We, the people of the US, have just been through the most over-the-top exercise in self pity imaginable. Perhaps we could be excused for the days after September 11, 2001, for indulging in grief and righteous indignation. The horror of watching people die in New York City upset even Americans who usually pour abuse onto New York. The blowing up of the buildings was a spectacular show, and very few people questioned just how that show was produced, at the time.

But now, after 10 years of the US bombing, maiming, ethnically cleansing, murdering, terrorizing, blowing up buildings, driving into exile, deforming the babies and killing the livestock of the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and others we don't yet know about (as Rumsfield would say, the known unknowns), now we have the nerve to indulge in an mass orgy ofbathos, complete with light shows and solemn speeches and monuments. To remember one day? Ten years of murder and destruction versus one day? 3 buildings versus thousands? 3,000 people versus over 1,000,000?

Jeez, can any people be more clueless or lacking in perspective or empathy?

And, to explain how the original show was produced, watch this video from Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth.

London Burning

We hear a lot about our Anglo Saxon heritage and culture. It's usually to point out the superiority of our legal system to one, say, of stoning adulterers to death.

As we watch England burn, though, it's wise to recall that part of our culture is a propensity to violence.

It's been England who has stood by the US as we bombed, killed, kidnapped and tortured our way through Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa in the last decade alone. Sure, England is a junior partner, not given to the excesses of the US, but-still.

A young woman, hiding in her apartment in London, has this to say about the cluelessness of her ruling class-

No one expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.

Parts of our population have 40%-50% unemployment and have been living in poverty for years, recently joined by more and more of the formerly employed. Now our ruling class has decided that the paltry benefits that the American working class (including the unemployed) have must stop.

What do they expect to happen?

Well, because the US now has a military command assigned to it, and because the police have been militarized, and the nastiest in each police force taken for special training, (as one of our local police said "I get to wear black pajamas and kick down doors"), because Homeland Security has dossiers on millions of Americans, and enormous prisons are being built, and new "non-lethal" weapons developed....I'm guessing that our ruling class is not clueless about what will happen.

They're ready.

No Joking Matter

Saturday night I was at a party with a bunch of intelligent, good-hearted liberals.

One of them told a joke about Bush. He dies and goes to heaven, but is stopped at the pearly gates and told that he must preview heaven and hell, and then choose which one he wants. He says that of course he wants heaven, but St Peter insists on him following the rules.

So he goes down to hell and there are Cheney and Rumsfield, driving around a golf course, drinking and carousing with women. Bush refuses a drink, but they tell him "You're dead now, George. You can drink again".

Then Bush goes to preview heaven. The pearly gates open, and there are a bunch of nice people sitting around listening to classical music on NPR.

"Well", says Bush. "I never thought I'd say this, but I want to go to hell".

So they send him back, and there is fire and brimstone and people screaming in agony.

"Hey!" says Bush. "Where's the golf course and the booze and the women?"

"Oh", says Satan. "That was just the campaign!"

We all laughed heartily. Then I said, "That joke would work even better with Obama!"

Instant hostile silence. Then the hostess asked me what I could possibly mean by that.

Gosh, just that Bush never promised much, but Obama did. You know, Obama promised peace, rule of law, openness, the end of torture, prosperity, and the end of a government for the rich. Instead, the torture continues, the wars have widened, secrecy prevails and whistle-blowers are prosecuted, war crimes go unpunished, and Obama prescribes austerity for the working class and subsidies to the rich. Really? I have to explain this?

That's when I noticed the framed Obama poster on the wall.

Oops!

End of the Republic

Congress voted yesterday to give up its budgeting power to a Super Committee, 12 members who will be picked for their belief in small government.

Ha, ha, just kidding. They will believe in a massive military, increased Homeland Repression, and more prisons added to the gulag that already imprisons more people than any other country in the world.

They just don't believe in a strong sovereign government which represents US citizens, instead of multi-national corporations, and which provides for the common welfare. Chris Floyd sums it up very well, in his post "If the republic had not died a long time ago, this would indeed be the death of the republic".

If you actually read the Constitution, that short document which is easily contained in the booklets that Congresspeople wave in the air while legislating against US citizen's interest, Congress has almost all of the power in government. The only duties that the President really has are to enforce the laws that Congress passes, and to give a speech to Congress yearly. And to command the armies if Congress declares war.

Congress has already given up the power to declare war. That power has been taken over by the President, wielding the incredible death dealing apparatus of a massive standing military. The power to raise an Army, and pay for it (but for no more than two years) was also given up by Congress.

The power to coin money and regulate the value of it was given up long, long ago.

Here's a duty of Congress - "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time."

Where's the amendment that says, "except for the black budget"?

So this appointment of 12 people to be more equal than the others is just one more step down the slippery road of oligarchy.

But it's an amazingly big step. They are giving up the power to raise revenue, and to decide how the revenue should be spent. The more equal 12 people will decide those questions, and the only thing the rest of the 435 representatives can do is to approve it or not.

I've quoted Lily Tomlin before "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up".

I have agreed with Michael Hudson and Glenn Greenwald, that this entire artificially suspenseful debt ceiling theater was a way to attack social spending for US citizens.

Obama even threatened to withhold Social Security checks for the elderly, the disabled, and orphans, even though Social Security is funded separately from the federal budget. Not even Bush or Cheney ever sunk that low!

