#we protested the Iraq war and they still bombed it. we protested against the way on Syria and still they bombed it

[mostlykind]

how do you stay hopeful when every powerful force is against you, and mainstream media yields to their wants and needs, when every step forward is met with brutalisation forcing you 10 steps back, and sympathy is only extended to the oppressor

#I am feeling completely hopeless. and miserable. #it just feels like no matter how many people support palestine we won’t ever see genuine action and change #bc Israel is back by the US and the UK and so many other global actors and superpowers #plus Saudi wants to normalise relations with them and Turkey practically has #so it’s like. yeah power to the people but what can we DO #what will we actually achieve #and this is by no means my giving up or accepting ‘defeat’ #but it’s just so constant #it feels like there’s no winning and I can’t even begin o conceptualise how horrifying for Palestinians themselves #and I’ve been going to protests and demonstrations since I was a kid with my parents #and it’s so obvious our governments do not care. and will never succumb #they’re not for us. they don’t care about us. nothing we do or say matters #we protested the Iraq war and they still bombed it. we protested against the way on Syria and still they bombed it #it just feels like we have no voice. no say. no opinion #this is a terrible rant. I just feel tired. and it’s sad I can say that and go on with my life when my fellow people can’t #rahma’s rambles #free palestine #palestine

[alarajrogers]

This is long. I've been percolating on it a while.

As usual, when I see a discussion going on that has no nuance, where two sides have been staked out and any suggestion that one side has a point is taken as full support for the other side and everything they do... I feel compelled to try to point out the nuances. This is likely to get me a lot of nastygrams in response, possibly from both sides, but I can't take the lack of nuance any longer.

First, let's begin with this. The government of Israel is committing atrocities. Full stop. There is no way to minimize this. Nothing the civilian population of Palestine has done or could ever do would justify the Israeli government's response here. Israel, as a state, are unmitigated bad guys in this situation. Just like my country, the USA, were unmitigated bad guys for invading Iraq on flimsy pretenses and committing atrocities in the process. A nation doing terrible things doesn't mean the people of that nation are terrible. I pointed this out when the government of Russia chose to invade Ukraine. In democracies, like the US and Israel, the people bear more responsibility than in dictatorships, but as a person who protested the Iraq War and tried to vote out the president responsible for it, I am deeply, deeply uncomfortable with the idea that all the citizens of a democracy are responsible for the actions of its government.

And I am flat out appalled by the notion that non-citizens with no vote should be held responsible; treating Jews as synonymous with the current Israeli government and its awful decisions is like the US rounding up Japanese-Americans and putting them in camps because the Japanese government attacked the US. It was wrong then, it's wrong now, and if you come from an English-speaking country and you're white, 90% chance you come from a country that committed similar atrocities in the course of expanding an empire or colonizing land that didn't belong to it. (I think the Irish, Scottish and Welsh are exceptions; I do not know of any others.)

If you blame Jews worldwide for the actions of Israel, you are a shithead, and if you come from the US, England, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, you are also a hypocritical shithead. France and Germany and Spain, yes, still a hypocritical shithead. Was your nation ever a colonial power? Then if you blame Jews worldwide for Israel's actions, you are a hypocritical shithead.

More to say, possibly more inflammatory, under the cut.

I have seen people I follow saying things like "We should treat Zionists in leftist spaces the way we treat TERFs, they should have no place with us." A lot of "denounce Zionism." A lot of "Zionism is evil."

I have also seen, on the flip side, the disgusting behavior of governments and institutions punishing people for making the argument that Israel should not be murdering Palestinian civilians. This is awful, and inhumane. The people of Palestine have done nothing to deserve this; the existence of terrorists committing atrocities in their name does not justify a civilian population being murdered. As an American, I feel very strongly that I would like to not be murdered for what the CIA did in South America, okay? And frankly, all Americans and anyone from any kind of colonial power should feel the same way, so this behavior where our governments and institutions give Israel free reign to murder civilians is despicable.

But Zionism does not mean "supporting every horrible thing Israel ever did." It means the belief that Jews need and deserve a homeland of their own, that the best place for that homeland is Israel, and as a result Israel has the right to self defense. (Self defense, y'all, is not a euphemism for "murder civilians." In fact murdering civilians usually is antithetical to self defense, because it radicalizes the civilian population against you. You don't fight terrorists with bombs unless your goal is to make more terrorists. Which I actually think Netanyahu's goal is, because he is a right wing war hawk who wants an excuse to commit atrocities against Palestine. That's not good for Israel, but it's good for a right wing war hawk who wants to stay in power.)

I've seen a lot of arguments that Israel are colonizers. Technically it's true but that word has certain baggage due to the motives and behavior of 90% of the world's colonizers. Specifically, when white imperialists marched in to territories occupied by other people, took them over, and killed, enslaved, drove off or ruled over the people who were already there:

The motive was greed, folks. Want, take, have. We're allowed to have everything because we're white. Nothing about "we need this or people will keep killing us."

It wasn't territory they had ever held. Territory associated with them in the lore of the world's biggest religions? Nope. It wasn't territory they'd ever had at all.

They did the colonizing themselves. A third party didn't colonize and then hand it over to them.

Israel's situation is different for multiple reasons.

For 2000 years, Jews have not been treated as full and equal citizens of anywhere they tried to live; those 2000 years have contained so many instances of Jews being murdered en masse, or driven out and all their stuff stolen, I don't think we have an accurate count of how many times it happened.

Anywhere that Jews were treated as full and equal citizens for any period of time, a change in government or in the circumstances of their neighbors could reverse this. Most Jewish citizens of Germany thought of themselves as Germans first, and thrived in Germany, until Hitler stirred up the currents of anti-semitism that apparantly always are present under the surface of a European or European-based society.

It is very easy to argue that the reason for this is that Jews were driven out of their own homeland, and their efforts to keep their own culture during the diaspora made them mistrusted strangers everywhere. Therefore, it's also very easy to argue that the solution is for them to have a homeland again.

This was why Zionists in the 40's were successfully able to get Britain to cede them Palestine. There are very good arguments from the evidence of history that Jews do in fact need a homeland of their own, because anywhere else they live may spontaneously decide to murder them for no reason, because it has been happening for 2000 years and has no evidence of stopping.

Of course, there's a huge problem. Britain didn't hand over part of Britain. Nobody handed over Rome, which forced the Jews out of their homeland originally, or Germany, which had just committed the Holocaust. (These would not have gone well either.) They handed over a territory full of people who had done nothing to the Jews, had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and were not consulted or asked for permission.

Jews sought an ethno-state where Jewish people would be treated as more equal than non-Jews because they're an extreme minority worldwide, and anywhere where they allowed non-Jewish people to become full citizens anytime they wanted, would eventually fill up with enough gentiles that it would again become dangerous to be Jews there. Palestinians were, rightfully, pissed off that they were being forced off their land. So they fought back, and Israel retaliated, and that is how this whole poisonous dynamic began.

Does Israel have a right to the land they were ceded? That is unfortunately the wrong question. After Europe and other places randomly murdered Jews for being Jewish for 2000 years, it becomes really hard to argue against the necessity of a Jewish homeland, somewhere, if you have any empathy for Jewish people at all. Where should that be? Well, there is no uninhabited land on Earth that's suitable for habitation; anywhere would have required throwing people off their land.

This may be colonizing, but it's different colonizing than what white people did. It was done for survival, in the face of 2000 years of threats, and it was done by giving them back land they'd lost 2000 years ago.

There are very few cultures that still exist after being thrown off their land that long ago. Romani still exist, but we really aren't sure exactly where they came from... last I heard the best theory was somewhere in India. Native Americans and other indigenous people displaced by colonization were forced off between 100-500 years ago and a lot of their culture has been lost. This makes it kind of difficult to compare the Jewish situation to anything else. But if there was a movement to give the Native Americans back Montana, and fuck all the white people currently living in Montana, they can move or they can live in the new Native American nation... honestly I do not think the left would object to this. (The right would, they'd screech about it, but a lot of leftists would either be "good for them! fuck those white Montanans!" or "well, I dont think it's right to force people out of their homes, but Native Americans were forced off that land in the first place, so...") The Native Americans lost that territory like 150 years ago or so, not 2000. It's not the same thing. But it is, unfortunately, the closest analogy we have, because no one else managed to hang onto their culture and their memory of having a homeland and the world's memory of it too, for 2000 years.

So. Can you criticize Israel? How can you not? You have to criticize Israel to be a good person because they are murdering civilians. They received a horrible provocation from professional provocateurs who knew that they would react harshly, and that that reaction would fuel their movement, and they did exactly what Hamas knew they would, which is incredibly stupid from the perspective of protecting Israel (but Netanyahu wants to protect his own power, not Israeli citizens) and also morally bankrupt on every level. Arguing that Hamas didn't actually do anything all that terrible is simultaneously untrue and besides the point, because Palestinian civilians aren't Hamas and you can't fight a terrorist group with bombs.

But can you argue, with a straight face, that a homeland for Jewish people shouldn't exist? When Israel's behavior has just caused worldwide antisemitism to spike, and once again, random Jews are being subjected to violence for nothing they did? When we have 2000 years of history of the world attacking Jewish people for no good reason? (I do have some theories as to the reasons, but none of them were good ones.) How do you think Jewish people should protect themselves from antisemitic violence, then? What other options are on the table?

And if you're blaming random Jewish people on the Internet who are not Israeli for the actions of Israel, you are doing the same thing the state of Israel is doing when they blame all Palestinians for the actions of Hamas. Justifying their behavior. Plus, if you come from a colonial power, and if you're on the Internet odds are you do, you're being a sickening hypocrite, because I bet you don't want to be murdered for the atrocities your country has committed. I sure don't! I don't want people blaming me for the Iraq War! I was against it. I don't want people blaming me for Trump! I voted against him. I'm American and my country has done horrible, horrible things that I don't want people to treat me badly for because I also think they're horrible and never supported them... but that doesn't mean I'd be okay with America ceasing to exist.

Jews who support Israel's existence, whether they are Israeli or not, are still not personally responsible for Binyamin Netanyahu being a monster. Israelis aren't entirely responsible for the fucker, given that it is human nature to vote conservative when you live in fear, which is why conservatives fearmonger so hard. Their press probably makes it fairly hard to learn about the atrocities they are committing, just like the American press makes it hard to know what evil things America has done lately. But especially, Jews who aren't Israeli citizens can still support Israel's existence while believing that Israel's current behavior is an atrocity, because Israel was founded to protect Jews from worldwide antisemitism, which if you are blaming Jews for Israel's behavior, you're participating in.

