Elsewhere in the News...

Global Capitalism's Looming Fascist Threat (Al Jaz / Wm. Robinson)

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A Republic You Say?

As avid droves descended on London and as billions around the world tune-in to the broadcast of the latest “Royal Wedding” (British/Commonwealth version), Americans might gnash their teeth and wonder why we couldn’t have such a colourful revenue-generating institution.   [continue reading]

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Moral Hypocricy & The Wrong Kind of Magnification

The report of the cold-blooded massacre of Palestinian prisoners by Jewish guards raises two principle questions, the first of which is the black out of the story in the U.S. and Western press. Of course, the story will be reported in small print somewhere so that there can be a tenuous claim of deniability. But what cannot be denied on any substantial and good faith basis is that the murder has been censored from the news.

The reason is clear. Had Chinese or Arab or Balkan guards committed the atrocious murder, the story would be all the headline. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be out front declaiming and hectoring. Even President Obama would muster the courage to denounce (in slightly hedged terms) the "inappropriate" conduct. Had Arabs or -- god forbid -- Iranians murdered 200 Jews, the wailing board of the American press would resonate for weeks with indignation and demands for nuclear wasting of the culprits -- all of them, let Jehova sort 'em out!

The patent moral hypocricy is simply a manifestation of the underlying fact that our policies and public awareness are formed and informed by interested parties who seek only their own advantage and whose every word drips with dishonour.

But worse than hypocricy is the moral decay which the event reflects. This second question is of broader scope because it cannot be said that Israeli guards are the only thugs who get a "morale boost" from murdering other human beings. Just last month the press was obliged to report on the leak of American soldiers ghoulishly grinning, posing with and mutilating the cadavers of young men they had "wasted" in a lethal carnival game-shoot.

Depraved cruelty is nothing alien to Man. The walls of the Louvre and the Uffizi hang with the resplendant spectacles of sadism. The museums ought to remind us what a thin tissue keeps us from falling into the pit. But they have failed to do so. A kind of reverse Magnificat has been gestating in society's womb, as if we have been nursing a little, repugnant, oozing monster that has now blasted out with blackened gore to see the light of day.

What was the poisoned seed that gave this malformed creature birth? It began as a culture of bravado and hardness that despired gentility and softness as weak and faggy. It progressed to a culture of grit, grunge and grunting hardness that proved itself both in taking it and dishing it out. Bruteness was made a sport until we made a sport of brutality.

In 2005, American soldiers strung up a 22 year old Afghani cab driver and beat him to death over a period of four days, amusing themselves by thwacking his legs with sticks to make him jerk in pain and cry out "Alla Akbar". After days of this sporting treatment, the "interrogee" went into coronary arrest. The coroner reported that his legs had been "pulpified" into the consistency of juice. Not a peep of indignation was heard from any quarter in the United States: not in the press, not from the pulpit, not from the stinking pit that calls itself "Congress" and certainly not from the likes of President "SockJock" Bush.

Brutality has been building up for quite some time accompanied, in tandem, by an official culture that displays its "fairness" with displays of cold, indifference. Us, hate? Oh no! Far be it from us. We just don't care! For us, a suspect, a prisoner, an enemy is just an object! Can't get more impartial than that.

The kernel of cruelty subsist in every human heart as a kind of original sin. Instead of restraining this impulse we have done everything we could to cultivate and unleash it. But alongside cruelty, in every heart there is also a "conscience" --- an equally primal awareness of basic moral axioms. In a curious dynamic the impulse for cruelty against others gets restrained by an awareness in self that juxtaposes self with other. It is this tense balance between opposites that makes us exclaim "What am I doing?" and stop, provided we at least retain our alertness to what we are about.

But the Evil One knows this and fights conscience with all tools at his disposal.

"Future soldiers may operate in encapsulated, climate-controlled, powered fighting suits, laced with sensors, and boasting chameleonlike “active” camouflage. “Skin patch” pharmaceuticals help regulate fears, focus concentration and enhance endurance and strength." (Rebuilding America's Defences, P.N.A.C. Report, Sept. 2000.)

Yes! Performance enhancers and murderous morale boosters to create moral monsters. And the Good News is that one day -- oh happy day! -- we won't even have to be hypocritical about it anymore!


©Barfo, 2011
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Nix Son?

It was reported in Canada this week that a brownish, non-european student was evicted from a Harper campaign rally after a "background check" [sic] uncovered that she had attended opposition party rallies as well. All a-fluster, the Harper campaign staff issued an apology, stating that anyone with a red & white maple leaf balloon was welcome at the prime minister's campaign events.

Trish & Steve

What is it about Harper that seems deja vú?

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Nukular Keystone

Finally, after three weeks of antics worthy of the Keystone Kops, the Japanese company which owns the Fukushima nuclear plant has admitted that it will need to permanently shut down three of the reactors. "Permanently shut down" means burying the whole irradiating pile under a massive pile of sand, concrete and -- who knows -- maybe even a huge lead dome. Bye, bye investment.

The denouement was completely forseeable and indicates, once again, why nuclear power simply cannot be entrusted to private enterprise.

As we  noted the day after the tsunami, the situation at Fukushima had the unmistakable aura of the Titanic. The casual, reassured under-reporting was itself a symptom that spoke volumes. Where have we hear this sort of talk before? we wondered. "Oh, there's talk of an iceberg, ma'am."

