Shame

Is there...has there ever been?...a more nauseating politician on the national scene than Joseph Lieberman?

I doubt it.

Men like this are the catalysts behind the decline and fall of the country where I was born.

Shame on this man.

Shame.

History outdoes parody

So in the end, it would appear that the Honduran "business class" (the euphemism most commonly used in the corporate press) has succeeded in simply removing an inconvenient president - inconvenient because he had an attack of scruples and social solidarity. Granted, it wasn't like the good old days, when such a leader would simply be killed, but effective in the long run. Send the military to carry the man out of the country in his pajamas, refuse to seriously negotiate with him or his representatives, a bit of the old "mano duro" applied to his supporters, and then a sham election that supposedly "brings back democracy". Impressive.

More impressive still was the Obama administration's (and State Department's) handling of the issue. Not heavy-handedly pro-coup as in the past...no, now we are supposedly in a new epoch. But even with mild pressure from Washington, the coup organizers would have had to yield. The Administration's utterly disingenuous response? - "you call the US imperialistic all these years, and now you want us to intervene in the internal politics of a sovereign nation...this is a problem for the Hondurans".

Right. For one of the first times in history, Washington has a chance to truly and effectively apply pressure to "defend democracy" in Latin America, and they are suddenly overwhelmed with concern for a nation's sovereignty.

And so does history once again outdo parody. The great "defender of democracy", the country that cynically and falsely employed that rationale for decades in support of tyranny, suddenly loses its taste for democracy-defending when the use of such a term could legitimately be applied. And this under Obama.

¡Hay que joderse!

A few years have passed now since the wave of anti-religious books written by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, et. al. appeared. Those works were guaranteed to stir up a sizable reaction - and indeed they have. In fact, the media is now trending towards the religious faith defenders - most of whom, curiously, do not seem to be conservative religious reactionaries. In general, rather, they seem to fall into the politically moderate-to-progressive camp, and may range from left-wing Christians to "tolerant" agnostics. All seem to conclude that Dawkins and the others offer simple, reductionist arguments, and many seem to be miffed by the atheists' apparent disrespect for people of faith. Given that "respect for people's faith" is a well-embedded part of what is considered to be "acceptable discourse" (except when that faith leads people to take out tall buildings), the media are naturally drawn to these "defenders of faith".

Now it is time for people of reason to respond. I would like to go into this in more detail in the future. For now, I'd like to quote a fellow named Troy Jollimore, from a book review on Truthdig: "In her more radical mode, Armstrong wants to preserve religious talk from questions of truth—in our ordinary sense of “truth”—by draining them of content. But when we lose content we do not only lose truth, we lose meaning as well. The apophatic retort to the skeptic, then, seems to reduce to: “You don’t know what you’re talking about—indeed, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. So how dare you contradict me!”

Here he is referring to the tired argument that religious concepts are simply beyond our understanding - humans cannot grasp the ways of God - that faith defenders offer when confronting reasonable challenges to the inconsistencies and absurdities abounding in all the major faiths. Thus, Dawkins etc. are "simplifying" the issue by ignoring the ineffable nature of the subject. One cannot deny what one cannot understand.

One is tempted to bang one's head against the wall when confronting such claims. That's why I find Jollimore's words so enjoyable...

Krugman begins his column in the NYT today as such: "At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”

Over the years I have encountered a wide range of willful ignorance. Usually such ignorance is related to something quite close to home - one's own behaviour or history (selective memory), the tendency to blind oneself to the negative qualities of loved ones, etc. Second-order examples would include religious and/or nationalistic beliefs that lead one to willfully ignore real-world evidence.

I am, however, astounded by the breathtaking ignorance shown by so much of the U.S. population concerning health care reform. This embarrassing blindness extends from the stop-think dismissal of national health programs in the rest of the industrialised world ("socialist...leading to lines and delayed care...lack of choice...inefficient,etc.") to the current proposals for U.S. reform. A sorry spectacle - millions upon millions of people frothily arguing against programs that would directly benefit them and their loved ones. Opposition to any changes in the current system is understandable from the elite - those wealthy enough to fly over the health care mess and not have their lives conditioned by health care worries, or those who are, and have been enriching themselves at the expense of the not-so-fortunate masses (the entire health care industry). One can understand the reticence of congress members (who belong to the above groups) to stand up to major sources of campaign funding. The moronic posturing, lies and manipulation of Fox news (and similar) is also comprehensible.

