The Truth were n'er so well bespoken.

And to conclude the year:

Bush: "I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat."

-o0o-

! He's not lying.

©Barfo, 2005
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The Cult of Outsider-hood

The News: Fran Quigley, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, writes in Counterpunch, explaining why the ACLU has launched a full-scale assault on yet another Christmas creche.

"There are many more examples, because the ACLU is committed to preserving the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom for all. We agree with the U.S. Supreme Court's firm rulings that this freedom means that children who grow up in non-Christian homes should not be made to feel like outsiders in their own community's courthouse, legislature or public schoolhouse."

"To our "Merry Christmas" correspondents and all other Americans, we wish you happy holidays."

The Note: This is an example of precisely why the ACLU gets hated on this point. What the hell does it mean to say "made to feel like outsiders in their own community" What kind of nonsensical victim wailing is that?

If you are a religious or ethnic or sexual minority in a given society, by definition, you will always feel "not part of the majority" -- and by Venn diagram analysis, you will be "outside" the majority. That does not translate into being an "outsider in your own community" it simply means that you are a minority insider and can't be otherwise, unless you join the majority. What's the big fucking deal?

To a certain extent, all minorities suffer this kind of "exclusion". It goes with the territory. If you are gay, you are excluded from and inevitably made to feel excluded by baby showers, baptisms, mothers days, and the whole general social and economic construct built up around nuclear heterosexuality.

If you are Jewish in a Christian country or Christian in a Jewish one, you will feel like an outsider on certain holidays. In fact, you can feel like an outsider even when you are the majority. Ever try getting into a Lubovavitch dance circle as a Christian?

Diversity ends up meaning that all sorts of people are exlcuded from all sorts of things. The reason, we have secular holidays, like the Fourth of July, is so that we can have a time to celebrate our commonality and sameness, as distinct from those times when we celebrate our communion with specific portions of society.

The notion that government funding of a Christmas tree or reference to a "Christmas" tree is oppressive to the few when this is something 90% of the population celebrates is simply turning things on its head.

The idea that in order to protect people from the victimization of outsiderhood one has to suppress differences and erradicate any public display that might not coincide with a minority view is simply a perversion of the idea of the secular state.


©Barfo, 2005
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PBS has trouble understanding The Policy

The News: PBS palaverer, David Brooks says: "No, that is ridiculous. And everyone I spoke to today was infuriated by the White House response and can't understand, by the way, why the White House can't explain their policy.

"You know, I had somebody who was on the ground there risking his life saying: Why are they AWOL on the home front; why can't they have a realistic explanation of what is going on here? Why instead are they attacking bitterly the people that are raising legitimate criticisms?

"Nobody should be questioning Jack Murtha as a person, as a figure of integrity. The problem with Murtha's speech is that nowhere in the speech does he actually consider what the consequences of withdrawal would be. There is no discussion of what Iraq would look like. There is no discussion of what the Middle East would look like, or what Zarqawi would look like."

The Note: Duh... The White House can't explain its policy because it has no "policy" you jackass. Plunder and Destroy is not a policy.

©Barfo, 2005
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A Cryptic Confession within the Mea Culpa

The News: The New York Times offers the following -- "While this page was completely wrong in our presumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, we - and virtually everyone outside the Bush administration - warned about this danger from the beginning."

The Note: Huh? Presumption? Presumption, you say? Okay.... How do you "warn" about a presumption? So the New York Times admits not only to being wrong about its "presumption" but to urging war based on presumption. Wouldn't it be easier just to call them "bastards" and bomb them on that basis? Nice, the way they hide the real confession within the nostra culpa. What a loathsome rag.

©Barfo, 2005
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L'echo du Likud

The News: "Racaille!"

The Note: Listening to Sarkozy it is hard not to hear the inimitable voice of the Likud. "Scum" "pressure blast" them out and deport them. Is it mere coincidence? It is clear that the protestors see him as the provocateur. So does the Conference of Bishops. The Left goes further and accuses zio-con "agents" of instigating the riots. At this point I would not put anything past Israel and its ziocons. But even assuming that no agents were at work, Sarkozy's talk and actions have all the "what me?" innocence of Sharon's tourism on the Temple Mount.

What do Sarkozy's masters want? To discredit Chirac's non-support of the Irak invasion, and to subvert liberties further by installing a "counter-terrorist" government in France; ie. one favorable to Israel, racially oppressive against "arabs" (the Jews equivalent to the Nazi's Jews) and, and, of course, hostile to anywone who looks askance at Jewish lies.

©Barfo, 2005
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Perverse Muslims Reject Bush Charity Initiative

The News: A U.S.-backed Mideast democracy and development summit ended in rancor Saturday despite adoption of two initiatives that are part of President Bush's push to expand political freedom in a region dominated by monarchies and effective single-party rule.

A draft declaration on democratic and economic principles was scuttled after Egypt insisted on language that would have given Arab governments greater control over charitable and good-government organizations . . . Many Middle East nations are wary of Bush's second-term democracy agenda in the region, and some organizations the administration has tried to engage are reluctant to take State Department funding.

U.S. officials said the sticking point was a passage that pledged "to expand democratic practices, to enlarge participation in political and public life and to foster the roles of civil society, including NGOs," and to widen women's political and economic participation.

Egypt wanted the statement to stipulate that non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, be "legally registered," under each country's laws, a requirement that U.S. officials said would defeat the purpose of the statement. Egyptian delegates left the gathering early, after discussions on the final statement broke off.

