Here’s an excerpt from the above linked-to article:
“Enter the foreign NGOs. The Haitian oligarchy has absolutely no interest in the poor once they leave the sweatshops. However, they don’t mind if a bunch of humanitarian suckers want to come to the island and immunize a few. Build a hospital, a school, feed them if you feel like it. Anyone with a few dollars in his pocket is welcome into Haiti to do whatever he likes as long as it doesn’t interfere with the wage or working conditions. You can’t get near that. No NGO that wants to remain in business is able to say this.”
And here’s an excerpt from my online response to the above linked-to article:
“When Canada, France and the U.S. attacked Haiti, I determined to not forget it, which I wasn’t going to do of course. But who can keep focussed on all of the corporatocracy’s atrocities from year to year? So, While you don’t uncaringly forget about things like the corporatocracy’s invasion of a small, defenceless nation like Haiti, you do find yourself distracted continuously [by] each new, successive atrocity and it all blurs. I just didn’t want that to happen with Haiti. And so I [focussed] on it as best I could.
“That hasn’t involved much more than paying attention to articles on alternative media websites like rabble, and giving myself the task of reading up on the subject, but I felt that that was better than nothing at all. I urge others out there to do that minimum as well. Then mention Haiti as an example of imperialism, with Canada right in the middle of it, when you’re talking to people you know. Because people should know about the ‘myth’ of Canada, that supposedly nicer, more civilized country north of America.”
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Coffee! I do not have a dedicated blog about coffee. I don’t yet blog frequently enough for that, I feel. As well, I don’t consider myself expert enough. I know that that doesn’t necessarily matter if the blog is done half decently. But that’s how I feel. In lieu of such a blog, I have my coffee posts scattered throughout this blog and easily available to you. To find them, click on the link at the bottom of the coffee post you read that says “Explore posts in the same categories.” That’s poorly expressed, but you get the idea. It ought to say “Explore other posts in this category.” But WP isn’t immune from the plague of illiteracy sweeping the planet.
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Disappeared! Going forward, I will more closely track interactive sites where I post commentary and the post doesn’t get accepted. I never submit commentary that is unacceptable to reasonable, decent people. The politics I espouse and talk about may offend many, but that’s different. Also, It’s one thing when a nasty organization disappears my posts. But it’s another thing altogether when an organization that I consider useful and on the side of ‘the people’ disappears my posts. Then again, Gatekeepers are everywhere (hint: Click on the word ‘gatekeeper’ in the tag cloud). Click on the word ‘censored’ in the tag cloud to see posts that I submit to various discussions but which never appeared or appeared and then disappeared. I won’t always know why my posts are disappeared. But so what? Let’s see what’s going on out there. Right?
Following are some excerpts from the above linked-to article:
“The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
“The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.
“Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.”…
“Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make news.
“”I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” he said. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”"
Unless Snowden is Vulcan, that remark was not terribly charitable toward Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.
“He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.”
Even Geoffrey Stone, a supporter of empire, made the point that the Obama admin’s attitude toward the public’s concern about the revealed sweeping surveillance taking place, which is to tell Americans to ‘Trust us’, is insufficient. Here’s what Professor Stone said to Nermeen Shaikh, on Democracy Now, during a debate he had with Chris Hedges about the question whether Edward Snowden is a hero:
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Geoffrey Stone, before we conclude, I’d like to ask you about an article you wrote in 2011 for The New York Times called “Our Untransparent President.” You wrote, quote, “The record of the Obama administration on this fundamental issue of American democracy has surely fallen short of expectations. This is a lesson in ‘trust us.’ Those in power are always certain that they themselves will act reasonably, and they resist limits on their own discretion. The problem is, ‘trust us’ is no way to run a self-governing society,” end-quote. What’s your assessment of the comments that you made then relative to now and his—Obama’s record on transparency and civil liberties?
GEOFFREY STONE: Well, I think the comment was correct then, and I think it’s correct today. I think that there’s a temptation on the part of public officials to basically say, “We don’t to be hassled, we don’t want to be bothered, we don’t want to be criticized, so we’ll just do what’s in the best interest of the country, and we don’t have to tell anybody about it.” And that’s a huge danger in a democracy.
Edward Snowden in Hong Kong
Noam Chomsky talks (confusingly, in some respects) about a good faith principle. There’s good faith in someone’s declaration that he or she can be trusted when that person’s (or organization’s) past record gives people a solid basis for that faith. In the case of the Obama admin, there is a solid (not one-offs) record of hypocrisy, betrayal, deceit, mass murder (for which one could easily provide a multitude of links), torture, disdain for democracy and support for dictators and aggression toward those who attempt to shine a light on all of that criminality. For which reason, Chris Hedges’s assertion that his debate with Professor Stone was actually about whether or not there would be a free press becomes quite poignant. For, If the government shows itself to be an enemy of the people and bent on deterring both democracy and the accountability that democracy would incorporate, then Where will the check on that government come from if not from a free press that is able to function because whistleblowers can safely go to journalists and tell them about criminal actions by politicians?
Noam Chomsky was talking about humanitarian intervention when he made his point about the good faith principle, but it has wider application, obviously. Consider:
“…We may also bear in mind a truism: the right of humanitarian intervention, if it exists, is premised on the “good faith” of those intervening, and that assumption is based not on their rhetoric by on their record…” -page 40 of “Rogue States – The Rule Of Force In World Affairs.”
Barack Obama and Edward Snowden, and all of us, are cogs in the machinery of corporatocracy. The only issue is whether we are willing cogs. There’s no doubt that there is pressure on everyone to get the slave mark, or stamp, of the wild beast of corporatocracy. But God’s view of the matter is that we should resist. (When Edward blew the whistle, he was resisting, clearly. When Obama lectured China on it’s misuse of the internet, while his admin was at the same time denouncing Snowden and others for exposing his admin’s grave misuse of internet and other technology, he revealed clearly that he has zero interest in resisting the wild beast that has enslaved him and enticed him to destroy others, in other words to sin and survive. There’s nothing but hypocrisy and a lack of principles – sinfulness in the service of the god of this system of things – in Obama’s words and actions.) And God makes it clear that there is a reward for such resistance, even if it isn’t material and immediate. Which isn’t to say that, as imperfect, limited creatures, we can withstand any amount of pressure. For those who will break, after resisting, God will judge whether their actions are forgivable. Obama is lost, clearly. Edward Snowden looks like he might have a chance at remaining. Certainly, We have to commend his act of resisting darkness.
What prompted me to write this post was a Toronto Star article titled “Tories deny Canadian spy agencies are targeting Canadians,” by Tonda MacCharles. I’ve long preached the need for people to determine intentions. That’s not something you can do, normally, on demand. You have to take a good look at your subject, which may or may not be difficult. It’s not earth-shattering, this idea. But it has always struck me how people can’t seem to wrap their heads around it. That’s probably because people are lazy and don’t really intend to deal with important matters that they are forced to consider. Some of those lazy ones are egotistical and like to be seen as experts, as well. The worst thing that can happen to a wannabe expert is to be shown facts or to be forced to view them, publicly. And so our insufficiently examined ‘leaders’ get away with murder. And not only are the victims far away drone victims, or regular people living in areas coveted by connected extractive industry companies and so on. These lunatics are murdering our livable earth. I might not die tomorrow, as a result of the fatal injury that neoliberals have inflicted upon the livable earth, but if I could live forever, I wouldn’t, as things now stand. I’d die when this planet finally lost it’s ability to sustain life, which is the course it has been set upon by the Benefactors in power.
Following is an excerpt from the above linked-to article:
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[Wayne] Easter said that Canada’s foreign allies and their security agencies would scan global intelligence signals and would be “looking for key words on Canadians as well . . . and they’d give it to the Canadian agencies, yeah,” said Easter.
“That’s exactly what happens.”
Easter said the international arrangements did not allow for a broad targeting of, for example, a media reporter speaking to a confidential source, but would focus on specific activity of global concern such as “terrorism, crime or sex offenders.”