The ostensibly trivial mishaps and breakdowns likewise spoke volumes. It is always the small things that cause the big bangs. It is obvious in a way, once one thinks about it. A chain breaks on account of the weakest link; and, in most systems of one sort or another, the weakest "link" is very often the smallest. In Fukushima's case, electrical cables to critical cooling pumps.

In the ensuing weeks, we have watched as the "news" reports unfolded like some very macabre origami. With stunning consistency, every daily report was exactly one day behind the actual reality. With the critical acumen of lemmings the world press followed suit ending each successively reported disaster with an assurance (to be superseded the following day) that no harmful radiation was expected... beyond the immediate confines... within 10 km.... in Tokio's drinking water... Yesterday, the press was finally reduced to blatant euphemisms: there had been a "containment breach" at the reactor. What the hell is a "containment breach" ? Try: gaping hole.

Needless to say, anti-nuclear activists are using the disaster to push their agenda. But it seems to us that this is the wrong lesson to learn. What is an electro-gadget nation like Japan to do? Burn coal? The fact is that, for the foreseeable future, there is little alternative to nuclear energy that does not itself bear heavy adverse consequences. If we are to maintain our current demographics and consumer-oriented society (and this not to say that we should) then recourse to nuclear energy is unavoidable.

If we must use nuclear energy, then the issue becomes how best to use it. What the Fukushima disaster shows is what we stated at the very beginning: the management of nuclear "incidents" simply cannot be left to private corporations or even individual governments. The reasons is simply that both corporations and whatever government is in power at the time have strong incentives to cut corners and to cover up negligence or malfeasance. Even assuming that corporations and local governments were to act with unimpeachable civic responsibility, the fact of a natural disaster usually means that the ability to respond is hampered. The funny thing about earthquakes is that they have this habit of cracking up roads, knocking down powerlines, breaking sewer mains and stuff like that. What Fukushima showed us was a nation reeling from a disaster and a company, rife with malfeasance and incompetence, in charge of a containing (as if) a nuclear crisis.

Nuclear energy, as we said, simply cannot be left to such loose and unrealiable managements systems. Every nuclear plant in the world must be brought under international supervision and control adhering to strict international standards that are totally unembarrassed by either profit incentives or political gain.

This means that when a plant like Chenobryl or Fukushima starts going south, the buck passes immediately to the International Response Team (IRT) -- period. They fly in with their inspection team and with all necessary and up-to-date equipment and take absolute charge -- period. The prime directive: contain any breach, at any cost. If the IRT is able to fly in and hook up generators and pumps that can stabilize the situation, all fine and well. If, on the other hand, the IRT determines on day four that the plant has to be buried under a mountain of sand, then so be it.

In our view, current demographics and consumption are simply unsustainable and human kind will have to rethink the scope and role of its existence within Creation. But absent such a reassessment, the use of nuclear energy is unavoidable. What is avoidable are disasters due to avarice and venality. Every nuclear plant on earth needs to be constructed and safeguarded by a completely disinterested body with plenary powers in emergency situations. Keystone follies should be left to the movies.

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KNUT IS DEAD!

Knut, the world-beloved star bear of the Berlin Zoo, died suddenly yesterday, at age four. Observers stated that as Knut was coming out from the rear of his den he suddenly keeled over into the moat.

Knut's saga was a story of human compassion and scientific stupidty. The Zoo Authorities have ordered an autopsy but for those with eyes to see the cause is already known.

It is time to end the barbaric practice of animal concentration camps. Creating wild-life preserves where animals can be sheltered from our deplorable ecological devastations is one thing. Treating animals as objects in cages for our amusement and curiousity is inexcuseable. Stupid beyond belief is forcing an animal to behave as we think he ought to "naturally" behave after we have changed the terms of existence.

Knut was a majestic bear-boy whose adaptive existence gave him and us delight. As for the expertly-stupid zoo keeping that killed him, at least he suffers no more.

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Meltdowns and California Dreaming

For those had read Walter Lord’s famous account of the Titanic’s last night, the first news out of Japan after the tsunami hit the Fukushima Daaiichi nuclear plant was anything but reassuring. The reports had all the quiet, near-indifference that characterized the crew’s casual assurances to the luxury liner’s passengers -- “There’s talk of an iceberg ma’am.”

Over the ensuing days, the world was treated to a succession of gradually escalating assurances each one wrapped around troubling weasel words: “no significant levels of radiation” and “no immediate threat to....” There’s talk of a meltdown but it is not cause for alarm at this time.

The Titanic sank because the iceberg's gash extended a piddling two feet into Compartment Five. The gash occurred because, just at that level from the waterline, the ship’s builders had switched to lighter rivets than the heavier ones used on the keel. The gash was critical because the back bulkhead to Compartment Five did not rise as high as the first four bulkheads. This meant that, once the compartment filled up, the in-rushing water would spill over into the next compartment, and the next, and the one after that. All of which was tragic proof of the adage that for want of a nail, the battle was lost.

The Titanic’s builders had done nothing unreasonable. It was highly unlikely a collision would rip so long a gash. It was hardly likely that stronger rivets would be needed in the hull at that level. And yet a two-foot gash into Compartment Five meant that, over time, the pumps would not be able to pump water out faster than it was rushing in.