I'm not Jewish. But I find the behavior of gentiles who are demanding that Jews not only reject what Israel is doing (that's fair, it's monstrous) but reject Israel having a right to exist, in a world where America, which took over a continent because we felt like it and slaughtered most of the people who lived here, is never told it doesn't have a right to exist... I mean if you're so out there that yes, you believe America and Canada and Australia have no right to exist, I suppose you're being consistent, but if that is not your position, you don't get to argue against Israel existing. Israel displaced people who didn't deserve it and has treated them like shit ever since, just like every other colonizing power, but Israel, at least, is doing it because Jewish people keep getting murdered for no reason and this has been happening for two millennia. The US has no such justification for existence.

This entire situation is more complicated and nuanced than you think. Not the part where Israel's committing atrocities, that's beyond question. That's horrifying and the world really needs to force them to stop. But everything else -- Zionism, the existence of Israel and its right to self defense, blaming Jews for Israel, yadda yadda -- all that. That is more complicated than you think it is.

#israel #palestine #antisemitism #colonialism #expecting to lose followers now

[useless-englandfacts]

Can you explain more about why Churchill was bad?

i'm not sure if you're being serious here because i don't think anything i'm about to say is a secret and i feel like we opened this discussion as a society during the summer of 2020, but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt by answering sincerely. putting this under a cut because it's long.

most of the hatred for him comes from his awful views on race and colonial policies, which very few books/documentaries/whatever about him seriously examine. scholars who do explore this less illustrious side of churchill are dismissed, shouted down, ridiculued and condemned but... here at useless england facts we advocate truthful engagements with british history so.

first off he believed in eugenics and racial hierarchies (white protestants at the top of course). he praised what he called "aryan stock", he didn't think black people were as capable or efficient as white people, in 1911 he banned interracial boxing matches so white fighters wouldn't be seen losing to black ones, he described anticolonial campaigners as "savages armed with ideas", and here's another quote from the man:

"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - churchill talking to the palestine royal comission (1937)

one of his worst moments has to be during the bengal famine in 1943 - we answered a question on this before here, so i'll keep this explanation short in saying that he basically he did nothing to help the people of bengal (india was still a british possession at the time) and even blamed them for the famine because they "breed like rabbits". around 3 million people died.

sticking with india for a moment, i know gandhi wasn't a saint, but churchill despised him from a far-right perspective because he hated the idea of indian independence. amongst other things, he called gandhi a "malignant subversive fanatic" and a "seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known to the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace".

note here too that even some of his conservative contemporaries - including future prime minister anthony eden - were alarmed by churchill's friendliness with the far-right on this issue, so don't bother with that "he was simply a product of his time" stuff. if you want to read more about churchill and gandhi, here is a good place to start.

he hated islam too (might as well cover all bases), calling it as dangerous as a dog with rabies in his book the river war.

he was a zionist, but also shared the antisemitism that was rife amongst people of his class. he wrote in 1937 that the jews "are inviting persecution - that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer" and that "there is the feeling that the Jew is an incorrigible alien, that his first loyalty will always be towards his own race"... quotes that i think speak for themselves.

he's been roundly criticised for his policies in iraq, as he decided to use the royal air force to control the country (because this would mean he needed fewer troops compared to armed combat on the ground). thousands of iraquis were killed by bombs, and when subsequent kurdish and arab uprisings started to threaten british rule, churchill pushed for using chemical weapons - and even some members of his cabinet said this was taking it too far. churchill's pov?

"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas… I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gases against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum… Gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would leave a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent affect on most of those affected."

so you know. at least he's not killing them. bear in mind that the use of chemical weapons in warfare was in violation of the 1899 hague declaration concerning asphyxiating gasses, and the 1907 hague convention on land warfare. he once again considered chemical weapons in 1940 so no lessons learned here.

during his time as secretary of state for war and air he had to deal with the irish war of independence! and he was therefore responsible for deploying the black and tans to fight the IRA in ireland - these guys have quite the reputation for excessive brutality, attacking civilians/civilian property, extrajudicial killings, arson, looting - you name it, they've probably done it.

it wasn't just muslims, hindus, non-white people, irish people, jewish people, etc. etc. etc. that he hated, however. he was also (perhaps unsurprisingly) anti-union, as shown by his handling of the 1910 tonypandy riots in south wales when he was home secretary. a dispute arose between some miners and the mine owners and so churchill sent in soldiers who allegedly fired shots (i think this is disputed, but sending in the army is bad enough imo). soldiers were also deployed over the 1911 transport workers strike in liverpool and shots really were fired that time, with two people being killed.

not strike action but he was also dubiously involved in the deaths of a couple of anarchists during the siege of sidney street, again in 1911.

these are just the headlines and i would encourage you to do more of your own research (though i recognise that it's easier said than done in britain), but the man pretty much covered all bases here so i think this is enough to be getting on with.

#i haven't proof read this very well so apologies if it's a mess #there's just so much to include u know #asks #anonymous #Winston Churchill #history #Admin Dominique

[petrosapian]

i have such mixed feelings about 9/11 jokes... on one hand i really do understand the way the day has been coopted and used by american uber patriots to endorse and push for modern imperialism and bombing of the middle east.... but its still an immense tragedy where thousands of innocent people died and lead to the destruction of millions more. the world trade centre was an office building. all types of people worked there. lots of people needlessly died not only due to this but also due to gross negligence, the walkie talkies that were used by the fire department were defective from corrupt deals not letting people evacuate when they should have. like i was a kindergartener in manhattan when it happened i dont remember it but my mother sure did. she told me how she was terrified in our apartment while our neighbors went out to watch the towers go down. i do remember the next day there was a clown taking photos with children in front of the firestation, which now has plaques commemorating the firefighters who were lost that day. i remember going to protests with my mother against the iraq war when she told me they were killing children, just like me, over seas. i remember in 7th grade when i lived in centre PA i was the only one sobbing my eyes out when our teacher showed us a documentary about the day. i also know how the events after 9/11 fractured the muslim community in nyc making people more distrustful since nypd sent in under cover cops to monitor us.

this country's mourning of 9/11 certainly is insincere when many of the first responders are still suffering from cancer and other medical complications from being in those buildings and we have politicians on all sides using this tragedy for political gains while turning around and calling nyc "liberal elites" and "not real america" jokes at their expense are good and well but don't lose humanity in the process

#pap.txt #im rambling but i would be careful about how light the jokes get with the deaths of thousands of people...

[sennettyoung]

Hold your memes and your tears!

I wasn’t going to do this, but since half of this site is having a mental breakdown over the attack on the Iranian general, I’ll give my luke-warm take on what realistically might happen. I’m just an undergrad, but I’ve at least studied the Middle East more than the average person. This won’t be some upstanding political analysis but maybe it’ll calm y’all down a tad.

- WWIII is not starting any time soon.

Iran is run by Some People No One Likes, but not by idiots. Directly attacking the US on their ground means signing your own death sentence. Ask Iraq. They will definitely mobilise the militias they have all over the Middle East to attack US bases, but I doubt they’ll attack themselves. This will likely have the US retaliate against those militias at first. Threats will be exchanged, diplomacy will intensify, and the UN will call on both parties to ease tensions. If that all goes down the drain, then maybe the US will invade after some more escalations. But I doubt Iran will let it get that far. Because, you know, it wants to LIVE.

- Invasion will probably not involve a draft.

If the US invades Iran, then I don’t expect there to be a draft. Why? They’re fucking unpopular, just like the invasion would be. If the government thought it would be necessary, they won’t invade. Secondly, already without a draft, the US army is a bit bigger than Iran’s and US equipment is superior. Plus, I doubt the US will go in there without allies (or UN permission, because that would mean Russia (and/or China) could ally with Iran, which would be fucking bad for the US), so then it’s overpowering strength would make a draft even more superfluous.

- Nuclear weapons?!?!?!?

A. Iran probs doesn’t have nuclear weapons.

B. It won’t use them if it does, because it isn’t a fucking death cult and US nuclear weapons could vanquish it within seconds.

- Why is it still bad?

What we can definitely expect is the disruption of the Middle East, as rising tensions will probably cause Iranian/Shi’ite militias like Hezbollah to become more active. Expect demonstrations, US embassies getting evacuated, and terrorist attacks. The latter might also increase in the US itself. I know that is scary, but please keep in mind that terrorism aimed at Iranian mosques will probably also increase. You’re in this together, don’t let anything tear you apart. I also truly feel for those whose family is serving in the military right now. If they can, getting out now is the best option. This would not be a just war; it would be a needless escalation caused by incompetent leaders. Mostly, I feel for the populations of Iran and Iraq. The latter will likely serve as an unofficial springboard for US attacks and be a target for Iranian retaliation. But an invasion would be incredibly damaging. Infrastructure would be irreparably damaged and ordinary people will die of starvation, bombings, and preventable diseases. Mass displacement would be inevitable. Political chaos would ensue after the war, which could culminate in some more terrorist groups and/or civil war. There’s a lot one can say about Iran, but it is a relatively stable country. Additionally, regime change imposed by the US hasn’t exactly led to peace and democracy before. Finally, I’m worried specifically about Israel and Palestine. Israel will probably come under threat of increased terrorist attacks, which will hurt its people, which subsequently will hurt Palestinians as another right-wing government is elected.

- What you can do:

Vote. Fucking vote this war-mongering fool out of the highest office on earth lest he destroys it. Also, speak to others about the situation. Educate yourself so you can educate each other. Let this be Trump’s self-inflicted last straw. And try to prevent Islamophobia wherever you can. This is not a fight against Muslims; it is a fight between two idiotic governments, both extremist in their own way.

Protest. I fucking guarantee you international protests will erupt if this turns into a war and we better join in. Let’s make this as big as Iraq, let’s make this as big as Vietnam. You do not need to die in this war. We will not allow it.

Calm down. We can start pulling our hairs out if and when war becomes likely, but at the moment it’s just not likely.

#wwiii #iran #world war three #politics #international relations #iran attack #ww3 #donald trump #iraq #political science #middle east #war #conflict #terrorism #nuclear war #iran war

[simplepotatofarmer]

would you mind if I ask how you became an anarchist? you said you've been one for awhile (?) and I'm curious.

sure! i don't mind at all <3

it's a little complicated because i didn't always know what the 'term' was for what i believed. but my grandpa on my dad's side was a huge influence on me. this man threatened land developers with a shotgun and often spoke about colonization (though i didn't know what it was at the time, just that he talked about his land being stolen and culture lost) and racism. he also grew and hunted a lot of his own food, giving it away for free to anyone who needed it, the leftovers going to food banks.

then i had this business class in freshman year of high school, second semester, and he had this phrase 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' which for some reason stuck in my 13 year-old brain like a bad song. i hated this phrase. i kept 'but why'ing him.

almost every day, i'd have a new question.

