Archive for the ‘Terrorism’ Category
9/11 WEEK
Today is the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the USA. My thoughts and observations in some particular order. To say the attacks were a big deal at the time would be an understatement, in terms of immediate impact they were easily the biggest events of my life. In living memory they were rivalled by the Kennedy assasination and Pearl Harbor, but those were both before my time. I was living in rural Oregon, watching “The FBI Files” the morning of the attacks. My housemate wandered through the room, noticed some text scrolling at the bottom of the screen, gasped, and flipped to a news channel. By then both towers had collapsed, and it was a shocking sight. Very briefly I thought maybe this was some War of the Worlds thing, a movie trailer that somehow had been mistaken for the real thing; but I quickly realized it was in fact real, and that thousands of people were dead and dying. A freaking nightmare.
I had strange dreams earlier. First I was walking down a long country road, a city skyline in the distance. There was a ragged barbed wire fence with weeds alongside the road. Beyond the fence was an expanse of dust in a pile about six foot high. Tan dust, maybe fine sand. I remember thinking in my dream it might be fun to slide down the side of the pile, and I was looking for a gap in the fence to get to it. Then the dream morphed, and I was huddling in the corner of a basement with some frightened people, we were sheltering from an explosion of some sort. Then I woke up, went in and started my day like any other. Until my friend changed the TV channel. Was there any connection between my dream and the events that were even then unfolding on the other side of the continent?
Beats me. I wasn’t as affected by 9/11 as some people, no one I knew worked in the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. It was still shocking as hell. So many people dead and dying. And the jumpers, oh my God, I can’t imagine. Turns out a good friend of mine was in Manhattan that day. Hell of a thing. He said after the first plane hit people just thought it was some terrible accident and were trying to get a better view. So he was watching when the second plane hit, and then of course people knew it wasn’t just some terrible accident. He’s upset by it all to this day, and can’t watch any of today’s coverage. I can’t imagine. At some point later I read some transcripts of 9/11 calls made from the towers before they fell. I wish I hadn’t.
So it was awful, and I feel for those who lost friends, family, and loved ones. God rest the souls of those who died that awful September morn, God grant solace to the survivors. In retrospect there was at least one item of good news that day, and I’ll end this post on that note. In the middle of the second tower to be struck was the largest tenant of the towers, they occupied 20 floors. When the first tower was struck the on site manager told everyone to just get out and go home as quickly as they could. Not out of any prescience, he just knew that no work would be done that day, and he wanted his employees to get clear of the towers before throngs of emergency vehicles and rubberneckers jammed all the nearby roads, etc.. Shortly afterward the second plane struck right in the middle of those 20 floors … and they were all empty. Every single employee survived. And I bet that manager hasn’t had to pay for a drink when out with coworkers since.
More posts about 9/11 will follow, they will be (or are) linked below. Hope all are having a good, if somber, weekend.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The first tower just as it started to collapse. Credit: Unknown, Public Domain under US copyright law.)
Or, what’s the GOP up to now? For starters: Half a Year After Trump’s Defeat, Arizona Republicans Are Recounting the Vote. Yes, despite no evidence of the massive fraud that Trump claims, the GOP is still trying to overturn the election results. And the company in charge of the recounting … is headed by a big “Stop the Steal” proponent. Since Biden has already been sworn in, I can’t see any good coming of this. Just a continuation of the modern GOP’s program to reject the reality of anything they disapprove of. At least they’re consistent.
That’s when they’re not freaking out about about stuff that isn’t actually happening: Where’s The Beef? Republicans Outraged Over Biden Meat Policy…That Doesn’t Exist. Basically a satirical article in an English paper claimed that Biden’s Green New Deal would involve Americans massively cutting back on their beef consumption. And this wasn’t just passed on by people on the fringe; governors, politicians, and Fox News ran with it. No, Biden is not planning to nor has he proposed any changes in America’s dietary habits. Like Obama’s “death panels,” they are spreading outrage over something that isn’t real. Twilight Zone politics?
On the plus side, they are passing laws to protect people’s rights. The Right to Crash Cars Into People for example. Republicans are falling all over themselves passing laws that are essentially encouraging people to drive their cars into protestors. How is this helping? Isn’t driving a car into a crowd terrorism? Scary on the face of it, and scary because it certainly seems to imply to me that they see people practising their right to protest as somehow the enemy? As in the meme above states, make it make sense.
