Readers here know I supported the U.S. Senate campaign of Matthew Hoh, a USMC combat veteran and former State Department official who resigned in protest against the Obama Surge in Afghanistan in 2009.
He ran with the Green Party against war and the military-industrial complex and earned just over 29,000 votes in North Carolina. He was not a "spoiler." Even if the Democrat had won all these votes and the Libertarian votes as well, she still would have lost to the Republican.
Matt inspired at least 29,000 people; he certainly inspired me. We need more people like him to run or we'll be stuck with the usual suspects forever.
We crawl before we walk before we run. There's a long way to go until we can effect real change in America, but we'll never get there if we stay crawling on our bellies before the so-called elites.
The fact that candidates like Matthew Hoh get only a tiny percentage of the vote speaks to the power and effectiveness of official state propaganda and the dumbing down of American society in general. These marginal candidates will never be able to surmount this obstacle.
America is a truly unique totalitarian state. There is no need for gulags, concentration camps, and other such methods of punishment and forced persuasion. People are happy to obey and watch a corrupt, incompetent, and morally bankrupt ruling elite destroy the country.
The last time war was a big issue was in Nixon/McGovern in 1972. McGovern got clobbered. Politicians learned their lesson, which is enforced by an ever pro-war news media. As it is, except for the Bushes, wars tend to be started by Democrats and ended by Republicans. But even anti-war people still vote Democrat, considering that issues like minimum wage and health care are more important than issues like peace and war.
Funny, my kids say i am long winded and give out excruciating long detailed speeches. They hated my help with homework because i go into in-depth detail. My Dad liked that trait and he knew before i did, that i would write a book someday. i wrote and published 5 so i think he would be smiling from ear to ear...
In the aftermath of the mid-term elections, the only good news is that we have essentially paused some elements of the Democrats' agenda of total destruction by taking control of the House. That's where the bad news kicks in, because what's coming next for America (under Democrat rule) is going to be a multi-year "Dark Winter" of economic collapse, food inflation, censorship, tyranny, global war and more rigged elections.
What the mid-term proved is that Democrats know they can cheat and rig any election at any time. From here forward, Democrats don't even have to pretend to cater to the interests of the people. They can simply dictate their demands, no matter how insane, and arrest anyone who refuses to comply. The "dark winter" has only just begun.
I served in the Army back in the Sixtys in Germany and I have first hand knowledge how stupid and incompetent it was then. I refuse to believe it has improved any.Now with increasing the efficiency and effect of Nukes the dangers are more inherent and obvious to anyone who cares about humanities survival.Somewhere,somehow one of the Nuclear countrys is going to use them and we are doomed. It is important to remember the only country to drop the bombs. With DeSantis,Trump or Cruz perhaps in power in 2024 I am very fearful of our nonexistant future.
[2] The Great War as it was called, to make the world safe from, I mean safe for diluted democracy or more honestly for the plutocracy was simply another war for economic dominance between two conflicting sides. From this insidious war begot WW2, and then morphing into the cold war to vomit forthwith into our present ‘war’ of terror, using terrorism on those who dare not to succumb to our invasive hectoring, addiction, and ego. Always an enemy to fear, fight and conquer from the genocide and ethnic cleansing of 330+ Indian tribes to our present slaughter we are committing around the world which couldn’t be done without amoral troops and idiotic blind-support at home shopping at wal-mart, generally happily oblivious to the horror we commit.
I understand the concept (but personally disagree with) that nations or empires need to defend their borders as in our case, from the NSA, from the FBI invented and funded plants, retaliation from CIA terror attacks on allies, civilians, blow-back from drone terrorism inflicted on grandmothers, pregnant women, children medics, american citizens, or from southern neighbors coming back to their land that was stolen by us, and of course the most abused victim of all; the truth.
Yet our gallant and enthusiastic storm troopers are used for aggressive warfare all over the world and it is not just immoral it is illegal. The ‘war on terror’, ‘support the troops’, ‘navy, a force of good’, ‘God bless america’ and the other meaningless, silly slogans are designed to compel one and all to fall in line in quiet obedience and with goose-stepping compliance is the prodding for dumbed down sheelpe, not empathetic critical thinkers. Because we must support the troops, does this mean that we must support the policies that send our kids to kill and die in lands not our own, or what they do over there?
Thank you Marine General Butler who wrote the greatest essay concerning this in his: “War is a Racket.” Thank you conscientious objectors, since you have the courage and brains to be the real heroes of peace. Arguably attributed to Thomas Jefferson; “Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism.” For the veterans, by becoming unthinking assassinations, gangsters of capitalism, unethical war ho’s, hired guns, are not hired so much for your nation’s defense but for self-serving, greedy, oligarchic owners who possess stock in the ‘industrial-military-complex’.
So who should truly, sincerely thank the vets and the nation for this? Should the victim’s thank you? From the graves of over 1 million Iraqis should a great bellow of appreciation come forth with ghostly haunted cries and screams? From the orphanages and hospitals should the children and wounded write letters of thanks? Should the lame and disabled hobble or limp to the nearest us military base to grovel and kiss your combat boots? Should they pay for the bullets, missiles, depleted uranium shells, drones and bombs?