'but why can't people get free food if we throw so much out?' 'but why can't people just exchange services instead?' 'but why can't we have free housing?' 'but why do people need to make so much excess money when there's people starving or homeless?' 'but why--'

on and on until he kinda gave up on me, honestly.

it just didn't make sense to me and the next year when i took a social studies class, it just got worse.

and then 9/11 happened. and the iraq war happened. and my teenage brain practically imploded. nothing made sense!

i was an anarchist then i just didn't exactly call myself that. i didn't know it was a system. i had patches and shirts with the anarchy symbol on them. i had a sticker on my binder that said 'abolish prisons'. i thought climate change was real (back then it was practically a joke), i thought we should stop bombing other countries, i thought people should have free health care because it didn't make sense we had all this money and people were dying. i thought gay people should be able to get married.

but my family was conservative and i listened to bad religion and against me and had clothes with spikes so they assumed i was just rebelling. i probably was tbh.

then trayvon martin was murdered and i remembered rodney king and how, at the time, none of the white people i knew thought it was wrong and all the black people did (i lived in detroit then) as i watched my family come up with reasons why this kid deserved to be murdered.

and i thought 'fuck this'.

i put an ACAB sticker on my car along with the new 'abolish prison' one. looking back this is also when my family's abuse escalated even more but that's neither here nor there.

i still didn't know that anarchism was a thing so i just labeled myself as a socialist or communist. i started getting involved in community work and habitat for humanity and all that kind of stuff. i started a recycling drive in my area 'cause it was very rural (my car smelled so bad RIP). i kept doing that kind of thing, going to protests and marches and calling government officials even though i was like 'this isn't fixable is it'. i would babysit in exchange for things like food and a fan and sheets and towels.

i'm not sure exactly when i snapped and stopped being '''reasonable''' but i think it was when my daughter almost died.

see, i'm from the states and i live in canada now. once my family kicked me off their health care, i went without for years. i moved to canada about six years ago. around that same time, my daughter got pneumonia. at first it was just a cough and minor trouble breathing and if we were back in tennessee, i would've sent her back to bed.

then i remembered that i didn't have to worry about the bill. so i took her to the er. she stopped breathing about thirty minutes after we got there. if we had been in tennessee, she would've died.

while i was in the hospital with her, a friend invited me to a facebook group. it had a name in the title that i had heard before, kropotkin. it was for anarchists. i joined.

and i started realizing that more people felt the same way and not only that but they had ideas like mine.

i started a free lunch program for kids in my neighborhood during the summer. i'm still trying to convince the community center to start a garden. half my reason for building my chicken coop is so i can supply my neighborhood with eggs.

so i guess when it comes down to it, i've pretty much always been an anarchist because it's always aligned with my morals and beliefs. only now i have a name for it and not just a name but a way to fix all the things i've thought needed fixing since i was young.

#loyal answers things #anarchism #police brutality cw #abuse cw #basically i talk about events that pushed me towards anarchism so just go into this knowing it's a bit heavy subject wise

[hiitsdifferent]

Here’s a bit of Steve Rogers tea I’m going to spill today...

I think the parodies of Steve knowing about future events and trying not to say anything to Peggy are funny....but also stupid when taken to the extent that people actually believe Steve is an encyclopedia of every U.S. event like the Donner party or even JFK’s assassination.

Fans claim that Steve would be too used to today’s technology to want to go back to the 1940s and to discredit his ending in Endgame.  We can, or at least I, primarily look to The Winter Soldier for reasons against this.

First, Steve opens up a notepad and pen to keep track of the things people tell him to check out. Of which, he didn’t watch anything nearly close to the 1940s like I Love Lucy (which is always in re-runs) and he did’t check anything mega-popular either like Star Wars or Star Trek. He’s disconnected from both the era that came after his and what the cool kids are into today. It’s also important to note that seconds after he writes down Sam’s suggestion, Nat texts him.  Even the most basic cellphone (I still have mine from 2012) has a notepad app. I can’t believe something as harmless as random movies and tvs are something that SHIELD would prohibit him from storing in the phone. So, why doesn’t he use it? Because his whole life isn’t on his phone like it is for us these days, and he’s hugely old-fashioned.

Secondly, we have to think about Steve’s apartment. It’s also a relic of the past - not just the furnishings like a mantle for a would-be fireplace, but the record player, a minimal amount of belongings, books about war, etc. He has a direct connection to Tony Stark and SHIELD (that probably set him up in his apartment), and yet it’s not decked out in the latest gadgets. This reflects not only Hawkeye building a life for himself in Age of Ultron - something he and Tony struggle to do when they’re not working - but also that the Avengers still have their own personal preferences of what makes them comfortable despite the tech they have access to...And Steve shelters himself like he’s in the 1940s as much as possible.

Thirdly, if he hasn’t checked off anything from that list he keeps, what does Steve do in his spare time? We get the impression between the attack in New York to The Winter Soldier, that he works non-stop. And because of the timeline in the film, we don’t get a huge idea of what he does when he’s not on a mission. But, I think it’s relatively the same routine as when Steve sets out after Fury shows him the helicarriers - he goes to his part of the Smithsonian museum, talks to Peggy, visits Sam at a meeting for veterans, and rides around on his motorcycle. All of these things are either reminders of the past (the first three) or something that gives him space from the rest of the world (the last hobby). So, Steve still relatively sees himself as an outsider and finds it hard to acclimate.

We also then have Age of Ultron - Steve has a look of pained yearning when Sam asks about if he found a new place yet (he didn’t) but home is home. Steve’s consideration of where home isn’t necessarily a place - it’s an era or people who remind him of his “origins” as well as a part of himself where he felt most comfortable. By the end, when Tony suggests Steve find a life for himself, he says that he’s home. In the background, we hear military members chanting despite the fact that there is no military training at the Avengers compound. He’s throwing himself back into work training the new Avengers, and pretty much  aims to supplant his identity as a soldier into trying to have a normal existence.

This goes a step further into Civil War - he’s officially moved into the compound and gets pretty good with tech. I mean, he knows how to turn on/off a tv, has a computer, etc. On his desk, he has his old drawings from The First Avenger. So, he’s acclimated to living in the compound. But a majority of his plot in Civil War is preserving a part of his past - which is Bucky. But Bucky isn’t a thing - he’s a human being who understands the horrible things he did as the Wnter Soldier, who suggests he shouldn’t be protected from the government for what he did, and who certainly isn’t the same Bucky from the 1940s that Steve wants to constantly go down memory lane with. We can say that Steve found a place in the world - but it’s not exactly balanced or fulfilling.

And then we have Infinity War, where he’s basically just rogue and hiding in the shadows of the world, and Endgame, where he fights the biggest battle he can fight and takes the chance to finally go home.

So, what does Steve actually know about history? I think it’s mostly war-related events. When Fury approaches him in The Avengers, Steve says “When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost.” I think this eludes to the fact that he might’ve learned specific events that happened during and after World War II -  the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, Korea War, the War in Iraq, 9/11, etc. 

However, what he learned of these things were succinct. Not to say that Steve isn’t intelligent, cultured, or emotionally capable of learning everything...but what would Steve gain learning about the horrors of humanity - or the way that memes make it seem like he memorized 70 years of event? even the triumphs of humanity are either inventions (tech that Steve uses when he has to / whatever’s convenient), politics (which he probably knows enough of to get the gist about) , or personal interests (which we see he has no interest in as far as entertainment is concerned). I mean, he wouldn’t be able to use so many of the finer details in his current life, where he’s basically working non-stop. I don’t see Steve pouring over files of SHIELD when the only ones he had in The Avengers were that of the people who were closest to him - Stark, Carter, The Howling Commandos. And what point would he probably feel like crashing the ice was pretty useless except to stop a part of World War II and didn’t deter so much that came after it?

I think Steve knows but not as much as we do. And a lot of the latter is projection. Antis act as if Steve lived through the things he might’ve picked up on here and there. But that’s impossible. He can’t retroactively relive history when we goes back to the 1940s because he’s not a human Wikpedia. In one of my headcanons, I believe that when Steve returns to Peggy, he uses his reputation as Captain America and his experience as a retired vet to protest the government moving forward - joining people at sit-ins or Martin Luther King Jr in the fight for civil rights because of his friendship with Sam; that he speaks up for homeless vets when Vietnam rolls along; gets into hot water with the government speaking out during the McCarthy era, etc. I feel like as he actually gets to live his life, he still participates actively in history. (which falls into the alternative timeline). And that gives him the opportunity to remain Captain America, just one that gets to put his mind and beliefs to good use instead of just his body. 

#my two cents

[bmacmedia]

I don’t want to remember.

On the morning or September 11, 2001 one of the guys who works in our building told me, “check it out, one of the twin towers is on fire.” Our building, the Eagle Warehouse, is across the East River from South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan, just south of Brooklyn Bridge—with great views of the World Trade Center. Naturally, I grabbed my automatic 35mm camera (and Homer) and walked out to take a look.

After taking a few pictures and watching for a minute or two and deciding against getting the video camera, I turned around to head home, not thinking much of it, except that I could see flames with my naked eye, and I did think that was strange. But no one else seemed to be taking notice, so I returned to the normal business of the day. Nicholas had just gotten up and I told him what was going on. Naturally, we turned on the news, and eventually went out together to look.

It was just as we were stepping back inside when we heard another explosion—believing now it was a second bomb. We ran down to Fulton Ferry Landing, where a woman was screaming that a military plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We were horrified, confused. We stayed there watching as the smoke puffed up from the impact, trying to learn more from the few people present, one of whom had his car radio on, and after some moments in a daze, went back inside and turned on the TV. All we knew now was what had happened, and what was going on outside of New York—but not yet that people were jumping out of the towers to escape death by fire, or what was still to happen.

We spent the morning going back and forth between the real and the mediated, so we were outside in a flash as we heard the terrible shriek of metal that signaled the collapse of the first tower. Nicholas dropped to the ground crying: how I envied his catharsis in that moment. I stood in dumbfounded shock as I remember thinking, “they are all gone.” I felt like the swimmer who knows he has been attacked by a shark but doesn’t realize his leg has been eaten.