Non-governmental organizations is a term used by the State Department and others to describe both humanitarian aid organizations such as the Red Cross and lesser known groups that promote social and political agendas.

The Note: Actually, Them-Crazy-Muslim resistance becomes very understandable once it is recognized that "NGO" is a term used by the State Department to describe infiltrating US wedge organizations that do Fifth Column work. The only people unaware of this are denizens of the US who are fed newspap like that quotes.

©Barfo, 2005.

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Them Belligerent Ayraps

The News: U.S. papers have been carrying photos of outrage demonstrations in Jordan in reaction to the hotel bombings. The first photo was a close up of 4-5 men shooting with their fists raised in the air. But from the slice of background one could tell that it was a smallish group of no more than 15 in some parking lot. The second foto (this AM on CNN) was also a close up, of a smallish group, most of whom were obscured by a professionally drawn sign that said "JORDAN'S 9/11". A well-dressed, well-coiffed middle aged woman with a professionally painted Jordanian flag on her face stood adjacent to the sign. Although the "group" looked rather tranquil, the headline read "Hotel Bombs Spark Fury in Jordan"

The Note: Such contrived bullshit.

©Barfo, 2005
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Disrespect in Life and Death

U.S. Soldiers Burnt Bodies of Captured Taliban Fighters

This news on Afghanistan - an Australian TV program has aired footage of U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters. The program also aired footage of a U.S. Army psy-ops unit caught on tape broadcasting news of the burning to local residents. The message read : "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be... You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Taliban but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are." On Wednesday the Pentagon announced it would investigate the incident.

Guantánamo Detainees Tortured, Force-Fed, Induced to Vomit

Meanwhile at Guantanamo Bay, detainees are accusing guards and medical officials of mistreating prisoners taking part in a camp-wide hunger strike. Detainees said large feeding tubes were forcibly shoved up their noses and down into their stomachs, with guards using the same tubes from one patient to another. The force feedings reportedly resulted in prisoners vomiting up "substantial amounts of blood." The detainees say no sedatives were provided during these procedures, which they allege took place in front of U.S. physicians, including the head of the prison hospital. The accusations were made to New York-based attorney Julia Tarver of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Tarver says one client told her "now after four years in captivity, life and death are the same."


©Barfo, 2005

Vapid Abstractions

The News: Several of Miers' writings have been lampooned, such as a 1997 letter to Bush in which she declared that "Texas is blessed" because Bush was governor, and a column she wrote for the Texas Bar Journal in the early 1990s that conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks called a "relentless march of vapid abstractions" whose "quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian."

The Note: Sounds like a typical California appellate decision.


©Barfo, 2005

Getting Into (or Out of) the Axis of Evil

The News: An article in the Guardian by Richard Norton-Taylor claims that Bush told Blair, prior to the invasion of Iraq, that " he "wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan," The claim was based on the note of a telephone conversation between the two men on January 30 2003.) The article goes on to state that the US and Pakistan latter made kissie-poohs.

The Note: A number of people have pointed to Saudi Arabia as the Bete Grise of this whole affair. The oil connection seems to clinch it for this crowd. I myself have never believed it. While I have never been able to rule out some sort of oil-connection, I have always fingered Israel. That is the one hypothesis that is simplest and makes consistent sense.

This story further confirms my hypothesis. Saudi Arabia has never ceased to be within Zionist cross-hairs. One only has to recall the ruckus raised by the U.S. Jewish establishment against the sale of AWACs to that country. In contrast Pakistan's possession of nuclear weapons hardly gets a peep. One will notice that Pakistan has decided to recognize Israel and to engage in "dialog" and blah blah. In other words, Pakistan has been sufficiently neutralized (from the Israeli point of view).

©Barfo, 2005

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Learning Helplessness

The News: Progressive Magazine's Barbara Ehrenreich writes: "It is too soon to say what the results of this first-ever experiment on humans will be. Animals subject to "non-contingent" punishments and rewards‹i.e., those unconnected to any prior choices or behaviors‹tend to get a little psychotic. In a classic study undertaken by psychologist Martin Seligman, dogs subjected to unavoidable shocks for no reason at all developed a condition called "learned helplessness," and lost the ability to avoid future shocks even when avoidance was possible. Similarly with rats: After being subjected to undeserved torments, they simply give up and huddle in a corner of their cage.

And never doubt for a moment that our leaders are capable of conducting such experiments on humans. Jane Mayer revealed in the July 11 New Yorker that Seligman's results with tortured dogs have been of interest to the military and may have influenced the bizarre treatment of "enemy combatants" in various detention spots around the world. Not to mention the fact that being held indefinitely without charges is itself a supremely non-contingent punishment.

I'm not saying "we're all in Guantánamo now," or anything as melodramatic as that. Most of us, after all, enjoy infinitely more comfortable day-to-day living conditions than those offered to detainees. But we are all being subjected to the same sort of experiment‹and will be until we overcome our "learned helplessness" and get up on our hind legs again.

The Note: What kind of human scum, would "experiment " that way with a dog or a rat. If he's so damn curious why doesn't he have the decency to test it out on the brats of his loins? On the other hand, maybe he just takes after the Great Malevolence in the Sky. After all, Life itself seems to be a sequence of non-contingent punishments. I for one feel pretty helpless.