What of the Afghans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and so many more? How many were slaughtered and for what? For a filthy polluted false flag, for a lie, for a filthy racket? No flag can ever fly higher than the pile of bones from its victims though it does try to and the red, white, and blue is really up there climbing past the stratosphere.
Where is the honor in dishonorable acts? Who are the real heroes? Heroes are those who save lives not those who take them. Heroes are those people who help people, who assist with a helping hand, a kind word, a teacher, a nurse, a humanitarian. Heroes do not pick up guns and kill at command for profit and gain over at their neighbor’s home giggling in glee. Support the troops? Is this an implication to ‘basically’; support the team? What if the ‘team’ is committing acts that are illegal and immoral violating virtually everything the team members were taught as children at home, at church and at school to honor as probity, as principles and civic values? And after we do our carnage, we then walk away without a backward glance, patting ourselves on the shoulders pretending our horrifying terrorism was a good deed. And you expect any civil human being with a conscience to honor this dishonor, to thank a vet? Are you that sociopathic?
If I can convince one kid not to join the military, then I have accomplished much. Thank a vet for becoming a gangsta’ of capitalism, a war ho, becoming antichristian by joining a force that has mutated into the greatest terrorist criminal organization the world has ever known, that is nefarious, so no, I will not give thanks for debauchery? Thank a vet for being a killing machine for the 1%? Thank a vet for being un-american by committing un-american acts? I’m not grateful, just a bit more honest and objective, far less nationalistic and a bit more empathetic to your victims. I simply prefer to follow the messages of the prince of peace who teaches one to love ones enemy and commands us not to kill, to put down the sword rather than to blindly, without conscience, follow the god of war like stupid lemmings to the butchery of others. Thank a vet? For making us all less free, less safe by killing human beings who are no threat to us, destroying buildings, towns, cities, ancient civilizations, while militarily occupying other lands? This noxious nationalistic addiction to manic militarism and phony paux patriotism is killing this society’s sullied soul. There’d be no war today-If mothers all would say: “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” Because you know our leaders would never fight. The rich profit and the poor die…That is nothing to be thankful about.. To become a solder is not just immoral, it is amoral because then your become a paid ho’ for war, absolved of accountability by agreeing to become unquestioning, obeying cannon fodder that will one day regret to the point of suicide.
“There’d be no war today-If mothers all would say: “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” Because you know our leaders would never fight. The rich profit and the poor die…That is nothing to be thankful about it is rather something to mourn, condemn, shun and then never do again… Thank a vet? No thanks.
[1] So, it’s soon to be Armistice Day this 11-11-16. This is also called Remembrance Day, since it’s the day WWI ended with an armistice signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918 and our forebears had the foresight to name it thusly so we do not forget and make the same mistake of world war again. This was called ‘The War to End All Wars’ because it was so horrific and spurious that a future war of this magnitude would seemingly be impossibly insane to contemplate or repeat. It was so repulsive and horrific that dozens of nations decided to outlaw war forever by signing an agreement to finally end the scourge of war. Endorsed in 1928 and still on the books, it’s called the Kellogg-Briand Pact which is still legally binding. It was signed into law by the US Senate by a vote of 85-1.
I presume since most of you support da troopers that you support the evil that they do? So you are by definition an accomplice in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Also by definition ‘Peace is the normal state of a nation’, ergo perpetual war is not only abnormal it is psychotic and actually used as faux state to keep us mooing and bleating along in harmony, goose-stepping down a tunnel that will be our end.
So much for the hope that war would be a thing of the past and that humanity learned its lesson for within the next generation we suffered a war far worse. It was then dissolved in 1954 when this noble aspiration became a americanized federal holiday to honor american vets. Now we have 23 holidays ‘honoring’ militarism. Do you folks see a pattern here? Why do you want to become Sparta or Germany circa 1938? Illegal exported aggressive violence is not a defense of das fatherland or der homeland. It is however the epitome of odium. This cycle is tightly wound and cutting off the blood flow to our hearts, minds and souls.
Off to terrorize by vicious onslaught societies all over the world is not defensive protection of american shores but simply a pretext to acquire by force, trade routes, contracts and acquisition of resources for corporate self-interests and domination. This is what the founding fathers warned us about and advised us not to do. James Madison: 1) "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
2)"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
3)"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
This perpetual war we are in now is not a war, but we are at war with a tactic that we’ve been using for centuries and now we’re at war with ourselves, so to speak. We never rectify, but instead turn our backs, wash our hands and then do it again somewhere else for the same reasons with the same consequences expecting different results but never ever achieving them. Do know what that is called by Einstein?