The builders of the Fukushima plant did not think it was likely that a tsunami would swamp over the coastline, above the sea-wall that protected the generators used to pump water into the reactor. This was not an unreasonable evaluation. Even so, there is no way to “turn off” glowing hot, irradiating rods. Without water to cool them down, they simply get hotter and hotter causing explosions and the eventual rupture of the layers of containment structures around them. As a result of an otherwise reasonable decision, the Japanese government is now in the unenviable position of water bombing what can only be assumed to be broken and breached containers. For those who have electric water-boilers, this is like turning on the coil while you tablespoon water in. Who knows, they might pull it off.

But the Titanic’s story has another message for us as well. All throughout the ship’s frantic last hours, the S.S. California lay asleep in the waters a mere 10 nautical miles away. There wasn’t much to do at night in the mid-Atlantic and so the ship’s radio-shack had shut down just minutes before the Titanic struck the berg. As for the curious white flares, perhaps they were having a party. It was a luxury liner after all and, besides, the California’s captain did not like his sleep disturbed.

What really happened on that fateful night was that social mechanisms had not kept pace with technological developments. People were still thinking in terms of little boats “out at sea” when in fact the sea had become part of an inter-urban mass transport system.

The Titanic was not some 16th century caravelle. It represented a vast integration of functions, from the myriads of materials and trades that went into its construction to the vast array of services and goods that were entailed in its operation. The Titanic was not just a “boat” but a city at sea.

Marvelous as that might be, that meant that its citizens - all near three thousand of them -- were at risk without a backup support system commensurate with the nature of the enterprise. The same coordinated support and emergency systems that existed for a land-city were also necessary for a sea-city.

This was the lesson learned and, after the Titanic sank, such systems were put in place. Radio shacks stay open 24/7. There are enough life boats for all. Most importantly, responsibility for response is global. No one in their right mind today thinks that because a ship may be of Panamanian or Liberian registry, it is up to Panama or Liberia to mount rescue operations while the rest of the world looks on curiously.

And yet that has been exactly the character of the response to the Fukushima catastrophe. The world has simply sat back and watched Japan try to handle the emergency on the theory that this is a Japanese issue concerning a Japanese plant.

What this laissez faire attitude overlooks is that Japan itself is hampered by a quake that has disabled its infrastructure. It also over looks the fact there is no such thing as Japanese radiation. A nuclear plant anywhere in the world is everywhere in the world. When technology reaches a certain level, social and political responses for managing and dealing with that technology must reach a corresponding level. It is absurd to espouse a technology which has global consequences while adhering to 18th century notions of sovereignty and responsibility. Even more criminally insane is to leave the issue and the outcome to the private company that owns the plant.

Seeing as a meltdown in Japan can forseeably affect health in Russia or the West Coast of the United States or Australia, there ought to have existed coordinated emergency response teams ready to intervene by default with necessary equipment and expertise. To sit around “monitoring” the situation while awaiting a formal request for assistance before deciding how best to respond is simply California Dreamin’.


©Barfo 2011

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A Simple Solution to the Libyan Crisis

As oil prices rise, Western politicians are wringing their hands over whether to impose a "no-fly" zone over Libya or, even worse, to "peace-keep" the damn place. Needless to say, uncertainity is to speculation what moisture is to mold, and the rot at Wall Street threatens to undermine the world economy's fragile recovery from Wall Street scams.

Of course, there is no real uncertainty. No one in Libya is going to blow up the country's one and only golden goose. The conflict will be over in a matter of weeks and, assuming there is any actual problem in pumping now, the pumps will be up and pumping again then. The only thing that can insure that oil production will be destroyed would be another American-led, Iraqi "liberation".

But assuming, just for the hell of it, that the West needs to do something to "stop Khadaffi" now, the solution is very simple: offer every Libyan jet fighter one million dollars if he lands his plane in Cyprus. If there is any doubt as to the sufficiency of such an offer, the pot could be sweetened with a bonus of 72 live virgins, easily procurable from the white slave trade being run out of Tel Aviv.

Why no one in the ministries of the West has come up with such a simple exepdient (we are referring to the million dollar reward) makes one wonder if there is any brain power in the corridors of power. Or do they want the price of oil to continue to rise on the tides of uncertainty?

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A Worm in the Core - A Worm in the Brain

It was reported today that Iran had run into a serious problem at its newly completed nuclear reactor in Bushehr, which required the removal of the reactor's rods. Prattling to the New York Times, David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said that the shutdown "raises questions of whether Iran can operate a modern nuclear reactor safely.” “The stakes are very high," he added, "You can have a Chernobyl-style accident..."

Actually, the question the incident raises is the extent to which Israel is willing to jeopardize the region in order to insure its self-differentiated security.

It is no secret that Israel was involved in the Stuxnet Worm which recently required Iran to shut down its reactors. Basically the worm short-circuits safety mechanisms which are designed to shut down the reactors when the plutonium rods "get too hot". If the shut down does not work, then rods overheat and the felicitious result is a nuclear meltdown. Or, as Albright puts it, a "Chernobyl-style accident".

Now, a few months later, the Iranians have had to shut down their premier nuclear plant just as it was about to go on line and provide power to the country's electric grid. Is there a moron standing that requires a smoking memo?

