Years ago, 1989 to be precise, I watched a press conference on TV. The US had just bombed Panama. We still have not been told why.* The Secretary of Defense was answering questions, and as I watched him shivers ran down my spine. I was watching and listening to pure evil. His name was Richard Cheney.

This morning I read where one of the fascists who was pivotal in the Ukrainian coup d’etat, Oleksandr Muzychko , was killed point-blank. He was dragged from his car, and once it was determined he was not wearing a bullet proof vest, was dispatched by two gunshots to the chest.

The question: Was Muzychko shot by resistance forces, or was his death ordered by the new Ukrainian government as it tries to clean up its image? If the former, it can be morally justified on grounds of defense of homeland, though it is creepy. If the latter, I get that shiver down my spine again. The mother is eating her children.

This is clipped from an interview with German Left opposition leader Gregor Gysi published on RT.com:

Yes, there are real fascists in the [new Ukrainian] government. They are currently in leading positions. They have the vice-prime minister position, defense minister, and minister of agriculture and environment minister positions. Besides that, there is the co-founder of Svoboda party, who is not a member of this party right now, but he is in charge of the security committee, some sort of intelligence service.

Of course there are democratic forces in the government, but fascists never give up the power they have got hold of.

I had a semantic disagreement with a commenter here one time about JFK’s murder – was it coup d’état? Of course it was, but I said it was not. I was making a finer point and chose poor wording. JFK was dispatched by people who had already taken power and were in key positions to allow the murder to go forward. The real coup d’état took place in 1947 with passage of the National Security Act, Truman’s greatest blunder. (His first, Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the man was a walking disaster, one of the most tragic figures in history.) At that time he allowed the fascists access to positions of power without accountability. In 1963 they merely sealed the deal. We’ve not had a meaningful election or real change of power since. OSS + SS = CIA.

We’re not dealing with ideology. Back in 1989 I was not repulsed by Dick Cheney’s conservatism or belief in free markets (or neoliberalism’s creepy mirror image twin, neoconservatism). Ideology is nothing but a cloak. Ayn Rand provided that cloak, and was too stupid to realize it. Fascists have no ideology but power. That we even call them “fascists” merely concedes that we don’t have a good name for them. “Neo-Nazis” implies that Nazism was some sort of intellectual endeavor. It was not. There is nothing new. These are people who want power for power’s sake. They will use any means to get it.

Who comes to mind? A man who merely described it as he tried to grovel his way back into employment: Niccolò Machiavelli.
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“I wonder if Americans think it’s extraneous to analyze the economic precedents of the Panama invasion and the fact that two American cabinet members – not to mention many lower ranking officials – had economic interests that conflicted with Panama’s attempt to broaden its commercial relationship with Japan.” (Manuel Noriega, America’s Prisoner, Noriega/Eisner)

I stopped watching TV news decades ago, and quit newspapers shortly after I realized that Obama was a fraud, some time around late 2008. I only gather up impressions, and even though I say so myself, feel as “informed” on this issues of our time as anyone I know.

But as an outsider, I think it worth mentioning here that the United States news media is a state-run outfit with one point of view offered on all outlets from the supposed “right” over at Fox to the “left” over at MSNBC. NPR and Limbaugh are in harmony. They are just packages with outer wrapping designed to appeal to different audiences.

Limbaugh listeners are reactionary, needing the hostility he projects against perceived “liberals” to validate their own views.

Those views, incidentally, are identical to those of NPR listeners, who need to feel intellectually superior to reactionaries for their own validation.

Of course that’s a broad sweeping statement and is not true if analyzed in detail. There are, within our doctrinal confines, disagreements that are constantly being debated. Is abortion OK? Immigration? Gun control? Gay marriage? Marijuana? Taxes too high or low? These are “wedge” matters, used to segment us for advertising and voting purposes, but otherwise of no consequence. We are allowed our debates on those matters for the precise reason that they do not threaten real power.