This conflict really has no beginning, no ending, but with an open end that leads to the abyss. More $ is tossed into American militarism than the rest of the world does combined and this is ‘defense’? No this is for aggressive offense which was banned at Nuremburg but we seem to above the law, beyond any accountability or responsibility, or principle wherever we do it even when proven it was a crime. This is for profit, for this is simply a racket inflicted on us all for those who reap a whirl land that we can ill afford.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” Dwight Eisenhower
REAL DEMOCRACY MEANS DEMOCRACY OF INFORMATION by Caitlin Johnstone [Extracts]
The media are lying to us, as evidenced by reality never matching with their stories.
The politicians are lying to us, as evidenced by their never delivering on their promises.
The capitalist class are lying to us, as evidenced by their getting richer while workers get poorer.
***
Democracy of the vote without democracy of information is not democracy. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO VOTE AS LONG AS THE MEDIA-OWNING CLASS ARE ABLE TO MANIPULATE HOW THEY VOTE. "ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE" IS MEANINGLESS IF INFLUENCE AND CONTROL OF INFORMATION IS HIGHLY CONCENTRATED IN AN ELITE FEW. AND IT IS.
Mass media propaganda, internet censorship, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, government secrecy and the war on journalism are all anti-democratic in nature, because they restrict the information the citizenry are allowed to access to inform their vote. And none of those instruments of narrative control have any influence from, or accountability to, the rank-and-file public. This means that WHILE EVERYONE GETS A VOTE, HOW THOSE VOTES ARE APPLIED IS SUBJECTED TO AGGRESSIVE AND UBIQUITOUS MANIPULATION BY THE RULING CLASS.
THE US EMPIRE'S UNPRECEDENTED INVESTMENT IN SOFT POWER CONTROL SYSTEMS HAS GIVEN RISE TO THE MOST SOPHISTICATED PROPAGANDA SYSTEM THAT HAS EVER EXISTED. HUMAN THOUGHT IS BEING MANIPULATED AT MASS SCALE LIKE NEVER BEFORE. IF YOU CONTROL HOW PEOPLE THINK, YOU CONTROL HOW THEY VOTE.
Most of the propaganda people consume every day is not to manufacture consent for any one specific agenda, but TO MANUFACTURE CONSENT FOR THE OVERALL POLITICAL STATUS QUO WHICH KEEPS OUR WILDLY DYSFUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS IN PLACE. That's what maintains the false two-party puppet show. Without copious amounts of propaganda, it wouldn't be possible to keep two evenly divided political factions impotently playing tug-o-war and never ever actually changing anything. THE ENTIRE STATUS QUO IS BUILT UPON THE RULING CLASS'S ABILITY TO MANIPULATE MINDS AT MASS SCALE.
***
Our rulers are like a clever man who captured a baby giant and trained it not to notice how much bigger and stronger it is than him so it wouldn't squash him and escape.
To tie all the banter about Trump’s effectiveness as a candidate-endorser to the subject of this BV and who won Election2022:
Can anybody name any operating element of America’s Ruling Political Class that wasn’t even better off under Trump than they already were under Obama, Cheney/Bush the Lesser, and Clinton?
How’d the MICC do under Trump? Or the Big Banking-Finance-Printing Press Web? Or the various and sundry American Cartels and Cabals like Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Infotainment/Media, Big Medical Care, Big Transport and Shipping, and so forth?
Of course, one can ask the same question about all those folks and Biden: Are any of them not even better off now than they were when Trump left the Oval Office?
But the question nobody is asking is: Is America ~ not the RPC but “the American People” it rules ~ is it better off now than it was when Trump was de-throned? And was it better off after four years of Trumpatismo than it was at the end of Obama’s reign?
And here’s some more folks having second thoughts about The Donald:
SHARP ATTACKS ON TRUMP FROM RUPERT MURDOCH’S NEWS OUTLETS by David Bauder
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has taken some hits in the aftermath of the midterm elections, but the unkindest cuts may have come from a source that was once among his biggest backers — the media empire of magnate Rupert Murdoch.
“DON (WHO COULDN’T BUILD A WALL) HAD A GREAT FALL — CAN ALL OF THE GOP’S MEN PUT THE PARTY BACK TOGETHER AGAIN?” THE NEWSPAPER WROTE.
The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section ran a sharp editorial headlined, “TRUMP IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S BIGGEST LOSER.” While Fox News’ biggest stars were relatively quiet, the former president heard enough discouraging words to attack the network on social media.
Trump was blamed for supporting losing or underperforming candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona that cost Republicans a chance to make big gains in the House and Senate, as many had predicted.
The Journal’s editorial mentioned each of those names and more, saying that TRUMP HAD “A PERFECT RECORD OF ELECTORAL DEFEAT” SINCE HIS VICTORY OVER HILLARY CLINTON IN THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
“Democrats succeeded again in making Trump a central campaign issue, and Mr. Trump helped them do it,” the Journal said.