According to the good doctor Political Polarization is Exaggerated. I certainly can’t argue with him, most people are just people. And most people are pretty decent. I go by the 10-10 rule, I’ve also heard it as the 15-15 rule. Basically ten percent of people are really good people, the people that hid their Jewish neighbors during the holocaust good. Another ten percent are bad people, the people that helped round up and murder their Jewish neighbors. And 80% of people will pretty much go whichever way the wind blows. With good leaders they will be good people. With bad leaders, well, they will go along with bad things.
And right freaking now, the GOP’s leaders are scaring me. So I’ll keep blogging about them. The Biden administration is boring. “Watch me move the Dems even more to the right while pretending to be a progressive!” Who could possibly have predicted Obama’s VP would take the Dems to the right? Yes, that was indeed a rhetorical question.
Winter might finally be over in Iowa. Fingers crossed. In 1947 they got ten inches of snow in late May. In the late 1800s two Iowa counties got a hailstorm so bad drifts were six feet deep. All the birds and rabbits etc were killed. Sheesh. Well, as global warming continues (it’s no more a hoax than Covid is a hoax) we will get to see more extreme weather events. It’s not hopeless, but it’s now or never. As the article points out, the trope that green power will ruin the economy is what the old folks called a lie. Doing nothing about global warming willdevastate the economy, but hey, the most profitable industry the world has ever known will continue to profit! Well, it’s a tossup as to whether fossil fuels or war profiteering is the most profitable industry ever, but neither of them are helping.
And boy, dating sites in the US are really weird now. I’ve been investigating. A huge number of, well, sex workers. Cute young woman posting T&A shots with suggestive profiles. Whatevs. A lot of foreign women posting, I’m guessing they are looking for a ticket to America? (And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.) Then there’s the ones who are pretending to be Americans, but obviously aren’t. Obviously they aren’t because there’s mistakes in their profile, and more on point, their English is fractured. Fractured as in “No one whose first language was English would ever construct that sentence.” And they seem to really want to get cell numbers and emails. Neither has any beyond minuscule value, so I’m puzzled about what that’s about.
Have a great week everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image. A tweet, attribution in image, used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
THE LAME DUCK SHEET SHOW ROLLS ON
As I stated in the prior post, three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse are raging in America. And with our luck, number four will arrive on Friday. Granted the parallels aren’t perfect, but we can call Covid plague, the collapsing economy is famine, and Trump is the sword. The fourth is the beast, so I guess snake wolves arrive on Friday? One can make a case that Trump is the antichrist, but not going there. Not sure what he is, but he’s conquered the heart and souls of tens of millions of Americans, trapping them in his fantasy world.
Let’s see, in another lovely downside to Trump and company’s Covid denial, it’s made life so unpleasant for health care professionals in rural red areas, that they are fleeing: ‘Toxic Individualism’: Pandemic Politics Driving Health Care Workers From Small Towns. At this point, I’m not ashamed to admit a bit of schadenfreude. Turns out there’s a downside when “Make America great Again” translates to “We hate and fear medical experts.” Talk about shooting your own community in the face. One has to wonder what other types of experts will flee red areas, and will the people living there ever understand that Rush Trumpian BS is not actually a workable substitute for reason and science, who knew?
The vaccine rollout in the US is, as might have been expected, turning into a complete clusterduck: Medical expert details why the vaccine rollout is a mess: ‘They are again setting states up to fail’ Basically the Federal Government simply hasn’t stepped up to the plate to coordinate and support the vaccine rollout, in the exact same way it didn’t step up to the plate to coordinate and lead the fight against Covid. Basically the states are having to fend for themselves. This is why the Confederacy lost the Civil War, and why Covid is kicking America’s teeth in.
But hey, Trump says he’s doing a great job, and that’s all it takes for his supporters. It’s like some great experiment in mass psychology. As if God was bored one day and said “I wonder how long a political movement will last if the followers believe everything their leader says, even though it’s all self aggrandizing lies while him and his buddies loot the country for the rich instead of governing it for the people?” Going on four years now, no end in sight, even as the country crashes and burns.
For more fun, Trump is promising a ‘wild’ time on January 6th. Trump is summoning supporters for a ‘wild’ time on the day the electoral vote will be finalized. That’s the day the election is finalized in the Senate. It’s essentially a formality, there doesn’t seem to be any way Trump could actually change the outcome of the Senate vote, but Trump is the guy who thought he could wish away Covid 19 and a lost election, so who knows what fantasies are floating through his mind. Trump’s summoned supporters from all over the country, though I think it’s a safe bet the turnout will be minimal. At that point too, I think the potential for right wing violence will start to ramp up.