Re-programmed Patriotism: 9/11 is 1984

I was at Danspace the night the American bombing raids of Afghanistan began, and against the war from the onset. But it wasn’t until the massive protest on March 15 against the inevitable Iraq war that I understood just how much things had changed. Only two years before, unions, environmental activists, student groups, and others from across the globe came together in Seattle and shut down the WTO. Now, in New York City, we were corralled as we exited the subway. We never made it to the protest but joined thousands of others in corralled blocks nearby the U.N. It was a moment of unity, but also a chilling portrait of things to come (additional H.G. Wells reference intentional). I left the subsequent Republican National Convention activism to younger compatriots, as I knew the risks to democracy and freedom were substantially greater.  

9/11 made me a crusader

I witnessed the attacks from outside my home across the East River from Lower Manhattan in Brooklyn, near the Fulton Ferry Landing. I also witnessed the way my Muslim neighbors along Atlantic Avenue and in Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens were vilified en masse by other neighbors, and the reduction of an entire religion and related ethnicities into a catch basin called terrorism. I witnessed a raging resurrection of un-American demonization of all Others, which for a moment was undone by the election of Obama, only for him to end up being the epitomization of the hated dark-skinned Islamic Other, the worst Other in the history of all Christendom, lest we forget. Yes, I witnessed this and Bush Papacy's declaration of Holy War, which only an emperor or a pope or a sultan can declare.

The effect on me, a baptized, confirmed, and lapsed Catholic: I became a crusader for religious freedom, a defender of the Islamic faith as a consequence of my defending the United States Constitution. It is an unusual position for a non-believer, and in truth, my own philosophy is that religion is corrupt and religious leaders adept at tricking themselves into believing whatever they need to believe to continue to wield power and influence. Still, to see this hatred play out in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, the lies and fear-mongering of Fitna and The History Channel, the denial of religious rights of minorities. Does anyone think these strategies will endear or encourage these communities toward assimilation? I see no clash of cultures here, only fear being stoked every day, which serves the new and improved (i.e privatized) military security complex just fine.

 The mosque near Ground Zero and the 2010 midterm elections.

There were some terrible hate crimes shortly after 9/11 against Muslims and even Sikhs, but the scourge of religious intolerance at least in New York City had subsided—that is until the mediated controversy over Park 51, the Islamic cultural center planned for lower Manhattan. Frightened, faux-marginalized, extremist American media (and their beloved idol Sarah Palin) decided for 2010 instead of same-sex marriage, or big government, or illegal immigrants, the hottest issue was 9/11, a wound still easy to open. To stoke the flames of voter attention span, equate Islam with terrorism. It was working very well in the Euro zone. The right simply adopted the values of the European right to win this election. The Swiss banned minarets; the French and Belgians banned the veil. A new Islamophobia arrived in America just in time for the mid-term elections. Since Obama killed Osama, things have turned back to the economy, but the Muslim-bashing isn’t over.

Outside Job

I deplore and condemn any suggestions of conspiracy, while adding two thoughts: (1) A data visualization of the event would invariably have many lines connecting to a large vector entitled OIL. The reporting and NATO involvement with countries associated with the Arab Spring confirm that, despite the political theatrics, or balderdash, some would call it, on this one in the US Congress. (2) If only the same resources and money had been applied these last ten years toward rebuilding Palestine, instead of destroying Iraq, treading bloody water in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ignoring Israel's illegal and disproportionate brutalities, and strengthening the hand of Iran?

#9/11 #memories

[what-the-waterbear]

Too Many

Hi friends, I wanted to write about love potions and first dates this week, but with the world the way it is, the words I was hoping for couldn’t make it. Instead, these are the thoughts that I had to get out of my brain.

So here’s a LONG story for the biography I will never publish.

I was six years old when the Iraq War began. My mother would drive me to school, and in the years before spotify and bluetooth, we would listen to CDs or cassette tapes, yes, cassette tapes that have faded into obscurity like 8-tracks and VHS. But many days while I was drinking juice in my car seat or babbling about my friends, we would listen to the radio until we reached the parking lot where I would race to the four square line with all the other giggly children.

We would listen to the radio and my mother would never change channels during the news segments. We existed in the world, and my mother never hid the world from me.

I remember a lot from first grade. I remember reading the little green book with the fraying spine that had stories of dime stores and soda parlors, children going places by themselves, of being a “sore-winner”. A book written in a long ago time that I would never know when America did not know how to lose. I remember sitting in the hall with the teacher’s aide writing letters in chalk until my penmanship began to match the example and my papers looked like my classmates. I remember Mrs Overgaard asking us what we learned over the weekend, and I can still see the horror on her face when I began describing the news that the US was torturing prisoners of war in Iraq. My mother probably received a concerned phone call that evening. Regardless, we existed in the world and my mother never hid the world from me.

Of all my memories from first grade, I recall more of the drives to school than any moments in the classroom or on the playground. I remember reaching my hand on the passenger seat in front of me, so my mom could paint my tiny nails at the stop lights because we were running late, but she promised. I remember singing along to Amy Grant at the top of my lungs and mimicking my mom as she played an imaginary piano during the medley’s opening riff. I remember looking at the pond next to the road when the radio reported on the war. I remember trying to read the sign on the Walgreens across the street when the radio told us the death toll for the week. I remember when they said only 98 civilians and 1 soldier died yesterday compared to the 257 that had died the day before. I remember being an optimistic child who said “That’s good! ONLY 98 people died. That’s less than 100!” 

I remember my mom taking her eyes off the red light. I remember her face when she turned around to look at me. I remember the color and the smell and the feel of the moment all meticulously cataloged in my brain 20 years later. I remember when she told me, “One person dead is too many”. 

My mother never hid the world from me, so she taught me how to exist in that world.  

I still listen to the radio. My destination is no longer the little elementary school with the red awning and the carpeted gym, but the drive is still filled with intersections from my childhood.

It’s January, and the morning snow is more messy than peaceful as I shift into neutral and skid to a halt in front of the empty storefront that used to hold a pizza shop with nice owners that let me sit on the counter when I would practice my abc’s with them. “...Italy has reported 167 deaths over the weekend…” One person dead is too many.

It’s February, and I sit impatiently at a redlight next to the park district where my 4th grade crush and I went sledding. “...Washington state has reported the first death due to COVID in the US…””One person dead is too many.

It’s March, and I am putting on a new set of gloves in front of my grandmother’s house. I used to sit with her and knit after dinner, telling her about all the new developments in my life. Now, I have left my cross stitch at home. I have to remember to keep my distance, just wipe down the  groceries and leave as soon as I can. It’s been over a month since I’ve hugged her. “...At this rate experts are estimating that 200,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by the end of the year…”One person dead is too many.

It’s June, and my mom finds a spot on the corner next to the park where my friends and I entered an ice cream eating contest so many years ago. I won against the boy that was 5 years older and twice my size. I savour the air conditioning for another minute while gathering masks and signs. “...thousands continue to protest in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police…” One person dead is too many.

It’s December, and I pass the warehouse where my mom and I helped a kind old man sort donated toys. That’s a memory so buried I’m shocked to recall it some 10 years later. I wonder how he’s doing.“... deaths are on the rise as the US reported more that 3,000 died from the novel Corona Virus yesterday. To put that in perspective, that is more people than died in 9/11 or about 2 people dying every minute…” One person dead is too many.

It’s January again, and the snow is thick as I hit the red light for the entrance to the park my friends and I would flock to every fourth of July, scampering around with fair food in coordinating outfits looking for a clear spot with a good view to set down our blankets. “...five people have died following the storming of the capital..” One person dead is too many.

It’s still January again, and I am so tired while waiting in front of the drugstore that I have only been to once before, after a school event to get a change of clothes so I could play cherry bomb at a park with the gaggle laughing teenagers in my car after curfew. I would love to still be in my bed right now, or at the very least not have to drive an hour back home, but it’s my dad’s birthday, and somehow a year later, rapid tests are still not easy to come by. “...the US COVID-19 death toll has surpassed 400,000…” One person dead is too many.

It’s February again, and I pass the triangle church where I met my best friend. The hill seems so much smaller than it did when I was two and there was nothing better than rolling through the grass. “...Two people including a child have now died due to the Texas power crisis. They suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning while using their car to keep warm…”One person dead is too many.

They are cold and sick and thirsty, but you blame the windmills?

They are huddling for warmth and boiling their water, but you say “don’t be weak”?

They are driving hours to bring blankets to dying parents in hospitals where there is oxygen but not water, but you believe that a virulent disease is a hoax?

What did you blame when New Orleans was below sea level?

What did you say when Flint couldn’t boil their water for five years?

What did you believe when California was burning?

In case you have never quite stopped hiding the world,

In case you have become numb to the numbers, 

In case your parents never told you,

I am here. 

Reminding you. 

ONE PERSON DEAD IS TOO FUCKING MANY.

#current events #texas power crisis #pandemic #covid #exhausted #wear a mask #one person dead is too many

[workersolidarity]

I've said on this blog over and over that US Imperialism is a never ending, unstoppable force for evil in the world.

Corruption in our Neoliberal Capitalist Economy along with the corruption pervasive in our Bourgeois Democracy long ago led US Imperialism to go into hyperdrive.

Our neverending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Libya, Yemen,l) Somalia, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and so on; it doesn't take a Marxist to see the entire US Economy has become a War based Economy, depending on constantly expanding Warfare to realize Economic growth through Imperialist expansion.

From Military buildups in Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Columbia and North Africa, it's been clear for quite some time now that the Ruling Capitalist Class has been unsatisfied with the slow growth Status Quo and have been itching for a new War to drive up prices on Fossil Fuels and requisitioning big Military Contracts due to the Trump Administration's willingness, and indeed eagerness to accelerate the pattern of Privatization of US Warfare.

We have now reached the point where more Mercenary Military Contractors have died fighting in Afghanistan than actual US Soldiers.

This is undoubtedly the big opportunity the Capitalists have been waiting for: US War Incorporated.

Privatization of Warfare has meant two things. One, Mission Creep is no longer deniable. The almost Wars in South America, North Africa and the Middle East endlessly expand and the others never end. And Two, the Ruling Class will be looking to start new Wars.

It doesn't matter all that much who's in the White House. Hillary Clinton was a notorious Neocon who saw Henry Kissenger, the notorious War Criminal who to this day can't travel to certain parts of the world for fear of being Charged for his Crimes Against Humanity, Clinton openly bragged how Kissenger was a mentor.