In his latest Contra Corner, THE RED DRIZZLE AND WHAT COMES NEXT, David Stockman wonders:
If the Republicans couldn’t capitalize on the nation’s current travails, we are hard pressed to imagine what might actually stir the vaunted Red Tide, which most definitely materialized as a mere drizzle on Tuesday. After all, at every kitchen table in America it was recognized that we have:
~ The worst inflation in four decades, with the cost of food, fuel and other necessities now rising at double-digit rates;
~ 19 straight months of declining real wages, meaning that the answer to Ronald Reagan’s famous “are you better off” question was a ringing, “no!”
~ An unprecedented Federal spending and borrowing spree that has taken the public debt to $31 trillion and 126% of GDP;
~ An out-of-control central bank that has printed $5 trillion out of thin air since March 2020 alone, thereby fostering rampant financial speculation and unspeakable windfalls to the rich, while crushing workers, savers, retirees and most other main street Americans;
~ An unhinged Green New Deal crusade against the lifeblood of prosperity—cheap and abundant fossil fuels—in the name of a Climate Crisis Hysteria that is utterly unwarranted;
~ A dictatorial Virus Patrol that unconstitutionally shutdown schools, businesses, churches, malls and countless other social venues based on junk science and a raw statist will-to power;
~ Yet another “forever war”, this time against Russia by proxy, that has caused global food, energy and other commodity prices to soar in the name of a Washington foreign policy adventure thousands of miles away that has nothing to do with America’s homeland security;
~ An outbreak of crime and lawlessness especially in the larger cities that is undoubtedly the worst since the 1960s;
~ And, not least, the least popular incumbent president since Harry Truman and actually, had there been polling in earlier times, since Herbert Hoover in November 1932.
YET WITH ALL THAT WIND AT THEIR BACKS, WHAT DID THE GOP COME UP WITH? BARELY A DOZEN SEATS AND THE TINIEST OF MAJORITIES IN THE US HOUSE AND A HUNG JURY IN THE SENATE, AWAITING STILL ANOTHER RUN-OFF RACE IN GEORGIA.
This may be why some folks are re-thinking their Love Affair with The Donald… :
MIDTERMS 2022: HOW TRUMP ENDORSEMENTS WORKED OUT
Trump issued primary endorsements to 39 candidates running in GENERAL ELECTIONS RATED AS COMPETITIVE by Cook Political Report — or, in the case of secretary of state races, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Nine of those candidates are running for governor, two for secretary of state, 11 for the US Senate and 17 for the US House.
Of those 37 Trump-endorsed candidates. 13 won, 10 lost, and 16 elections are still to be determined, as of Nov 9, 2022 at 7:55 EST
So Dennis: How'd Your prediction back on Nov 7 turn out?
"My prediction: Nationwide there is going to be a huge backlash of people voting (R), having had a guts full of a "do-thing" (D) Party who never even fought to raise the minimum wage. And more and more every day is the Party of stealing taxpayers money to piss away on a foreign "war" that does not affect them in WaKeeney, KS.
"People are tired of identity politics. People do not have the patience to wait another two years for a huge change in direction in both domestic and foreign policy. The (D)'s are going to run out of voters who care about which bathroom a Trans person can use.
"A conservative candidate, like Trump, who actually has the guts to stand for real issues (like dropping out of NATO) is going to be attractive to more and more."
Readers here know I supported the U.S. Senate campaign of Matthew Hoh, a USMC combat veteran and former State Department official who resigned in protest against the Obama Surge in Afghanistan in 2009.
He ran with the Green Party against war and the military-industrial complex and earned just over 29,000 votes in North Carolina. He was not a "spoiler." Even if the Democrat had won all these votes and the Libertarian votes as well, she still would have lost to the Republican.
Matt inspired at least 29,000 people; he certainly inspired me. We need more people like him to run or we'll be stuck with the usual suspects forever.
We crawl before we walk before we run. There's a long way to go until we can effect real change in America, but we'll never get there if we stay crawling on our bellies before the so-called elites.
The fact that candidates like Matthew Hoh get only a tiny percentage of the vote speaks to the power and effectiveness of official state propaganda and the dumbing down of American society in general. These marginal candidates will never be able to surmount this obstacle.
America is a truly unique totalitarian state. There is no need for gulags, concentration camps, and other such methods of punishment and forced persuasion. People are happy to obey and watch a corrupt, incompetent, and morally bankrupt ruling elite destroy the country.
The last time war was a big issue was in Nixon/McGovern in 1972. McGovern got clobbered. Politicians learned their lesson, which is enforced by an ever pro-war news media. As it is, except for the Bushes, wars tend to be started by Democrats and ended by Republicans. But even anti-war people still vote Democrat, considering that issues like minimum wage and health care are more important than issues like peace and war.
Funny, my kids say i am long winded and give out excruciating long detailed speeches. They hated my help with homework because i go into in-depth detail. My Dad liked that trait and he knew before i did, that i would write a book someday. i wrote and published 5 so i think he would be smiling from ear to ear...