But I wasn't cynical enough to realize that this power play would go far enough to further strip Congress of its powers.

I just can't keep up!

Terrorist Attack in Norway

Breaking news is that Norway is undergoing multiple terrorist attacks, of unknown origin.

The US announces that Norway doesn't have strong enough "security", and that is why they were attacked.

On September 11, 2001, I turned on ABC News to watch the coverage of the terrorist attacks.

I watched for one hour, and then a talking head (whom I did not recognize, and I don't remember his name) announced that the reason that the US was attacked was that we were "too free" and that that was going to change.

I turned off the TV in disgust. The US too free? What a crock!

The loonies were coming out.

But now I see that the man was prescient. Of course he was. That was the plan all along.

Now I know that the 9-11 attacks were carried out by US operatives, with the intention of scaring the American people into accepting homeland repression and military aggression.

I am willing to bet that the Norway attacks are being carried out by US operatives, with the intention of scaring the Norwegians into accepting homeland repression and buying US tools of oppression, such as the Michael Chertoff pornoscanners, and police weapons.

Update : Glenn Greenwald points out that Norway resisted and refused to go along with calls (including from the New York Times) for greater repression in Norway.

Two Americas

Observers have pointed out that there are two Americas. One - an educated, latte-drinking, Prius-driving, NPR listening kind and gentle people. The other - an ignorant, Bud-light drinking, pick-up truck driving, Rush Limbaugh-listening rough and violent people.

My new neighbors moved in a few months ago. My husband was at the fence introducing himself to the male, and I came up to be friendly.

My husband kept asking the man if he was attending the local college, and the man kept ignoring the question, while salivating over our billy goat's well-hung testicles and powerful build, asking unseemly questions about his potency and violent behavior. I felt like interrupting my husband by saying "Of course he doesn't go to college, you unobservant, NPR-listening man! Quit asking!"

Today, my neighbor has been blowing up fireworks for a solid two hours, freaking out my animals, and getting on my last nerve. Where the hell does an unemployed person get the money to buy so many fireworks?

Oh. Wait. I'm an American. My country is broke, but still manages to terrorize people all over the world by dropping explosives onto them. No expense spared, even if we have no money. My neighbor is simply aping his rulers.

When the US first invaded Iraq, they dropped bombs on Baghdad day and night, 24 hours/7days/week. The expressed plan was to break the Iraqis will by psychologically terrorizing them.

It had the desired affect on one family with two teenaged girls. The mother told of the girls shaking, covering their ears and screaming, unable to take the stress anymore.

So the father, mother and the two girls got into their car and headed out of Baghdad, looking for a quieter safer place.

They came up to a checkpoint. The father was an engineer, and had gone to college in America, so he knew English. He got out of the car to explain to the soldier about his terrified teenagers.

The soldier blew him away, and then turned and shot up the car, killing both girls and wounding the mother.

When I heard this story, I realized that the Iraqi had only met nice Americans in his college years. He thought that he could reasonably explain his situation, and the American would listen and respond in a rational manner.

Unfortunately, he met one of the other Americans. Some low-life rough kid, who decided that joining the Army was a morally acceptable way to make money, since his morals were lacking.

I heard the story from the mother's viewpoint.

I wonder about the soldier's. Did he take pictures of his kill and post them online? Or did he realize the horror of what he had done and kill himself when he got home, as so many soldiers have done?

We live in an insane society, where murder is glorified and kindness is ridiculed. It's a tribute to stubborn human values that a small portion of the country resists the constant mantra of death worship we are subjected to, and holds onto decency.

I salute Decent America.

Too Late

I quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. in a previous post, in which I talked about the American police state and its perpetual wars.

"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late"."

Liberals are fond of predicting the future "end of our democracy". This seems absurd to me. Our ruling overlords clearly have no interest in what we think, or the way we want them to vote. Elections have been a farce for years, with two corporate selected candidates duking it out on TV, with the outcome of no more significance to our real lives than the outcome of the Super Bowl. Now that votes are "counted" by computerized machines, the announced vote totals need have no relation at all to what buttons the voters actually pushed.

But we are exhorted to get out there and push so many buttons that they can't steal the election! Seriously? Do these people not know how computers work?

But the structure of our society is a subset of our environment. The only thing that truly matters to our lives is that we have enough food and water to stay alive. All the rest is superfluous.

Scientists tell us that if we don't stop dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere "soon" we will be past the point of no return.

Soon? 3 weeks ago, we had almost 2 feet of rain in 10 days, leading to widespread flooding. Last week, we had tornadoes. Today it is 90 degrees outside. Meanwhile, the South is suffering through a drought.

Last year, Australia flooded and Russia burned. Polar bears have been drowning for years.

What do they mean- soon it will be too late?

The reason we are here is because Cyanobacteria changed our atmosphere. Before them, there was only 1% oxygen in our atmosphere. They took the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and turned it into 21% oxygen, through photosynthesis. The effect of trillions of bacteria upon our planet was immense, leading to life as we know it.

Of course, it killed off most of the anaerobic bacteria. We still have some around, but they have it rough, needing to stay away from oxygen. Tetanus, botulism and gangrene are all caused by anaerobic bacteria, which flourish when provided with an oxygen deprived environment.

So when people tell you that we puny humans can't possibly affect our vast planet, they are very wrong.

And I think that it might be too late.