But just to make extra sure that no one draws the correct conclusions, Israel shill par excellence, the New York Times, quotes Albright who raises questions about the competence of them Ayraps or Persians or who- cares-what-they-are. You know.... can we really trust these lesser menschen with such an dangerous thing as nuclear anything? Strike one for another zionist worm in the brain.

Needless to say, Albright himself is a walking-talking black face for Israel. The self-founding head of the so-called Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), Albright trots the globe declaiming against nuclear proliferation but never once manages to mention Israel's nuclear program.

According to a comprehensive review by Scott Ritter, David Albright has a track record of making half-baked analyses derived from questionable sources seem mainstream. He breathes false legitimacy into these factually challenged stories by cloaking himself in a résumé which is disingenuous in the extreme. Eventually, one must begin to question the motives of Albright and ISIS. No self-respecting think tank would allow itself to be used in such an egregious manner.

Hey... "But I read it in the Times!"

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The State of a Sinking Feeling

President Obama gave his second State of the Union Address to the nation tonight. After 65 minutes, the sum and substance of all that needs to be noted is that we've sunk from "Hope is on the way" to "Dare to Dream."

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UK Guardian Puts the Lie to the Lies

The Palestinian Papers have been published. For those into diplomatic porn, the accounts of Israeli thrusts into ever more craven PLO deep butt will prove an irresistable read. But is any of this really news?

Did anyone think that a U.S. leashed to AIPAC was a "fair broker" in the peace process? Did any one think that Israel entertained any intent to use the process as anything but war by other means? Did anyone remotely imagine that the PLO was anything but a bunch of sorry assed Quislings who -- as Quislings always do -- were selling their people out (and turning them in) for retirement cushions deposited in Swiss bank accounts? If anyone did, he was living on a moon.

Does anyone doubt the news-to-come? The "oh-shit" looks on the faces of Mubarak and the King of Jordan? The outrage among ordinary Palestinians? The now absolutely unimpeachable credibility of Hezbollah and Hamas? And does anyone doubt that the United States has absolutely none?

The duck and weasel mavens at the Ministry of Hasbara will be spinning sophistries in high gear overtime, but the plain truth is out and perhaps ... only perhaps... this truth will make the Palestinians free.

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Blame the Goy

In our posted news-link, Mya Guarnieri, an Israeli journalist notes the rise of xenophic violence and ethno-religious discrimination in Israel. She concludes by writing that "that Israel offers the Western world a reflection of itself."

Absolutely not. Israel is a reflection of Israel, and it is an old game to blame the goy.

Guarnieri goes on to write that the Israeli reflection " is a picture of nationalism gone wrong. It is a picture of what can happen when a state believes that its very survival depends on maintaining a certain demographic balance." Indeed; but that is the very essence of Zionism, which is precisely why Zionism is criticised.

The premise of Zionism -- aptly and correctly embodied by Israel's present government -- is that Jews needed living room for a Jewish state; and by "jewish" they meant a 'people', a demos. They wanted a state where the demographic balance was 100% jewish and 0% anything else. And every Zionist, revisionist or otherwise, has -- when being candid -- confessed that fact. It was precisely for the sake of this "demographic" raison d'etre that the Zionists fought tooth and nail to have the Allies list Jews as a separate and distinct category of victim of Nazi genocide.

Of course, the "returning" Jews were not able to get a whole loaf in 1947 and so they had to compromise and accomodate their summum bonum. But these strategic adjustments have nothing to do with the essential nature and ultimate purpose of the creed.

One ought not to minimize the "existential dilemma" posed to by Nazism nor the existential catastrophe that resulted to European Jews. But imitating the very same principle of racial exclusivity was not the answer. Blaming the "Western world" for a choice Jews made is not the solution.

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Health Care for the Entre Nous

Congresswoman Gifford's Medical Transport

We wish the congresswoman a speedy recovery. But the notion that she needs UltraMax Security at this point is hysterical. Once again we are left to behold the wealth that is poured out for the HinWis and the EntreNous while the nation as a whole seeks deeper and deeper into poverty and desperation.

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Who's Who Entre Nous

Under cover of New Year’s and minutes before he left office, Governor Arnold (“Terminator”) Schwarzenegger, commuted the sentence of Estaban Nuñez, son of State Assembly Speaker, Fabian Nuñez.

Nuñez fis, 21, was sentenced to 16 years prison for the manslaughter stabbing Luis Dos Santos during a frat-spat at San Diego State University in 2008. In commuting the sentence to seven years (not including good-time behavior credits), Schwarzenneger said that “given Nuñez’s limited role in Santos’ death and considering ...[he]..had no criminal record..., I belive Nuñez’s sentence is excessive.”

Awwwww. Surely it must warm the cockles of all our hearts. We all know that Arnie takes a stack of sentence reports to bed at night and pours over them looking for “excessive” sentences. Our Arnie, the same Pump King that vetoed the People’s initiative that corrected the Three Strikes Law so it would not wreak such outrages as life sentences for pizza stealing.