Right wingers have been stockpiling weapons and infiltrating the police and military for a long time now. This story is from Germany, they have the same problem: A Far-Right Terrorism Suspect With a Refugee Disguise: The Tale of Franco A. Basically an officer in the German army disguised himself as a Syrian refugee and created a fake identity. Then he was planning on committing political assassinations and acts of violence, so that they would be blamed on a fictitious Syrian refugee. The idea was to create enough unrest to bring down the government. Yeah, a totally whacked plan, as dumb as the Michigan yahoos who were going to kidnap and try their governor. We’ll see, it’s only going to take one Lee Maga Oswald to change the world though, it’s not something I want to blog about.
Even better, if right wing whack jobs do commit terrible crimes, if they do so before Trump leaves office, he can pardon them! Dark sarcasm. Pardoning murderers is what Trump does. I’d say the recent Blackwater pardons shocked me, but no, they don’t. They murdered Iraqi civilians, which is simply the modern day version of “nits make lice.” I don’t think most Americans, even many on the right, understand how deeply ingrained America’s genocidal impulses towards non whites really is. Trump is the voice of intolerance and hatred, we can only count our blessings that he has inspired very little of it so far.
In many ways, despite the very real damage Trump is doing and may do to the country, he really is a clown in many ways. Hitler was a bonafide war hero from a very humble background. Trump is a spoilt rich brat who used his wealth to shelter himself from reality his whole life. As Mary Trump said, no one has ever said no to Trump, which is why he is freaking out about losing the election. He simply can’t grasp nor accept that the majority of American’s finally said :No!: to him.
Suddenly dawns on me, what if Trump turns out to be one of the small number of Covid survivors who develops a severe psychosis? And if he does, how will we tell? Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(image: Found on Facebook, attribution in image. Claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. I do fear the twenties are going to be a rough decade.)
TERRORISM IN FRANCE, EXPLODING COVID-19, AND OTHER NEWS
Well, a few terrible terrorist attacks in France. Macron has deployed troops to defend public sites: Macron deploys 7K soldiers to protect against attacks. Under the circumstances he has to do something, and this seems like a good call to my limited understanding. These attacks are by a small number of disaffected extremists, that ISIS and other actors have figured out how to activate so to speak. (Egged on by Nazi extremists as well.) A job for crack police and intelligence assets to root out. Unfortunately, the root cause of this horror, the endless European wars and propping up of criminal regimes in the Middle East/North Africa, probably won’t get addressed. We’re not really an intelligent species.
America broke its record for daily new Covid-19 cases yesterday. Covid-19 Live Updates: The U.S. Hits the 9-Million Mark as Infections Keep Surging. It’s going into a second wave in Europe as well. The US is still the world’s Covid-19 basket case though, as Trump has stopped even trying to do anything about Covid-19. That’s what the election days from now is about. A guy who literally thinks he’s the greatest POTUS ever, and Covid-19 is no big deal exaggerated by his enemies. Versus a guy who acknowledges Covid-19 is real, and requires a rational science based response. Fantasy vs reality basically.
Will Biden live up to his promise and launch a Federal effort to crush Covid-19? Damned if I know. Democrats have been promising stuff for decades and instead just selling out to corporate America. Still I can’t imagine that corporate America sees any profit in letting Covid-19 kill hundreds of thousands of people.
We’ll see. Or not. My current thinking is that Trump will declare victory on election night, McConnell and the SCOTUS will fall all over themselves backing him, and all hell will break loose. Will the Dem elite just roll over like they did in 2000? Will people take to the streets like during the Occupy protests? Will there be an explosion of civil unrest? Damned if I know, but whatever happens, I’ll be sure to blog about it.
Still seeing people who think things are going to get back to “normal,” that Covid-19 is just a temporary aberration, it will go away, and we can all go back to pretending that everything is under control. I’m sorry to say that when reality changes, it never goes back to the way it was before. Welcome to Earth.
One last link. A nice article in Alternet talking about how America is well on its way to becoming a failed state. Donald Trump and the American descent toward failed-state status. Alternet is a sketchy source, but this jibed with my understanding. America is not a failed state yet, but we had serious problems before Covid-19, and it hasn’t brought out the best in us. The GOP’s winning (short term) strategy of “Anything the libtards suggest is a plot to take away your rights” has rendered large parts of the country essentially ungovernable. Hope I’m wrong.
First full moon Halloween since 1944. Weird synchronicities there. By October 1944, any German (or Japanese) of sound mind knew the war was lost, Hitler was not going to lead them to victory. Not debatable. By the same token, any American of sound mind knows that Trump’s leadership is no better than Hitler’s, and horrible defeat looms. Hope I’m wrong.