... having-set-our-course... world-end-trifecta: fossil-fuels.. militarization.. inequality
... now-so-dominant, each locked-in-permanently, having-us facing a future, ominous-as-is-limited
In the aftermath of the mid-term elections, the only good news is that we have essentially paused some elements of the Democrats' agenda of total destruction by taking control of the House. That's where the bad news kicks in, because what's coming next for America (under Democrat rule) is going to be a multi-year "Dark Winter" of economic collapse, food inflation, censorship, tyranny, global war and more rigged elections.
What the mid-term proved is that Democrats know they can cheat and rig any election at any time. From here forward, Democrats don't even have to pretend to cater to the interests of the people. They can simply dictate their demands, no matter how insane, and arrest anyone who refuses to comply. The "dark winter" has only just begun.
I served in the Army back in the Sixtys in Germany and I have first hand knowledge how stupid and incompetent it was then. I refuse to believe it has improved any.Now with increasing the efficiency and effect of Nukes the dangers are more inherent and obvious to anyone who cares about humanities survival.Somewhere,somehow one of the Nuclear countrys is going to use them and we are doomed. It is important to remember the only country to drop the bombs. With DeSantis,Trump or Cruz perhaps in power in 2024 I am very fearful of our nonexistant future.
[2] The Great War as it was called, to make the world safe from, I mean safe for diluted democracy or more honestly for the plutocracy was simply another war for economic dominance between two conflicting sides. From this insidious war begot WW2, and then morphing into the cold war to vomit forthwith into our present ‘war’ of terror, using terrorism on those who dare not to succumb to our invasive hectoring, addiction, and ego. Always an enemy to fear, fight and conquer from the genocide and ethnic cleansing of 330+ Indian tribes to our present slaughter we are committing around the world which couldn’t be done without amoral troops and idiotic blind-support at home shopping at wal-mart, generally happily oblivious to the horror we commit.
I understand the concept (but personally disagree with) that nations or empires need to defend their borders as in our case, from the NSA, from the FBI invented and funded plants, retaliation from CIA terror attacks on allies, civilians, blow-back from drone terrorism inflicted on grandmothers, pregnant women, children medics, american citizens, or from southern neighbors coming back to their land that was stolen by us, and of course the most abused victim of all; the truth.
Yet our gallant and enthusiastic storm troopers are used for aggressive warfare all over the world and it is not just immoral it is illegal. The ‘war on terror’, ‘support the troops’, ‘navy, a force of good’, ‘God bless america’ and the other meaningless, silly slogans are designed to compel one and all to fall in line in quiet obedience and with goose-stepping compliance is the prodding for dumbed down sheelpe, not empathetic critical thinkers. Because we must support the troops, does this mean that we must support the policies that send our kids to kill and die in lands not our own, or what they do over there?
Thank you Marine General Butler who wrote the greatest essay concerning this in his: “War is a Racket.” Thank you conscientious objectors, since you have the courage and brains to be the real heroes of peace. Arguably attributed to Thomas Jefferson; “Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism.” For the veterans, by becoming unthinking assassinations, gangsters of capitalism, unethical war ho’s, hired guns, are not hired so much for your nation’s defense but for self-serving, greedy, oligarchic owners who possess stock in the ‘industrial-military-complex’.
So who should truly, sincerely thank the vets and the nation for this? Should the victim’s thank you? From the graves of over 1 million Iraqis should a great bellow of appreciation come forth with ghostly haunted cries and screams? From the orphanages and hospitals should the children and wounded write letters of thanks? Should the lame and disabled hobble or limp to the nearest us military base to grovel and kiss your combat boots? Should they pay for the bullets, missiles, depleted uranium shells, drones and bombs?
What of the Afghans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and so many more? How many were slaughtered and for what? For a filthy polluted false flag, for a lie, for a filthy racket? No flag can ever fly higher than the pile of bones from its victims though it does try to and the red, white, and blue is really up there climbing past the stratosphere.
Where is the honor in dishonorable acts? Who are the real heroes? Heroes are those who save lives not those who take them. Heroes are those people who help people, who assist with a helping hand, a kind word, a teacher, a nurse, a humanitarian. Heroes do not pick up guns and kill at command for profit and gain over at their neighbor’s home giggling in glee. Support the troops? Is this an implication to ‘basically’; support the team? What if the ‘team’ is committing acts that are illegal and immoral violating virtually everything the team members were taught as children at home, at church and at school to honor as probity, as principles and civic values? And after we do our carnage, we then walk away without a backward glance, patting ourselves on the shoulders pretending our horrifying terrorism was a good deed. And you expect any civil human being with a conscience to honor this dishonor, to thank a vet? Are you that sociopathic?