But regular Americans?

Yet another hang-over from the Cold War years. Anti-communism as a religion has had a remarkable effect on today's realities, even decades after that absurd ideological overreach has been able to work off any kind of foil. The entire worldwide radical Islam movement (and, consequently, the perversion of western democracy as a reaction) is clearly rooted in "Western" efforts to stimulate and support such movements against "Soviet" interests. Irrational anti-communism also provided political cover and fuel for the insane neo-liberal excesses that led to today's (and, alas, it would seem, tomorrow's) financial problems (in many ways, but most notably in the deregulatory excesses witnessed from the early 80's to last year).

Finally, the anti-communist overreach also created a Frankenstein of anti-government sentiment in the U.S. Just how far will it go, I wonder.

It would seem logical and quite in keeping with "nature" that the wealthy and the elite would find myriad ways of justifying greed and the lack of solidarity. It makes little sense for the powerful to feel guilt over their position (indeed, such guilt or shame is what keeps a multitude of capable people from accumulating such wealth). It also seems fitting that greed-justifying writers, intellectuals and politicians (who may or may not directly belong to the economic elite itself) would be handsomely rewarded, lavishly praised and supported in many ways by that elite. John Kenneth Galbraith famously wrote in this regard that the modern conservative was engaged in the pursuit of finding a superior moral justification for greed.

"Justify our place atop the pyramid...even if our official, religious-based morality reminds us that there is something terribly wrong about large accumulations of wealth in the face of extreme poverty and suffering", they might say... If only to alleviate their consciences and allow them to feel good about themselves. But the usefulness of greed justification obviously goes beyond helping the rich sleep better. When Naomi Klein insists that Milton Friedman's economic theories were quite "profitable" (indeed they were!), she is pointing out that not only are such intellectuals well-rewarded for their work, but that the elite they serve are also freed to accumulate far greater wealth and power. For this to occur, the greed-justification theories must also somehow appeal to the much larger numbers of poor and middle-classes.

Now this is quite a trick, given that the economic policies (including a war-like foreign policy) that free the elite to accumulate more wealth almost universally work at the expense of the poor and middle classes. The question for the powerful has always been: how convince the overwhelming majority of people to wholeheartedly support our right to cynically exploit them - even to the point that they are willing to kill and die for this right?

And that brings us back to yesterday's closing rant about the current anti-taxation movement. The Obama adminstration is working to lower taxes for the vast majority of Americans, and raise taxes on the wealthy (to a point that would bring them close to what they were under that great socialist Reagan). So we are treated to the spectacle of thousands (what some columnists are calling an Astroturf, rather than grassroots, movement - given that it would seem to be rather manipulated and artificial, the manufacture of consent, as Chomsky put it) of protesters out in the streets, in the guise of "patriots", many working and middle class people crying out against raising taxes on the rich. 

What?

...ok...so they're idiots. But all those folks working in the corporate media who are rousing them to action? The Fox News contingent? Are those people real? Did they come from outer space to fuck with our heads (the graphics and production style would seem to support this theory). In any case, as an athiest, this pains me...but since I simply cannot imagine what would make so many people work so hard towards such an utterly fucked-up end...I'm left with begrudgingly having to admit of the existence of evil. Only evil could let such things happen...But what the hell is evil? Is it possible to define that concept without immersing oneself in the religions again?

looking foward cross-eyed

Watching the television news at lunchtime…hmmm…a case of willing suspension of disbelief?...a cynical exercise in ironic distance?...well, here the satellite company offers quite a full menu, from Spanish public TV news to the Spanish version of CNN (much higher quality than the international version), to BBC international (better still)…down to the weirdly hallucinogenic, futuristically frightening, empirical-proof-of-the-existence-of-evil Fox News (apart from the twisted, perverted, hateful politics, it’s just so damn ugly!), to the international French news channel (quite good), to Al Jazeera (in general, journalistically outstanding)…

In any case, we come upon the news that the Obama administration, after fully admitting to the prisoner treatment atrocities and war crimes committed by the CIA, has also fully absolved all those involved in said crimes. No point in dwelling over the past, they say. Better to look to the future. I’ll bet those folks who sat on the hot seat at Nuremberg before swinging on the noose wish the world would have been so “forward looking” back then.