But on the important issues of our time there is no dissent anywhere in the narrow spectrum. Further, anyone voicing dissent is quickly dispatched. On Bill Maher’s Real Time, for instance, a panelist recently spoke of the painfully obvious fact that there never was any “war” in the Cold War, that it was just a framework that allowed the US to justify its perpetual aggression against resource colonies. He was quickly hushed by all of the panelists, “right” and “left” alike. Such a foolish man, saying something obviously true. He won’t be asked back.

And now, with the EU-forced violent coup d’état in Ukraine and Crimea’s breakaway, I see complete and universal agreement on the lies that are being told. You can judge for yourself, but it’s only a matter of degree. Limbaugh is probably saying that Obama was soft and Putin took advantage of him. I imagine Thom Hartmann is defending Obama, saying he handled the matter correctly. On those shows that do allow some real news, like the Daily Show and Maher, Putin is likely being caricatured as a Hitler-like bare-chested monster.

But that’s how it is done in a state-controlled environment: Agreement about the lies is universal. Details are a matter of dispute. Anyone calling a lie a lie is shown the door.

One animal that I’d like to see hunted to extinction is the assassination “buff,” or the person so caught up in the details of the various important crimes of our times that he has lost all sight of their true importance.

Understanding those crimes is useful in understanding the nature of people who now hold office, supposedly the ones in charge. But they are mere drones. Understanding that helps to understand the nature of our country.

I stumbled across a short article by Jeffrey St. Clair in Counterpunch (behind subscription wall) titled “Camus in the Time of Drones.” It’s a nice piece because St. Clair is beyond body counts and instead focuses on the nature of drone killing as practiced by the current American regime. It is senseless, even random, and there is no retribution to be had. What can be done to a drone that hits the ‘wrong’ target? Execute it?

People killed by drone strikes are as often innocent bystanders as intended targets, but that’s not the point. The ability to murder people with impunity is the essential element of drone warfare.

The conscience of the killer has been sterilized, the drone operator, fully alienated from the act he is committing, can walk out the door after his shift is over and calmly order and IPA at the local microbrew or play a round of golf under the desert sky. He is left with no blood on his hands, no savagery weighing on his conscience, no degrading images to stalk his dreams,

St. Clair writes as if drone warfare is new. Only the technology is. Drones are instruments of terror. But we’ve always had them. Piloted aircraft that blow up innocent people are flown by highly trained drones, many with astounding SAT scores. Since they cannot see their victims, there is no qualm of conscience. What’s different?

In Vietnam some of the killing had to be done one-on-one by trained assassins under the program codenamed “Phoenix.” A different kind of drone was used and perhaps 40,000 people (if anything resembling truth is ever allowed to escape Langley) were murdered in cold blood, and for one purpose: To inflict terror on that society. What became of those who did the killings? Were they dispatched by their employer too? Or did they re-enter our society and become our night stalkers and serial killers? It’s hard to imagine that men trained in the fine art of assassination by a thousand devices came back home to live mundane lives.

What has this to do with assassination buffs? For some reason as I read St. Clair’s piece, the name Roger Craig came to mind. He was a deputy sheriff in Dallas in 1963 when JFK was murdered. He refused to buckle before the Warren Commission. He found what was perhaps one of the real assassination rifles in the Texas Book Depository, a 7.65 German Mauser, and refused to say it was something else. He heard the news of the shooting of Officer Tippet at 1:06, and refused to change it to 1:15, the time that the Commission needed to pin the crime on Oswald.

An assassination ‘buff’ will recite those details about Craig and completely miss their importance: Craig suffered from integrity. It got him killed.

Integrity is why people die young in a land like ours. But there are other ways to dispatch them. Ralph Nader, Anthony Weiner, Elliot Spitzer, Dorothy Kilgallen, John F. Kennedy – all appear to have integrity. Such people cannot stand to be around liars, cowards and murderers. Craig was dismissed from the Sheriff’s office in 1967. He could never again work in “law” enforcement. His wife left him. Attempts were made on his life. But he refused to change his story. Finally he is said to have killed himself in 1975.

Not likely. He was probably murdered by a drone. But integrity cannot be killed. Only its vessel is dispatched.