©Barfo, 2005
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"Reaganism was about Ideas"

The News: Saith David Brooks, " Yeah. I don't have anything against her, from everything I know she's a wonderful woman. But the conservative movement was built on a certain set of identity for itself: That ideas have consequences, that arguments really matter, that you win the war of ideas, that you form these organizations like the Federalist Society, this conservative legal organization, and that you win the war of ideas and that Reaganism was about ideas, and that even Bush, the war on freedom was about ideas." (PBS)

The Note:  Oh sure... why the Reagan Admin. was a just a Great Books seminar led by Mortimer J. Adler. Ah yes, another intelectudrool on the New York Times.

©Barfo, 2005

The News: Larry Diamond a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution has written a book entitled "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq.'' Speaking of Bush Diamond said, "He fails to acknowledge his own strategic blunders and failures ... that have enabled Iraq to become a cesspool of terrorist activity.''

The Note: Cute. As if the effort (bungled or not) was to be "bring democracy to Iraq"..... I suppose it depends on what ya mean by a zone of democratic peace


©Barfo, 2005,

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Drivel

The News: The Pentagon claims to have obtained a tactics letter from the deputy head of AL Qaeda. "In the missive, Zawahiri apparently warns tactics such as the killing of hostages and bombings of mosques may alienate the "Muslim masses," Pentagon spokesman, Mr Whitman, said." (BBC)

The Note: Oh sure. IslamoFundies run around blowing up mosques. If we apply the A=C rule, this means that it's the US which is behind the bombing of mosques. "

-o0o-

The News: In this letter [i.e. internal Pentagon memo], Whitman talks about believing that the eventual governance of Iraq must include the Muslim masses, and that they are at risk of alienating those," he [Whitman] told reporters. (BBC)

The Note: What Islamic "extremist" would not believe that the "eventual" government in Irak had to include "muslim masses"? Is this something a muslim would naturally and normally say? Would Bush say something like "eventually" any government in the US would "have to" include Christians?

What a lot of crap.


©Barfo, 2005

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What We Get to Take Back

News in a Note: Let me see if I got Al Gore right. We gotta take back TV from the corporations but not do anything about the corporations themselves. We gotta make sure corporations don't confiscate the internet but not do anything about the corporations themselves. There are giant bullies running amok in the "market place" and so we should all learn to duck and dodge with great agility. Thank you Al. Just what we needed. More false consciousness masquerading as a solution.

©Barfo, 2005

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El Imperio Terrorista

La Noticia: Los terroristas son malvados pero no locos". La frase es del presidente Bush quien en su última aparición pública ha afirmado que los malvados "utilizan el conflicto en Irak como una excusa para intimidar al mundo y tienen como objetivo establecer un imperio radical islámico que se expanda desde España hasta Indonesia". La fórmula del hombre más poderoso del planeta contra semejenate "peste" es muy clara: "Sólo hay una respuesta efectiva: nunca daremos marcha atrás, nunca cederemos y nunca aceptaremos menos que una victoria completa".

"Estamos haciendo frente a una ideología radical con un claro objetivo, el de esclavizar naciones e intimidar a todo el mundo", según Bush, quien insistió en que "ningún acto nuestro provocó la furia de los asesinos" y ningún gesto de calma cambiará sus planes de seguir matando.

Commentario: Ota vez: la acusación revela la confesión.


©Barfo, 2005
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The Sounds of Peace

The News: The U.S. is pursuing a major assault in western Iraq. At least 3,500 U.S. troops are taking part in two separate offensives. Operation River Gate was launched at the start of the holy month of Ramadan. It marks the biggest U.S. offensive in western Iraq this year. Blasts from U.S. warplanes and helicopters lit up the sky during the fighting. Today, 42 Iraqis were reportedly killed .

Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, is warning residents in western Iraq that the U.S. will be there for a while. He told a crowd of Iraqis "We're not going anywhere... Some of you are concerned about the attack helicopters and mortar fire from the base. I will tell you this: those are the sounds of peace."

The Note:

©Barfo, 2005

Constabulism at Home

Items

Prisoners have told Human Rights Watch Inmates that correctional officers have beaten, kicked and hit them while they were shackled. They also say that officers sprayed the walls with chemicals and forced inmates to hold their faces against the sprayed walls. When some inmates became ill and vomited, officers wiped their faces and hair in the vomit.

&

According to the Associated Press, the bodyguards were American employees of the private security firm DynCorp. The company has been contracted by the U.S. State Department to protect Alexandre, the unelected interim president of Haiti. Alexandre took power after the coup that toppled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide. The journalists were beaten as they tried to cover the event.

&

The Justice Department confirmed on Monday that it will investigate the FBI killing of Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios. The killing has sparked widespread outrage in Puerto Rico. On Sept. 23, over 100 FBI agents surrounded the house of the 72-year-old Ojeda Rios. After he was shot, the FBI let him lie wounded in his house for nearly a day during which time he bled to death.

&

The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved new legislation that would allow Pentagon intelligence operatives to collect information from U.S. citizens without revealing their status as government spies. According to the Los Angeles Times, the bill would end a long-standing requirement that military intelligence officers disclose their government ties when approaching any U.S. citizen in the United States.

Comment: More Boot in the Face. With astonishing rapidity, the thuggery practiced as policy abroad has rebounded at home. The image of Abu Grahib and house batterings in Irak will be the image of Amurka at home. It is that way because for decades the U.S. has been cultivating the pestilential virus of thuggery on the streets of its ghettos, in the corridors of its prisons and in its courts with a wink and a nod from judges whose tongues are black from bootlicking.