This was followed, almost in sequence, by another piece concerning the Administration’s approach to Cuba…loosening up a bit…ah, but of course no thought about lifting the embargo. Hell no. As mentioned by an Administration spokesperson, the Cuban government must make some human rights progress first. Now, while the (CNN) newscaster was reading this news, I watched her face. I may have been imagining this, but she seemed to go just ever so slightly cross-eyed. Talk about cognitive dissonance! Or, ahem…was there? Is the world so utterly stunned, dazed, atontado, ajillipollado…so as not to be knocked on the head by this painful piece of hypocrisy? And this not from the Bush Administration any more…but from the sainted Obama Administration. ¡Hay que joderse!

 

By the way, has anyone noticed that the project (best illustrated by the Republican Party in general, Fox News and other corporate media giants, etc., and many others) which involves trying to convince the lower-to-middle classes (the massive majority) that their interests are the same as the ultra-rich -  just keeps going on and on? I’ve always been amazed by this process. The elite have always done this - how else is less than 10 percent of the population going to lord over the other 90 percent?. But since the age of Reagan and Thatcher, I can’t help but marvel at how absurd and preposterous this project has been and continues to be. The latest example are these anti-taxation “Tea Parties”, organized, it would seem, by Fox News itself, but with substantial support from a good number of blithering idiots.  I don’t know…my bafflement and rage are quite beyond words for today…better to take up the subject in another entry.    

ontological rant in the court of the imagination

The defendant stood before the judge in the hushed courtroom. He began speaking.

“I plead not guilty, your honor. In fact, I cannot but plead not guilty. My “not guilty plea” is nothing but the product of neuronal activity within my head. Even though I do feel a bit guilty about having caused the death of my loved one with that chop stick, that guilt has no practical effect on my plea. Even though I would have preferred to avoid her death, I had no direct control over the act. In fact, every time I am using the word “I” in this sentence, it is only for semantic reasons, for there is no “I” in the sense that the court commonly understands it. There is only an agglomeration of cells functioning as a unit, said unit representing nothing more than the gross accumulation of causes and effects within, and without. In fact, as I shall show, the movements associated with the physical entity labeled “I” were nothing more than the utterly unavoidable series of causes and effects, emanating from outside this body, setting off the pertinent internal string of causes/effects, issuing in an overall external physical act which, in sum, was but another cause to the effect, or consequence, under the court’s current consideration.

I would like to remind the court of a number of issues pertinent to my defense. A cursory look at the legal record, as well as at prevailing punitive law, shows that society grants the existence of different levels of responsibility for the acts of its members. Different punishments are meted out for taking another life, depending on what the court assumes to be the degree of intent of the killing. Courts look upon premeditation as proof of the highest degree of intent, of responsibility. From there we move down to premeditation with certain levels of just cause (self-defense, hunger, etc.). Next on the descending scale of responsibility are killings done in a state of passion. From there we go down to the myriad levels of insanity pleas. Finally, there are killings that can be said to be entirely accidental. All imply a number of elements – a sense of control, independent will, a clearly defined and existent self – in formulating the level of intent and responsibility. Note that at the lower end of this scale, the element of choice, of individual, clear-headed decision making leading to the act, becomes less and less applicable…until, in the case of proven and unavoidable accident, it is inapplicable altogether.
I would like to submit to the court that the same lack of individual will, or free choice, applies also to the most cold-headed, thoroughly deliberated murder. I challenge the court to identify, in a pertinent and rationally acceptable manner, the element that distinguishes murder in the first degree from accidental homicide. The court will no doubt bring up the autonomous self, the “free will”. But can the court really show physical evidence of such phenomena? I claim that it cannot. Contemporary brain science is revealing the physiological functioning of the brain, and of its relation to bodily movement – or behavior. What we can clearly demonstrate is a highly complex system of neurological, electro-chemical activity, a universe of causes and effects. Yet there is nothing in science that has clearly identified the active, individual, “morally autonomous agent” within all this.
If I could claim that I was clinically insane at the time of the killing, you would lower my sentence. If I could claim that another person literally forced me to shove that chop stick up the nose of my wife, you would lower my sentence, or even declare me innocent.
If believe that I need no such countervailing claims. The body that is identified as “me” did indeed commit the act in question. However, you are unable to reasonably show that there is a “moral agent” within this body to assume guilt. The court has only shown a series of causes and effects.”

