I was realizing this morning that my 26-year ongoing goal, understanding the world, has gone as far as it can go, and that I need to work on other stuff now. I’ve known this for some time.

I understand American politics well enough to keep my distance. It’s a goofy pastime meant to distract us, nothing more.

I understand people as well as I can. As Napoleon observed, with a few noble exceptions they are desirous of being kept in chains for sake of security. They talk about freedom, but do not live it.

I understand the international scene as well as one isolated person can. One word: Machiavelli. There are no morals, no ethics. There is only power, and power despises weakness. Power has no use for ordinary people, would just as soon kill us as tolerate us.

There is a class of people out there, we call them psychopaths these days, who are always present among us. We need to get better at identifying them and putting them in tasks that challenge their abilities but do not give them power. Sweatshops would be a good way to go – Dick Cheney or Hillary Clinton could spend their long days stitching fabric to rubber instead of plotting misery for millions of people. The United States has a larger share of them in its population than other places due to colonial seeding. Australia, I would imagine, has a similarly large a percentage since it started out as a prison colony.

Psychopaths have always been with us. It is too bad our history is so corrupted that we don’t know anything of importance about our past. Otherwise we’d have a better idea of their activities over time. I see instances like the Battleship Maine blowing up, McKinley shot, Lincoln lionized, serial killer John Brown anointed a saint, and I see their handiwork. I’ve no doubt that when good people with influence are assassinated, die in small plane crashes, are caught in scandals … psychopaths got to them. The Bush’s and Clinton’s of this world live long lives of wealth and splendor even as they belong in stockades. John Lennon was shot by his doorman (who also happened to be present when RFK was shot! Imagine that!).

The key seems to be this: Keep them at bay. They are always plotting and scheming – nothing else pleases them. But we need to try to maintain some semblance of democratic government, laws and justice in spite of them. When they get complete hold of a place as they did in Germany, Poland, Stalinist Russia, Franco’s Spain and currently in Saudi Arabia and other such despotic hellholes, they cannot easily be dislodged. It usually takes conflict and bloodshed*. (“The tree of liberty …”) Power never gives up power without a fight.

That class is currently in power in the United States. We are in pathocracy. Every day they bring us more grief with out-of-control war spending, corruption in every corner including science (and even soft sciences like economics), our runway banksters, assaults on the commons, and a laughable system of justice. News is barely stitched together of lies, and most decent people in positions of responsibility cower in fear. Thousands of people know more truth about things like JFK, 9/11, Boston, Ukraine, Cuba, Iraq and our many wars of aggression and cannot speak for fear of retribution. Journalists may know stuff (it is hard to tell with them) but cannot write what they know. The only enemy our government fears is domestic – an awakened population, and I do not see any signs of life.

So for me the goal is to continue to lead my charmed life in spite of it all. The encounters that I have on the blogs lately are mostly unpleasant. I don’t like it when that happens. But if there is one type of personality that troubles me more than any other on this planet, it is the arrogant fool, the person so full of hubris that he is unapproachable and cannot be reasoned with. He will always presume himself more knowledgeable and wise while in truth knowing nothing. That personality sets me afire. I used to think the exchanges were fun, but now to see these same people years later unaffected by anything that has passed before their eyes, ignorant of all and yet assured of their own high intelligence and rightness … it gets really old. This is, as one of my kids’ teachers termed it years ago, “supreme stupidity.”

So I want to write about other stuff. I just keep getting pulled back in, that’s all. I love to set these people on their ears, rattle their cages in the hope that the shaking allows some light to break through. Never happens.

But there is Lizard and JC and SK and SW and ST and JR (Abe?) and Feral cat and so many others. I dwell on the negative when there is no much positive. I want to do better. I’ll keep working on it.
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*Can someone please explain how the USSR and its satellites were brought down without bloodshed? That could never happen here or in Saudi Arabia or against the bloody British aristocracy … to dislodge a corrupt leadership class by sheer power of public will. What’s wrong with the picture?

We live in a thought controlled environment. People freak out at that notion

“Why, I’ll tell you right now that no one ever, EVER!, tells me what to think about anything. I am my own person, think my own thoughts. Got that?”

Thus says the person who thinks the exact same thoughts as everyone else in his circle, not too much different from those in other circles.

The key to understanding thought control is that people have to imagine they think for themselves. So we are given a range of acceptable views, none of which are threatening to real power, and are allowed to choose among them. Thus the pro-choice pro-Obama anti-gun pro-Keystone Democrat is identical to the pro-life pro-gun pro-Romney pro-Keystone Republican in every way that is of any importance. The two can duke it out and even have an emotional investment in their candidate. This false choice imparts that essential illusion, that we are freely thinking and making our choices. On the night that they laugh about it shout about it, and either celebrate electoral victory or cry in their beer, the circle is complete.

The photo above is from Rolling Stone magazine, the recent one with KISS on the cover. In a thought-controlled environment, it is important that there be widespread agreement on certain essential ‘facts.’ It could be some thing big and confusing like 9/11, or a minor matter as Crimea’s choice to become part of the Russian Federation. In those matters, there is no room for disagreement, and there is total spectrum control. Dissent regarding 9/11 is not only not allowed in our media, but is only ridiculed from a distance, never allowed even a moment’s discussion in mainstream media.