So, some wrecked, over-the-hill ex-con, is found passed out at 5 a.m., in a parking lot. Because he has some meth and a syringe, a felony, he is sentenced to 25 years to life, at a warehousing cost to the taxpayer of $35,000 per year. (People v. Lee A085239.) In contrast, young Nuñez participates in the homicide of just-as-young Dos Santos, and Arnie feels that 16 years (excluding half time credits) is too much.

In commuting the sentence, Arnie noted that Nuñez was not the actual stabber of Dos Santos. No...no... He only stabbed another guy who managed not to die. But according to Terminator, Nuñez only played a “limited” role in the actual homicide.

To those familiar with California’s aiding and abetting laws, the excuse is nauseating. Virtually all states punish aiders and abettors as if they themselves actually did the shooting, stabbing, robbing or whatever. The issue hangs on the aider’s knowledge and intent. Under California’s extremely sloppy application of the rule, if you were present when the crime was done, you can kiss your sweet self goodbye. Nuñez pled guilty to a reduced crime of manslaughter because, his well paid, high powered attorneys knew that there was no way he could avoid conviction as a principal.

Nuñez had not just been present. He and his cohorts, pissed at being turned away from a party, went out, got knives and came back looking to settle scores. They then came upon an unarmed group that included Santos.

The only “mitigating” factor in this case is that Nuñez pere now works with Adam Mendelsohn, Governor Schwarzenegger’s former communications director. It’s an entre-nous kinda thingie.

As entre-nous as Blue Cross Girlie Boy's veto of California's single payer bill, so that he and his dearests could enjoy all-expenses taxpayer paid health care while the actual people of the State groan under unsustainable premiums or are given to choose between bankruptcy or death.

As entre-nous as Lloyd Blankfein’s grinning attendance at the swankie pankie for Premier Hu at the White House.

If there is a surveyor’s target for disastrous Great Recession and for a culture of callous anti-social corruption that makes Attila look like a social worker, Blankfein and the Goldman Sachs he heads is it. Worse than a common criminal, Blankfein is the primum mobile behind the destruction of entire sectors of the global economy. But Obama doesn’t just begrudge him is ill-gotten billions. No! No! Obama works with him on destroying social security; and to betoken their collaboration invites him to a dinner designed to show off Who’s Who Entre Nous.

Jaded cynics will smirk that “entre nous” is hardly news; and that is indeed a fact. But the acceptability of corrupt back-scratching is assessed in relation to the welfare of the rest of us slobs.

Let it be premised that all human government is more or less corrupt. When the corrupt government provides well for the people corruption can be passed off as the “price” of doing business. But when corruption becomes the business and when government at the same time fails to provide for the common welfare, then, as in pre revolutionary aristocratic France, it is time for a cleaning out of the Augean Pig Sty.

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Limp Duck Lames Its Way to the Finish Line

It was something of a Lame Duck surprise but, after two centuries of bigotry, Congress finally ended official discrimination by the military against homosexuals. Gays were, of course, ecstatic. Progressives rejoiced. Senator Barbara Boxer, ear to ear smiles, bowled over and bear-hugged a supporter. We did it babe! Some commentators went so far as to suggest that Obambi had "restored" his crediblity with the "left". And at this point, one might very well say: Get a grip, babe.


A few Bah Humbugs, are in order.

1. Gays were never prevented from serving in the military. Sexual orientation may in fact be genetically determined but, whether it is or not, being homosexual is a matter of conduct. Unlike blacks or women who cannot change their physical appearance, gays were always able and always did serve in the military. They were able to do so precisely because the military is highly "mission-focused". Conduct that is not relevant to the mission is not relevant. As long as gays kept their sexual behavior private (not a bad rule for anyone) no one much cared. Dynamic Duos like McCain/Thurmond tried to make gayness relevant by yapping up Ewnit Kaheszhun. As to which no one can do better than (gay) aviator Lt. Tracy Thorne who remarked with deadpan sarcasm that, from listening to the likes of Congress, "one would think everyone in the Navy did nothing but take showers."

2. Military discrimination against gays was less a question of keeping gays out than of embarrassing their military careers once they were in. The 14,000 gays discharged since the enactment of DADT (Don't Ask Dont Tell), is ample evidence that gays had little difficulty getting enlisting. Nor, for the greater part, was their discharge due to inadequate military performance -- i.e. not keeping eyes on the mission. Their discharge was due to a switcheroo by the military itself which, taking its eyes off the mission, suddenly decided to make an issue of what was not relevant. There were subtler forms of hypocricy and discrimination as well, particularly in the ranks of career officers whose advancement was made dependent on a plethora of heterosexist expectations such as having a wife (of the right gender), 1.3 kids and a dog. There is no question (at least on this pile of chips) that it was long time to end what boiled down to a culture of inequality that was not justifiable except by recourse to self-serving excuses.

3. But "progressives" ought not (in our opinion) loose sight of the fact that what we are talking about is the right to participate in blowing away villages in Af-Pakistan. The military is the Machine of Empire. It is the force that the United States is using, not to defend itself, but to impose its will on others. It was not always that way. The War of Independence, the Civil War, the Great War and the World War may all be considered episodes of honorable soldiering. Not so Indian Removal, Central America, the Philipines, Vietnam and now the so-called War "against" Terror. Today, the U.S. military is the agency of civilian slaughter, devastation and plunder. One might wish the Cause of Equity were whored to a better john.

