all the wrong moments when he just can't help savouring it.

They're not bound by any of those normal restraints or barriers of civilized conventions. In their books that's exactly what makes them so "superior" to everyone else.

You know this as well as I do. As far as Joe Sixpack is concerned he doesn't think about it because he doesn't dare to think about it.

He wants to keep believing all the bullshit and hype about America the brave, America the free, America the prosperous, while he uses his credit cards to buy his groceries and gas and wonders which card he can dodge the payment on next month because his paycheck won't cover it.

The worse things get the more he wants to believe, has to believe if he doesn't want to start thinking about maybe using the trusty old "equalizer" in the nightable drawer for something else.

The sickness on the top floats on all the cruel sickness percolating on the bottom. Both of them are far too much for the middle class. It's all they can do to try and keep themselves stable and sane by simply ignoring the rest.

To convince themselves that America is really their version of America and if they just persevere everything will somehow work out all right, somewhere... somehow...sometime...down the line.

11/11/2006 11:13:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We come from a blue planet light years away,
Where everything multiplies at an amazing rate.
We're out here in the universe looking for real estate.
I hope we haven't gotten here too late.
We're humans from earth.
We're humans from earth.
You have nothing to fear.
I think we're going to like it here.

11/12/2006 06:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

schrub, you are difficult. That is not an insult, it is not a compliment, its an observation.

Oh, okay, Sounder, have it your way......it's just an Observation, of course.

But, but, but....it's a relative observation, let's not forget, and by no means an absolute, although the context in which you posited your observation would have the passive observer believe it was absolute.

I see....very nice.

Well, while we're on the topic of Observations, relative, or absolute, I'm certain some people have observed that you are obtuse, ambiguous, aloof, condescending and evasive, but heretofore have refrained from explicitly asserting such.

Your comment to Anony implied that you and Anony were of the same ilk, in that both of you were somehow above, or beyond the fray and had to challenge yourself, indeed, lower yourself, in order to communicate with the Muggles -- The Difficult Ones.

Observation, in this case, is a cleverly, or not so cleverly, disguisd euphemism for insult.

Please, in the future, just insult me without the cloak and dagger routine.

Perhaps, what you perceive to be my "Difficulty" is merely the Pre-Manifest travailing the rigors of becoming Manifest.....you know, the Birthing Pains and Toil & Labor.

11/12/2006 09:25:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Silverfox,

That was exquisite. I couldn't agree with it more.

Regards,

Shrubageddon

PS: On that note, Iran's leader claims the latest elections are a victory for the American People.

The message being that Democrats equal Terrorists, or, voting in opposition to Bush and Repubs is aligning oneself with the Terrorists.

Surely Mr. Ahmadinejad is intelligent enough to know what we know.....that our electoral process is a scam, yet he proceeds with this rhetoric.

I know Starroute suggests that we not look at the foil, but in this case we must first look at the foil because it is the only visible element on an otherwise invisible fencer.

Who is Mr. Ahmadinejad, really?

11/12/2006 09:38:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

(Sigh.) Some are still bothering to talk to the psychopath Shrub I see...regardless of the outcome. I'm talking to them, not to the Shrub.

11/12/2006 01:04:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

schrub said;

"Perhaps, what you perceive to be my "Difficulty" is merely the Pre-Manifest travailing the rigors of becoming Manifest.....you know, the Birthing Pains and Toil & Labor."

Sounds good to me, and the rigors of becoming manifest will be less painfull when we become better mid-wifes.

also said;
"I'm certain some people have observed that you are obtuse, ambiguous, aloof, condescending and evasive,"

I am a work in progress and am interested in how my thinking comes across. You at least show enough interest to engage, so thank you for your critique.

11/12/2006 01:12:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Starroute said... "We could wind up living in an ecological paradise and still be as dumb as ever."


That's one of the very few places where I would disagree. Matter comes from mind, and physical reality reflects consciousness.

11/12/2006 03:48:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

All the bitching about our Mr. Shrub takes up a lot more space, time, and energy than his own posts. It strikes me as mostly an attempt at bullying.

11/12/2006 03:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"All the bitching about our Mr. Shrub takes up a lot more space, time, and energy than his own posts. It strikes me as mostly an attempt at bullying."

First, that's not true that the complaining about Shrub takes up more space than Shrub. I think it was Blogbart happened to notice "our" (not mine!) Shrub posted over 32 separate comments on a previous thread....with none of them really saying anything except cursing people out.