Five more days until the solid human waste matter intercepts the rotating turbine blades. (Election 2020.) Thank you Ralph Johnson. Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Credit: Public domain. Another instance where fantasy strategy failed.)
IT’S MONDAY! NEWS, TRUMP, MEXICO, TERRORISM, CARTELS, AND UKRAINE
As far as I can tell the mainstream news gets worse daily, it’s just the Democrat version of Fox News now. Granted I watch very little of it. Good thing too, the neighbours would complain about the screaming. Case in point, last night I overheard a snippet on one of the plethora of ‘news’ shows my housemate watches. There was a former Obama official talking about Ukraine. He said Ukraine is at war with Russia, and Russia is occupying Ukrainian territory. And at that point, I started screaming and my housemate asked me to leave his room.
I was screaming because the former is an outright lie, and the later completely ignores the context. Basically the Democrat propaganda line is that Russia is the aggressor against poor Ukraine. I even met a fellow who swore Russia is setting itself up to “retake” Ukraine. An incredibly complicated situated reduced to the status of a Risk game. When people’s knowledge of the world is based on utter falsehoods, it pretty much short circuits any possible debate. Note terrorism comments below.
Add to that the ever increasing number of things Russia is purported to have done to undermine our democracy. It was ridiculous long ago, but that doesn’t stop huge numbers of people from believing it. It’s all basically crazy. Ukraine is about as unimportant to the US as it’s possible to get, the US meddling there serves no purpose. (Is Ukraine slavic for Vietnam?) And selling Ukraine advanced weapons is just adding fuel to the fire, if Ukraine gets into a real war with Russia, they will lose. And the idea of the US fighting a nuclear war to defend Ukraine is bat shit crazy.
Speaking of bat shit crazy, Trump recently floated the idea of using the US military to destroy the drug cartels in Mexico. And a move is afoot to designate these criminal gangs as ‘terrorist organizations.’ Both are really bad ideas. The USA has not been able to halt the flow of drugs into the USA, nor the flow of money and guns into Mexico. All of which occur right here in the USA. And somehow marching into Mexico is going to make a difference? It’s not like the cartel members wear uniforms and have military bases, how the hell is the military going to be any better at finding them than the Mexican military?
And of course sending the US military into Mexico would cause anti-American resentment throughout Latin America, and make American civilians marked targets for cartel retaliation everywhere, including in the United States. Like sending advanced weapons to Ukraine, it would be the equivalent of using a flamethrower to put out a fire. People, like Trump apparently, who think the military is the solution to every problem have watched too many Hollywood movies and not paid any attention to the litany of failed interventions that has been the “War on Terror” the past few decades. Fortunately the government of Mexico has said “No!” to the idea. Hopefully Trump isn’t unstable enough to send troops into Mexico without their blessing, knock on wood.
And declaring criminal gangs to be “terrorist organizations’ just highlights the stupidity of declaring any organization a terrorist organization. It’s simply a propaganda label used to avoid any actual debate about America’s interventionist foreign policy. And if Trump gets the cartels so designated, refugees from that part of the world would then be able to claim they were fleeing terrorism. As people have pointed out, it would open a whole can of legal worms, likely driving more refugees to try and cross the border. Something Trump is against, so I suspect Trump didn’t really think this through. Granted thinking things through does not appear to be one of Trump’s strong points.
We’ll see what happens. The picture above is from Ukraine’s varied history, no implications meant. It’s a parade in Ukraine after Hitler’s legions rolled in in 1941. At first the Nazis were welcomed as liberators, Stalin’s rule of Ukraine being brutal. The Germans quickly showed they could out brutal Stalin any day, and Ukrainian collaboration with Hiter’s Nazis quickly waned. 4.5 million Ukrainians ultimately fought for Stalin, the devil you know I guess.
Have a great week everyone.
Copyright © 2019 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Parade in Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk) in honor of the visit of the Governor-General of Poland Reichsleiter Hans Frank Credit: Unknown, Public Domain under Russian Copyright law.)
9/11 DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
September 11 2019. The 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Possibly the most written about event in history. At least in America, I wonder how much attention it gets in the rest of the world. Years of cultivating foreign friends has taught me a bit about the world. Two things I have learned so far. Most of the world has little interest in America and Americans, aside from superficial stuff like our movies and such. And that I know basically jack about most other countries. The older I get, the more I am impressed with how breathtakingly ignorant I am about most things. So I spend a lot of time in the library.