4. Nor should the "left" let itself be taken in by claims that Obambi has "delivered" on at least some of his promises. Administration apologists are at work coupling the repeal of DADT with Obama's other "success" -- health care reform. It needs to be said unequivocally that so called health care reform was a health care sell out and that, at the end of the day, repeal of DADT is small beer. To say that ending discrimination against homosexuals is right is not to say that it is the summum bonum of all things. There are many other issues which affect many more people, in more critical ways and which are simply more important: affordable education, employment, housing, income-equity, fair taxation, health care, retirement security and, above all, saving our stunning, beautiful, beautiful Mother Earth from a devastation that will in the end devour us.

On these more critical issues, the Democratic Duck failed to deliver even when it had its two feet. Senator Boxer is head of the Senate Environmental Committee; and on this score, the Babe ain't done nuthin.

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WAPO OPED 4 KILLOPS

The Washingto Post (WAPO) has a new Bloghead. Her name is Jennifer Rubin. Rubin makes no bones about what she believes in:

"For starters: American exceptionalism, limited government, free markets, a secure and thriving Jewish state, defense of freedom and human rights around , enforced borders with a generous immigation policy..."

She also believes in terminal car accidents.

"We should continue and enhance espionage and sabotage of the Iranian nuclear program. Every nuclear scientist who has a "car accident".... buys us time... , while exacting a price for those who cooperate with the nuclear program. Think of it as the ultimate targeted sanction." [ yes she really did say it ]

We suppose that one more agro-psychotic voice added to the lunatic cacophany emanating from the bogs of Potomac can't really matter any more, but several points may be noted for the record.

The Washington Post is one of America's two national papers. It, along with the New York Times, is the voice of what used to be called the Establishment. For better or worse they speak to and for the perceived interests of this Republic. Who gets to blather what from their pages is an editorial policy decision.

And the policy decision apparently has been to find someone who can fill Abe Rosenthal's passing void with fresh Pro Israel / Anti Pal-Iranian invective.

Does Ms. Rubin also believe in a secure and thriving England (the dear cousin of our Special Relationship)? Perhaps she believes in a secure and thriving France (our oldest ally without whom we would not exist)? Maybe she believes in a secure and thriving India (our newest, best friends and partner)? No? Why not? And if not, then what's so special about the "Jewish State" as she puts it?

A member on the OpBlog board of one of our national papers should have a broad and encompassing purview. That ought not translate however into a double focus.

But more shameful than a certain confusion, is the pure thuggery of Ms. Rubin's "ideology".

"Nearly all wisdom is found in the Godfather movies (no, not Part 3!) and the Torah."

We note with passing contempt that "no not Part3!" is Rubin-code for "I hate Catholicism" - a not unheard of vice from the usual suspects. We will leave it to any sincerely religious rabbi (or for that matter any observant Jew) to protest the desecrating coupling of God's widom with the Godfather's.

We Barfsters will content ourselves with the observation that Rubin positively leaves ol' Thrasymachus ( "justice is the advantage of the stronger") in the dust, panting (if not yet blushing) as he brings up the thuggery's rear. No doubt Rubin has never heard of Thrasymachus, seeing as Bibi Netanyahoo does just as well.

Since when does a supposedly sober, establishmentarian, national -- indeed "cosmopolitan" -- paper publicly allow its pages to be used to incite the murder of foreign scientists and the sabotage of the infrastructure of sovereign nations with whom we are not at war?

That's a good question.

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U.S. Officials Seek Law for the Protection of Knowledge

In an interview with Fox News (12/7/2010) Senawhore Joseph Lieberman stated that not only did WikiLeaks violate U.S. law under the Espionage Act, but the New York Times itself was on shaky legal ground for republishing some of the cables. Lieberman went on to say,

“To me, The New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime, I think that bears very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department."

One is left to wonder. Does Senawhore Lieberman mean that the law should seek to punish some sort of unspecified "bad citizenship"? Or does he mean that "bad citizenship" (whatever that might be exactly) should be subject to equally vague sanctions or pretextual prosecutions under other statutes?

In either case, the Senator's remark bespeaks an official mindset that is hostile to any exercise of free speech that might inconvenience or have an actual impact on the impunity of government.

Given the hysterical reactions of elected, appointed and self-appointed public persons, it will perhaps serve to call attention to Section 13 of the Reich Editorial Law (4 October 1933) which provided as follows:

"Editors are especially bound to keep out of the newspapers anything which:

"1. in any manner is misleading to the public, mixes selfish aims with community aims

"2. tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich, outwardly or inwardly, the common will of the German people, the German defense ability, culture or economy, or offends the religious sentiments of others,

"3. offends the honor and dignity of Germany,

"4. illegally offends the honor or the welfare of another, hurts his reputation, makes him ridiculous or contemptible,

"5. is immoral for other reasons."

(1933 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART I, PAGE 713)
(http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/2083-ps.asp)

Americans need to take remarks such as Lieberman's very seriously and consider them a wake-up call to what is taking place in the name of security and protecting at risk "assets" as Attorney General Holder put it in his recent news conference (11/29/2010).

The imposition of sanctions, whether formal or informal, against the dissemination of "harmful" information is the cornerstone on which State control of expression and opinion is erected.