Joe Biden is no different. Another Liberal Expansionist, Joe Biden, like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before him will go to bat for the War Economy. Unlike the Trump Administration, Democrats eagerly look for opportunities to create a new Legal Framework for the War Economy to exist within rather than the Republican president of Lawless Expansion vulnerable to Public Opinion and International Law but that can act more swiftly and without Congressional concerns.

But make no Mistake, the War Economy and the instigation of War with Iran is only the latest salvo of a pattern that's been on an endless march forward since the end of World War II.

Each War's end is proceeded by a new one. US Imperialism has been steadily marching forward without pushback for 80 years and now that some pushback actually is occurring from rising powers like China and India, you see more and more desperation to rapidly ramp up the US Imperialist stake in and control of World Resources, land, and strategic positions to remain Economically and Militarily dominant.

Since the Public has had little stomach for a new War, the Trump Administration has been pressing buttons all across the World, looking for vulnerabilities where their instigations will create a response they can use to claim a new War as inevitable and unavoidable (though very unfortunate I'm sure).

The Ruling Class has settled on Iran. One because of its rich access to resources. Two because of its previous presentation as the "Bad Guys" on the World Stage. Three because of their Economic vulnerabilities. And Four because they're easy to be antagonistic with while getting little pushback from the rest of the International Community or the Domestic Public.

But they couldn't make it too blantantly obvious they were instigating a War. And so the Trump Administration set out to set up a series of False Flag Operations that they could then use to drum up support for a War.

This came in the form of the Ship bombing that conveniently caught supposed soldiers in Iranian Uniform pulling a mine out of the waters on camera. As if Iran were actually that stupid.

That one was a very obvious CIA Operation and ploy to drum up support for War with Iran.

When that didn't work, next they flew a US Drone along a part of the border with Iranian Airspace where they new the border moves back and forth, and so the Trump Administration could claim the drone wasn't in Iranian Airspace despite flying in and out of their airspace.

When Iran shot down the drone, it was their word versus ours. And that was that.

But still it wasn't enough to gain Domestic Public support for a War with Iran. And so they set out to do something bigger. Something they knew very well Iran would have to respond to. And this came in the form of the Quds Force General Soleimani's Assassination.

Knowing how popular General Soleimani was in Iran, the Trump Administration knew there was no way Iran could go without responding.

And so here we are again. Nearly Twenty years after the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars began, and though they still haven't ended after Trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, millions of Middle Eastern Civilian lives, and a vacuum where Iran was given its oppirtunity for Regional Dominance where previously they couldn't.

So don't fall for this garbage. Anyone with their eyes open for the last twenty years knows full well what's going on here. And if you don't you're a fucking hopeless idiot and I'm not going to waste any more time explaining it to you. This is the Cost of US Imperialism. This is where it takes its payment in blood. You decide whether or not you can support the blood of another million or so innocent Civilians for the profit if Billionaires.

Guess we're going to have to bring back the old Iraq War Protest slogan: No Blood For Oil

Obviously they didn't get it the first time

#us imperialism #imperialism #american imperialism #trump #president trump #trump administration #war #imperialist war #us imperial domination #capitalism #late capitalism #neoconservatives #neocons #iran #iran war #warfare #imperial war #neoliberalism #neoliberal capitalism #modern imperialism #war economy #defense contractors #defense spending #defense #national security #middle east #middle east war #middle east wars #endless war #afghanistan war

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Donald Trump may have perfectly played the Iran conflict. He’s been criticized for different reasons by the left and the right but it seems like Trump has effectively ended Iran’s continuing escalations without putting more American lives on the line. If this is where it ends, it’s a major win for Trump. 

Viewers of mainstream media were quick to assume Trump had just ignited the start of World War III. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Trump’s actions in Iran proved to be critical in deterring war. The media were quick to focus on Trump’s supposed “random” “assassination” of a “revered military figure” and called it an “act of war” but even today, none have bothered to cover the crucial details that led up to that decision.

Last May, Iran began deterring, seizing and attacking ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a channel for a third of the world’s petroleum, including bombing three oil tankers. One of the ships was set to deliver oil to the U.S. In June, Iran shot down a U.S. drone. Trump ordered and then called off retaliatory strikes. In September, rebels attacked Abqaiq, the massive Saudi oil processing facility, resulting in a loss of 5 percent of the world’s oil production. Germany, the U.K. and France concluded that Iran was behind the attacks. In November, Iran announced they were increasing the enrichment of uranium, ignoring the limits in their nuclear agreement. Finally, in December, Iran attacked U.S. interests in Iraq, killed an American contractor and then used proxies to directly attack the U.S. embassy. After every Iranian attack, Trump decided against retaliation, so Iran pushed harder, eventually doing the one thing Trump used to draw his red line. Rather than push, Trump punched back, just as he promised he would.  

In May, Trump sent Mike Pompeo to deliver a message to Iran that if even one American were killed by the regime or its proxies, there’d be a U.S. military counterattack. Trump kept his word. Every one of these attacks crossed the red line Trump had set for Iran and each deserved a strong response. But Trump chose not to, until they killed an American citizen and attacked the embassy. Yet the media and Democrat politicians pretended it was a random and unlawful stunt by Trump and frequently suggested Iran is now justified to do whatever they wish in their own retaliation, and it’s all Trump’s fault. They’ve even gone so far to blame Trump for Iran shooting down the Ukrainian plane.

Democrat Jackie Speier appeared on CNN declaring that Iran shooting down Flight 752 “is yet another example of collateral damage from the actions that have been taken in a provocative way by the President of the United States.” 2020 Democratic contender Pete Buttigieg hinted at a similar notion, tweeting, “Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat.” He also insinuated that Trump’s decision was unlawful. Another 2020 Democrat candidate, Amy Klobuchar, also falsely claimed Trump had acted without congressional authority. Elizabeth Warren described Soleimani simply as “a senior foreign military official” that was “assassinated” by the “reckless president” and blamed it all on Trump’s “escalations.” First off, American troops are lawfully in Iraq, the airstrike was duly authorized, justified and in no need of congressional authorization. Second, there was no “crossfire.” Iran was the only one shooting missiles. Trying to equate or tie America into Iran killing 176 people to “own” Trump is sick. Also, what’s up with making a terrorist leader out to be a decent guy? 

Soleimani was the head of the Quds Force, a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a terrorist organization. For more than two decades, Suleimani provided Islamic terrorists in Iraq with rockets, bombs and projectiles designed to slice through American tanks. In 2011, he was sanctioned for plotting to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. Suleimani also provided arms and aid to Hezbollah and Hamas - the terrorist groups hellbent on destroying Israel and killing Jews - and orchestrating their operations throughout the Middle East. He rallied militias in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan whose members were deployed to fight against the U.S. He glorified jihad, personally funded and empowered terrorists groups which killed hundreds of American soldiers. 

Media reports shared the Iranian propaganda that Iranian citizens were saddened by the death of Soleimani. NBC News showcased the “huge crowds” that turned out to allegedly mourn Soleimani’s death. CNN also reported, “crowds swarm Tehran to mourn slain Iran military leader Soleimani.” These reports conveniently omit the fact that most of this crowd was forced to attend Soleimani’s mourning. A free Iranian journalist wrote that the government forced students and officials to attending Soleimani’s funeral by busing students in and ordering businesses closed. “According to videos sent to me by people inside the country, the authorities are making kids write essays praising the fallen commander. First-graders who didn’t know how to write were encouraged to cry for Soleimani.” 

Over the weekend, as a result of the confession from Iran that it did in fact kill the 176 passengers after denying any wrongdoing and accusing America of a false flag and “psychological warfare,” hundreds of Iranians took to the street, demanding that their leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei step down. Videos circulating Twitter feature Iranian students gathered outside their university in Tehran, shouting “Commander-in-Chief resign, resign.” While the American left blames Trump for everything that has gone wrong in Iran, Iranian protesters continue to fiercely condemn the Iranian regime. Much to the left’s shock, Iranians aren’t sharing their same level of hatred of America and Trump, that’s why not a single Democrat has mentioned the protests. In a recent video, it shows university students in Tehran refusing to tread on the American flag. Also, Trump’s tweet of support to the protesters quickly became the most liked tweet ever in the region. These protests are especially monumental considering 1,500 Iranian protesters were killed in less than two weeks late last year. 

The day after America responded, Trump said: “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.” This does not sound like a guy trying to begin a world war, as many have stated. Donald Trump is many things but he’s not an ideologue. He stood by for months while Iran took increasingly belligerent actions that threatened world oil markets and shipping channels. The president gave a clear warning to Iran that his red line was the loss of an American life. Iran crossed that line and Trump responded forcefully. It’s extremely likely that the Iranian regime would have pressed forward with more brazen attacks if Trump didn’t respond. There's still time that it might but in the wake of Iran’s weak response, it appears that Trump pushed back just hard enough to send a strong message to the Iranians without entangling America in another unwanted war. For now, Trump’s plan has worked. Just don’t expect the media to ever admit it. 

[thehouseofjohndeaf]

How did this happen?

(photo cred)

The global pandemic has shed a light on some misconceptions regarding individualism and anti-authority.  The line between anti-authority and anti-science has been blurred during a major public health crisis putting health officials and medical experts in the driver’s seat.  This has led to major outcries against stay-at-home advisories, the closing of non-essential businesses, and mask mandates.  The groups of people who are against the public health regulations are primarily right-wing, and are viewing these precautions as government overreach, despite the fact that the republicans have current control of the federal government.  The current president has found ways to pawn off responsibility to the governors of individual states, and we see the outcry mostly coming from those living in blue states.  These are primarily Americans who are part of a spectrum of right leaning politics, and identify as conservative, libertarian, alt-right, and republican.  Despite all these identities and beliefs there is also a heavy anti-authoritarian and anti-government overtone to these outcries.  How is this?  How have right leaning individuals started believing they are the real anti-establishment counterculture, holding a firm belief that the left are the true authoritarians?

First, this starts with one of the biggest misconceptions in America; most people believe the liberals are the left.  This is not true.  Liberals are the center.  The US does not currently have a left-wing party.  Instead we have a centrist party that houses both the center and the left, this causes both and left and center to constantly lean further right.

The graph above, from Quartz Media, shows where the 2020 democratic candidates fall on the political spectrum as opposed to the incumbent republican president.  The DNC continues to be a right-wing organization while being only slightly left of the republican party.  The final two democratic candidates during the 2020 primaries were on opposite sides of the spectrum of the democratic party, a centrist and a leftist.  The same thing that happened in 2016.  The DNC ultimately gave the nomination to the centrist, because they are a centrist organization.