He has no doubt “things have changed” in both the spy business and the more sophisticated terrorist networks in the decade since 9/11, but Easter now thinks that, given the magnitude of security issues, it is more critical than ever to have “some kind of political oversight, beyond just the ministers.” He thinks the idea of a parliamentary oversight committee should be revisited.
Members would be sworn to secrecy but would provide a deeper measure of public confidence in the process, said Easter.
He added MacKay was once a proponent of such oversight when he studied the issue along with Easter on a past Commons committee looking at national security issues.
“There is a danger of using the guise of security to basically spy on your own for reasons other than security. I think there’s always a risk there. And governments nationally and internationally have to ensure they’ve got the balance.”
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My online responses to the above linked-to article follows:
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The NDP critic won’t be blunt, as this situation calls for. It’s not * ‘What’ is the government (which isn’t, lol, hived off from it’s instruments of repression) going to do with all that data on all of us? * It’s * What are the ‘intentions’ of this government? * Maybe because that’s easier to answer – by looking at it’s ideologically driven record – it’s therefore not the question that the establishment (media, NDP, any who depend upon the unequal system presided over by this neoliberal government) is asking.
Posted to: Tories deny Canadian spy agencies are targeting Canadians | Toronto Star/ Jun 10, 11:30 pm
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“There is a danger of using the guise of security to basically spy on your own for reasons other than security,” said Easter. You think? Set the ‘way back machine’ for 1936. “The police had a very clear explanation: fingerprinting would “bring about the identity of, and enable us to follow the movement and activities of, Communists, Anarchists and Radicals…” The reactionary tone here should be no surprise, since one of the key groups in the Berkeley drive [to have government implement mandatory, universal fingerprinting] was the California Junior Chamber of Commerce, whose “Prospectus for a Better Life in America” contained… “A law should be passed under the terms of which an individual convicted of revolutionary activity should be incarcerated, and continually held in a concentration camp.”" (from The Soft Cage by Christian Parenti) You’re free to choose your ideology and associates as long as it’s the right ideology and the right associates, because that’s what ‘democracy’ means.
Posted to: Tories deny Canadian spy agencies are targeting Canadians | Toronto Star/ Jun 10, 11:44 pm
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Snowden intended not to hurt the US, but to help the US, namely ‘his’ idea of the US, which is an idea of the US that includes not just a minority of powerful and privileged people, but everyone. When the Obama admin officials use terms such as ‘national security’ and ‘Americans’, they just don’t mean what they appear to mean. Obama isn’t protecting Americans who blow the whistle on his government’s criminality, Is he? ‘National security?’ Sure, As long as you’re talking about Richistan, and not a United States that includes ‘all’ American citizens. Chomsky often quips about this flexibility of meaning issuing from the mouths of apologists and spokespersons of the American empire. He derides the use the phrase “Washington Consensus” by following up with “of one.” Or he points to their references to “the world” or “world opinion” as referring to a world consisting of the United States and Israel and maybe one other tiny, beholden, nation somewhere.) As Chris Pyle notes, “He should be… taken at face value.” Agreed. Without information – a past record of duplicity, criminality – to the contrary, and with the cearly sacrificial nature of his whistleblowing on behalf of the people, That’s what we should do. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of the June 13, 2013 Democracy Now segment (“Chris Pyle, Whistleblower on Domestic Spying in 70s, Says Be Wary of Attacks on NSA’s Critics”) in which Chris Pyle speaks with Amy Goodman which is how I’ll end this post:
CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, when I was blowing the whistle and they couldn’t get any dirt on me—I had led a very uninteresting life—they made up dirt and tried to peddle it on Capitol Hill in order to discredit me and prevent me from testifying before Senator Ervin’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. Every bureaucracy hates dissenters. They must expel dissenters and discredit dissenters, because dissenters force them to reconsider what it is they’re doing, and no bureaucracy wants anybody to interrupt what they’re doing. And so, this is the natural, organic response of any bureaucracy or any establishment.
Now, I think it is inappropriate and quite irrelevant to analyze Ed Snowden’s motivations. It doesn’t matter much—except in court, to prove that he either did or did not intend to aid a foreign power or hurt the United States. But separate from that motivation, whether he’s a narcissist, like many people on television are, no, I don’t think that’s relevant at all. He’s neither a traitor nor a hero, and he says this himself. He’s just an ordinary American. He’s trying to start a debate in this nation over something that is critically important. He should be respected for that, taken at face value, and then we should move on to the big issues, including the corruption of our system that is done by massive secrecy and by massive amounts of money in politics.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Pyle, we want to thank you for being with us, co-author of Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, Getting Away with Torture and The Constitution Under Siege. In 1970, Christopher Pyle disclosed the military’s spying on civilians and worked for three congressional committees to end it, including Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence. He now teaches constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
The following is an excerpt from the above linked-to article by Robert C. Koehler:
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Taking the rape reporting process out of the chain of command and creating an investigative office outside the Defense Department, while no doubt a good idea, strikes me as being an inadequate response to the phenomenon. That even such a relatively minor, reasonable change is, apparently, impossible to accomplish gives it a certain cachet in the discussion. It’s the idea that politicians and the media have focused on for two successive scandal cycles, keeping the discussion from becoming a deeper look at the root causes.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) did tell MSNBC that a policy of zero tolerance toward rape isn’t good enough. What we need, she said, is “zero occurrence.” Amen, senator, but what are the steps we must take to bring this about?
Like suicide, sexual assault is skyrocketing in the military. Why? Could it be that the problem is deeply structural? Could it be that it’s related to the domination culture the military embodies, not to mention the brutally immoral, pointless wars we’ve been waging for the past decade-plus? Could it have something to do with the idea that what goes around comes around?
In 2011, after the earlier scandal, when Speier first proposed her legislation, I wrote: “Maybe it’s time to look at the values themselves — beginning with those of our military culture, which is the model, and indeed the metaphor, for every other form of domination culture: The prime value is winning, achieving dominance over some sort of enemy or ‘other.’ Around this core of dominance, we construct a fortress of honor, righteousness, cleanliness of mind and spirit. We revere the fortress, but in its dark interior, our natural impulses are ungoverned and often manifest themselves in perverse mockery of the values we salute.”
In a culture based on winning, the rapist is the “winner.” Maybe that’s the problem. And it permeates not just personal behavior but national policy.
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The following is my online response to the above linked-to article:
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The paradigm is ‘riches for the strongest’. We are all imperfect and when you examine what the riches are, or the gain is, that the rule-breaker acquires, it’s not always something normal people would want. Again, Imperfection means darkness. And, unattended, imperfection increases. Still…
The imperfect antidote, until the sickness (imperfection) can be cured by a healthy doctor (not imperfect humans), is principles. I can’t think of any other answer. Anyone can lose it, but if you have principles, then even when you can’t see clearly, so that a loss actually appears to you to be a gain, If you have principles and stick to them, that can compensate for your wrong inclination. It’s like being lost on a highway. You have this sense that ‘that’ way is north, but you’re not absolutely certain. So you look at your map. Your map indicates that what you thought was north is actually south. But you can’t look at that map – principles – if you don’t possess one.
How do you know enough to have and rely on principles when, in your imperfection you have conditioned yourself to survive by rule-breaking? I don’t know. You either still have some humanity or you don’t. That’s really the answer.
And I don’t mean to suggest that all rule-breaking is excusable. A gang rape (another one has taken place in northern India and an American woman, reportedly, is the victim) by adults is in the category of unforgiveable, in my view. You can’t excuse it by claiming imperfection. Or ‘my culture’. I don’t care what language you speak, what religion you hold to or don’t hold to; If you do something like that, you ‘know’ you’ve crossed a line. You may have chosen to ignore the fact that you have crossed a line, but that doesn’t change it.