"Just a Drive By" summary (as of Sat October AM)

# of comments by name:
-------------------------
Shrubageddon 32
Anonymous 22
postrchild 10
Richard 9
iridescent cuttlefish 7
Robert Persson 7
Silverfox 4
jules 3
Mort Jacobs 3
starroute 2
Billy Shears 2
Vemrion 2
Sounder 2
Miraculix 1
Rolling Stone 1
nunnatsunega 1
from the Police Blotter 1
Poindy 1
SME 1
Dr. Bombay 1
ShrubaOnan 1
Steve Talbert 1
Presley Auchwitz 1
Pat Tillman 1
Oarwell 1
Grand Total 117

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/10/just-drive-by.html

As for the second, as a form of bullying, that's fine with me. Screw the Shrub.

....We return hopefully our regular programming, i.e., something useful....The Shrub requires no defense, anon--he's immune from such things, and he deserves no defense either.

11/12/2006 05:55:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Oarwell..I think you're way to optimistic about this congress. Pelosi spelled it out and the dems realize that a game of chicken just ain't gonna fly.

11/12/2006 07:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another thing that's curious about Ahmadinejad's comment is that the Dems are funded by AIPAC to a greater extent than the Republicans, so, if he is the Jew Hater he is painted to be, how can he possibly see this as a victory, unless, of course........

I mean, DarkBeforeDawn's most recent thread shows quite distinctly that the Dems are every bit as much in bed with the Israeli Government as are the NeoCons....meaning the Dems are in in their pocket, and surely Ahmadinejad knows this, yet he makes the statement anyway.

Hmmmmmm.....do we now, possibly, see not only the foil, but perhaps the gloved hand and maybe a part of the arm of the otherwise invisible fencer?

11/12/2006 07:14:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

burning bush..your count is off by at least one poster..got something to hide?

Shrub..as usual..I agree with your position on 911 and your reasoning behing it. I would, however, point out that the war on drugs is the war against cosmic consciousness. Others achieve that consciousness fairly but most do not. If you analyse this past election, you will prolly notice that the gop let this one get by so they can fry bigger fish later. The evidence for this is in the Rumsfeld musical chairs.

And for those that think Bush is thick, get over yourself. This guy is here for the big show.

11/12/2006 07:15:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Remember the warnings of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, of all the jolly happy people in office at D.C. That it isn't if a terror attack will happen but when it will happen. And when it happens, and it will, we can go into emotional shock once again. Democrats will preach that we have to love the Republicans and the Republicans will speak the words "I told you so". The Democratic leadership is too weak to take care of a terror attack so say the Republicans. The Democrats will not investigate any clandestine operation from the inside. Maybe the next Democratic president will lead the world into the largest bloodbath of a war in history. Remember Pearl Harbor, and 9-11.

One more thing. Ask a Roman Catholic respectively if the Vatican was hit with a terrorist attack if he would enlist in the army to fight agaisnt terrorism. If a female U.S. president and 100 of her representatives were killed in a terrorist attack how many American men would volunteer to fight agaisnt global terrorism?

None? One man maybe? ???

Take off your clothes and turn your head to the left and to the right . Look it's an Army physical. It's time to separate the men from the boys. Reading Lovecraft, Barker, King, and Crowley is like reading nursery rhymes. Blair Witch and Rosemary's Baby is like watching Mr. Dressup and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. You coward, you servant, you blindman, BACK TO THE FRONT!

11/12/2006 08:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And one last part of the Army physical, humblenotry: Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye!

11/12/2006 08:52:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, anonymous it's not just mine that might be going away. This is not a pretty picture of opinions and feelings, party politics, dogmas, anti dogmas, relativism, and the like. 80 percent of the American population was agaisnt involvement in the European conflict prior to World War II. The invincible U.S. miltary had its justification to invade Kuwait because of babies being killed by the Iraq militia. President Bush Jr. had to invade Afghanistan and Iraq because of a Muslim conspiracy that hates the West's freedoms. I do not believe that it stops here. When Pied Piper says it's time to love one another after slaughter after slaughter, we experience another slaughter.

The sailors at Pearl Harbor were asleep when the Japanese attacked. F.D.R. had prior knowledge. If the men had a choice they would have fought the Japanese and not catch some extra winks. The U.S. government has said that a terror attack is on its way. I believe it. We had prior warning with the Oklahoma City bombing that more terrorism was coming. Why? Because the investigation into the O.C. bombing was a farce. Just like 9-11's investigation.