The Crimea matter must be of huge importance to the people who control our thoughts, as it too is intoned by one solemn voice in every corner of our media. Crimea’s people did not make a rational choice. “Putin” stole the country by force. The notion that Ukraine was subject to violent coup d’état, its legitimate government overthrown by outside forces …. I am yet to see it broached anywhere save one, a radio interview conduct by Terry Gross a few weeks back.

But Americans are not news hounds, and don’t know geography. They don’t travel. They mostly absorb their views from entertainment sources. That too is under strict control. I don’t know the process whereby Rolling Stone, which performs a left gate keeping function, joined the parade in condemning “Putin”. I just know that it did.

In the matter of Crimea’s decision to be part of the Russian Federation, there is no dissent in the United States. All talking heads, radio voices, comedians and magazines from all sides of our supposed spectrum, are of one voice. “Putin” stole the country.

Thought control is usually not so heavy-handed as that. This must be a matter of great importance to our leaders.

It appears that another false flag operation was scheduled, this one on its Syrian border designed to allow Turkey to make war. Our covert forces are in mad rage these days, setting fires in Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and probably behind violence in Iraq as well. Something big is afoot, maybe, as a commenter says that we are on the verge of economic collapse. This is the full story from Al-Monitor, a news service I subscribe to:

Turkey ‘unhinged’

Turkey’s municipal elections campaign became consumed by the political crisis which swept the country and social media this week.

On March 27, an audio tape was posted on YouTube appearing to capture a conversation among four of Turkey’s top national security officials, including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, discussing orchestrating an attack on the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, which is just over the border in Syria but which Turkey considers its territory, as a pretext for a military action in Syria.

The leak led the government to deny Internet users access to YouTube just one day after a Turkish court overturned an earlier government ban on Twitter.

On March 23, a Turkish F-16 shot down a Syrian MiG-23, which Kadri Gursel suggested could have been a useful distraction to energize popular support for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he rallies voters for his Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The preoccupation with a rationale for action in Syria was also evident in Turkish military preparations to defend the tomb following a threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), as Fehim Tastekin reports. Davutoglu has alleged that ISIS is allied with the Syrian government.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Amberin Zaman this week: “Erdogan recognizes that he is in trouble. That is why he wants to go to war with Syria. We raised the issue of the Tomb of Suleiman Shah [the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman dynasty whose tomb is protected by Turkish troops]. They instantly shot down the Syrian plane. They are doing their best to go to war against Syria, to drag us into that quagmire. To this end, they are playing good cop, bad cop with al-Qaeda. They tell al-Qaeda, ‘Go attack and tear down our [Turkish flag raised over Suleiman Shah’s tomb] so we have an excuse to go in.’ Syria is no threat to Turkey. The whole world knows this. The Syrian plane was a reconnaissance plane that was seeking al-Qaeda targets. By shooting it down, they helped al-Qaeda.”

The bans on Twitter and YouTube provoked criticism from European and US officials and, as Cengiz Candar writes, “Erdogan and associates continued with their established practice of blaming the Gulen movement for its troubles, accusing it of bugging the ‘Syria war planning’ meeting and for its disclosure via the Internet. They labeled the incident as an ‘espionage offensive,’ signaling the possibility of a witch hunt after the March 30 municipal elections.”

Mustafa Akyol agrees “it is undeniable that Turkey is in a downward spiral toward authoritarianism, in part because the government feels threatened by hidden enemies using effective tactics — including wiretapping, hidden cameras and other forms of espionage — and is therefore responding with extreme measures, such as blocking Twitter and YouTube.”
Akyol adds, “The March 30 elections are so significant, because they will show how popular the government’s alarmism is concerning its hidden enemies,” concluding, “If Erdogan wins big, a dark era will begin for all the ‘traitors’ at whom he has been pointing his finger. If he instead faces his first political setback, the war of attrition against him, especially by those veiled forces behind the wiretaps, will probably push for a bigger fall. In any case, Turkey is likely to continue to be a political war zone in the months to come, at least until the presidential elections scheduled for August 2014.”

Henri Barkey describes Turkey as on “the road to Fahrenheit 451.” He writes: “The lesson from Turkey is that a secretive and nontransparent government can easily be unhinged by the almost instant free flow of information. And when it becomes unhinged, it will resort to all possible means to contain the flow. When it undoubtedly fails, it will resort to increasingly more draconian measures.”

I deliberately avoid American news reporting, as it is so shallow and full of lies. Most of what is important to know is not included. So my absorption process is slow, but a fuller picture does emerge.

News is dominated by the interests who benefit from the control of news. Someone ought to mention now and then, other than in a comedy setting, that NBC is owned by General Electric, a weapons manufacturer. Major corporations are dominated by cross-directorships, so that every news outlet is governed by the same powerful people. Naturally our various news outlets march lockstep. People balk at the idea that our “news” is discussed each day before it is given to us, and that all of the outlets are in agreement at the very top levels about what will be reported and how. That’s how it works. (At various times, as during Katrina and 9/11, this mold is broken and we see good reporting in the chaos. That is the exception.)

Ted Turner was a maverick who came aboard with the idea that he could change this power structure. As he now says, he kicked the shin of power and got a broken toe. CNN is now just another cog and is now among the worst in terms of submissiveness to power. But a few have noticed, and this is the kind of thing that ought to set inquisitive minds to work, that CNN World News, seen in many American airports, has a completely different reporting structure. It carries many stories and slants that its domestic branch does not.
Continue reading “The course of human events” →

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.