I have talked about ‘riches for the strongest’ for many years. Now others are. That’s good. With the Left flailing around to find useful narratives – because the resource-rich Right is happy to offer some and we know we don’t want theirs! – It does surprise me that it shies away from what is probably the best. Here you have the incredible spectacle of ‘law & order’ governments perversely laying down the law for everyone. Taxes. Laws about taxes aren’t working for everyone. They are either outright broken or perverted. Look at tax havens, where it has been estimated (John Henry) that between $21 and $32 TRILLION reside in offshore tax havens. Democracy. The world’s foremost champion of democracy, uncle Sam, is, in fact it’s greatest deterrent, which is what Noam Chomsky makes clear in “Deterring Democracy.” I get Greg Palast’s regular email updates. Today’s was about the renewed effort by some of those helping to run America to destroy section 5 of the Voting Rights Act so as to make it even easier for voters who elites want blocked to be blocked. All the while, All the terror unleashed by the state, including criminalizing not just dissent, but actual free speech (where they will target, at their great convenience, those who they want and ignore – the cowed – others), attacking whistleblowers, making it so easy to label their political enemies (powerful and powerless) as terrorists, a terrifying thing once they’ve made laws about who is a terrorist that can be so broadly interpreted that ‘a terrorist’ can be a two year old making too much noise sucking her thumb.
All of that is being done by ‘law and order’ governments and a law and order Right (and fake Left), not because it’s necessary, but because, in our free universe, you can ‘choose’ to believe in inequality and you can ‘choose’ to embrace, wholeheartedly, the ‘riches for the strongest’ paradigm. Once you do, You will certainly rationalize and justify that choice. Your lawless neighbors (meaning others, anywhere, who make the same moral choices you do) will now be a source of moral support for you, which you will need, as long as you lack humility sufficient to say “I made a mistake,” allowing you to take steps to correct it. The problem is huge. Not only do rule-breakers have a lot of moral support, but those whom they have authority over will be compelled to join them in their moral and intellectual – spiritual – failure. But being under pressure doesn’t give you the go ahead to sin.
It’s the bully principle. You’re enticed by your own wrong desires, for sure. And your equals, your ‘neighbors’, morally support you, for sure. But those who are below you in the pecking order are compelled to please you by imitating you, not calling you out. That’s mainly because we have a money system in which money means life. Instead of biting the hand that feeds you, you feel strongly the urge to stroke it.
I re-read a number of paragraphs last night in a book I have, looking for some information. The book is titled “The Unconscious Civilization” and the author is John Ralston Saul:
“We are – almost all of us – employees in some sort of corporation, public or private. Increasingly, those who follow orders are being aquitted. Why? Because increasingly our society does not see social obligation as the primary obligation of the individual. The primary obligation of the individual is loyalty to the corporation. It is, as Jung described it, “that gentle and painless slipping back into the kingdom of childhood, into the paradise of parental care.” Why? Because “all mass movements slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane made up of large numbers. Where the many are, there is security; what the many believe must of course be true.”" -pg 91 (Saul, a Canadian philosopher, wrote that in 1995.)
And in a police state where citizens are turned against each other, because the distraction helps elites and their partners in politics make their getaway (with all the benefits of the economy and none of the costs), the security you feel as part of the crowd – that is also willing to part with principles and embrace fantasy – is a negative security. You not only find it easier to go with the flow, but you fear going against it. That’s not positive. That’s negative. But principles would mean 1. fantasy is nice, but embracing it, while my world goes over a cliff made up of many tipping points that we’ve gone past, is wrong, and 2. not fighting is easier, and staying plugged into the matrix (fake democracy) that elites have created for me keeps me safe from elites, but unplugging and fighting, while difficult in some ways, is right and what I need to do for myself, my family and my species.
“There is a general sense that our civilization is in a long-term crisis. It can be seen from the political or social or economic aspect… I would argue that it took on its actual economic form in 1973… We have been in a depression ever since… Ours has been softened and evened out thanks to life preservers put in place by society after 1929…,” writes Saul on page 6. Those life preservers are laws and social programs, and to the extent that they came from lawmakers employing a degree of democracy, then they came from society. But not all in society have the same concept of law and order, as the existence of tax havens attests. Saul continues:
“Now, given our inability over the past two decades to deal with an unbreakable chain of unemployment, debt, inflation and no real growth, we have drifted farther and farther out into a cold, unfriendly, confusing sea. The new certitude of those in positions of authority – those out of the water – is that the the certain answer is to cut away the life preservers.
“This might be called a childlike act. Or one of unconsciousness so profound as to constitute stupidity.”
Which is why I always say that darkness is it’s own reward. You may start off clever enough when you break rules for gain, but, eventually and naturally, you end up dumb as a post. Saul again:
“How is this possible? Well, the view from inside the public and private technocracy is one of relative calm. This is a place where the structure continues to grow, particularly in the private sector; particularly in the internationalized private sector. The technocracy has developed an argument that now dominates our society according to which “management” equals “doing,” in the sense that “doing” equals “making…”
“…As Adam Smith put it: “There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed; there is nother which has no such effect.” The former is “productive,” the latter “unproductive” labour… [Adam Smith's] argument is that the industrious produce the fund which finances the whole community. The idle – those not engaged in “useful labour” – live upon the industrious. This includes the unwillingly idle – the unemployed. But he is not talking about them. They are not in a position to cost society a great deal.
“He is referring above all to the managerial class of his day… The answer might be that 30% to 50% – the current level of the managerial class in our society – is far too high; that the management of business along with with financial and consulting industries… are a far more important factor in keeping the economy in depression than is any over-expansion of government services.” (chapter 1, “The Great Leap Backwards”)
We can’t afford cruel elites who, in their own self-defeating, self-destructive fantasy world, would enslave and destroy us.
“…The reaction of sophisticated elites, when confronted by their own failure to lead society, is almost invariably the same. They set about building a wall between themselves and reality by creating an artificial sense of well-being on the inside.”
Their choices have led to their fear of the people who they exploit and oppress, which has led to their solution of stealing the means of survival from their enemy (weakening – politically and generally – austerity for the people and more for the decision-makers and their banker and other friends), the people, a negative solution to a problem that will one day knock, irresistibly, on their doors. Reality, if not a brave, unplugged 99%, will knock. Some (Chris Hedges) believe that that reality will be a very changed earth in which conditions are absolutely harsh, leaving the masses of poor to fend, uselessly, for themselves outside of well guarded enclaves of privilege. Some believe that the whole show will be ended by a higher power.
If those who believe in a higher power are right, then the task for individuals now is to not reform an irreformable system (which many of those in both camps believe is the case), but to survive it’s destruction. The task for individuals is to avoid investing, not just pocket change, but our souls (everything), in this temporary, godless system in which the operating principle of ‘riches for the strongest’ has prevailed. The task for individuals who want to survive the coming Armageddon is to not be found having been willing players in the losing game of ‘riches for the strongest’, which game necessitates the existence of losers. The riches aren’t worth it. And the strong are merely lawless – which wouldn’t matter if the strong were, themselves, the final lawmaker. I guess we will all find out who that is.
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An excerpt from the above linked-to article follows:
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Former Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy talked with Prime Minister Stephen Harper about his expense situation in mid-February, shortly after the senator’s expense claims had been sent out for investigation by independent auditors, the Prime Minister’s Office reveals…
Amid charges of a coverup, the question of who knew what about Duffy’s finances has become vital.
Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, resigned after it emerged he secretly wrote a $90,172 cheque so Duffy could repay the government on March 25.
Harper says he knew nothing about it, but opposition MPs are demanding more information on the role of the PMO.
Having repaid $90,172, Duffy refused co-operation with auditors. And Conservative senators discussed what to do about Duffy’s expenses with Wright during the audit. In mid-May, a Conservative-dominated Senate committee wrote a report that went easy on Duffy over his improper expense claims.