If I can convince one kid not to join the military, then I have accomplished much. Thank a vet for becoming a gangsta’ of capitalism, a war ho, becoming antichristian by joining a force that has mutated into the greatest terrorist criminal organization the world has ever known, that is nefarious, so no, I will not give thanks for debauchery? Thank a vet for being a killing machine for the 1%? Thank a vet for being un-american by committing un-american acts? I’m not grateful, just a bit more honest and objective, far less nationalistic and a bit more empathetic to your victims. I simply prefer to follow the messages of the prince of peace who teaches one to love ones enemy and commands us not to kill, to put down the sword rather than to blindly, without conscience, follow the god of war like stupid lemmings to the butchery of others. Thank a vet? For making us all less free, less safe by killing human beings who are no threat to us, destroying buildings, towns, cities, ancient civilizations, while militarily occupying other lands? This noxious nationalistic addiction to manic militarism and phony paux patriotism is killing this society’s sullied soul. There’d be no war today-If mothers all would say: “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” Because you know our leaders would never fight. The rich profit and the poor die…That is nothing to be thankful about.. To become a solder is not just immoral, it is amoral because then your become a paid ho’ for war, absolved of accountability by agreeing to become unquestioning, obeying cannon fodder that will one day regret to the point of suicide.
“There’d be no war today-If mothers all would say: “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” Because you know our leaders would never fight. The rich profit and the poor die…That is nothing to be thankful about it is rather something to mourn, condemn, shun and then never do again… Thank a vet? No thanks.
Sincerely, peacefully, hopefully,
[1] So, it’s soon to be Armistice Day this 11-11-16. This is also called Remembrance Day, since it’s the day WWI ended with an armistice signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918 and our forebears had the foresight to name it thusly so we do not forget and make the same mistake of world war again. This was called ‘The War to End All Wars’ because it was so horrific and spurious that a future war of this magnitude would seemingly be impossibly insane to contemplate or repeat. It was so repulsive and horrific that dozens of nations decided to outlaw war forever by signing an agreement to finally end the scourge of war. Endorsed in 1928 and still on the books, it’s called the Kellogg-Briand Pact which is still legally binding. It was signed into law by the US Senate by a vote of 85-1.
I presume since most of you support da troopers that you support the evil that they do? So you are by definition an accomplice in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Also by definition ‘Peace is the normal state of a nation’, ergo perpetual war is not only abnormal it is psychotic and actually used as faux state to keep us mooing and bleating along in harmony, goose-stepping down a tunnel that will be our end.
So much for the hope that war would be a thing of the past and that humanity learned its lesson for within the next generation we suffered a war far worse. It was then dissolved in 1954 when this noble aspiration became a americanized federal holiday to honor american vets. Now we have 23 holidays ‘honoring’ militarism. Do you folks see a pattern here? Why do you want to become Sparta or Germany circa 1938? Illegal exported aggressive violence is not a defense of das fatherland or der homeland. It is however the epitome of odium. This cycle is tightly wound and cutting off the blood flow to our hearts, minds and souls.
Off to terrorize by vicious onslaught societies all over the world is not defensive protection of american shores but simply a pretext to acquire by force, trade routes, contracts and acquisition of resources for corporate self-interests and domination. This is what the founding fathers warned us about and advised us not to do. James Madison: 1) "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
2)"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
3)"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
This perpetual war we are in now is not a war, but we are at war with a tactic that we’ve been using for centuries and now we’re at war with ourselves, so to speak. We never rectify, but instead turn our backs, wash our hands and then do it again somewhere else for the same reasons with the same consequences expecting different results but never ever achieving them. Do know what that is called by Einstein?
This conflict really has no beginning, no ending, but with an open end that leads to the abyss. More $ is tossed into American militarism than the rest of the world does combined and this is ‘defense’? No this is for aggressive offense which was banned at Nuremburg but we seem to above the law, beyond any accountability or responsibility, or principle wherever we do it even when proven it was a crime. This is for profit, for this is simply a racket inflicted on us all for those who reap a whirl land that we can ill afford.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” Dwight Eisenhower
REAL DEMOCRACY MEANS DEMOCRACY OF INFORMATION by Caitlin Johnstone [Extracts]
The media are lying to us, as evidenced by reality never matching with their stories.
The politicians are lying to us, as evidenced by their never delivering on their promises.
The capitalist class are lying to us, as evidenced by their getting richer while workers get poorer.
***
Democracy of the vote without democracy of information is not democracy. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO VOTE AS LONG AS THE MEDIA-OWNING CLASS ARE ABLE TO MANIPULATE HOW THEY VOTE. "ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE" IS MEANINGLESS IF INFLUENCE AND CONTROL OF INFORMATION IS HIGHLY CONCENTRATED IN AN ELITE FEW. AND IT IS.
Mass media propaganda, internet censorship, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, government secrecy and the war on journalism are all anti-democratic in nature, because they restrict the information the citizenry are allowed to access to inform their vote. And none of those instruments of narrative control have any influence from, or accountability to, the rank-and-file public. This means that WHILE EVERYONE GETS A VOTE, HOW THOSE VOTES ARE APPLIED IS SUBJECTED TO AGGRESSIVE AND UBIQUITOUS MANIPULATION BY THE RULING CLASS.