©Barfo, 2005

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Life under Constabulism

Items:

Meanwhile the U.S. is launching another major offensive in western Iraq near the Syrian border. About 1,000 U.S. troops backed by attack helicopters and tanks raided the town of Al-Qaim on Saturday. At least 12 people were killed. The U.S. claims the offensive is needed to root out fighters connected to Al Qaeda. Over the past month the U.S. has repeatedly attacked Sunni strongholds displacing thousands of Sunnis, just weeks ahead of the October 15 vote on the constitution.

&

A U.S. military report has confirmed that Knight Ridder journalist Yasser Salihee was killed by an American sniper in June but claimed the shooting was justified. Salihee was shot as he was driving in western Baghdad. He was then left lying dead in his car, splattered with blood. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists U.S. troops have killed at least 13 journalists in Iraq since the war began.

&

The former Muslim chaplain at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay has revealed in a new book that military authorities knowingly created an atmosphere in which guards would feel free to abuse prisoners. James Yee said the prison's commanding officer - Major General Geoffrey Miller -- would regularly incite anger toward the prisoners. Miller would later oversee the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. For Yee, the book also discusses his imprisonment. In 2003 he was arrested and jailed on suspicion of espionage. The case proved groundless.

&

Military contractor Boeing and its partner Bell Helicopter have been forced to apologize after they published a magazine ad that depicted U.S. Special Forces troops rappelling from an Osprey aircraft onto the roof of a mosque. The ad reads "It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell." The ad also states: "Consider it a gift from above." The Council on American-Islamic Relations had criticized the ad saying it deepens concerns that the so-called war on terror is a war on Islam.

Comment: Well that's about an accurate thumbnail of life in the ZioCon World Order

[Items from DemNow.Org]

©Barfo, 2005
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Still Not Getting It

News: Two articles in today's Counterpunch complain of US government thuggery. In "The Great Green Scare" Jeffery St.Clair denounces an FBI unhinged that prosecutes, destroys and assassinates objects of its political wrath. In "Condi Rice- Gunslinger" Paul Craig Roberts rails against an unhinged and belligerent US that sanctimoniously wreaks war, havok on happless countries.

Notes Both St. Clair and Roberts are still arguing from a political point of departure and, as a result see absurdities and contradictions. They have yet to realize that there is no contradiction because this is not a political or even a rational matter. It is very simple. "The image of the State in 1984, is that of a boot in the face."

• Incidentally, Roberts says outright that the U.S. does Israel's bidding. Three dribbles in a week on this taboo is equivalent to a torrent.

Echoes of Jabotinisky

The News: US forces have launched a new offensive in western Irak. "They say Operation Iron Fist - the latest in a series of assaults in the area - will tackle infiltration and destroy the insurgents' haven." (BBC)

The Note: Iron Fist? Iron Wall, Iron Will, Iron Arm, Iron Hand -- from whom have we heard such language before?

©Barfo, 2005
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A New Mutant Strain of Doubletalk

The News: "This is not some grassroots coalition of national resistance, these are barbaric killers who want to provoke nothing less than a full-scale war among Muslims across the entire Middle East," Condoleeza Rice said during a delivery at Princeton University. (BBC)

The Note: I think we have a new mutant strain of double-talk here that goes beyond the 180 Rule. Hitherto, in order to ascertain the truth of the matter, it has proved useful to take any denial or affimation by the U.S. Government and invert it 180 degrees. If the government said that "there was no danger" of an outbreak of mad cow disease, one could count on the truth being exactly the opposite. Under this Rule, Rice's statement would mean that the alleged terrorist are a grass root national resistance and are not barbaric killers that want to inflame a Muslim civil war.

But these days, the 180 Rule no longer serves produces the truth of the matter which is: that it is the US that is the barbaric killer which wants to inflame an intra muslim war. How do we know this to be the case?

We know because it was revealed, in the non-embedded media, that the two British soldiers, disguised as civilians, were recently arrested carrying concealed bombs. What this means is that it is our "coalition" which is planting bombs and if so, that can only be with the aim of stirring up chaos.

The policy makes perverted sense. After all the more there is chaos the more it is necessary for the US to engage in its "constabulary" actions abroad and police state measures at home. Shit is too good a word for this government.

But what this analysis shows is that Rule of 180 no longer works to calculate the truth of the matter. The truth here was not simply the opposite of what was asserted but rather that what we said about them was really a confession about our own motives, intents and acts. We need a new rule: The Rule of Reflection: The Accusation is the Confession

©Barfo, 2005
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American Cabaret

The News: A U.S. immigration judge has ruled Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles won't be deported to Cuba or Venezuela where he is wanted for his role in blowing up a Cuban jetliner in 1976 killing 73 people. The former CIA operative has spent four decades trying to destabilize and overthrow the Cuban government through assassination attempts and bombings. He has been in US custody since May after he illegally entered the country. Venezuela had asked that he be extradited to stand trial.

On Tuesday the immigration judge ruled that Posada would not be deported to either country because of the possibility that he would be tortured there. The Convention Against Torture act prohibits the United States from deporting someone to a country where they could be tortured. Venezuela condemned the decision. The judge's decision has not ruled out the removal of Posada to another country. (DemocracyNow.Org)

The Note: All dictatorships ooze a sludge of black humour, with their own official pronouncements often the most grimarious. The United States is no exception.