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One of my online responses to the above linked-to article follows:
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People: When politicians tell you that they stand for law & order, take cover. Most have mafia capitalism in mind. Steal countries, create enemies, need beefed up everything military/security. Steal from the people… You have to already be lacking something essential to brazenly choose to view success as doing ‘whatever’ it takes, even if that includes lawbreaking and harming others. And betrayal. We are imperfect, which allows for all kinds of folly, including leaders who willingly join a terracidal gang for gain and their own personal security. Believe your eyes. Unfortunately, For others without a solid moral foundation, observing all of that leads them to think that “Okay. Bad must sometimes be good.” Then you get terrorists (American led corporatocracy) fighting terrorists, many whom were made crazy by imperialism, which is state aggression, not for self-defence, but for gain, for a minority of parasites, the big & small bosses in the mafia capitalist system. What do we want?
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By way of clarification, mysterious lawlessness is my term (a phrase, not concept, which I take from the Christian Bible) for the situation I described in the above online comment in which individuals who lack a solid moral foundation draw wrong conclusions from observing criminal behavior by those who know better. The criminal behavior by political, religious and other leaders observed by those without a solid moral foundation is mystifying, the way Eve, although perfect, as God intended humans to be, was mystified by the serpent in the garden of Eden. Others, with a solid moral foundation, are not mystified, which doesn’t prevent them from embracing darkness. It’s a free universe. (I’m reluctant to state that Eve, who was made perfect, lacked a solid moral foundation. But what can one say? I know what I’m trying to say however. The writer, Timothy, in the Bible book of 2Timothy, says that Eve was deceived but Adam wasn’t. But Timothy does not indicate why. I don’t think the Bible is perfect, from one standpoint. So…)
Am I stretching when I refer to our system as, among other things, a mafia capitalist system? You may believe that the few politicians who, on behalf of the people and in the name of social justice, challenge what other politicians are doing means that all that we are dealing with here is a few, or even many, rotten apples. But at some point, You have to come to grips with reality. By the way, It will be too late. The system truly is irreformable. But, you, as an individual, are not, depending.
Chris Hedges’s book, “Death Of The Liberal Class,” includes the name John Ralston Saul in it’s bibliography. It gives page 142 for the name. Except that the name isn’t there. But I’ve heard Chris mention Saul’s thoughts before and I have read John Ralston Saul and could see Saul’s thinking reflected in what Chris had written there. On page 141 he writes “But as the state was slowly hijacked by corporations, a process that began after World War 1, accelerated after World War II and was completed with ruthless efficiency over the past thirty years, the liberal class purged itself of the only members who had the fortitude and vision to save it from irrelevance.” John Ralston Saul looks at neo-corporatists, who have the same platform as the original corporatists of the 1920s, one of whose spokespersons, namely Philippe Schmitter, wrote “with an assumption of “the erosion/collapse of liberal democracy.”" That was on page 88 of “The Unconscious Civilization” and on page 90 Saul writes that “It could be argued that we are in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it.”
“All resistance must recognize that the corporate coup d’état is complete. We must not waste our energy trying to reform or appeal to systems of power. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance.” – page 193 of “Death Of The Liberal Class” by Chris Hedges
Daniel Dale was actually the reporter who Ford physically threatened some time back when he was following up on a story about Ford’s entitlement-inspired efforts to buy city property that neither he nor anyone was entitled to buy. See Heather Mallick’s June 1, 2013 article titled “Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has ruined the city’s reputation for good.” Here’s an excerpt from it:
“Voters are different from journalists. They observe politics, they don’t live and breathe it. Busy voters get a glimpse of shamelessness bordering on theft and it stays with them. They don’t move on to the next thing. They sense they’re being treated with contempt and do a slow burn.
“I have slid into sympathy for Ford many times — partly because he is so overweight that I fear he will die in front of us and partly because he occasionally seems affable, a male quality I enjoy — and been disappointed, sometimes within minutes. I cannot forgive his physical threats against Daniel Dale, a journalist whose prose and moral character I admire.
“On the notorious video, Star journalists Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan heard Ford say this as he appeared to drug himself with his sinister companions: “Everyone expects me to be right-wing, I’m supposed to be this great . . .” And then he lost his train of thought.”
“In a recent court ruling, Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley said systemic efforts were made to suppress the vote across Canada in the 2011 campaign and that the unknown perpetrator used the Conservatives’ database, the Constituent Information Management System (CIMS), to pull it off.
““The most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this court,” Mosley stated in his ruling.
“The judge also said that Conservatives were not all that helpful during the trial, playing it as “trench warfare” instead of a legal proceeding.
“If that had been my database (or yours, I suspect), my reaction would be similar to the one I experienced after hearing of the fake Facebook account: surprise, dismay, anger and then swift efforts to get the fraudster(s) shut down.
“Instead, the Conservative party issued a bizarre email to reporters, hailing the court ruling as a victory because election results weren’t overturned. “Court sides with Conservatives,” read the headline on the statement by spokesperson Fred DeLorey.”
In the other post I attached to the top of post linked-to article, I pointed out that among the observing public who lack a solid moral foundation, the conclusion that they may draw from the rule-breaking carried out and corruption exhibited by our political leaders is: “Look at that bad behavior by people who are smarter than me and who obviously know better. I guess bad must sometimes be good.” And that would be the wrong conclusion to draw, just as wrong as this world is lost.
‘Satan In Council’, from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” / illustration by Gustave Doré
It appears my second post was not accepted on the Star’s website, so I’ll give you that also. (The Star, some of whose writers quite dislike the commenting feature, has tweaked it’s user-unfriendly commenting feature numerous times. In it’s current form, it will show a participant the comments that he or she has posted. Except that it lies. It also shows comments posted that the Star disappears. When the Star disappears my posts – and I don’t always bother to pursue it – I sometimes try a few more times to post a post that the Star disappears. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t.) Another poster (blueb) asked “What is my country coming to with these clowns in Ottawa???” My response:
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Just what you see, as well the cliff that the human population is going over with global warming, drinkable water disappearing and becoming a huge investment prize for powerful special interests, the starvation of millions as Monsanto, aided and abetted by mafia capitalists running their political sectors, gains control over the global food system and a security/surveillance system (Kids think their video games are violent!) profitting it’s manufacturers with profits and it’s owners and operators with jobs maintaining their mafia capitalism, which creates domestic and foreign enemies too numerous to count. Don’t forget, Players like Harper can only play because there’s a game for them that includes other powerful players who want that game. The rest of us are disposable chess pieces, with varying degrees of culpability. These clowns are entertaining like a heart attack.
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An excerpt from the above linked-to article, by Beth Lyons, follows:
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Over the past few weeks, the Walt Disney Company has faced on online uproar over their makeover of Merida, the protagonist of the film Brave. The makeover was in preparation for Merida’s induction to the Magic Kingdom’s Princess Hall of Fame and involved sexualizing the youthful character by making her older, more polished, and giving her a classic come-hither countenance (that kind of looks like a facelift, if I’m being perfectly honest).
Disney regularly gives the ol’ beautifying treatment to its female characters when it’s time for a new run of merchandise. Last holiday shopping season, for instance, Disney worked with Barneys New York to re-envision its classic characters (Mickey, Minnie, Daffy, Daisy, etc) as runway models.
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My online response to the above article follows:
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Sad eh. I cringe when I see beautiful women, and worse, beautiful young women slathering makeup on, makeup made out of who knows what. You can imagine the beautiful body underneath and can only shake your head in amazement and sadness that, solely because of what capitalists who want to sell crap want, that person has hidden her natural beauty underneath frightful – and it’s often just that – makeup that might be setting her up for cancer or some other problem down the road.
Bright red lips and high heels. Those are worst, visually. Perfumes and hand creams are just as bad an offence and something that causes me to not only cringe, but, often, change seats on public transit. But plenty of guys will breathe it all in, literally and mentally, and so, absent some common sense on the part of the female consumer (and her peers and parents), How will that problem go away?