THE US EMPIRE'S UNPRECEDENTED INVESTMENT IN SOFT POWER CONTROL SYSTEMS HAS GIVEN RISE TO THE MOST SOPHISTICATED PROPAGANDA SYSTEM THAT HAS EVER EXISTED. HUMAN THOUGHT IS BEING MANIPULATED AT MASS SCALE LIKE NEVER BEFORE. IF YOU CONTROL HOW PEOPLE THINK, YOU CONTROL HOW THEY VOTE.
Most of the propaganda people consume every day is not to manufacture consent for any one specific agenda, but TO MANUFACTURE CONSENT FOR THE OVERALL POLITICAL STATUS QUO WHICH KEEPS OUR WILDLY DYSFUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS IN PLACE. That's what maintains the false two-party puppet show. Without copious amounts of propaganda, it wouldn't be possible to keep two evenly divided political factions impotently playing tug-o-war and never ever actually changing anything. THE ENTIRE STATUS QUO IS BUILT UPON THE RULING CLASS'S ABILITY TO MANIPULATE MINDS AT MASS SCALE.
***
Our rulers are like a clever man who captured a baby giant and trained it not to notice how much bigger and stronger it is than him so it wouldn't squash him and escape.
We're the giant.
Full article at https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/real-democracy-means-democracy-of [EMPHASES added.]
To tie all the banter about Trump’s effectiveness as a candidate-endorser to the subject of this BV and who won Election2022:
Can anybody name any operating element of America’s Ruling Political Class that wasn’t even better off under Trump than they already were under Obama, Cheney/Bush the Lesser, and Clinton?
How’d the MICC do under Trump? Or the Big Banking-Finance-Printing Press Web? Or the various and sundry American Cartels and Cabals like Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Infotainment/Media, Big Medical Care, Big Transport and Shipping, and so forth?
Of course, one can ask the same question about all those folks and Biden: Are any of them not even better off now than they were when Trump left the Oval Office?
But the question nobody is asking is: Is America ~ not the RPC but “the American People” it rules ~ is it better off now than it was when Trump was de-throned? And was it better off after four years of Trumpatismo than it was at the end of Obama’s reign?
And here’s some more folks having second thoughts about The Donald:
SHARP ATTACKS ON TRUMP FROM RUPERT MURDOCH’S NEWS OUTLETS by David Bauder
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has taken some hits in the aftermath of the midterm elections, but the unkindest cuts may have come from a source that was once among his biggest backers — the media empire of magnate Rupert Murdoch.
The New York Post’s front cover on Thursday put Trump’s face over the drawing of a boy from a well-known nursery rhyme. The headline: “TRUMPTY DUMPTY.” [ https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/11/download.jpeg ]
“DON (WHO COULDN’T BUILD A WALL) HAD A GREAT FALL — CAN ALL OF THE GOP’S MEN PUT THE PARTY BACK TOGETHER AGAIN?” THE NEWSPAPER WROTE.
The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section ran a sharp editorial headlined, “TRUMP IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S BIGGEST LOSER.” While Fox News’ biggest stars were relatively quiet, the former president heard enough discouraging words to attack the network on social media.
Trump was blamed for supporting losing or underperforming candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona that cost Republicans a chance to make big gains in the House and Senate, as many had predicted.
The Journal’s editorial mentioned each of those names and more, saying that TRUMP HAD “A PERFECT RECORD OF ELECTORAL DEFEAT” SINCE HIS VICTORY OVER HILLARY CLINTON IN THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
“Democrats succeeded again in making Trump a central campaign issue, and Mr. Trump helped them do it,” the Journal said.
Continued at https://apnews.com/article/mehmet-oz-donald-trump-bb9e93ccec3cac96f40105034d6705df [EMPHASES added.]
In his latest Contra Corner, THE RED DRIZZLE AND WHAT COMES NEXT, David Stockman wonders:
If the Republicans couldn’t capitalize on the nation’s current travails, we are hard pressed to imagine what might actually stir the vaunted Red Tide, which most definitely materialized as a mere drizzle on Tuesday. After all, at every kitchen table in America it was recognized that we have:
~ The worst inflation in four decades, with the cost of food, fuel and other necessities now rising at double-digit rates;
~ 19 straight months of declining real wages, meaning that the answer to Ronald Reagan’s famous “are you better off” question was a ringing, “no!”
~ An unprecedented Federal spending and borrowing spree that has taken the public debt to $31 trillion and 126% of GDP;
~ An out-of-control central bank that has printed $5 trillion out of thin air since March 2020 alone, thereby fostering rampant financial speculation and unspeakable windfalls to the rich, while crushing workers, savers, retirees and most other main street Americans;
~ An unhinged Green New Deal crusade against the lifeblood of prosperity—cheap and abundant fossil fuels—in the name of a Climate Crisis Hysteria that is utterly unwarranted;
~ A dictatorial Virus Patrol that unconstitutionally shutdown schools, businesses, churches, malls and countless other social venues based on junk science and a raw statist will-to power;
~ Yet another “forever war”, this time against Russia by proxy, that has caused global food, energy and other commodity prices to soar in the name of a Washington foreign policy adventure thousands of miles away that has nothing to do with America’s homeland security;
~ An outbreak of crime and lawlessness especially in the larger cities that is undoubtedly the worst since the 1960s;
~ And, not least, the least popular incumbent president since Harry Truman and actually, had there been polling in earlier times, since Herbert Hoover in November 1932.
