Doug's Darkworld

Well, a random roundup of current events. It gets stranger every day. I mean, just look at one recent story … a guy gets caught smoking in an aeroplane bathroom … and not only do jets get scrambled, the president is notified? I don’t know what’s more absurd about this situation … the fact that an air marshal couldn’t use common sense … or that the hysterical over-reaction to the incident is basically condoned by both the public and the media.

Nuclear reduction, Yes, Obama has cut a deal with the Russians to cut our mutual nuclear arsenals. This is basically a PR stunt combined with an effort to put more pressure on North Korea and Iran, since there is little of actual substance in the agreement. The thing that’s hysterical about this is how the Republicans are reacting to it. They are screaming the usual nonsense about how this is making us “less secure.” Yeah, right, some future US president sees the need to use nuclear weapons … but he’s going to refuse to do so because of something Obama said years ago? Or some rogue nation decides to launch some dastardly attack on us … because they know know we won’t hit them back becasue of something Obama said? Give me a break. It’s painfully clear now that the modern Republican party’s only agenda is disagreeing with whatever Obama says or does. Yeah, that makes them a  really relevant party. And shows just how low political “discourse” has sunk  to in the USA.

Then there’s the collateral murder video. Again I’m horrified on at least two levels. I’m horrified once again that this is what our military does overseas. And I’m horrified that so many American’s will either ignore this, rationalize this, or be shocked by this. In Hollywood land and the mouths of our politicians, our military consists of heroes fighting for our freedom and fighting to make the world a better place. In reality land, the USA has simply assumed Britain’s colonial mantle, and our armies are fighting to make the world’s resources available to western corporate exploitation. And routinely committing atrocities in the process. Jesus wept.

On the domestic side, despite all the hoopla about the “improving” economy, the American economy is a hollow shell based on funny money. So sooner or later it’s all going to come crashing down, and we will no longer be able to afford mind-numbingly expensive colonial adventures. Which sort of leads to an interesting observation, how is it that the same people who have no problem with us spending staggering sums of money allegedly helping out the people of Afghanistan and Iraq … totally freak out about the possibility of their tax dollars being used to help sick Americans?

In further news on the international front, Israel seems more determined than ever to isolate itself and become a pariah state like apartheid South Africa. Yes, American tax dollars (not to mention American UN vetoes) at work once again  to keep Israel’s dream of ethnic cleansing all of Palestine of the troublesome Palestinians alive.

Heck, while we are on depressing topics, how about the drug wars in Mexico? I’d say I don’t even know where to start on this one, but I do. Start with this article. It at least gives some history and context to a horrible situation. The only thing I would add is that this horrible mess is funded entirely with US drug money and the weapons are virtually all from America as well. This is what prohibition and a culture of gun love has wrought.

I guess the overarching theme I’ve wandered into here is that America has created horrible problems overseas almost entirely due to domestic politics, lobbying, and corporate corruption on a breathtaking scale. On the one hand it can’t last, on the other hand people have been predicting the collapse of the American economy and our overseas empire since at least the eighties. Yet somehow the powers that be figure out new and more insidious ways to transfer wealth upwards. And even now there’s a hell of a lot of wealth in America, combine that with a population so propagandized that they make sheep seem like free thinkers, and you have  a formula for years or decades of slow moral and economic degeneration. The middle class in the USA has been losing ground since the seventies, for those who have been paying attention.

Fun times indeed. And just for the record, my personal life is better than it’s ever been, so my negative impressions aren’t generated by internal demons. And I would be happy if I was wrong in every particular, and America’s foreign policy and domestic politics led to a world of freedom, prosperity, and peace. Wake me when that happens, I’m going back to bed.

Have a great weekend everyone.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit and its use here in no way interferes with the copyright holder’s commercial use of the image. It’s also very likely Public Domain under US copyright law. I have no clue who to attribute the image to. It’s some American GIs holding a captured Nazi flag during WW2. I chose it because it’s an interesting image, some of the juxtapositions in the image, and as a lead in to my upcoming post about how World War Two never ended.)