We are back and recovered from our latest trip, and have a couple of weeks here before we again head out. We have a brief trip to Montana in early April, where all of Eileen Tokarski’s grandchildren (and their parents and step-parent) are gathering for an impromptu graveside memorial. As my oldest said, they’ve not really had a chance to “process” her passing, by which she means to say good-bye. Standing at a grave, which I don’t otherwise recommend, serves that purpose. It is a moving experience when done with the intent to create closure. The most effective means by which I’ve seen this ceremony work is by releasing helium balloons and watching them drift far away and out of sight. It is a powerful image guaranteed to produce tears.

Later in April we are going to Bellingham to visit Mom’s sole surviving sister, and from there to visit a cousin on Lopez Island out in the San Juan’s. This cousin, I am so pleased to report, recently was allowed to marry her spouse of many years – legally. I only knew of her, but not on a personal basis. I had read the book JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass, and in the acknowledgements (who reads those?) found he had a Northwest connection, and then I saw my cousin’s name. It’s not a common name, but not that uncommon either, and I thought can it be? Months later I passed the question on to my aunt, and yes, I learned, this was my cousin. Later we had a long phone conversation, and she sent me an early draft of a stage play to advance the Doulglass work, and also some of his work on the MLK murder. I am excited at the prospect of spending time with them.

I so look forward to that trip. Everything is new and fresh when old eyes see new faces and places.

After Lopez, we are off to Portland for a week. We rented a condo in the downtown area, and will have some grand-kid/kid time. Portland in April is really kind of a nice place. We might even kayak the Willamette.

I know, you’re thinking who has time to travel like that? Not many. But then, in all these years before I’ve not had time or money to travel much, and so went on a journey of the mind. I just got back from wasting part of my Saturday on the impenetrable PW at the Intelligent Disconnection. All I ever did before I could travel was to make regular trips to the book store, and my whole world view changed. I did not mean for that to happen. I was the staid, boring, self-assured Catholic Republican that my parents had raised. But for that to happen to PW, one true thing has to sneak through his defenses and undermine his certitude. I don’t know what that one true thing might be. I only know that 1) he’s not looking, and 2) hasn’t stumbled yet.

The key to understanding this country and its intellectual culture is this: PW is protected from ever finding one true thing by intellectual hubris. Unless he stumbles on on one true thing, unless it jumps out from behind a tree and slaps him, he’s merely on his way to becoming yet another serious commentator on the important state of affairs in this world. He’ll know nothing, least of all that he knows nothing. Those kind of people write our important books and fill our TV screens. That’s why this country is so damned boring!

This has been a great trip. I can tell because it seems so long ago that we left home and yet it’s only been nine days. We landed in Atlanta, and from there saw the Great Smokies, Asheville, Charlestown, Savannah, and even stepped into Alabama so we could say we’ve been there. (Alabama, based on our quick fact-finding trip, is a large fireworks stand.) We are now in Bonita Springs, Florida.

So let’s find reason to travel and visit other parts of our land: These places exist in our minds, but seeing them in the flesh blends them into our commons. We’re not different. We all want the same things out of life. We are just in different geographical places. But we’re one people.

The armies of the north introduced total warfare down here, punishing civilians for merely being in the wrong place at that time. Atlanta was destroyed, but when Sherman got to Savannah, he thought it too beautiful to destroy. That city, above all others, stands out for us. It has charm unlike the others, cobbled streets on which stand old buildings that now house the same stupid gift shops and bars and restaurants as in every other city in the US. But with Savannah, I want a souvenir coffee cup to put on the shelf in my office.

Go figure.

Southern latitudes, Florida in particular, offer beauty, warm hospitality and friendly charm. Life on the gulf this time of year transcends mere relaxation. The warm breeze is a drug, the lush green landscape a comfortable down mattress. I can see living here and why it has drawn so many millions over the decades. We could be on the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages or the Black Sea in the time of Genghis Kahn. The vast majority of humans are near the salty breeze as they awake each day.

We’re in a gated community. Mexicans, Cubans and blacks tend to our needs. For that reason, I could not live here. Liberal guilt would ruin it for me.