One of the young female baristas at the coffee shop I go to, who has a boyfriend and, I’m sure, isn’t looking for another, starting showing up for work there in super tight shorts and with lipstick on. And she does not look good with the lipstick on. Boy is it garish! And there’s one of my male friends, who meets me there regularly, impressed all to hell by her new look. It helps when you are two dimensional and can’t see more than what the physical eye shows you (even if you are a stand up person). But even there, I just don’t see the plus, other than that other guys do.
Capitalists, as we (here on this NDP-loving website; That’s sarcasm) know, are mainly interested in making money and they work together to do so. They just don’t care how they do it. So, If the script calls for an alien female who will give you nightmares (Klingons), they can pull it off with no problem. And they did, but also, apparently and with justification, felt that the population is softened up enough that you could slap some bright red lipstick on them and everyone would be okay with that. Paramount doesn’t sell lipstick, to my knowledge. But other capitalists do, ergo… But, for those of you who can think, Don’t those lipstick-wearing Klingon females (“Star Trek – The Wrath Of Khan”) tell you something?
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I was wrong about the Star Trek movie I saw the made up Klingon women in recently. I’ve had a hankering for some Star Trek lately and have re-watched a few Star Trek movies. The movie I was remembering was Star Trek Generations. The pics below are screen shots from that. One was already online. The pic of Lursa was a screen shot I took. The sisters are Lursa and B’Etor. They are known as the Duras sisters.
Good luck trying to find a good online image of the female Klingons wearing their come hither make up. This was the best I could do:
*edit, May 21, 2013 – I have edited a couple small parts of this to make it clearer. Interestingly, one part gave me quite a bit of trouble. It seemed so straightforward until I started to explain it better. But I’ve got it sorted out. That part was about the relation of spiritual failures who are victims of corporatocracy to spiritual failures who are of the 1%. Another part that I got wrong, not because I don’t understand it, but because it’s complex, I also sorted out. That was easier to do and it involved my explanation of the difference between believing something and ‘choosing’ to believe in something. I also fixed a number of typos. It was a long post. If anyone sees anything they think is wrong, in any way, please feel free to let me know.
An excerpt from the above CD article by Beverly Bell follows:
*************** Suzette Pierre worked in a garment factory from 2003-2005, until being fired for refusing to continue sleeping with her supervisor. Though she has been unemployed since, she says she won’t work in a factory again. She has four children.
“The person who got me the job at the factory told me to have sex with him. Each time he wanted it, I was supposed to go along with it. I resigned myself to it, because I had to save the lives of my two children. I got pregnant, but I still worked every day, every day. He didn’t fire me because I never refused to give him what he demanded.
“What I did at the factory was pull the stray threads from the shirts and then fold and pack them properly. Each packet had 32 shirts. To meet quota, I had to clean [pull threads] and pack seven packets each day [0.5 cents per shirt]. But I couldn’t do that, to be honest. I could never meet the quota, so I only made 450 gourdes [US $10.71] every two weeks. I couldn’t take care of my children any more and I took them out of school.
“The reason I left the factory was because another man, the supervisor, demanded that I sleep with him, too. If you had a complaint, like you need more hours to work, he got you the hours. But then you had to pay him. Any time he wanted to use you, he could. We would arrange a rendez-vous in his bedroom, or sometimes I would meet him at a hotel. I went because I wanted my children to go to school. And every time he passed me in the factory, he would grope me.
“It was like being pressed in a vise, like every person could demand that I sleep with him. I couldn’t take it any longer. I resigned myself, I spoke to the children, I said, “Misery for more misery, surviving just to survive… nothing is going to change this way.”
“I wouldn’t go along with it anymore. So they fired me.
“If the U.N. wants to put more factories in Haiti, it could be good, because there are a lot of people who don’t have work. But me, if someone who runs a factory wanted me to go there, I wouldn’t go. I already did two jobs at once. I’ve already been through that. If they’re really going to establish more factories, there needs to be a pledge that women doing factory work don’t have to do the other kind of work.”
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The world’s operating principle is ‘riches for the strongest’, a contradiction in terms – if we were in fact meant to be interdependent and mutually supportive as family members. This world that we know is a dark world that has rejected the Creator, Jehovah, who is God. Jehovah, however that name is pronounced, is God’s self-given name meaning He Causes To Become.
When you enter onto the wide and spacious, and dark, road that leads to destruction, after modifying yourself, you will ‘naturally’ tell yourself that you’re on the wide and spacious road that leads to freedom and life. Most people, good and bad, desire life. We all – good and bad, wise and unwise, rich and poor – have to live with ourselves and the choices we make. But we are all, for now, imperfect. Anyone can make an unwise choice. And imperfection may mean that one who does so also lacks humility, which is the ability to accept one’s own imperfections, limitations and, if there, low station in life. When such a person makes unwise choices, what prevents him or her from extricating himself from that situation is false pride that causes him to rationalize and justify his wrong choice instead of admitting his misake. Others who are similarly errant will only prove to be a source of encouragement for the errant one, rather than an example of how not to proceed. And misery loves company because everyone loves moral support. Please, Tell me I’m wise!
Indeed, From one standpoint it’s true that everyone desires life, including those entering onto the wide and spacious road that Jesus warned his followers to avoid. That road is wide and spacious precisely because it’s travellers have been freed from concern for rules. Obey them if you wish to. Disobey them if you wish to, which you may wish to do if obeying certain rules seems inconvenient or if disobeying certain rules seems to be a way to get something you want. As Jesus noted, That road, which is also a path of darkness, is unlike the road leading to life, which is to say ‘life’ from God’s standpoint, which Jesus’s words and example pointed to. Jesus described the road leading to life as being cramped and narrow, which it would no doubt feel like when you believe in law and order and endeavor to follow the rules, provided they weren’t clearly insane rules made by people with bad intentions.
Darkness is what Satan bought when he rebelled against the Source of life and light. Darkness is what Adam and Eve bought when they allowed themselves to be deceived by the serpent, standing in for Satan. The Bible reveals that Satan has undergone a progressive abasement since his initial rebellion. For a time, he was free to mingle in heaven with other angels and even stand in the presence of God, which he did. He even used such occasions, at least sometimes, to rant at God about God’s supposedly failed ‘project earth’ and it’s human component (http://bit.ly/12F6vcu & http://bit.ly/18VY4wY). He was allowed to do that until 1914 CE, when Jesus, back home where he belonged, kicked Satan out of heaven, but not (yet) earth and human affairs. At the time, that meant woe for the whole world of mankind, as Revelation chapter 12 states. World War One ensued and the end of that conflagration by no means ushered in paradise on earth. We are in an era of darkness. And the darkness is deeper, in some ways, than what existed before.
“When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged. We live in an age when news consists of Snooki’s pregnancy, Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and Kim Kardashian’s denial that she is the naked woman cooking eggs in a photo circulating on the Internet. Politicians, including presidents, appear on late night comedy shows to do gags and they campaign on issues such as creating a moon colony.” – Chris Hedges, “Welcome To The Asylum”
“For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it. For what benefit will it be to a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul? or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” – Jesus’s words as recorded in Matthew 16:25,26
“To make the current puppet regime in Kabul more powerful, the U.S. and NATO have been trying to bring together three groups that emerged during three criminal periods of war in Afghanistan: the warlords, the Taliban, and some of those who served the hated Russian occupation.
“Both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance warlords are long-time allies of the West. These groups are criminal, dark-minded, and reactionary to the core. In their lust for power, they are ready to sacrifice national interests of Afghanistan to any foreign power.
“The Taliban and the Northern Alliance warlords are responsible for much of the suffering of the Afghan people. They are like a wolf and a vulture and can never be regarded part of a “solution” to Afghanistan’s tragedy. Our people want them prosecuted as traitors and war criminals. But the West wants to “unite” them and impose them on our nation. Joining this dirty mafia regime are some of the ex-Russian puppets, the Khalq and the Parcham, who tortured and killed countless innocent democratic-minded people. Such “unity” may serve the U.S./NATO interests in Afghanistan, but will lead to another reign of terror and brutalities upon our poor people.