©Barfo, 2005

New PBS Chief Brings Added Slant

The News: Longtime Republican fundraiser Cheryl Halpern has become the new chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, replacing Kenneth Tomlinson whose two-year term had ended. Tomlinson remains on the board. Before President Bush appointed Halpern to the CPB in 2002, she served on the Broadcasting Board of Governors overseeing such government-funded media projects as Voice of America, Radio Marti in Cuba and Radio Free Iraq. She is the former national chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition. She has accused National Public Radio of being biased against Israel. Like her predecessor, Kenneth Tomlinson, Halpern has also criticized the journalism of Bill Moyers. Two years ago she publicly agreed with Senator Trent Lott's comment that Moyers is "the most partisan and nonobjective person I know in media of any kind." The website PoliticalMoneyLine.com reports she has given over $300,000 in political contributions in recent years almost all to Republicans. Recipients have included President Bush, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi and Sam Brownback of Kansas. The group Common Cause warned Monday that the selection of Halpern may "mean more politicizing for public broadcasting." (Democracy Now.Org)

The Note: As if... PBS can't even publish a map of the Zionist takeover of the West Bank. But once again this shows how "the tribe" seeks to infiltrate and control. The two prongs are 1) using all media means to keep the "holocaust" in people's faces constantly (aka "keep the memory of the holocaust alive" and other such phrases) and 2) hollering "anti semitism" at the drop of a pin ...or even less. In fact, even less, because the aim is really no more than to bludgeon people and keep them afraid of saying anything against Jews, critical of Jews .... in fact about Jews at all unless it is told to them from Jewish controlled megaphones. "We'll tell you what you need to think about Jews."

©Barfo, 2005

A Talent We could Use

The News: Lafontaine and Gysi spent the three months leading up to the election doing what they do best: drumming up support. Lafontaine, who has a unique talent for turning speeches into tirades, has called the German republic a "madhouse" and dubbed Schröder's program of reforms, Agenda 2010, "idiotic." Gysi, a native of East Berlin, has a way of sneaking up on voters with a mixture of mischievousness, wit, and humor... (Der Spiegel)

:))

©Barfo, 2005

Who would have thought?

The News: The ACLU has learned that the FBI has collected thousands of pages of documents related to other activist groups including Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

The Note: And we were totally taken by surprise, right?

©Barfo, 2005
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Language as Mugging

How did the Bush cancer get started? To answer this question we have to look at the most deep rooted and symptomatic characteristic of the Bush regime: it’s eristic use of language.

The Phenomenon.

For those unfamiliar with the word, “eristic” derives from the Greek for “strife”. The dictionary assigns the meaning of “disputatious” but the root meaning is the truer sense. Eristic goes beyond sophistry, it is simply language in the employ of war --- language as war.

A person who engages in eristic has no desire to win a debate, even if by deceit and trickery. He has no such desire because he is not debating any more than a mugger is “boxing”. The eristic punk is only interested in bludgeoning. If he does so in the non-physical safety of a debate context, he does so only because he lacks even the punk’s courage of putting his teeth where his mouth his. If he could punch without risk of getting punched back, the eristic punk would be brass knuckling it. And this is the reason why listening to them is like listening to the thud and crunch of brass and boots.

According to the zioCon, William Kristol, a “conservative is simply a liberal who has been mugged.” Perhaps; but in so saying, Kristol concedes that his craft consists in mugging back.... no more.

These word-thugs begin by lying and confuting. They then proceed to smear and insult and ultimately to defame and destroy. Witness their conduct toward Cindy Sheehan. There are arguments that could be made against Sheehan’s political position and conduct. But the word thugs don’t make them. They simply fling abuse and verbal offal at her.

These punks have been at it vehemently for over a decade now. One would think that they would eventually exhaust themselves, but they don’t. A normal person would get exhausted by this expenditure of negative energy. But these creatures aren’t normal. They feed on the expenditure of negative energy... paradoxical -- para-real as that might be. Far from ever reaching some sort of plateau, in the past several days they have warped into hyper shrieks...not only accusing Sheehan of “betraying” her dead son but howling from Hell that Christ wants Chavez assassinated. These monstrosities are only human in form.

A Punk Culture

What gave rise to this eristic phenomenon? Although the phenomenon in the fullness of its realization is the swell of many streams, the common source is Calliclean Cynicism -- the Real Politik school of governance, the Hobbsian school of life. The salesman and business manager is taught that “only the bottom line” matters and the bottom line is PROFIT. The law student likewise is taught that law is nothing but a collection of pre-cut bullshit, all that matters is the outcome: WINNING. In the case of the press, the Calliclean cynicism is actually born of laziness. It is one of the chief functions of the press (in “watchdog mode”) to ferret out the crimes, vices and follies of mankind. Of course, this takes leg work and the press corps would rather be munching canapés at some press-release buffet. So instead of doing the hard research and leg work, they cultivate a jaded, jejune “hardness” which they then fob off as being “in the know” and “no one’s fool”. In fact, they are the biggest fools of all.

Uh’Murka has long made a cult of this sort of thing: “Nice guys finish last” and Nothing Succeeds Like Success. Up to a point the cultivation of this attitude is no more than an adolescent society trying to appear sophisticated and worldly. But as the adolescent grows up, the feint becomes a habit and the habit becomes a disease.