So when people start favoring an us verses them mentality instead of cold hard facts it becomes redundant. The principle of us verses them is not about facts or education. They care less about that. What is important is a clique that can take advantage of victimizing a targeted group to their own advantage. Just like the Nazis did with the Jewish population. When a terrorist attack does happen can you communicate this reality with others in your life and say that it was because of me? That I am to blame and should apologize for it?

I do not accept the responsibility of something that I will not do. If a U.S. military Draft Board comes looking for me, I'll worry about it when it happens and prepare myself for this truth beforehand as best as I can. If you do not trust on reliable historical data today it is because you have been manipulated to do so.

11/12/2006 10:45:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Warning are you ready for the shit about to hit the FAN?

While Shrub wanks off the real threat EMERGES.

First of all Taiwan is China.
We will lose big time and what of the Spys at Los alamos and Clinton's techno transfers to the mainland.

They will and can.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061113-121539-3317r.htm
China sub secretly stalked U.S. fleet - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

According to the defense officials, the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within five miles of the carrier Oct. 26.
The surfaced submarine was spotted by a routine surveillance flight by one of the carrier group's planes. The Kitty Hawk battle group includes an attack submarine and anti-submarine helicopters that are charged with protecting the warships from submarine attack.
According to the officials, the submarine is equipped with Russian-made wake-homing torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Kitty Hawk and several other warships were deployed in ocean waters near Okinawa at the time, as part of a routine fall deployment program. The officials said Chinese submarines rarely have operated in deep water far from Chinese shores or shadowed U.S. vessels.
A Pacific Command spokesman declined to comment on the incident, saying details were classified.
Pentagon spokesmen also declined to comment.

What can they say caught with their pants down.

A diesel sub? WTF

11/13/2006 07:12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ANY CARRIER BLOWN UP WILL BE THE BIGGEST MARITIME LOSS EVER!!!!!!!!!




Navy Personnel
Active Duty: 347,969

Officers: 51,832

Enlisted: 291,701

Midshipmen: 4,436
Ready Reserve: 131,533 [As of 30 September]

Selected Reserves: 70,231

Individual Ready Reserve: 61,302
Reserves currently mobilized: 5,382 [As of 8 November]
Personnel on deployment: 37,015
Navy Department Civilian Employees: 175,442
Ships and Submarines
Deployable Battle Force Ships: 278

Ships Underway (away from homeport): 135 ships (48% of total)

On deployment: 102 ships (36% of total)

Attack submarines underway
(away from homeport): 22 submarines (42%)

On deployment: 14 submarines (27%)
Ships Underway

Carriers:
USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) - East China Sea
USS Enterprise (CVN 65) - port visit, Lisbon, Portugal
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) - Arabian Sea
USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) - Pacific Ocean
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) - Pacific Ocean

Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) - Mediterranean Sea
USS Nashville (LPD 13) - Mediterranean Sea
USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) - Mediterranean Sea

Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Boxer (LHD 4) - Arabian Sea
USS Dubuque (LPD 8) - Arabian Sea
USS Comstock (LSD 45) - Persian Gulf

Essex Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG):
USS Essex (LHD 2) - Pacific Ocean
USS Juneau (LPD 10) - East China Sea
USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) - port visit, Okinawa, Japan

Amphibious Warfare Ships:
USS Saipan (LHA 2) - Persian Gulf
USS Wasp (LHD 1) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Bataan (LHD 5) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Denver (LPD 9) - Pacific Ocean
USS Shreveport (LPD 12) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Trenton (LPD 14) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44) - Atlantic Ocean
USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) - Atlantic Ocean

Aircraft (operational): 4000+


How many men aboard a carrier?

The current carrier is large. In effect, it is a city of from 4,500 to 6000 persons. It sleeps, feeds, and employs personnel 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has from four to eight messing facilities, three barbershops, a church, a library, a small gymnasium, a 45-plus bed hospital, makes 600,000 to 800,000 gallons of fresh water daily, and serves as its own airfield.

A long time ago.....

We learned their are only 2 kinds of ships submarines and targets.

Achilles heel

11/13/2006 07:23:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Notice that list does not have our SSNB's on it beause that is CLASSIFIED information.

These babies can sit undetected and when the signal comes the Trident's will do their work.

Type SLBM
Range up to 12000 km
Warheads up to Eight W76/W88
Yield Up to 3.8 megatons
Propulsion three stage solid propellant
Guidance system inertial, with stellar sensor update
CEP 90 metres
Max speed 29,030 km/h (18,000 mph)
Length 44 ft (13.41 m)
Diameter 83 in (2.11 m)
Weight 58,500 kg (130,000 lb)
Payload 2,800 kg (6,170 lb)
Manufacturer Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Unit cost $30.9 million
In service 1990
States United Kingdom
United States

.....................