18 years ago. Time flies. People under 25 or so don’t even remember pre-9/11 America. There was still a facade of participatory democracy. There was still a reasonably robust antiwar movement. The USA hadn’t yet turned the Middle East into a morass of failed states and terrorist breeding grounds. Mandatory flag waving and anthem singing wasn’t required at every single public gathering and professional sporting event. The Internet was only 90% crap.
And facts mattered. At least a lot more than they do now. Conservatives and liberals still talked to each other, they hadn’t yet retreated into their respective parties’ fantasy worlds. Conspiracy theories were still fringe beliefs, not planks in major party platforms. Americans didn’t live in fear of immigrants, terrorists, Muslims, or school shooters. A college education didn’t require lifetime debt. And in many very measurable ways, the typical American was better off than they are now.
Finally 9/11 is fading into history, but the damage done by the Bush administrations cowardly and self-serving insane overreaction to 9/11 is with us still. Permanent endless wars, a national debt that’s almost incomprehensible. The erosion of our freedoms and the giant security state now monitoring us. Bush did claim Osama Bin Laden was attacking us because he was jealous of our freedoms. So I guess taking them away made sense. That’s what the image above alludes to.
In other words, 9/11 and America’s response to it are pretty depressing topics. I wish I had something positive to say. Wracking my brains here. A terrible crime, used to justify countless subsequent crimes. How does one find the silver lining in that? The 9/11 Truthers have been amusing I suppose. The conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. Of course the amusement fades when one realizes just how divorced from logical thinking one has to be to imagine that thousands of Americans conspired to murder thousands of Americans for no reason whatsoever. And left exactly zero evidence of their crime.
God rest the souls of all who died that terrible day. I dreamt about it as it was happening, so was more than a little shocked when I turned on the TV. And God rest the souls of all who died as America lashed out in a quixotic crusade to rid the world of terror. And our 9/11 inspired wars are killing people to this day. The idea that war will end terror is about as dumb as people thinking World War One would end all war. As someone said back when America still had an antiwar movement, “Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity.” Nowadays Americans are so shell shocked that our “leaders” in Washington don’t even bother to promise peace anymore.
So in summation, 9/11 was a terrible crime by a tiny extremist organization. It wasn’t an act of war, clash of civilizations, or an attack on the United States. The perpetrators should have been hunted down and brought to trial. The dead buried with respect, and we should have stayed calm and carried on. Kinda the opposite of how we reacted. And here we are 18 years later, and Al Qaeda is as strong as ever. Again, God rest the souls of all the 9/11 victims.
And now here in Iowa a tornado watch. Well, now I’m both depressed and nervous. At least I live close to downtown, so I will hear the tornado alarm if it goes off. On the plus side, we’re finally getting some rain. The lake is down a foot or so, the lawn rolled over and died of thirst last week. And dry soil makes treasure hunting impossible. I know, I know, white peoples’ problems. A future blog post.
Hope everyone is having a good week.
Copyright © 2019 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The Twin Towers in NYC shortly after the planes struck. Credit: A federal National Park Service employee took this photo as part of their official duties, and thus it is Public Domain under US copyright law.)
MONDAY MADNESS
I think I set a record for writing abortive blog posts this weekend. Nothing like getting inspired, writing a few paragraphs, then realizing that not only wasn’t there much to say on the topic, what I had to say wasn’t very interesting. Kafka’s unpublished work was saved for posterity despite his deathbed wishes, and the world is better for it. My unpublished work, the world will be better off without it. Maybe it’s the heat that sapped me of inspiration, if we get oppressive heat in Iowa, July is the month for it. Today’s forecast: 99 degrees in the shade, real feel 145 degrees. OK, I exaggerate, but not much. Even the squirrels look overheated. How everyone survived yesterday’s big bicycle race through town amazes me.
Speaking of surviving, I just gave in and turned on my AC. Yes, I live in a tiny attic garret, as befits a struggling writer. At least it has AC, otherwise I wouldn’t make it through the summer. I even set up a coffee maker. So basically I can stay up here 24/7, only periodically emerging to forage for food. And it has a nice view of the lake. And of the road out front that was closed for the race. I tried to blind a few riders with a laser pointer, but they were riding too fast. One has to search for entertainment wherever it can be found in rural Iowa.