For all time and everywhere, the politics of brutishness was distilled by Plato and put into the mouth of one of Socrates’ interlocutors, the Athenian entrepreneur, Callicles. It is the enduring genius of Plato that his stylus could perfectly turn and polish such a thuggish collection of lusts and scorns as those uttered by Callicles. Plato so guilds the mud that Callicles almost seems to espouse something that might be called a political philosophy. There is at any rate no better or more paradigmatic text of why might makes right and why governance consists in the art of duping and exploiting the many.

Needless to say, Socrates butts heads with Callicles, and academics titillate themselves with the fact that “in the end” Callicles is made to blush....all of which supposedly proved that Socrates was right and that decency held the field at the end of the day. Actually not. Plato was not able to come up with any argument that would defeat Callicles, for if he had he would have stated it. No, philosophy was in fact powerless against brutality, and in the end, Plato could only achieve a fools victory by going to the end of the stage and offering narrator’s aside to the effect that, “in his heart of hearts, Callicles knew he was wrong.”

The draw... like other Platonic draws is one of those stalemates that approach the tragic. At very bottom, Callicles was not a truly bad man and, in the end, the Philosophy of decency and humanity is not able to prevail. What could be more tragic than that?

But the whole grotesque legion of zioCon cynics from smirking Kristol to leering Rumsfeld to sneering Cheney, to whining Wolfowitz and gurgling Perle - to say nothing of the think tanks where they fester -- is not tragic. Unlike Callicles, these thugs don’t blush.

©Barfo, 2005

Negergy

The News: Maureen Dowd reports, "We owe them something," Bush told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion). "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for;" and comments: "What twisted logic: with no WMD., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself."

The Note:  We kill therefore we have to kill. That's just part of the self-feeding cycle of Bush's negativity, of his NEGERGY.  It's more than just a vicious circle, it's evil building on itself, it's evil getting stronger by feeding on itself. Dowd is right. I am righter.

©Barfo, 2005
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Political Cancer

I have said many times before, that Bush and gang are a monstrous excrescence. They are beyond being simply politicians pursuing misbegotten or bad policies. Johnson was a bad politician but even he held to some genuine good. There is nothing redeeming about the Bush gang. They are distilled evil. They are repugnant thugs whose sole purpose -- whose lust -- is simply to pillage and destroy... everything: the earth, the economy, the rule of law, civil rights and even language itself. Not even animals howl like these things whose every utterance is shriek from the bowls of hell. They are Satan’s shit.

But even this doesn’t reach the core of the matter. My epithets and hatred fall short. Two days ago it occurred to me: Bush is a political cancer that corrupts and consumes everything.

The correlative to the disgusted loathing I feel for that Sack of Diseased Shit is the vexing question: Why is the country so powerless against them?  Why is congress so supine, feeble and corrupt? So pimped and fucked that they can’t even formulate the question much less stand up principle? Sixty percent of the country is against the war, and all you can hear from the Demorats is that they will prosecute it better. The rest, if they think about it all are like timid mice wondering if they “can dare” “be seen” to come out against a war that the majority has resolved against.

Yes -- congressoids are whores and the press a bunch of pimps but to say as much is to focus on personalities not systemics. The more systemic question remains: why is the country so powerless against the onslaught of the Bush effluence and sewage? Because Bush & Gang is a cancer and, by definition, the body has no immunity against it. It corrupts and consumes and devours and destroys, and Murka wastes and dies. That is what’s going on.

©Barfo, 2005

Basket of Vipers

La Noticia: Chávez comenzó este miércoles una gira relámpago por Uruguay y Argentina, que lo llevará a Brasil el jueves, con el objetivo de acelerar el proceso de integración sudamericana.

En su plática con la prensa al lado de Vázquez, Chávez pasó de los habituales ataques verbales contra Estados Unidos a un discurso más moderado a la hora de abordar temas comerciales. "El mayor peligro del planeta es Míster Danger, el señor (presidente estadunidense) George Bush", afirmó.

"De la conciencia que adquiera el pueblo de Estados Unidos y de la conciencia de nosotros (los pueblos latinoamericanos) depende el futuro de la región", agregó Chávez, quien goza de gran popularidad en Uruguay, principalmente entre los más pobres.

"¡Chávez, nos fallaron todos; vos no nos falles, por favor!", gritó con desesperación un obrero uruguayo al líder venezolano cuando llegó a la refinería de La Teja, un barrio popular de Montevideo, donde se reunió con sindicalistas de la petrolera local. (La Jornada, Mex.)

La Nota: Basket of Vipers. That's what the neocon Bush team is. Chavez kicks their basket and they start slithering and hissing, raising their heads and stretching out their poisoned tip tongues.

©Barfo, 2005
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Amurka the Beloved

The News: San Francisco Chronicle reports that "The continued shooting of civilians is undermining efforts to convince the public that U.S. soldiers are here to help." "Of course, the shootings will increase support for the opposition," said Farraji, 49, who was named a police general with U.S. approval. "The hatred of the Americans has increased. I myself hate them."

The Note: No Kiddin?

©Barfo, 2005
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America's Posture in the World

The News: George Galloway, British MP, has show what a man with fire in his belly can do. The Democrats have no one with that capacity. What they have is Nancy Pelosi, whose idea of a constructive approach to the Middle East was to tell AIPAC last week,

"There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.

"The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology....

"In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel 'as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.'

"The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever."

The Note: "Stand," you say? A different posture was evident for all to see.