©Barfo, 2010
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NIPP & CIKR - Whom the Gods Would Destroy

BBC reports that "A long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security has been released by Wikileaks."

The State Department document, published by BBC on line with embedded links, is dated 18 February 2009 and was compiled by diplomatic posts around the world at the behest of the Secretary of State.

The aim of the document was to compile a list of "critical infrastructure and key resources" outside the United States deemed essential to U.S. national security.

The compilation was initiated in order to provide "unifying structure" for the Department of Homeland Security's "National Infrastructure Protection Plan" (NIPP) authorised by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, (HSPD 7).

Under 42 U.S.C. 5915 (d), (Patriot Act of 2001), "critical infrastructure" is defined as "systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States [that] the incapacitation or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety or any combination [thereof]."

According to the BBC, the list includes communication hubs, gas pipelines, mines, pharmaceutical plants, and even an anti-snake venom factory in Australia.

After reporting on the above, the BBC article concludes by stating that the wikileak "inevitably prompts the question as to exactly what positive benefit Wikileaks was intending in releasing this document."

BARFO  will proffer an answer.

The benefit of the leak is that it shows that the United States Government is clinically insane. It has simply laid claim to whatever it wants in the world, anywhere.

Let it be clear. The NIPP explicitly calls for the "protection of the nation's CI/KR" -- that is, the infrastructure and resoures of the United States. But Siberia, Denmark and Australia are not in the United States. They are foreign and sovereign countries responsible for their own security and welfare.

Nevertheless, in the eyes of the United States Government this minor detail is irrelevant. Anything we need is deemed essentially ours. This is not a slip of the tongue or a mere casual way of speaking. It is the necessary and inevitable result of neocon strategic policies which this blog has warned against many times.

The essential premise of neocon strategy, as initially drafted in 1992 by Dick Cheney's Defense Planning Guide (DPG) was that the military preeminence of the United States following the collapse of the Soviet Union required a strategic "refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential global competitor." The DPG noted that potential threats could arise in any area of the globe ("including Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, Southwest Asia...the terriotry of the former Soviet Union...Latin America, Oceania and Sub Saharan Africa") and thus "the U.S. will be concerned with preventing the domination of key regions by a hotile power."

Eight years later, the neocon Project for a New America Century, incorporated Cheney's DPG draft into a defense policy paper entitled "Rebuiling America's Defenses." The paper called for the promotion of "America's principles" abroad by a "grand strategy" which would seize the opportunity of the USSR's demise and "preserve American preeminence" by a strategy of full spectrum power projection.

Fundamental was the maintenance and enhancement of nuclear and missile systems "to defend the American homeland ... and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world. (Op. Cit. p. v.)

Power projection itself would take place by "securing and expanding" so-called "zones of democratic peace". These zones (e.g. Kosovo or Iraq) would comprise "forward operating bases" which would serve as a "force multiplier in power projection operations as well as help solidify political and security ties with host nations. (Op. Cit. pg. 20.)

The Report explicitly discounted the existence of any serious or actual threat to American national security. Instead, it argued that American military strategy should aim to preclude any potential threat from arising.

"Even if such enemies [we]re merely able to threaten American allies... America's ability to project power will be deeply compromised."

In other words, power projection had become an end itself. The policy did not simply argue for the projection of power to prevent an actual or imminent harm but to preclude any potential compromise to power projection itself.

This bully policy was made official in Bush's “National Security Strategy” of 2003. Most recently, this past month, NATO's mission has been redefined so as to subsume that organization to the U.S strategy of ongoing power projection around the world.

The thesis has to be properly understood. It's premise is that the United States is "safe" only when it acts to prevent "potential" threats from arising. Since a "potential" threat can arise anywhere, the United States must project power everywhere in some form or another. The PNAC paper makes clear that there is no question of regional trade offs or triage and that the new strategy requires a full spectrum build up of all defense systems and all types of forces.

By and large, both the DPG and the PNAC paper conceived this strategy in gross geo-political terms. Although both documents recognized the existence and potential of true terrorist actions, the primary "potential" enemies and threats were seen to be other nation states.

However, immediately upon 9/11, the full spectrum paradigm became extended so as to encompass actions and threats by individual terrorists or ad hoc terrorists networks. National security now included detecting and combatting potential terrorists.

As we pointed out the day following the Trade Center attacks,

And who is the enemy? All Arabs? No.... not all.... The American militias? Perhaps, but not always. The Irish? At times. The Basque? Could be. What the Government will have to presume is that everyone is at least a potential terrorist. In the most fundamental sense that is a presumption which is entirely antithetical to the concept of civil friendship, i.e., societas."

It was therefore of no possible surprise that just the past holiday week, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano stated that the Department was considering installing full spectrum scanners on trains and bus stations. Defending against an initiated attack is a limited undertaking. Once one undertakes to fight a potential then any potential becomes the enemy and that includes "blendables" like any of us...or them...

But neither actual nor potential terrorists exist in a vaccum. They operate against targets of one sort or another. Thus, the correlative to fighting "potential" terrorists is the need to protect "potential terrorist targets" and since any potential terrorist can hit a potential target which could potentially have an effect on the perfectly safe and unimpeded military, economic or social security of the United States, it follows that protection of "the Homeland" requires protection of any and all assets anywhere that are of use or necessity to the homeland.