July 15 in history wasn’t all that interesting either, so no blog help there. I know there’s a new Trump distraction, but I am so done with Trump. Someday he will be gone, they will count the silverware in the White House, generating one last Trump scandal, and he’ll fade into history. Not sure what he’ll do for an encore, but no doubt the media will keep us all informed. (Though that’s a sad use of the word ‘informed.’) Moving right along, my blog fallback plan, dig out some of the interesting links I’ve come across lately and share those. Enjoy!
First, a fascinating article on “dirtbag leftists.” It starts off with:
“The left is in crisis across the West. It is out of power in most countries and out of touch with its historical working-class base. Class politics has given way to identity politics. And noble causes like anti-racism, anti-sexism and anti-discrimination have congealed into a stifling morass of political correctness and competitive victimhood.”
Pretty much. Many on the left have retreated into a smarmy know-it-allism that alienates most working class people. “Flyover state” is a pejorative folks. In any event, for those interested in why the Dems keep losing elections, the article is an interesting read. I also try to keep an eye on the right, and it’s even more dismaying. Pure hatred for anyone not in agreement with them. I’d post some memes from GOP sites, but they’re too depressing.
Then there was this article in the Atlantic. Turns out that concentrating entirely on teaching kids how to read and do math, while pretty much ignoring imparting knowledge to them, has worked out terribly. Gee, who would have thought that failing to impart knowledge to children might not be the best way to educate them? I’ve certainly been one to criticise the “teach the test” route that American schools have gone down the past few decades. God, schools in America must be dreadfully boring places now.
In our third thought provoking link, here’s an article about why the low unemployment numbers trumpeted as such good news aren’t very impressive at all. Turns out there’s been a huge increase in part time workers. Basically huge numbers of “employed” people are scraping by on part time jobs, because they can’t find full time jobs. And then there’s the fact that wages and benefits have been stagnant or worse for a big chunk of the workforce for decades. And no, it’s not because lazy stupid people made bad choices, it’s because the jobs aren’t there. When I was a kid, hard working people could get decent jobs and improve their lot in life. Rising tides did raise all ships. Stopped being true decades ago.
And in this weeks “Unintended consequences” file, healing crystals fund terrorism. On the one hand, that’s depressing. Yeah, the idea that crystals have magic healing powers is, shall we say, unsupported by science. And many will use this information to heap disdain on crystal aficionados. Me, meh, everyone believes in some silly stuff. And pretty sure this is a miniscule part of how fighters in Africa (and presumably elsewhere) fund their operations. More on point, pretty safe to say that all of us use products we don’t strictly need, that have dark roots. Almost impossible to avoid in our massively interwoven world.
Or as an old acquaintance said: “We’re all whores in Babylon.” Have a safe week everyone.
Copyright © 2019 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Hylas and the Nymphs. Credit: John William Waterhouse, oil painting, 1896.)
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
Another week gone, give or take. I guess technically Sunday is the first day of the week Saturday the last. So the week starts with a day of rest? That makes no sense, another one of those things that shorts out the human to alien translators. Still, maybe it’s good that our freaking race is nuts, protects us the way walking in the road talking to yourself is a good way to get through a bad neighborhood. “We’re not going to invade Earth, those creatures are nuts.” Fermi Paradox solved, isn’t logic grand?
It would be if more people used it. Came across an interesting article: Did Black People Own Slaves? The answer is pretty obvious, of course they did. Slavery was practised in the Americas from the beginning, and there have been free blacks since the beginning. In the Confederacy though, the focus of the article, the number of black slave owners was miniscule. And at least a good proportion of them owned a slave or two to protect a relative or friend. It wasn’t unusual for blacks to buy women slaves to marry them. I thought that was interesting because that was a common way for female slaves to achieve their freedom in Roman times.
Alas, because humans are humans, some blacks owned slaves for purely selfish reasons. It’s always easy to find humans exploiting other fellow humans. Especially if it’s legal and encouraged and everyone else is doing it. Like Japan before WW2, they saw European countries benefiting from colonizing and exploiting nations, why shouldn’t Japan have a colonial empire of their own? It was a valid point, then and now generally ignored or quietly mumbled away by western apologists. Yes, what Japan did in China was horrible. Of course what the Dutch, French and others were doing in East Asia was equally horrible, but that tends to get overlooked.
Yes, I’m on a roll here. People are messed up. And it shouldn’t have to be said, but it does after reading comments left on the article where posted on Facebook, a few blacks owning blacks is not in any way, shape, or form a defense of slavery. Granted apologists for slavery have done so, but that doesn’t make discussion of the topic in and of itself a defense of slavery. In fact the whole idea that blacks owning blacks somehow justifies slavery is both racist and logically fallacious. Just cause Timmy jumped in the lake doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Or the falls I suppose.