The United States has 18 Ohio class submarines:

* 14 nuclear-powered SSBNs, each armed with 24 Trident II SLBMs; they are also known as "Trident" submarines, and provide the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad of the United States strategic deterrent forces
* 4 nuclear-powered SSGNs, each armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles with conventional warheads

GO NAVY

11/13/2006 07:33:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ANYTIME BABY

11/13/2006 07:35:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, come on, will you? The Chinese, now? Let's restoke those Cold War Halcion Days, as if the War On Terrorism (repackaged Cold War) isn't enough.

News for you. Money talks.....and China owns us, in that regard. Why the hell would they antagonize their Golden Goose?

China's growth is because the U.S. exchanged its manufacturing prowess for cheap labor and short term profits. In 60 years, perhaps China will return the favor, and exploit our chap labor in return for their manufacturing prowess....or, maybe, that will be a moot point considering Global Warming and Resource Depletion and their respective associated implications.

If things get desperate because of the above potentially impending crisis, then I would agree that a conflict with China and/or Russia would be probable, but that time is not now, and China is much too savvy and prudent to venture such an idiotic endeavor.

11/13/2006 09:13:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GO NAVY

I figured you for as much.

The incredible bravery of releasing a Nuclear Tipped Missile is daunting.

America at its finest.

If it was meant to be Satire, and hopefully it was, my assessment above was the point of such, I hope.

11/13/2006 09:18:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They have enough money.

They want to project power in world now.

They steal or get all our technology.
Remember the aircraft they took apart before giving it back to the US?
Lots of spying going on to gather INFO.

I do agree they are more resourceful in regard to use of energy.They will rather mop up on a weakened US military.

Answer this if they are able to get within 5 miles of a carrier group and they surface.

This is a provocation.


According to the defense officials, the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within five miles of the carrier Oct. 26.
The surfaced submarine was spotted by a routine surveillance flight by one of the carrier group's planes. The Kitty Hawk battle group includes an attack submarine and anti-submarine helicopters that are charged with protecting the warships from submarine attack.
According to the officials, the submarine is equipped with Russian-made wake-homing torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles.


They do not need a golden goose anymore.
That is their message.
Challenge with a worthy opponent is not a laughing matter.

Fact remains that this incident did occur.

You can not kill what you cannot see.

Now do you understand why IRAN will go NUCLEAR?

PARITY ...being able to play hardball with the bigboys now.

Just an observation.

11/13/2006 10:24:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What prevents them from sitting off LA in a few years?

China’s new generation nuclear submarine programme can be dated back to the early 1980s, when the PLA navy issued the requirement for a new nuclear attack submarine (SSN) as the successor to its first-generation Type 091 (NATO codename: Han class) nuclear attack submarine. The submarine development programme, codenamed Type 093, was officially approved by the PLA leaders in July 1983. However, the development programme only made very limited progress in its early stage due to enormous technical difficulties, especially the nuclear reactor and onboard weapon systems.

The Type 093 was outperformed by the existing Western and Soviet nuclear submarines even before its blueprint could be finished. As a result, the submarine design team had to given up the original design to meet the revised requirements from the PLA Navy. The development was suspended until the mid-1990s, when St. Petersburg-based Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering began to assist the Chinese design team in the Type 093 development. The Russian involvement in the programme has played an important role in reviving the Type 093 project, which finally made to the construction stage in the late 1990s.

Exactly how much help the Chinese design team had received from Rubin Design Bureau is unknown, but it could potentially include a range of critical assistance, such as overall hull design, engine and machinery quieting, combat system design, and weapon system and countermeasures outfit. The revised Type 093 design is said to be of heavy Russian influence, with its general performance comparable to that of the Russian Victor-III class SSN originally introduced in the late 1970s by the Soviet navy.

The U.S. Navy intelligence and Pentagon predicted that the PLA navy would have around 3~4 Type 093 submarines by 2010, other sources suggested that eventual production could reach 6 to 8 units. The exact number to be built may well depends on the results of the ongoing sea trial for the first hull, which has been carried out at the PLA Navy’s Huludao submarine base since 2003.

11/13/2006 10:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GO CHINA?
It just does not have the same ring to it.


With the outpouring of formerly restricted technology to
China—and by extension, to its rogue-state clientele—
development times for military hardware have been dramat-
ically compressed.

In December 1999, the Washington Times
carried reports that a Chinese submarine, the Type 094,
would be operational around 2005.