This next graph shows how the US major party candidates of 2020 compare to political parties in the UK.  As we can see, the conservative right-wing of the UK is in line with the sitting republican US president, the centrist liberal democrats of the UK align with the majority of the US democratic candidates, and the UK’s leftist labour party is even further left than the left leaning outliers of the US democrats.

This misconception that the left is liberal in the US has led us to believe that our current definitions of right and left have a chasm of differences between them, when they are in fact all in the same wheelhouse.  The republicans appear authoritarian yet successful because they are unapologetically right-wing and will stir the pot and make a lot of noise to get their way, whereas the democrats appear authoritarian yet incompetent because they are centrists who would more often rather keep the peace with a steady-as-she-goes approach than stir up actual progressive change.  Democrats will pretend to be leftist, inciting progressive change, all while bombing innocents overseas and allowing their own citizens’ water to be poisoned.  Republicans will explain to you why they all deserved it.  It’s the same song played on a different instrument.

Since the left are the outliers, they are viewed as radicals whose ideas would never work in the western world.  This has gone so far as to target anyone who identifies with politics left of center as the “alt-left”.  And yet, every other major western nation has some degree of socialism working for the people in the form of state funded healthcare programs, prison reform, welfare, child tax benefits, pension systems, social housing, and public education.  The US even embraces some of these things, we just refuse to call it socialism or fund it properly, we refuse to allow the right and center to be tainted by the left.

It seems a relatively simple explanation for certain groups of people to be outraged by public health officials making drastic changes to our daily lives; the effects on their income, social and mental health, as well as the economy.  The question is, how is this viewed as anti-authoritarian if the outcry is both in support of the current political party with the most government control and yet also against government overreach enacted by these same people?

For the older generations and those who consume media in a traditional sense, it appears a healthy diet of Fox News and an overall distrust of the “liberal” or “mainstream” media would lead to mass misinformation and a skewed sense of reality.  For the younger generations who grew up on the internet, a diet of reactionary propaganda and alt-right message boards will lead them down a rabbit hole of misinformation.  Both have a distrust for “liberal” media and have a skewed concept that the liberal media is a leftist organization with an agenda to dismantle their freedoms.  Ultimately, this is one way we may arrive at the concept that liberals, who are really centrists but we think they’re leftists, are trying to implement an authoritarian regime of socialist communism, when in reality the liberals have a more middle-of-the-road approach to reactionary thought, which causes conservatives and other right-wing theorists to distrust any form of organized press while they congregate online and adopt conspiracy theories to help them untie the mental knots they tied for themselves in the first place.  Really, the only way for new age conservatives to believe the lies they’re churning out is for there to be some conspiracy at the center, because their views cannot coexist with reality.

But still, how did we get here?  How did we brew a force of pro-conservative anti-establishment?

There was a lot of angst in the post-9/11 world for our youth, as a counterculture emerged against the Iraq War and government oversight including the patriot act and the NSA.  Anarchist thought gave birth to post-anarchism, as anarchism coexisted in a technologically advanced world.  How do we grapple with the concepts of individual freedom and collective living when we’re tethered to companies to provide products that keep us connected and informed?  Even prior to this, most anti-authority groups understood liberalism and conservatism to be of the same breed.  In 2002 Against Me! released the album Reinventing Axl Rose, Laura Jane Grace sings, “Baby, I’m an anarchist, you’re a spineless liberal…” a song referencing the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle.  If one had the misconception that liberalism is leftist, they may interpret this lyric incorrectly.  If liberal is left, then liberalism is more attune with socialism, meaning right-wing and libertarian thought would be opposite liberalism, and ultimately one might come to the conclusion that anarchism is more aligned with right leaning politics than left leaning politics.  This person would then continue on to believe that the conservatives, the alt-right, libertarians, and republicans were the faces of anti-authority as part of their fringe groups.

It appears that millennials who grew up in a post-punk era, were clinging to the anti-establishment messages of the early 2000s during a Bush presidency.  They were eventually thrust into an Obama presidency of “progressive change” as some were just entering high school and beginning to pay attention to the world around them, while others were out on their own for the first time in their lives attending college, and the oldest of the generation were first entering the workforce.  This “progressive change” led to a lot of real social changes, what reactionaries call “PC culture”, and what the rest of us just recognize as time moving forward at a steady pace.  Nonetheless, the Obama presidency was rather anticlimactic.  While the liberals patted themselves on the back and slept peacefully to the social changes, the working poor and minorities saw little-to-no benefit, and the conservatives stewed in their rage as a smug charismatic black man was in charge of their beloved homeland.  Eventually, in the height of the Obama years the housing market crash brought libertarians, socialists, and anarchists together in the national movement, Occupy Wall Street.

The problem that eventually erupted was a disdain for liberalism, critically noted as neoliberalism.  While the left has been critical of liberalism and conservatism alike, the right used their view of liberalism as a leftist ideology to create a division at a time when everyone was coming together to recognize the stark inequalities of our current capitalist system, famously uniting us all as the 99%.  This tactic allowed libertarianism to be recognized as the opposite of authoritarianism, however a right-wing libertarian will likely have complete faith that the free market and corporations will do the most good over the individual workers.  We then wind up back at square one, with the corporations as the voices of authority.  When we become dependent on their products, or they come to as close to a monopoly as possible, the working class begins to lose their freedoms.  During the pandemic we’re witnessing this happen as huge corporations like Walmart and Target are open for business and able to adhere to public health and safety guidelines, whereas small businesses cannot remain open because they don’t have the proper space for social distancing or the funds for the required PPE.  The outcries against this have not been against Walmart or Target for hoarding their wealth and becoming some of the only stores able to sell clothes, books, electronics, toys and other nonessentials.  The outcry has been against public health officials for putting safety guidelines into practice in response to the virus.

A socialist response to this issue would have been for the government to provide PPE to small businesses so that they may remain open.  What we have is a libertarian response of letting the bigger fish eat the smaller fish, and the working class are footing the bill.  The current administration has put the majority of the power for economic recovery into the hands of corporations and the wealthiest individuals.  This is what is hurting the working class.  Yet the outrage has been against the public health officials who have put forth social distancing guidelines, stay-at-home advisories, and mask mandates.  None of these things are the reason for the economic turmoil we are experiencing, it’s the current administration's hands-off approach and ignoring small businesses.

The funds for small business loans were given directly to the banks to distribute to their communities.  Problems with this tactic were immediately recognizable.  The banks were more likely to offer loans to the businesses who already had accounts with them, and were more likely to award loans to a business they felt would easily pay back this loan.  Franchises were also recognized as single entities and rather than the corporations bail out their own chains, individual franchise owners were dependent on government funded bank managed loans.  This is how the right and center handle social issues, they give money to the already wealthy and ask them to provide a service to those in need, allowing very little relief to reach those who need it most.

So no, being anti-science in the midst of a global pandemic is not rebellion, nor is it remotely anti-authority.  It is playing directly into the hands of the elite.  If you’re protesting government overreach and the sitting president encourages the protests with messages like “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, it’s quite obvious the government approves of your actions.  If you’re protesting government overreach while wearing merchandise you purchased from the sitting president, and holding signs in support of him, that irony is so palpable, it’s concerning that so many people cannot see it.

#coronavirus

[alexsmitposts]