No, they don’t hate us for our freedoms. I mean, if they did, wouldn’t they be hating us a lot less now? I am referring to Muslims, terrorism, and US foreign policy. They hate us because of our endless wars in the Middle East. This article is a nice review of the sad situation, to semi-quote the article, an America where since 9/11 Muslims have been so demonized and the military so fetishised that endless war in the Middle East is now completely normalized. Bears reviewing once and awhile to keep one’s head clear. I wonder what young people think of it all, growing up in the post 9/11 world. OK, that was kind of rhetorical, since I actually know some young people and what they think.
In Trump news, brace yourself, Trump remains not giving a damn about UFOs. That’s the title of the article. Best for one’s sanity not to read it though. Basically the UFO populists thought Trump would be the one to reveal all, instead he’s been rather dismissive of the subject. He didn’t even joke about UFOs like his predecessors, though the article helpfully points out that Trump’s humor is never intentional. Basically the UFO people think some relatively recent release of military “UFO” films is some sort of slam dunk proof of their existence. Um no, it isn’t. If anyone really wants to know why, I’ll blog on it, but I’m kind of reaching my limit explaining why nonsense is nonsense. At least when it comes to things like UFOs. So, I guess it’s a good thing that Trump doesn’t believe in little green men.
The American people are done with denials though, thousands of them are planning on storming Area 51 to get to the truth about aliens. OK then. Basically America jumped the shark a generation or two ago, and it’s just going to get crazier from here on. I’ll blog about it as long as I’m able. This blog is written both for contemporaries and future people.
And speaking of getting crazier and being able to blog, soon ads will be appearing. Or reappearing. But, one sec. Anyone catch that? A double segue? Not sure I’ve ever done that before. Or a 2 into 1 segue? Has anyone ever classified segues? Some institutionalized grammarist? Is my obsession with segues healthy? <takes breath> OK, yes, in an effort to earn some little monies to support my writing, I will be running some ads soon. Discrete, inoffensive, not-causing-problems, ads. I find intrusive ads very annoying when I cruise the interwebs, so want to spare my gentle readers that.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Copyright © 2019 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Meme found on Facebook for Star Trek fans. Credit: Unknown. Used without permission. Happy to properly attribute if information so provided.)
Crisis in Iraq, Monday Evening Update
As anyone knows who hasn’t been in a coma the past week, Iraq has exploded into war as the jihadist group ISIS has roared through northern and central Iraq, the Iraqi army basically cutting and running. As a person who was adamantly opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, this is all very disturbing to me. This is the legacy of the senseless toppling of the Saddam regime. It’s easy to turn a country into a failed state, putting it back together again is a whole other kettle of fish. In any event events on the ground are moving too fast for me to write dedicated posts on it, so I am going to just start posting updates once or twice a day. I have been following this situation intensely since it exploded on the scene last week. and at least have some grip on what’s going on. Things are changing quickly though, sources tend to be very unreliable in situations like this, especially since all involved are lying as they try to manoeuvre for their advantage. My opinions may very well change as new information arises, or gentle readers argue otherwise. As ever, I am on the side of all the innocents caught up in this unholy mess. Here then is my latest update. I also have a group on Facebook, Doug’s Darkworld, readers so inclined are welcome to join the debate there.
Monday Evening, 16 June, 2014.
Well, the ISIS have been broadcasting their war crimes. They are trying to demoralize the Iraqi army and the Shiite militias still opposing them. They may also be trying to goad the US into doing something stupid. War is insanity, what can I say. And sadly the ISIS has no monopoly on senseless violence. In other developments a Shiite militia column on the way to Samarra was ambushed by the ISIS with heavy loss of life. However enthusiastic, untrained militias mostly consisting of teenagers are unlikely to prevail against the ISIS. As the map shows the ISIS now controls more territory that many countries. The UN is pulling personnel out of Baghdad, the US has sent more troops to defend the embassy. I can only assume that even if nothing else, the US forces sailing into the Persian gulf are preparing to evacuate the embassy in a hurry if need be. The Kurds and the ISIS appear to have a defacto truce, not good for Iraq, but makes sense for the Kurds. Lastly, the Syrian Air Force has launched airstrikes in Iraq against the ISIS. Might seem odd, but the Assad regime, Iran, and the Maliki regime have been cooperating for a long time. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to destabilize the Assad regime, but good thing we didn’t go further when the pressure was on because of their (alleged) gas attacks. The ISIS would be all the stronger. Again, no clue how this is going to turn out, but the longer this goes on the more impossible it will be to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It is not being used for profit. Credit and Copyright: Wall Street Journal. lastly I note that Paul Bremer, architect of the utterly botched and disastrous US occupation of Iraq is now sharing his “wisdom” on NBC. No wonder Americans are clueless about the world.)