“As history shows, the U.S. has relied on criminals, dictators, human rights violators, and reactionary forces in many other countries of the world. Recently in Libya the U.S. and NATO supported fundamentalists who are worse than Qaddafi; in Syria they are supporting Al-Qaeda and other such dirty groups. So it is not surprising that they are once again working with the Taliban and with Hekmatyar and other criminals in my country.
“It was the U.S. that brought the warlords into power in Kabul, and the U.S./NATO puppet Karzai is even more shameless than previous Afghan puppets of the British and the Russians. While the puppets of Russia and Britain negotiated behind closed doors, Karzai is publicly selling Afghanistan to a foreign master. The so-called strategic agreements like the Bilateral Security Agreement provide for long-term U.S./NATO military bases in Afghanistan. The U.S. wants to remain in Afghanistan because of its geopolitical location: to be able to control other Asian powers like Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China.
“Karzai and Obama are working on an outline of an agreement for legalizing permanent military bases in Afghanistan. But as long as we have foreign military bases in our country, we have no independence. And when we have no independence, we have nothing, and all talk of democracy, human rights and women’s rights is a joke. Afghanistan is the second most corrupt country in the world. And Afghanistan is the worst place to be a woman, according to a recent international study. They are looting our rich mineral deposit mines worth three trillion dollars, and they are raking in money from the drug trade.”
And then there’s Iraq. Remember Democrat Clinton’s sanctions against the Iraqi people, which began in 1990 and mostly ended in 2003? And it’s really the people who are the enemy because it’s their land and resources you’re stealing and you need to sideline them one way or another. Killing them is desirable, especially if they’re weak – and children are, in some ways, weak – because then you can feel powerful. It’s glorious.
“Though the wreckage of Iraq today is too visible to try to conceal, the assault of the new barbarians is carefully circumscribed in the doctrinal system so as to exclude the horrendous effects of the Clinton sanctions – including their crucial role in preventing the threat that Iraqis would send Saddam to the same fate as Ceasescu, Marcos, Suharto, Chun, and many other monsters supported by the US and UK until they could no longer be maintained. Information about the effect of the sanctions is hardly lacking, in particular about the humanitarian phase of the sanctions regime, the oil-for-peace program initiated when the early impact became so shocking that UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright had to mumble on TV that the price was right whatever the parents of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi children might think. The humanitarian program, which graciously permitted Iraq to use some of its oil revenues for the devastated population, was administered by highly respected and experienced UN diplomats, who had teams of investigators all over the country and surely knew more about the situation in Iraq than any other Westerners. The first, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest because the policies were “genocidal.” His successor, Hans von Sponeck, resigned two years later when he concluded that the sanctions violated the Genocide Convention. The Clinton administration barred him from providing information about the impact to the Security Council, which was technically responsible. As Albright’s spokesperson James Rubin explained, “this man in Baghdad is paid to work, not to speak.”
“Von Sponeck does, however, speak; in extensive detail in his muted but horrifying book A Different Kind of War. But the State Department ruling prevails. One will have to search diligently to find even a mention of these revelations or what they imply. Knowing too much, Halliday and von Sponeck were also barred from the media during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq.”
“Since 2006, von Sponeck’s book has been mentioned once in the entire UK national press. It has never been reviewed.” – Media Lens (“The Iraq War Was Not A Media Failure,” Dissident Voice)
We are in a time of wrapping up, during which sheeplike citizens (law abiding citizens who have not rejected the Creator) are being separated (however that is being done) from goatlike citizens (who lack principles and who have no problem with breaking rules for gain). Once that operation has wrapped up, this world will be consigned to the fire. That’s this ‘world’, not this planet.
The name given for Satan in his role as prime instigator of conflict and destruction in these end times is ‘Gog’. And if we don’t know exactly what the word ‘Gog’ means, then I would suggest that we look at what is different about that once high angel before and after his banishment from heaven and God’s presence. And the main difference – not found in his goal of trying to force Jehovah to change his mind (and die as a result, eventually), which is the same – is his condition of darkness. His condition is worse than before 1914, but not as bad as it will get before he’s destroyed. Humans (and perhaps there’s a Biblical basis for it) gave Satan the name Lucifer, which is Latin for ‘Shining One’. In the Bible (Isaiah chapter 14 & Ezekiel chapter 28), that label was actually applied to the kings of Tyre and Babylon. If those kings are a type (similar to ‘symbol’ but having a prophetic sense) of Satan, and they may have been, then Lucifer is also an apt name for Satan.
But the light that emits from that fallen angel is not the same as the light that comes from God and his representatives. Jesus noted that when the Devil speaks, he speaks according to his own disposition. And he called him a liar and the father of the lie. When he seduced Eve, he told her that contrary to God’s warning about eating the forbidden fruit (from one particular tree among countless others), in which God said that should she or Adam eat that fruit, then they would die, she would instead live. He implied that her and Adam were not really living! And he told Eve that her eyes would be opened, implying that God was withholding from her and Adam knowledge. Call him the first traveller on the wide and spacious road leading to destruction. But all of this is circular. There would have been nothing additional for Eve to know here had Satan not rebelled and sought the worship of Adam and Eve for himself. Now, Adam and Eve, for their foolishness in forgetting their provider and his love would have to learn, the hard way, what separation from the Source of love and life means. There is no indication in the Bible record that Adam and Eve persisted in their delusion that the serpent was leading them to paradise. But they could have chosen to call their new path a path to life if they had wanted to. It would not have mattered. It would not have caused God’s judgment to come down any differently.
I was intrigued by a fantasy show on television that I came across when I was looking for something to watch. It was a short-lived series called 666 Park Avenue. The show centered around a mysterious hotel, the Drake (dragon?), glittery and shining and beautiful, but harboring a darkness that swallowed souls. It was owned by a resident named Gavin Doran, a man who had sold his soul so that he and his beautiful wife, Olivia, could have their fortune and the good life, which anyone would want. Gavin had discovered that he could not only sell his soul for gain, but that he could help the Devil to take other souls as well and really do well. And be someone in his dark Lord’s kingdom. Indeed, the show (which may get a re-newed life temporarily, so as to finish up – in a nicer manner?) finishes with Gavin having set things up for a world ruler to come on the scene who would take his direction from darkness.
Gavin was always telling people that for the thing you strongly desired, there was a price to pay should you receive it. And maybe that’s how he saw things. From his lost standpoint, it would be that simple. But from the standpoint of one who still possessed his soul, who had not chosen to disconnect from the Source of life, things weren’t quite that simple. You could re-phrase Gavin’s statement (take note Stephen Harper and Barack Obama) in order to get “For every crime you commit, there’s a penalty.” Because in Gavin’s world, Getting what you wanted always involved breaking some sort of rule. In Gavin’s world, faith in a God of light is valueless. Forget God. Be God, like Satan. Do your own thing and be free. Aleister Crowley showed the way. The law, in his dark world, was “Do what thou wilt.” (Like Hollywood, this ‘entertainer’ was careful to block out light with darkness, to replace natural light with his own light. From his ‘thou’ and ‘wilt’ affectation and the high falutin, higher-education-influenced mumbo jumbo of his spells and so forth, one could, without sufficient wisdom and wariness, be seduced by that serpent’s wiles. Have a look at the Golden Dawn manuel for a taste of such nonsense. I don’t know whether Crowley had any input into that – and it’s been a long time since I looked at anything occult – even though he led that org once, but it’s the sort of nonsense he was taken up with. The link provided is to a book I once owned.) Whenever Hollywood does Christian religion, you hear the Bible quoted in archaic Elizabethan English, as though it had actually been written in that language! It’s partly attitude. But it’s also an assault on light. People mustn’t get the idea that the Bible is like any book that they can pick up and read and learn something from.)