The judge looked on in increasing annoyance, as did the jury. “Sir,” said the judge, “do you really expect us to take that argument seriously?”
“I’m sorry, your honor”, replied the accused. “I was unable to argue in any other way. I am thoroughly determined to argue against free-will…I am thoroughly determined…it…I…the force…oneness…”
The eyes of the accused began to dart back and forth across the courtroom, as he quickly lost composure.
He continued, his voice growing louder and louder. “There is no I!...and all of you!!...there is no “you”…you fools!!...” A bit of spittle began to form on his lips. “Everything you do is determined…everything!!...it is all laid out…it is all there…!....IT IS WRITTEN!!!!

He was wrestled to the floor by several guards as the last words echoed throughout the chamber.

“We hold the defendant guilty as charged.”

I scream, you scream, we all scream for torture

So upcoming Attorney General Eric Holder becomes the first “official” (i.e., law-relevant) voice to admit that water-boarding is torture. A nice breath of fresh air, one would think. As the Times reporter puts it, “In the view of many historians and legal authorities, Mr. Holder was merely admitting the obvious.”

Right. Making people undergo atrocious physical and psychological suffering is torture. What do you know. After 8 years of reality-denial and the weird kind of reality-derangement of the ruling party in the U.S., finally, it would appear, we have people who tilt ever so slightly more towards respect for the empirical.

Ah, but let us remember, Times reporter Scott Shane writes, all the problems such an admission of reality entails…Ah yes, the stickiness…the problems. As in, employees of the United States government, with orders directly from the White House, committed empirically verifiable war crimes. War crimes – according to the treaties and laws to which the U.S is itself a signatory.

All this, of course, making people squirm…one could feel the reporter squirming for them…

Now, in any decent world, criminal investigations would immediately be initiated, very possibly involving most of the highest members of the Bush administration, and very possibly resulting in war crime prosecution, and prison for these people.

The establishment squirms…

Why do they squirm, one might wonder? Apart from the practical political inconveniences of seeing establishment figures treated as war criminals, I think the squirming results from a certain ambiguity about the acceptability of torture itself. In general, many if not most people believe that torture is an acceptable tool for getting information. Apart from the fact that most professional interrogators deny this, I think that most laymen intuitively believe that anything is justifiable if it may possibly uncover information leading to the avoidance of other violent acts against innocents. Ah, yes, when directly questioned, most will not admit this…especially anyone in positions of legal responsibility… Thus the absurd rhetorical twists and turns by officials when testifying about water boarding…thus the many statements by Bush and others in his administration that “we do not torture”. Of course they were fucking torturing!...as Cheney, to his minimal credit, now openly admits.

Frankly, I think that many in the power structure in Washington either openly or secretly believe in the acceptability, indeed necessity, of torture. And thus, the squirming…even on the part of the “liberal” NY Times…

This rather barbaric stance spurts out openly when the perpetrators of war crimes are not Americans – witness the almost universal Congressional support for Israel’s latest clampdown in Gaza – a sentiment that runs against the almost universal condemnation Israel is receiving around the world. Unqualified support for absolute barbarism is easy when others are engaged in it…no realty-rearrangement or violence against logic/semantics necessary. This is what the pride- and religion-drunk idiots of Hamas don’t seem to get. Neither the rulers in Israel, nor their North American patrons, could give a flying fuck about war atrocities if they can in any way be justified by “protecting the country from enemies”. And those idiotic missiles Hamas seems intent on shooting at Israelis are just the ticket.

One wonders why the world bothers with such concepts as “international law”, “human rights”, etc. Obviously, when push comes to shove, or when it is in the interest of some powerful elite, rights and law are quickly forgotten.

Oh that the new political power structure in Washington were able to investigate, prosecute and punish those who spent the better part of 8 years defecating on US and international law, on the US Constitution…the same power structure that gave carte blanche to those whose fevered greed and cynicism led to such wreckage in the US and world economy…ah, sweet dreams…