And the Winner of this Year’s Most Tasteless 9/11 Commemorative Message is: ALIPAC
“The illegals are trying to hijack the cockpit of America’s government! Let’s roll! —William Gheen and The ALIPAC Team”
Isn’t that just lovely? Let’s use the most terrible crime in American history to compare immigrants to mass murderers. Yes that’s the message of the anti-immigrant group ALIPAC. Lovely, just lovely. It’s bad enough that 9/11 has been used to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment, strip us of our rights, support overseas wars, and the creation of a vast mind-numbingly wasteful and counterproductive police and security state … now it’s being used to foment racism in the USA! Merika!
Sigh. This is an example of why I’m having trouble blogging lately. The Religious Right in the USA is going further off the rails every day. If you aren’t a white, Evangelical Christian, heterosexual, male American … you aren’t really an American. That’s the platform of the Religious Right now, it scares me, it should scare any decent person. I’d write more posts about it, but it would just upset me more. People who want to keep up on the brain-dead antics of this formerly fringe movement should follow Right Wing Watch. A lot of it is the usual crap, trying to get religious teachings back into school, etc. Some of it is a lot worse. Tell gay couples to die on their wedding day, gays wear special rings to infect non-gays with HIV, Obamacare is designed to kill conservatives. The sort of stuff that used to be limited to flyers stuck under windshields is now mainstream fare. Jesus wept.
What does this have to do with 9/11? A lot, 9/11 really seems to have pushed a lot of right wingers over the edge. A friend of mine was calling for the USA to blanket Afghanistan with neutron bombs after 9/11. He came back and later admitted it’s a good thing he wasn’t in charge of the country that day. Many kept right on going as evidenced by the Religious Right’s every widening gap between themselves and reality. The rest of the country is trying to move forward to an America with justice and fairness for all Americans, the Right wants to return to a day (that never existed) when American was synonymous with white Evangelical Christian. And I am most definitely talking about Republicans and the Tea Party, though there are plenty of conservatives who think it’s gone too far. They are being purged from the Republican party from what I can tell. This is the legacy of 9/11, Republicans have turned into a party of hatred and divisiveness.
Then there’s the whole war monger thing. Sigh. 9/11 was indeed blow-back from our murderous foreign policy, but few if Americans know that. The propaganda that 9/11 was purely caused by America hating religious nuts who only understand violence and can’t be negotiated with is pretty much stock-in-trade for most Americans. With the full and enthusiastic cooperation of most of America’s atheists too. Sigh. Again. Yes, 9/11 was a terrible thing. And we’ve used it to justify endless 9/11s against Muslim lands. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan as we set our military loose to “protect” America by murdering foreigners. And we wonder why foreigners hate our foreign policy, if “kill as you please” can even be described as a foreign policy.
The there’s the other 9/11, one that I didn’t even realize was a 9/11 event until recently. Yes, 40 years ago today with the full backing and aid of the CIA and USA government the democratically elected government of Chile was overthrown by a military coup, ushering in nearly two decades of repressive military dictatorship. I guess it’s only fitting that we used our own 9/11 to strip Americans of their rights and energize our efforts to overthrow governments overseas. It’s an American tradition now, like football, mom, and apple pie. And now due to Obama’s beneficent influence, even the Democrats are the party of foreign wars!
To me this is the greatest sadness and shame of 9/11. A terrible event that could have triggered a national debate and reflection on the role America plays in the world was hijacked by war mongers, war profiteers, and haters from the beginning; and we now have a country that wages war constantly abroad and spies on and restricts its citizens at home. We could have followed the Prince of Peace, instead we pledged our souls to Satan. To commemorate the loss of loved ones by killing foreigners and stripping Americans of their rights isn’t commemoration, it’s sick. America lost its way in 2001and went enthusiastically down the dark path Bin Laden wanted us to follow. Maybe someday we will wake up from the dystopian police state nightmare that has been evolving in the USA since then, but I’m not seeing many bright spots on the horizon.
(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit, its use here in no conceivable way interferes with the copyright holder’s commercial use of the image, and it is the best image I could find to illustrate my feelings about 9/11. I have no idea who to attribute it too. “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.” —John Lennon)
Doug's Darkworld 