There’s Christmas. A time of joy and happiness. And windfall profits. When I was assigned, as a security guard, to Walmart a couple years back, at Christmas, I was horrified at the mountains of plastic toys I saw. I thought “So that’s what they spill oceans of blood for. They steal entire countries, killing those who live there and who object or might object to the theft of their country, which is never done gently, so that they can get at the oil under the ground so that they can turn it into plastic toys and lubricants for their armies so that they can… do more of that. Wow!” The zillions of lights you see lighting up towns and cities at Christmas impart zero wisdom to the multitudes who drink it in prior to zoning out.
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Here’s Michael Klare, professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, Mass. in 2007:
Sixteen gallons of oil. That’s how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis — either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone. Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That’s greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million — and yet it’s a gross underestimate of the Pentagon’s wartime consumption.
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Darkness is it’s own reward. I would have no way of guaging how much dumber Satan is today than when he first got the idea that he could have worship for himself similar to what he saw being directed toward God, both by his fellow angels and by the newly created human couple, and I am sure he’s a hell of a lot smarter than I am, but I also think my principle is good. I’m not concerned with just how much knowledge, or ‘brain’ power, Satan has lost because of his choices. But I do find it interesting, and alarming, to observe the way fellow humans who have embraced darkness tend to display amazing stupidity, matched by their amazing cruelty and criminality. I’m convinced that while you may start out clever enough when you first choose darkness for gain, you eventually end up quite stupid and disconnected from reality. But in this world, which belongs to the Devil (a name meaning ‘slanderer’), that could easily get you a good job. In this mafia capitalist system, this corporatocracy, you don’t need to possess a work ethic – or a good work ethic that normal people would recognize as one. You don’t need to bother being professional as long as you know how to look professional. Those in the military in charge of hiring and supervising other officers to investigate sex crimes in the military can expect to be protected when their hires turn up charged with sexual assault (See the TruthDig article titled “Addressing The Epidemic Of Military Sexual Assault,” by Amy Goodman.). The predators’ bosses, all the way to the top, play the same game, going through the motions, like president Obama, promising to deal with the situation. Malai Joya, above, has a few things to say about that piece of work.
From page 52 of Chris Hedges’s “Death Of The Liberal Class,” we get the following:
“What was once done by the military, concerned with tactical and strategic advancement, is now done by war profiteers, concerned solely with profit. The aims of the military and the contractors are in conflict. Any scaling down of the war or withdrawal means a loss of business for corporations. But expansion of the war, as many veterans will attest, is making the situation only more precarious.
“”American and Afghan soldiers are putting their lives at risk, Afghan civilians are dying, and yet there’s this underlying system in place that gains more from keeping all of them in harm’s way rather than taking them out of it,” the [American] officer complained. “If we bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, we may profit morally, we might make gains for humanity, but moral profits and human gains do not contribute to the bottom line. Peace and profit are ultimately contradictory forces at work in Afghanistan.”
“We hear of the wells dug, the schools built, the roads paved and the food distributed in Afghan villages by the occupation forces – and almost nothing about the huge profits made by contractors. It is estimated that only ten percent of the money poured into Afghanistan is used to ameliorate the suffering of the Afghan civilians. The remainder is swallowed by contractors who siphon the money out of Afghanistan and into foreign bank accounts.”
And so on.
The neoliberal era and the incredible spectacle of lawless ‘law & order’ governments roughly correspond to Gog’s attack of (the Bible book) Ezekiel chapters 38 & 39. That attack is not principally physical. It’s principally spiritual or psychological/spritual. I’m half way through Chris Hedge’s eye-opening book titled “Death Of The Liberal Class.” Chris doesn’t realize it, but he is, to a great extent, chronicling the loss of so many people to the forces of darkness, which doesn’t just entail a loss of intellectual and moral integrity for those who are seduced (with the ‘gift’ of mysterious lawlessness, a type of freedom) into playing the great game of ‘riches for the strongest’ (resulting in the physical deaths of thousands so that a minority of insane parasites can make money). It also entails a strengthening of the forces of darkness. The true victims (who experience spiritual failure) aren’t just subtracted from the global population. They (except for individuals who physically die) are added to a dark class in the global population that includes the 1%. Some enter into that class and join the 1% and some don’t.
The dead aren’t dying. They are just switching sides. Those who remain ‘alive’ face increasingly difficult odds as their ranks dwindle and the ranks of the walking dead swell. This is not Hollywood. Again, I wouldn’t want to say that those spiritual failures are all joining the 1%, if what we mean by the 1% is: people who are economically secure, including the very rich, who are rightwing and who are believers in inequality. By one measure, that 1% is in the same class as all other spiritual failures. But, You can be an angry, poor victim of corporatocracy and still be rightwing, loony and itching to play the game of ‘riches for the strongest’ until you win – and others lose.
************************ ANURADHA BHAGWATI: Military sexual violence is a very personal issue for me. During my five years as a Marine officer, I experienced daily discrimination and sexual harassment. I was exposed to a culture rife with sexism, rape jokes, pornography and widespread commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls, both in the United States and overseas.
My experiences came to a head while I was stationed at the School of Infantry at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, from 2002 to 2004, where I witnessed reports of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment swept under the rug by a handful of field-grade officers. Perpetrators were promoted or transferred to other units without punishment, while victims were accused of lying or exaggerating their claims in order to ruin men’s reputations.
As a company commander at the School of Infantry, I ultimately chose to sacrifice my own career to file an equal opportunity investigation against an offending officer. I was given a gag order by my commanding officer, got a military protection order against the officer in question, lived in fear of retaliation and violence from both the offender and my own chain of command, and then watched in horror as the offender was not only promoted but also given command of my company.
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Again, The world’s operating principle is ‘riches for the strongest’. It’s most famous ‘king’ is the United States, with it’s rapist culture. And it pushes it’s darkness on the lesser kings, or crime bosses, in the wild beast of corporatocracy. It doesn’t matter that it compels the world to support it and it’s darkness. We are all compelled. Being under pressure to misbehave is not always accompanied by an inability to resist. We are imperfect, and therefore possess weakness, for sure. But that doesn’t automatically excuse us. As for uncle Sam, There’s no hope. He’s doomed. Individuals within that soon-to-be destroyed anti-God, anti-Christian country are another matter. And just as the corporatocracy’s current (and final) dominant king will be destroyed, as the Bible states, “not by hands,” so too will the entire corporatocracy. It isn’t just vile. It actively fights God’s son. It is compelled to do so. Fascists need to prove to themselves that there is no God (and bear in mind that many who say they believe in biological evolution do so actively and conveniently only, rather than actively and internally, or genuinely). That’s the disturbance in their souls showing. (There’s a difference between not believing in God and ‘choosing’ to not believe in God.) They can’t contain that disturbance within their souls and it expresses itself as the trouble – indeed, the terrorism and environmental destruction – that they cause. Darkness will certainly be it’s own reward when their clamoring for God to bring it on is answered, irresistibly.
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And I heard a loud voice out of the sanctuary say to the seven angels: “Go and pour out the seven bowls of the anger of God into the earth.”…
And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Ma‧ged′on.
And the seventh one poured out his bowl upon the air. At this a loud voice issued out of the sanctuary from the throne, saying: “It has come to pass!” And lightnings and voices and thunders occurred, and a great earthquake occurred such as had not occurred since men came to be on the earth, so extensive an earthquake, so great. And the great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and Babylon the Great was remembered in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of the anger of his wrath. Also, every island fled, and mountains were not found. And a great hail with every stone about the weight of a talent descended out of heaven upon the men, and the men blasphemed God due to the plague of hail, because the plague of it was unusually great…
“And the ten horns that you saw mean ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but they do receive authority as kings one hour with the wild beast. These have one thought, and so they give their power and authority to the wild beast. These will battle with the Lamb, but, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, the Lamb will conquer them. Also, those called and chosen and faithful with him [will do so].” (Revelation chapters 16,17)
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That’s the kind of world it is. It’s lost. It’s spiritually dead and driven by a powerful, invisible spirit creature with his own agenda. It’s violent. Those who have invested their souls in this temporary, dark system of things play the great game of ‘riches for the strongest’ and get a perverse thrill from surviving by taking the means of survival from others. They enjoy showing off their power, as the Bible writer John noted. Matthew recorded Jesus’s teaching about investing your soul, and it wouldn’t be anything that a banker would enjoy pondering. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” said Jesus (Matthew 6:19-24). He’s not talking about your desire. He’s talking about your ‘actual’ treasure, which includes your ‘actual’ deeds that brought that to you, which includes your ‘actual’ choices, whatever you believe. If you know better, but you choose Riches over God, then that’s it for you.