I Never Saw a World So Fragmented! It is amazing how easily, without resistance, the Western empire is managing to destroy “rebellious” countries that are standing in its way. I work in all corners of the planet, wherever Kafkaesque “conflicts” get ignited by Washington, London or Paris. What I see and describe are not only those horrors which are taking place all around me; horrors that are ruining human lives, destroying villages, cities and entire countries. What I try to grasp is that on the television screens and on the pages of newspapers and the internet, the monstrous crimes against humanity somehow get covered (described), but the information becomes twisted and manipulated to such an extent, that readers and viewers in all parts of the world end up knowing close to nothing about their own suffering, and/or of the suffering of the other. For instance, in 2015 and in 2019, I tried to sit down and reason with the Hong Kong rioters. It was a truly revealing experience! They knew nothing, absolutely zero about the crimes the West has been committing in places such as Afghanistan, Syria or Libya. When I tried to explain to them, how many Latin American democracies Washington had overthrown, they thought I was a lunatic. How could the good, tender, ‘democratic’ West murder millions, and bathe entire continents in blood? That is not what they were taught at their universities. That is not what the BBC, CNN or even the China Morning Post said and wrote. Look, I am serious. I showed them photos from Afghanistan and Syria; photos stored in my phone. They must have understood that this was original, first hand stuff. Still, they looked, but their brains were not capable of processing what they were being shown. Images and words; these people were conditioned not to comprehend certain types of information. But this is not only happening in Hong Kong, a former British colony. You will maybe find it hard to believe, but even in a Communist country like Vietnam; a proud country, a country which suffered enormously from both French colonialism and the U.S. mad and brutal imperialism, people that I associated with (and I lived in Hanoi for 2 years) knew close to nothing about the horrendous crimes committed against the poor and defenseless neighboring Laos, by the U.S. and its allies during the so-called “Secret War”; crimes that included the bombing of peasants and water buffalos, day and night, by strategic B-52 bombers. And in Laos, where I covered de-mining efforts, people knew nothing about the same monstrosities that the West had committed in Cambodia; murdering hundreds of thousands of people by carpet bombing, displacing millions of peasants from their homes, triggering famine and opening the doors to the Khmer Rouge takeover. When I am talking about this shocking lack of knowledge in Vietnam, regarding the region and what it was forced to go through, I am not speaking just about the shop-keepers or garment workers. It applies to Vietnamese intellectuals, artists, teachers. It is total amnesia, and it came with the so-called ‘opening up’ to the world, meaning with the consumption of Western mass media and later by the infiltration of social media. At least Vietnam shares borders as well as a turbulent history with both Laos and Cambodia. But imagine two huge countries with only maritime borders, like the Philippines and Indonesia. Some Manila dwellers I met thought that Indonesia was in Europe. Now guess, how many Indonesians know about the massacres that the United States committed in the Philippines a century ago, or how the people in the Philippines were indoctrinated by Western propaganda about the entire South East Asia? Or, how many Filipinos know about the U.S.-triggered 1965 military coup, which deposed the internationalist President Sukarno, killing between 2-3 million intellectuals, teachers, Communists and unionists in “neighboring” Indonesia? Look at the foreign sections of the Indonesian or Filipino newspapers, and what will you see; the same news from Reuters, AP, AFP. In fact, you will also see the same reports in the news outlets of Kenya, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Guatemala, and the list goes on and on. It is designed to produce one and only one result: absolute fragmentation! *** The fragmentation of the world is amazing, and it is increasing with time. Those who hoped that the internet would improve the situation, grossly miscalculated. With a lack of knowledge, solidarity has disappeared, too. Right now, all over the world, there are riots and revolutions. I am covering the most significant ones; in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Hong Kong. Let me be frank: there is absolutely no understanding in Lebanon about what is going on in Hong Kong, or in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia. Western propaganda throws everything into one sack. In Hong Kong, rioters indoctrinated by the West are portrayed as “pro-democracy protesters”. They kill, burn, beat up people, but they are still the West’s favorites. Because they are antagonizing the People’s Republic of China, now the greatest enemy of Washington. And because they were created and sustained by the West. In Bolivia, the anti-imperialist President was overthrown in a Washington orchestrated coup, but the mostly indigenous people who are demanding his return are portrayed as rioters. In Lebanon, as well as Iraq, protesters are treated kindly by both Europe and the United States, mainly because the West hopes that pro-Iranian Hezbollah and other Shi’a groups and parties could be weakened by the protests. The clearly anti-capitalist and anti-neo-liberal revolution in Chile, as well as the legitimate protests in Colombia, are reported as some sort of combination of explosion of genuine grievances, and hooliganism and looting. Mike Pompeo recently warned that the United States will support right-wing South American governments, in their attempt to maintain order. All this coverage is nonsense. In fact, it has one and only one goal: to confuse viewers and readers. To make sure that they know nothing or very little. And that, at the end of the day, they collapse on their couches with deep sighs: “Oh, the world is in turmoil!” *** It also leads to the tremendous fragmentation of countries on each continent, and of the entire global south. Asian countries know very little about each other. The same goes for Africa and the Middle East. In Latin America, it is Russia, China and Iran who are literally saving the life of Venezuela. Fellow Latin American nations, with the one shiny exception of Cuba, do zero to help. All Latin American revolutions are fragmented. All U.S. produced coups basically go unopposed. The same situation is occurring all over the Middle East and Asia. There are no internationalist brigades defending countries destroyed by the West. The big predator comes and attacks its prey. It is a horrible sight, as a country dies in front of the world, in terrible agony. No one interferes. Everybody just watches. One after another, countries are falling. This is not how states in the 21st Century should behave. This is the law of attraction the jungle. When I used to live in Africa, making documentary films in Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, driving through the wilderness; this is how animals were behaving, not people. Big cats finding their victim. A zebra, or a gazelle. And the hunt would begin: a terrible occurrence. Then the slow killing; eating the victim alive. Quite similar to the so-called Monroe doctrine. The Empire has to kill. Periodically. With predictable regularity. And no one does anything. The world is watching. Pretending that nothing extraordinary is taking place. One wonders: can legitimate revolution succeed under such conditions? Can any democratically elected socialist government survive? Or does everything decent, hopeful, and optimistic always ends up as the prey to a degenerate, brutal and vulgar empire? If that is the case, what’s the point of playing by the rules? Obviously, the rules are rotten. They exist only in order to uphold the status quo. They protect the colonizers, and castigate the rebellions victims. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss here, today. My point is: the victims are divided. They know very little about each other. The struggles for true freedom, are fragmented. Those who fight, and bleed, but fight nevertheless, are often antagonized by their less daring fellow victims. I have never seen the world so divided. Is the Empire succeeding, after all? Yes and no. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – they have already woken up. They stood up. They are learning about each other, from each other. Without solidarity, there can be no victory. Without knowledge, there can be no solidarity. Intellectual courage is now clearly coming from Asia, from the “East”. In order to change the world, Western mass media has to be marginalized, confronted. All Western concepts, including “democracy”, “peace”, and “human rights” have to be questioned, and redefined. And definitely, knowledge. We need a new world, not an improved one. The world does not need London, New York and Paris to teach it about itself. Fragmentation has to end. Nations have to learn about each other, directly. If they do, true revolutions would soon succeed, while subversions and fake color revolutions like those in Hong Kong, Bolivia and all over the Middle East, will be regionally confronted, and prevented from ruining millions of human lives.

[autokratorissa]

Over the years the “black information” people in the U.S. and U.K. governments have had some spectacular successes — the myth that the Vietnam War was due to Beijing using Hanoi as a puppet to head its advance into Asia, that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction, that Kosovar ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo was in fact Serbian ethnic cleansing of Kosovars, and now the claims that Moscow was responsible for the pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine. But the greatest achievement of them all still has to be the myth of a June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre, with talk of hundreds if not thousands of protesting students mowed down by military machine guns.

In recent years the Tiananmen massacre story has taken something of a beating as people in the square that night, including a Spanish TV unit, have emerged to tell us that there was no massacre, that the only thing they saw was a military unit entering in the late evening and asking the several hundred students still there quietly to leave. So the “massacre” location has been moved to the streets around the square, and with the 25th anniversary of the event coming up we see the “unprovoked massacre” story being used for yet another round of Beijing bashing.

And the facts? Fortunately we have the detailed hourly reports from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, available on the Internet, to give us the true story.

Yes, there was something close to a massacre in those streets, with some of the units originally sent to clear the square of students turning their guns wildly on the crowds that had tried to block their approach. And to find out why the soldiers did such an atrocious thing we do not have to look much beyond those widely publicized photos of military buses in rows being set on fire by those protesting crowds.

To date the world seems to have assumed that those buses were fired by the crowds after the soldiers had started shooting. In fact it was the reverse — that the crowds attacked the buses as they entered Beijing, incinerating dozens of soldiers inside, and only then did the shooting begin. Here too we do need not go far to find the evidence — in the not publicized photos of soldiers with horrible burns seeking shelter in nearby houses, and reports of charred corpses being strung from overpasses.

True, the crowds had had their reasons for protesting. I traveled extensively in China in the early 1970s, soon after Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution movement was launched.

I saw firsthand the grotesque and insane abuse to which the entire nation had been subjected. If I had been a Chinese student or citizen in those days, I would have been among the protesters, even as late as 1989.

The regime seemed to realize this, which is why it tolerated the student protest in the square for six weeks despite the enormous loss of face and inconvenience. Its party secretary general even tried to negotiate. It only moved to take back the square after the negotiation failed and the students were beginning to disperse.

But by this time the crowds around the square were both large and ominous. The embassy reports note that the regime’s first move was to send in unarmed troops using the subways and easily blocked by the crowds. Armed troops were then sent in with the results we know. But even then only some of the units went berserk (soldiers tend to go that way when some of the comrades are barbecued: Ask the citizens of Fallujah, Iraq). Other units tried to restrain them. And the action was outside, not inside, the square.

So whence the machine-gun massacre claim? Here too we do not have to look far — to a story a week later in a pro-British, English-language Hong Kong newspaper written under the name of an alleged student demonstrator claiming to have fled China, but whom no one has been able to find. Front-paged by The New York Times on June 12, it quickly traveled the globe, and we have been living with it in one form or another ever since. Not a single Western reporter in Beijing that night seems to have bothered to check out what actually happened; presumably they found a much wider audience for their stories of blood and gore.

Fortunately in addition to the U.S. Embassy reports we now have a detailed 1998 study by the Columbia Journalism Review titled “Reporting the Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press” that tracks down “the dramatic reports that buttressed the myth of a student massacre.”

Right from the beginning we should have had our doubts about the “massacre” stories.

Why would a Beijing regime under Deng Xiaoping seeking reform in so many areas of Chinese society want so deliberately and viciously to attack harmless students, who traditionally have led the reform movements in China — which many pro-Communist leaders had joined in the past?

If one has to fault the regime it is in the failure to train troops in crowd control — a mistake that even hardline regime members later admitted. Ironically their later effort to import crowd control equipment was blocked by the United Kingdom acting under the Western arms embargo imposed as a result of the fictitious machine-gun massacre report that their own black information people had almost certainly helped create.

Other strange details later to emerge included a report that Reuters, the British new agency, refused to publish a photo of a charred corpse strung up under an overpass — a photo that would have done much to explain what had happened. And we now discover that the widely distributed photo of Tankman — the lone student standing before a row of army tanks and heavily publicised as showing brave defiance against a cruel regime — was in fact taken the day after Tiananmen events, and the tanks were moving away from, and not into, Tiananmen Square.

Some have noted the frustration a student leader calling for blood in the streets as the prolonged square protest was winding down with no seeming result, And some have asked how those protesters came to use gasoline bombs against the troops — a weapon not used by Chinese rioters — and why so many vehicles came to be destroyed. This in turn could explain the regime’s anger, and its subsequent efforts to track down and punish student leaders. But even without these details it should be clear that the so-called Tiananmen Square Massacre was not quite the clear-cut evil of much Western imagination.

#tag: history #people's republic of china

[beinglibertarian]

We Hold the News to be Self-Evident

“Fake news.” A phrase given as truth by the 45th President of the United States. Is he a racist, totalitarian monster that is trying to control the media? Or is he one of the plebeians that rose higher than the rest and has been raised seeing the fallacies of mass media coverage? Should the Commander-in-Chief be neutral when it comes to the news or does he have a right to call them out and bring people’s attention to the nature of news today?

There was a time when news consisted of hard-hitting exposes that attempted to change public opinion and lead the nation in a more moral and just direction. Although somewhere along the line, news reports lost their bite. I understand that in a world of twenty-four-hour news cycles there will be filler, but when did filler topics become headlines?

CNN came out recently claiming Donald Trump was waging a war against the press because of his negative view of their reporting. He denied their access to a few events, which translates to Trump waging a war on the freedom of the press. Or could it be a man seeing the blatant agenda of slander and attack against him?

CNN has spent much of their time since his presidential win, trying to bring Trump down. They report on his collusion with Russia, which may or may not be illegal. The only definite information that came from the leaks was that CNN helped Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders, but that is not newsworthy apparently.

What is newsworthy? An affair Trump had twelve years ago, ten years before he was elected. I am willing to bet, that was not news to even Melania, and she is the only one that should care.

A man cheating on his wife is not and should not be news. It is only important information to the spouses involved. If the majority of the population disagreed with this, then why was no one appalled by the existence of AshleyMadison.com? People cheat, it is an unfortunate truth that does not belong on the news.