The sub will carry the
Julang-2 (“Great Wave”) missile, an intercontinental ballistic
missile capable of reaching a target 7,400 miles away, which
will permit Chinese submarines to threaten cities through-
out the United States.

Pentagon officials said that the
Julang-2 would be armed with Chinese copies of the small-
size, large-power W-88 warhead—whose design had been
stolen from the United States, as Bill Richardson, the Clinton
administration’s Secretary of Energy, admitted in March
1999.

China’s enhanced ability to project nuclear force is note-
worthy not merely for its threat to America but also because
much of the Clinton administration’s decontrol of defense
exports took place after 1995, when the administration first
admitted that China may have stolen our W-88 warhead
design. For example, the export to China of computers that
could be used to test the performance of nuclear warheads
continued even after the administration knew what had
likely happened to the W-88 design. Similarly, the machine
tools for the quiet submarine propellers were delivered in
China after the administration realized the extent of Beijing’s
success in appropriating our advanced nuclear weapons
technology.

11/13/2006 10:40:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

SEE they (CHINA)are ready ANYTIME BABYFACE...

All part of Albert Pikes Great Plan

11/13/2006 10:43:00 AM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Sorry to interject my abject skepticism into this cold warring discussion, but The Washington Times?! I would possibly be drawn into such a ruse if it came from Chris Floyd, or maybe even Seymour Hersh, but The Washington Times??!! The Mouth of Moon? The red meat, anti-communist rag? Such bait is tainted, folks--don't take anything put out by these clowns at face value.

Much more to the point, I believe, is ericswan's subtle intimation of the crux of the biscuit, as a certain wise man was wont to say:

...the war on drugs is the war against cosmic consciousness.

Little understood or attended to, coincidence & synchronicity are the sorts of clues which tie important things together (unless it's an engineered coincidence, as in Jeff's famous 9/11 web...) and reading ericswan's nugget impaled me with the sharp point of one such connection. I'm currently reading Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness, after putting it off for many moons, and he (Bucke) and ericswan both reveal a much deeper suppression: the emerging new consciousness of man. Drugs are one path, tricky for some, while no catalyst at all is needed for some intrepid explorers...Ever wonder why the pope dresses up like a mushroom?

11/13/2006 11:23:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shit happens

Way back in 94 before you were spawned....

Q: Can you give us an official reaction to the Los Angeles Times story by our colleague, yesterday, concerning an incident involving the KITTY HAWK carrier task force and a Chinese PRC submarine? And, especially, a reaction from a high defense official in the PRC that, if it happened again, they would shoot first. Can you go into that, please?

A: I think the basic facts of what occurred have been fairly widely reported, and I don't really dispute the basic facts. There was, in fact, some tracking of a Chinese submarine by aircraft from the KITTY HAWK in late October. But, specifically, to the last part of your question, we've heard -- I have, in fact, heard reports about the comments regarding this shoot-to-kill notion. Even without knowing if they are true, my understanding is that those are comments made in a social setting -- a cocktail party -- and I don't believe that constitutes any official position of the Chinese government. They certainly have not expressed any concern or raised the issue through diplomatic or military channels, at least that I'm aware of.


http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/1994/t121694_t1215asd.html
Transcript : DoD News Briefing : Mr. Dennis Boxx, DATSD PA


If you doubt it go ahead dummy(s)
but I see a pattern here.

11/13/2006 06:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

His Story

Over the course of a three-day encounter that began on 27 October 1994 about 100 km west of Kyushu, Japan, a Han-class submarine shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) battle group in the Sea of Japan.

The submarine was tracked by a US Navy S-3B ASW aircraft from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk off the Korean coast. This prompted a several [reports say two or three] Chinese J-6 fighters to intercept the "hostile" American S-3 ASW aircraft on 28 October. No communications took place between the aircraft. The submarine eventually approached within about 30-km of the Kitty Hawk, rather closer than normally envisioned by carrier battlegroup operational procedures.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/type-91.htm
Type 09-1 Han Class

11/13/2006 06:09:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Drugs are, for the most part, a red herring. Altered consciousness isn't necessarily better consciousness. If you want a safe, powerful, cheap, foolproof and 100% legal method of consciousness spelunking that can't be taken away from you at someone else's whim, try lucid dreaming. There are a bunch of books, CD's, etc. available for the price of a few joints. I found Stephen LaBerge especially useful.

11/13/2006 06:35:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can you imagine - lucid dreaming becoming part of hip-hop culture? The pushers - and the National Security Drug-Financed State - go bankrupt! What do you think, starroute?

11/13/2006 06:36:00 PM  
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