As I type this, at work, I sit in a beautiful old bank building in downtown Toronto. It’s the weekend and I’m enjoying quiet, with few people to deal with and no real physical work to do. I’m surrounded by power, privilege and wealth. Ironically it’s my own bank, which nickels and dimes me, as commercial banks, big users of tax havens, are wont to do to all their non-special customers. And, like most other (willing and unwilling) cogs in the great, grinding, inhuman machinery of corporatocracy, I have to mind my Ps and Qs. I enjoy my surroundings and it’s a plus, for sure, that I have all the free coffee I can drink here, but it’s so easy for security (at my level) to catch hell. And without a safety net, hell can be hot. Just like that, even without doing anything wrong, I can be destroyed. Some somebody could walk by me, not like something I say or the way I look or my accent and step on me like I was a gnat and not give it another thought. There’s no security for security, nor for most of the working class. The boss treats you like your his personal property and politicians support bosses and also view paid labour as the personal possession of employers.
I go to payday lenders every month. I make sure people know too, because I’m angry about it. I just read through an interesting section of Chris Hedges’s book, which I’ve quoted from here plenty, in which he quotes another writer, namely C. Wright Mills, who explains that that sort of response by victims of the corporatocracy is good and needed. “It is the ability, denied to the specialist, to turn personal troubles into social issues, as Mills wrote, to “see their relevance for his community and his community’s relevance for them” that should be the culmination of artistic and intellectual vision. Many trapped in mass culture are “gripped by personal troubles, but they are not aware of their true meaning and source.” And it is the task of the artist or the intellectual to “translate troubles into issues and issues into terms of their human meaning for the individual.” The failure to make knowledge and artistic expression relevant to human reality – the goal of the Bauhaus movement in Weimar Germany – has left the public unable to “see the roots of his own biases and frustrations, nor think clearly about himself, nor for that matter about anything else.”" -pg 122 of “Death Of The Liberal Class”
Okay, I’m not a professional anything, but I do enough research and blogging. Teachers should be both teachers and students anyway.
I received a letter a few days ago from my fake union (UCFW). I was being brushed off, again, by the security company I work for after asking for a raise. I had asked my union to look into it. The interesting thing about that is that my request came about after I had sent in a letter to UCFW about other matters. When the union rep called me to discuss the letter, I asked him to look into the raise issue just before saying goodbye. I had mentioned it in my letter but he wasn’t going to mention it! Yep, Lots of fight for the dues-paying members there! After hearing nothing for 3 weeks, I called him. He started to say something along the lines of “As we discussed, the rate for…,” at which point I cut him off and stated that “No, We didn’t discuss it. You didn’t mention it. I mentioned it after we discussed other matters and you simply said you’d look into it.” He didn’t reply. Perhaps he had the decency to be embarrassed that I had caught him bullcrapping me. He’s got this standard answer memorized for grunts like me, and when he forgot that we hadn’t actually discussed the issue which he starting talking to me about as though we had, that was revealing. Yep, as I said, There’s lots of fighting on behalf of dues-paying guards happening here. Not.
I have never had a raise with my current employer. I’m currently at $12.50 an hour and I make more than a lot of other guards in my biz, some of whom are married with kids. I’ve worked for G4S since 2006. My seniority actually dates from 1999, since that’s when I began in security and there had been no interruption in my work when G4S bought the guard contracts of the other security company who I had been working for. (I was notified that they were giving guards with 10 years seniority a party some time ago. Cake in lieu of a raise eh. No thanks.) That’s exploitation. My pocket is being picked and ‘my’ government is okay with that and all the other rotten things corporations do to the people.
On the same day that I received my letter from the union, which I took to work with me and showed to my supervisor (who is cool), I saw an article in one of our local bird cage liners, 24hrs, about payday hell. Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s special to 24hrs, dated May 14, 2013, was titled “Overdraft no different than any other debt.” Not a word was typed about wages. And that’s why 24hrs was happy to print this annoying, self-serving piece of crap advice column. Her advice was, and I don’t exaggerate: +You’re in debt. Get out of debt+ Let me see, Skip coffee and socializing on my day off and stay at home in my super hot room about the size of a closet, Or buy her book which is advertized at the end of the article (not as part of the article), which will help get me out of debt? Hmmm. Really hard to say. Hmmm.
We are all cogs, but we aren’t all in the same position within the machinery. We all live under corporatocracy, even when the country we live in is run by a leader, like Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez, who resists assilimation into it. Living ‘under’ a system is not exactly the same as living under a system and having been corrupted by it. When the machine is destroyed, some cogs will be salvageable and some won’t be. My company’s owners and top officers, my union’s top officers, Paul, Gail and myself are all cogs. Which cogs get kept after the corporatocracy is destroyed depends on which cogs resist assimilation and assist, with whatever means they possess, the victims of corporatocracy. Loyalty to the Source of life might also help.
Women are, in some ways, weaker than men and, in a world whose dominant paradigm is ‘riches for the strongest’, that often means rape for women. And those who would do that demonstrate the effect of darkness on the mind, because normal people don’t want to experience intimacy that way. The rapist doesn’t gain something. The rapist takes something from his victim and himself. Poor people are weaker, in some ways, than rich people. We know the many ways, including actual rape (top of post), they get raped over by the rich. But it’s important for people to realize that the answer ‘is’ justice. It isn’t to give the same terror to our abusers, as much as that sentiment is understandable and forgiveable. (On the other hand, It may not be pure, but I don’t care about people who don’t care.) But grasping reality can’t hurt. For one thing, Being weak or a victim of predators doesn’t automatically make you righteous. Two, There is no perfect justice in this dark world. There’s justice here and there and now and again, but that’s it. Perfect justice will come from a higher, perfect Source. If we want to live in the new world to come, in which beastly, destructive, demented rebels are absent (individuals will always be free to rebel, but they won’t always be free to mould society in their image), then, as individuals, we must be careful to not play the losing game of ‘riches for the strongest’. Just playing that game means you lose.
Coffee! I do not have a dedicated blog about coffee. I don’t yet blog frequently enough for that, I feel. As well, I don’t consider myself expert enough. I know that that doesn’t necessarily matter if the blog is done half decently. But that’s how I feel. In lieu of such a blog, I have my coffee posts scattered throughout this blog and easily available to you. To find them, click on the link at the bottom of the coffee post you read that says “Explore posts in the same categories.” That’s poorly expressed, but you get the idea. It ought to say “Explore other posts in this category.” But WP isn’t immune from the plague of illiteracy sweeping the planet.
Disappeared! Going forward, I will more closely track interactive sites where I post commentary and the post doesn’t get accepted. I never submit commentary that is unacceptable to reasonable, decent people. The politics I espouse and talk about may offend many, but that’s different. Also, It’s one thing when a nasty organization disappears my posts. But it’s another thing altogether when an organization that I consider useful and on the side of ‘the people’ disappears my posts. Then again, Gatekeepers are everywhere (hint: Click on the word ‘gatekeeper’ in the tag cloud). Click on the word ‘censored’ in the tag cloud to see posts that I submit to various discussions but which never appeared or appeared and then disappeared. I won’t always know why my posts are disappeared. But so what? Let’s see what’s going on out there. Right?