©Barfo, 2005
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Pulpification

Two months after it was reported in the UK press (Independent.UK, 3/27/05), the news finally reached A'murka’s isolated shores that some of our boys -- against the express and explicit orders of Donald Rumsfeld, to be sure -- had pulpified a 22 year old Afghani cab-driver, named Dilawar.

For those not familiar with this latest addition to A'murka’s moral lexicon, let me elucidate. Bagram is a place where Murkan interrogators -- trained army thugs -- make hog-tied prisoners kiss their boots or, as the New York Times reported, “pick plastic bottle caps caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water.” The Times did not see fit to print how the picking was done, but a little imagination will paint the picture.

It was into this sadistic Murkan jail that all of Dilawar’s 122 lbs were dragged and hanged from the ceiling, like so much meat, for four days straight, while he was “interrogated” with boots, clubs and fists.  Guards thought it was funny to strike his knees just to hear him shout “Allah”.

After a couple of days, Dilawar began to babble. When he said he didn’t feel good, guards checked his pulse by jabbing their nails into his writs. His legs spasmed so badly he couldn’t walk or stand. A guard choked him with his hood and forced his head into a puddle of “water” to “hydrate” him.

After four days of this relentless “stress”, Dilawar went into cardiac arrest. The coroner reported that he had been beaten so badly the muscles in his thighs "had basically been pulpified." (You know, like orange juice....)

A day after this story broke on Murka’s shamed & sullied shores, CNN ballyhooed,

"BUSH PRAISES PROGRESS IN AFGHANISTAN!"

The article reported that the Sado-Punk-in-Chief was looking forward to meeting next week with Afghanistan's leader "to discuss freedom's remarkable progress" in the country that once harbored the al Qaeda terror network. President Punk, noted that the terrorists had been "dealt.. a series of devastating blows. In Afghanistan, we have brought to justice dozens of terrorists and insurgents [sic].” “We're helping Afghanistan's elected government solidify these democratic gains and deliver real change,” he said. “A nation that once knew only the terror of the Taliban is now seeing a rebirth of freedom, and we will help them succeed.”

CNN did not carry the Dilawar story.

Oh yes... Dilawar’s crime? He had a current regulator in the trunk of his car. They’re used to stabilize the current from electric generators.

UPDATE 2008: Dilawar's story is part of a documentary exposing Murka's Dark Side (also [here])

©Barfo, 2005

The Illusion of News

BBC reports: "The interrogation of "key" al-Qaeda suspect Abu Faraj al-Libbi is "proceeding well", Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said. ..... Pakistan ... denies US agents are present at his questioning. "

The Note: It is a well known legal maxim that the introduction of irrelevant material confuses issues, is likely to inflame emotions, and renders a verdict unreliable. If men were pure abstract thinking machines, irrelevant facts would automatically be reduced to zero's in an equation; but men are not -- irrelevance distracts.

However it is equally the case that a omission of relevant facts produces the same result; one could say that de-relevancing detracts. The above BBC article is a simple illustration of the point. At face value, the article states three plain and almost uninteresting facts: (1) a key leader in AlQaeda (2) is being interrogated "well" and (3) the US is uninvolved.

The report is a lie. The United States has made the destruction of Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks the cornerstone of its foreign and domestic policy in pursuit of which it has spent billions of dollars, gone to war and instituted a police state. Taking those facts into consideration, it is absurd to think that the U.S. is not present at the suspect's questioning. By omitting those background facts, BBC distorts the reality reported. What a difference, had BBC reported, just as succinctly, as follows:

"The United States which has made the rooting out of Al Qaeda a primary policy goal in pursuit of which it has engaged in major diplomatic offensives and spent billions of dollars .... denies that US agents are present at the questioning of a key Al Qaeda suspect."

What was omitted is not a question of "interpretation" or "opinion." The fact that US agents are present at the man's question flows with the force of flood torrent from the primary fact of the US's anti-terrorism policies. In any given case, the US may have varying degrees of interests and hence levels of involvement. However, it is simply absurd to think that the US which has said it would leave no stone unturned to root out Osama Bin Laden network would not be present at a "key" suspect's questioning.

Once U.S. interests and presence are taken into consideration, the meaning of "proceeding well" looses its sunny cast and takes on far darker implications: the man is being tortured. Unlike the presence of agents, the presence of torture does not flow with ineluctible force from the sole fact of U.S. interests and objectives. However, it does flow from that fact coupled with another relevant -- but omitted -- source fact, to wit: the U.S. practice and policy of "rendition".

At all relevant times, the U.S. has secretly and clandestinely spirited away and delivered "suspects" to authorities in other countries where the suspects have been subjected to horrible tortures. The practice of rendition is an unquestionable fact. This fact includes not only the fact that suspects are tortured and but also the fact that U.S. wants to hide the fact of torture and deny its involvement in the torture.

When the fact of rendition is factored into the news equation and added to the fact of other U.S. anti-terrorism policies, it is a virtually certainty that Libbi is not simply being "interviewed" or "de-briefed" but is being "stressed" -- as they put it in -- some artful manner. In ultimate result the article if a double falsehood.

BBC exculpates itself from propagating this lie, on the ground that it is not a lie -- that it is merely reporting what a Pakistani official says and denies. At a strict and purely linguistic level that is true. But it is the nature of frauds that they are, at some level, "true". If they were not, they would not succeed.