This is the thought process of a criminally insane paranoiac and it is the declared policy of the United States Government.

It is certainly the case that industrial processes are highly interconnected and that, even more so, in a globalized economy, there is no real national autonomy or autarchy. But what this means is that nation states no longer exist as independent universes but , on the face of the earth together, are more nearly analogous to individuals in society.

What we learn as individuals is that all life under the sun suffers conflict and must abide risks. It is a fact we learn to live with by exercising our courage and taking reasonable precautions to avoid (but not to prevent) harm while respecting the autonomy and interests of others. We do not assert a claim or seek to control or plan to "protectively" seize the property of others simply because it might be of use to us. We refrain from such conduct because the spontaneity of life is a varied and complex reality and this is more valuable to us than the deadliness of total security. We may be led to songs of sorrow or shouts of joy, but we resolve to accept the viscitudes of our existence with courage.

But the coward cowers under his blanket quivorously conjuring up all possible horrible things that could go wrong. Given power, the coward's inflamed imagination turns him into a tyrant who sees potential threats everywhere and seeks to pre-emptively, pre-vent and pro-tect against all harm to the repression and misery of all else and, ultimately, to the extinguishment of life itself because, as we have said, life itself is full of conflict and risk.

It is thus that the coward becomes a tyrant and the tyrant an agent of death.

Perhaps that answers BBC's question.

deposuit potentes de sede et dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.

©Barfo, 2010

Top Two Percent seeking to Gun Down Social Security & Medicare

The Top Two percent that own this country are gunning for your medicare and social security, the New York Times inadvertently disclosed today.

As has been widely reported, Obama’s Budget Deficit Commission, chaired by Erskin Bowles and Alan (“Cow Tit”) Simpson, has recommended a variety of “cut backs,” “rate holds” and changes to Social Security in order to balance the budget by 2030. (Simpson, it will be remembered, was the jackass who denigrated Social Security as a “cow with 300 million tits.” ) However, the reportage on the Commission's “findings” and recommendations has been somewhat on the vague side, giving the general impression that whatever cut backs to Social Security were envisioned they were something way off in the distance...nothing to worry about ... not to worry.

Not so. Today the New York Times ran a budget balancing interactive which allowed viewers to try their own hand at appeasing the Balanced Budget gorgon. Inadvertently, the Times let slip what the ruling class has in mind for the rest of us. Summarizing the “options” that are on the table the Times disclosed the following proposal:

Proposal: Raise the Social Security Retirement Age to 68 or, even better yet, 70.

"The increase in longevity has caused some to favor higher eligibility ages for Social Security. This option would gradually raised the age from the currently planned 67 to 68. "

Proposal: Increase Medicare eligibility age to 68 (and make people buy private insurance)

“...Americans who are living longer ...should work longer...” after all “the new health care bill will allow people in their late 60s ...to buy a policy through an exchange..”

Proposal: Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes.

“Under this option workers below the 60th percentile of life time earnings would continue to have their retirement over time....” Workers “just above the 60th percentile” would have their
retirement benefits cut.

Proposal: Tighten eligibility for disability.

Hey! If you got only one leg, you can still shine shoes!

Proposal: Cap Medicare Growth starting in 2013

“...among other things this would crack down on many hospitals and doctors with the highest costs...” And among the other things...?


In other words the Top Two percent who plunder the country and its workers in order to fatten their bulging pockets want to impoverish you further in the name of a balanced budget that will only benefit financial speculators.

The Top Two percent working through their Republican Puppet Party and Fauxbama want you to work until you drop and while you do pay more, and more, and more, to fatten the coffers of “insurance” companies that pull the plug on you when you fall ill. And if you do survive at 70, they still want to cut your benefits. Sixtieth percentile? It goes like this

0 ----|50|--60----2-100

In plain English, the plan is to reduce benefits for everyone who is not destitute and living out of a car at a Walmart parking lot.

The French took the streets in face of such proposals, so should Americans. Very loud and very clear.

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Pope Does El Camino

Since it was not reported by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the U.S. press in general (except for the Washington Post on its back pages), BARFO will note that Pope Benedict has paid a second visit to Spain where he made pilgrimage (mini-version) to the tomb of Saint James, at Compostella.

The Princes of Asturias, welcome Pope Benedict to the Accompaniement
of the Papal and Royal Anthems

Arriving in Galicia, the Pope exhorted Spain and Europe to be "concerned not only with people’s material needs but also with their moral and social, spiritual and religious needs, since all these are genuine requirements of our common humanity."

At the Shrine of St. James Benedict stated that "To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where he has revealed himself The Church is this embrace of God, in which men and women learn also to embrace their brothers and sisters and to discover in them the divine image and likeness which constitutes the deepest truth of their existence, and which is the origin of genuine freedom."

The Pope has called for a rapprochment ("meeting") between the Church and the Spanish Government which are in conflict over the issues of abortion, divorce and marriage. Spain's prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero was not in attendance to greet His Holiness at the airport, and a gay "kiss in" is planned on Sunday when Benedict visits Barcelona to consecrate Gaudi's fantasmagorical Cathedral of the Holy Family, a hundred years in the building.

Earlier in the week, at a Papal Audience on the eve of All Saints Day, the Pope stated that "God Excludes No One."

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