In 1998, America became aware of the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal. For those too young to remember, the President had a sexual relationship, no matter what his sound clips will tell you, in the Oval Office. Much like the Trump affair, it should have only been known to those involved. The explosion of reporting on the matter may have set a terrible precedent.

I will concede to understand that there is a part of human nature that loves to watch a train wreck, like celebrity break-ups. And presidents are important celebrities. However, those are fluff pieces, shown between sports and the weather. They do not affect policies that are important to the American people.

Fox News also reported bad things in their cycle. Unfortunately, their bad reporting garnered support for unlawful military conflicts. Shortly after 11 September 2001, Fox began to spread the idea of Saddam Hussein’s enormous and varied supply of weapons of mass destruction. Or should I say, Saddam’s alleged enormous and varied supply of weapons of mass destruction.

Nothing was ever found in Iraq, yet they have been bombed and occupied the area for decades. The resulting war on terror produced hundreds of thousands civilian deaths, thousands of American soldiers dead, and trillions of dollars spent. A price far greater than that of the tragedy of 9/11. All that to protect the idea of the infallible nation.

A nation wrought with unrest and anger directed at varying parts of the of the government. A large and vocal part of the nation feels that there are separate rules of engagement that the police follow based solely on race. In the wake of this, a movement rose up behind a mediocre quarterback in the National Football League.

Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence and many of his fellow players followed suit. The nation responded with eruptions on both sides of the political spectrum. The right condemned the players for disrespecting the flag and those that served under it. The left shouted down their claims based on violations of the 1st amendment. Both were wrong.

The flag is a symbol of our nation and our nation was built with the hope of freedom for everyone. Although, at the end of the day it is a piece of fabric, and nothing worth spilling blood over, especially each other’s blood because of a few political disagreements.

Also, while protesting is a protected right, an employer can make whatever statutes it wants, and you are left with the option to work for them or not. When the NFL started seeing ratings drop, they reacted like any company would act to protect their profit margin. Even though it says “National” in the name and has a picture of a little flag on the emblem, the NFL is a private company, and should not be mandated to allow actions that are hurting them.

The bigger issue of the protest is the claimed police brutality. The right should see that the players are not standing against a nation, just a protected few that have brought violence against them. The left must understand that the movement is not being held down because of racism, but because of waning ticket sales. While that may not be a noble reason, the NFL remains a private organization and may conduct business as they see fit. There are plenty of more places that a player can protest.

Therefore, I feel there is no real emotion behind the organizers of the national anthem protest, where is the movement in the off season? Football players play one game a week for about five months. That leaves a considerable amount of time the highly-publicized players could be delivering their agendas and yet they are widely silent. And if the players are not willing to show a concentrated effort toward change, it stops being news.

A few players protesting for a minute and a half once a week should not be news. If all sports players stood together to achieve a goal, that would be news. Hell, if you could get just the NFL players to be on the same side it would be news. Of course, the NFL would still be in the right when they fired every single one of them, and that would be news too.

That is the problem with the media giants like CNN and Fox, somewhere along the line they started reporting feelings instead of events. An abundance of stories describes how a group feels about an event, rather than reporting on it and letting the viewer respond with their own feelings. We are guided toward how we should react, instead of how we may have reacted naturally.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is perfect evidence of this. The right tells people the anti-Trump groups have a disorder because they do not support everything the President does. While the left tells their group that Trump is constantly attacking everything they hold dear. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has conducted policies almost identically to every president before him.

Barack Obama made strong statements against illegal immigration and was supported in it. George HW Bush made the famous “No new taxes” claim and there has never been a time when the government was not trying to add taxes. Trump has defined himself with wall building and tariff making, the only difference is he says mean things. So, because of feelings, Trump is the worst President ever.

Trump does plenty to cause dislike. Just like Obama, he has taken a stand against illegal immigration. Just like Bush, he has sent soldiers to war. Just like under Clinton, police beat individuals for a multitude of unwarranted offenses. However, the news focuses on the wrong aspects of every major issue.

On immigration, one side says we need to keep people out and the other believes we need to let everyone in. Although simple economics will tell you that an open border with the magnet of social programs, like welfare or universal healthcare, will collapse the system supplying the programs because there will be too many mouths and not enough wallets to balance each other out. While on the other side, restricting someone from crossing an imaginary line under the threat of imprisonment or death cannot be the answer. The news focuses on your imposed feelings instead of trying to show people what the problems are.

On war, one side says we must bring peace and safety to the world and the other side says we must protect our values by eliminating the threat at the source. What no one, news source, Republican, or Democrat, will address is that none of the wars we inject ourselves into or start are necessary. We have dropped bombs on an ever-rising number of countries for decades, but then wage war in response to the blowback. Finding creative ways to support wars of aggression should not be news, it probably should be punished in a court of law.

On police brutality, one side says we must always stand with the police and the other believes any violence is too much. Even police should not side with all police all the time. Police officers are people and can make mistakes. And unfortunately, if someone uses violence against police, they should be able to defend themselves. The problem that no one addresses on the news is the non-violent crimes that continue to be the root cause of much of the violence. If a person wants to ingest a plant and there is no one around to be affected by it, why is that a crime?

Three major problems with three reasonable resolutions. Either open the border and cancel social programs or seal it shut and let tax money try and help those that contribute. Do not tell me separating families is wrong because last I heard, there were not many daycares at prisons. War is wrong because it is mass murder. You cannot bring peace and prosperity through death and destruction no matter the reason for bringing the wrath. If we stopped arresting those for non-violent crimes, their cases of police brutality would drop dramatically. Look at crime statistics during and after prohibition for some clear evidence.

I know the major news organizations will not acknowledge these ideas, because I am not the first to say them. But if we can find a way to shift our attention away from their biased, attention-grabbing tactics and focus on facts and events, maybe we can steer them toward being honest and plain. The market will provide. Trust me, there is plenty of diabolical things committed by both sides of the political spectrum, to try and convince people there is a better way, so let’s report those stories and lay off the fluff.

This article represents the views of the author exclusively, and not those of Being Libertarian LLC.

The post We Hold the News to be Self-Evident appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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[xtruss]

Among Iraqis, the Name RUMSFELD (The War Criminal) Evokes Nation’s Destruction

— BY QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

— Associated Press | Thursday July 1, 2021

BAGHDAD (AP) — When he heard on the news that Donald Rumsfeld had died, Ali Ridha al-Tamimi and his wife sat down with their four children and told them:

“This is the Person Who Ruined Our Country.”

“He destroyed many families. And did it under the cover of liberation,” Tamimi later told The Associated Press. “I will never forgive him for the pain he caused us.”

The heated emotions are shared by many in Iraq, where the name Rumsfeld is synonymous with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein — and deaths, arrests and torture that followed. The dark chapter in Iraq’s history still echoes in the daily lives of Iraqis today.

Rumsfeld, the defense secretary for President George W. Bush, was one of the architects of the invasion that ousted Saddam on what turned out to be baseless accusations he was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Americans and their allies failed to plan much for what came next, and disbanded Iraqi security forces as one of their first steps — leading Iraqis to hold Rumsfeld and other American leaders responsible for years of unremitting sectarian bloodletting, extremist attacks and endless car bombings.

Rumsfeld is also linked to the abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad — an episode Rumsfeld later referred to as his darkest hour as defense secretary.

The prison was known during Saddam’s rule as one of the main facilities for jailing and executing his opponents. After Saddam, Abu Ghraib became notorious once again, for the 2004 scandal over shocking abuses of detainees by American guards.

When news broke of Rumsfeld’s death in the United States on Wednesday at 88, many Iraqis took to social media to express lingering anger and bitterness. They aired memories of the dark era in Iraq that Bush and Rumsfeld represent.

Some tweeted: “Rot in Hell.”

Others described Rumsfeld as a “War Criminal.”

Al-Tamimi said he holds Rumsfeld personally responsible for his own detention in 2006, on suspicion of undertaking in anti-U.S. activities, including, he said, allegations of inciting against the U.S. presence in Iraq. Speaking to the AP over the phone on Thursday, he would not elaborate.

He was held in Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq for two years without a conviction. His son was just over a month old when he was detained. “He killed me while I was alive,” al-Tamimi said of Rumsfeld.

Al-Tamimi’s son was growing up for those two years “not knowing he had a father or where he was,” he said. Al-Tamimi was later found innocent by an Iraqi court and freed in 2008.

On social media, Iraqis shared stories of what Americans called a war of liberation gone horribly wrong for their country.

Muntader al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist known for throwing his shoes at Bush during a 2008 news conference to vent his outrage at the U.S.-led invasion, tweeted:

“He is Gone and Baghdad Remains.”

In Washington, Rumsfeld’s former colleagues remembered him as simultaneously smart and combative, patriotic and politically cunning, with a career under four presidents that was tainted by the disastrous invasion of Iraq, for which Rumsfeld served as one of the most visible and vocal supporters.

Bush on Wednesday hailed Rumsfeld’s “steady service as a wartime secretary of defense — a duty he carried out with strength, skill, and honor😡😡.”

But the memories of those whose lives and nation were changed by the U.S. administration’s actions could not have been more different.

“Rumsfeld was a black mark on the history of Iraq. He brought the corrupt politicians that now control Iraq,” said Ihsan Alshamary, an Iraqi researcher in political affairs. He said Rumsfeld is responsible not just for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but for decisions that had calamitous effects on Iraq’s future.

“As an Iraqi, I am relieved that one of the people responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands of Iraqis, is now dead. He will face his maker and have to answer for his transgressions in this life,” said Jawad al-Tai, a 45-year-old living in Baghdad.

“He didn’t liberate us. This is a myth. He killed us and told us to thank him for it,” al-Tai said.

In the wake of the invasion, many Iraqis were grateful to have Saddam removed by the Americans, and initially hopeful for their country’s future.

But that changed as it became clear that the Americans were unsure how to proceed after gutting the Iraqi government and security forces — or how to deal with the violent Sunni extremist groups, militants and and Shiite militias, some backed by neighboring Iran, that sprang up in the resulting security vacuum.

Sajad al-Rikabi, a 38-year-old Iraqi activist who participated in mass protests against government corruption in 2019, said he holds the U.S. responsible for the broken country that is Iraq today, and the post-war political class that now rules the land.

“The only way I will say “Rest in Peace” for him, is if the U.S. comes in and dismantles the system he created,” al-Rikabi said of Rumsfeld. “All that we are protesting now came because of his policies.”

— Associated Press writer Samya Kullab in Baghdad contributed to this report.