The initial fraud here, is that the article is presented as the report of a fact. That is what the BBC says it does and that is the expectation with which people read BBC reports. However, the "fact" reported is not that Libbi's interrogation is "going well". That is actually just hearsay. If one wants to be precise -- in the same strict manner that BBC excuses are precise -- what is reported is that a Pakistani official is of the opinion that the interrogation is going well. That is the meaning of the headline's use of quotes. "Suspect's Interrogation 'going well' '' The article reports nothing about the interrogation; it reports only a statement and opinion about an interrogation. Likewise the article reports only a "denial" of US presence

.

What kind of "news" is this? It is not in any real sense news about what people call "hard facts". It is news about what government officials say is news. In other words it is news about what government paints the news to be. It is in short news about fantasies.

©Barfo, 2005

More from the Official Truth Dept.

Army Admits It Lied About Death of Pat Tillman

The Washington Post has obtained new information in the death of Pat Tillman ­ the professional football who quit the NFL to fight in Afghanistan. Tillman died just over a year ago in Afghanistan. At the time the Army reported he died after being hit by enemy fire. According to a new Army report -- the first Army investigator who looked into Tillman's death found within days that he was killed by his fellow Army Rangers in an act of "gross negligence." However Army officials decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised memorial service. Documents obtained by the Washington Post also show that officers destroyed critical evidence and initially concealed the truth from Tillman's brother who was also an Army Ranger in Afghanistan.

U.S. Denies harboring Anti-Castro Terrorist

Meanwhile a Cuban man connected to the 1976 bombing of a commercial airliner is in the news again this week. The man -- Luis Posada Carriles -- is one of the most notorious militant opponents of Fidel Castro. He was trained 40 years ago by the U.S. military and is now seeking political asylum in Florida. On Tuesday Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled that the government should seek his extradition from the United States to face terrorism charges. In 1985 he escaped from a Venezuelan prison after being jailed in connection to the airline bombing that killed 73 people. He has also been jailed in Panama for trying to assassinate Castro on Panamanian soil. Castro has described Posada as "the most famous and cruel terrorist of the western hemisphere." Earlier this week State Department official Roger Noriega spoke about Posada's request for asylum and gave mixed messages. He claimed the Bush administration didn't know for sure if Posada was in the United States. He said Cuban claims about Posada "may be a completely manufactured issue." At the same time Noriega said the U.S. is "not interested in granting him asylum."

And we should believe anything the Government says?

©Barfo, 2005
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The Fundamental Arrogance of Irresponsibility

The News: San Francisco Chronicle reports on the righteous reaction against Schiavo's husband's decision to remove his wife's feeding tube.

"One person told me they hoped I died from cancer. Another said my family members should rot in hell," Argenziano said. "They are the most awful, venomous, un-Christian things you have ever heard."

Fundamentalist activist Mahoney said he was not aware of any threats to Greer or to senators. He said he did not see why it was wrong to publicize Greer's address. "Some people might be compelled to pray in front of his house," he said.

Next to him, a man with a camera slung over his neck asked Mahoney if he had the home address of Michael Schiavo, Terri Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, who has pressed for the removal of the feeding tube. Michael Schiavo has said his wife never would have wanted to be kept alive by machines. Without hesitation, Mahoney gave the man Schiavo's home address. He had it memorized.

The Note: "...might be compelled...." ? This is what is so contemptible about these people, they beg off responsibility for their own actions. No one is "compelled" to pray in front of someone's house; one decides to do that. Not only do they beg off responsibility, they then add arrogance, implying that God is what compells them.

©Barfo, 2005

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Defeating the Peace Process

The News: Israel has resumed construction of one of the most controversial parts of its separation barrier in the West Bank - deep inside the occupied territory. The attorney general approved the work near Ariel settlement on Monday, four months after a court order halted it. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei accused Israel of bad faith by resuming construction during ceasefire talks. - (BBC)

The Note: One was wondering how they were going to derail the peace process. Of course they had to make happy at the demise of the evil peace-wrecking Arafat. And they had to make even happier at the election of a man who by any standard is a quisling to Israeli interests. Ah ... but ach mein Gott, this might lead back to the route to peace. So at first, Sharon states that although it is wonderful Abu Baba got elected the "important thing" is the "attitude on the street" -- in other words will the average Palestinian start to feel love in his heart for the Jew ? -- and, more important still, will Hamas stop throwing bombs. No doubt, Sharon was pleased with himself, seeing as the imminent likelihood of either event was about as great as that of the Second Coming. But lo! In the past few days, Abu Baba has reached an agreement with Hamas to stop bombing. Ach! Gott... now vee really muss begin zu vorry. So... they resume building a contested part of the wall. What a slimy bunch of earth slugs.

©Barfo, 2005
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Idiot Prince does a Taboo-boo

The News: England's Prince Harry was caught on film at a costume party dressed as {gasp} an Afrika Korps officer wearing the dread "S" symbol on an armband. Fleet street atwitter. An not just the street. According to the Independent "Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said: "This was a shameful act displaying insensitivity for the victims, not just for those soldiers of his own country who gave their lives to defeat Nazism, but to the victims of the Holocaust who were the principal victims of the Nazis."

The Note: Principal victims? Once again ethnocentricity triumphs over fact. The Jews were not the "principal" victims of the Nazis: 20 million Russians were. But Rabbi Hier apparently only counts victims whose suffering is unique and special. At any rate, the taboo campaign against another idiot prince will be nauseating to watch.

©Barfo, 2005

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