YET WITH ALL THAT WIND AT THEIR BACKS, WHAT DID THE GOP COME UP WITH? BARELY A DOZEN SEATS AND THE TINIEST OF MAJORITIES IN THE US HOUSE AND A HUNG JURY IN THE SENATE, AWAITING STILL ANOTHER RUN-OFF RACE IN GEORGIA.
https://www.davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-red-drizzle-and-what-comes-next-maga-or-return-to-the-gops-1980-platform/
This may be why some folks are re-thinking their Love Affair with The Donald… :
MIDTERMS 2022: HOW TRUMP ENDORSEMENTS WORKED OUT
Trump issued primary endorsements to 39 candidates running in GENERAL ELECTIONS RATED AS COMPETITIVE by Cook Political Report — or, in the case of secretary of state races, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Nine of those candidates are running for governor, two for secretary of state, 11 for the US Senate and 17 for the US House.
Of those 37 Trump-endorsed candidates. 13 won, 10 lost, and 16 elections are still to be determined, as of Nov 9, 2022 at 7:55 EST
Office Won - Lost - TBD
US Senate 6 - 1 - 4
US House 5 - 5 - 7
Governor 2 - 4 - 3
Secy State 0 – 0 – 2
For details by State, see https://www.axios.com/2022/11/09/trump-endorsement-gop-midterm-elections
Dulce Et Decorum Est III & A Taste of Armageddon
(Or the Empire has no Clothes but a Disposition Matrix)
By michael hall
In due homage
to Horace, Owen & Mikhail
i humbly nod
for how sweet & glorious
it must be to kill or die
for god and country
the bold old lie
Per pompous duty
asphyxiatingly-wrapped
within ersatz honor
bubbling babbling bufoons
gushing drooling
patriotic plebian pride
so c'mon kiddies,
any up for good jingo sport?
who’s hungry & poor,
who wants to play
the hubris 'anything for profit'
killing game?
As newspapers rah rah
pied piper patriotism
with journalistic integrity
star spangled objectivity
ha ha!
as a new battle/fear lies
just around the corner
& armed forces day
just weeks away
hooray!
rally loyal cuckold citizens
to whitewash warm innocuous blood
off disgraced musket & sullied polluted flag
strike up the marching band
manifest destiny parade
down main street usa
hurrah!
Awaken & open thine eyes
chauvinistic folk
come & see
xenophobic overseas deeds
of nefarious brutality
You’re culpable
for this macabre
tax-paid supported sadism
exported to hamlets & villages
in lands you couldn't find on a map
nor correctly pronounce
Assaulting families
who’ve never
did you any wrong
of clans you've never heard of
nor care less for
so step on up
one & all
Take a jaunt
to the overflowing morgues
filled with small smashed bodies
once bouncing blooming toddlers
brimming of laughter & life
Deeply inhale
the rancid stench
of scorched flesh
crispy burnt
to a black bubbly mass
by white phosphorus
Gaze into doll dead eyes
frozen forever
by shock & awe
renditioned
via your God blessed
terror from above
Crumpled atop a cold gurney
a stiff finger of a tiny hand
amidst a mish-mosh of mangled flesh
jabs at you war supporters
Watch
as grief-stricken father’s
zombie-wander
in shattered silence
sifting through ragged debris
devastating destruction
searching
for lost sons
missing daughters
Discovering
ripped wet mangled body parts
strewn out as pieces of a human jig-saw puzzle
taking home
the ear, the hand, the foot
to be quietly buried
while 6000 miles away
blue-blooded heroes giggle and snicker
toggle at a video screen
toe-tagging this crime against humanity
'bugsplat'
Harken
to the heart-piercing shrieks
as soul-torn asunder mothers
wail like howling wild animals
as they find their loves buried
broken bloody and mutilated
in the smoking rubble
of your glorious works
Then if you can
please explain
to the unresponsive moaning
neonatal orphan
why your armed forces
just murdered his parents
by accident
then wave a condolence payment
like juicy enticement in his face
Celebrate
as your special op-forces
silently quickly efficiently
dig out bullets
from innocent bodies
to cover their tracks
from being at the wrong address
again
Declare
a national holiday
murdered women at a bridal shower
proclaim holy day
4 kids droned to smithereens
while tending sheep
rejoice in festival
exported evil exploits
as great american victories
for which your war crimes always are
Trust flim-flam,
the PR propaganda spin
subjective corporate mass media
submit without question
leaders and church bosses
pay your taxes
which finances anglo-terrorism
illegal & immoral aggressive pandemonium
or listen to a blue rodeo
Raise your filthy faux flag
higher higher ever higher
to hover over the rising pile where the butchered lie
however
dear crass christian citizens
no civic rag
could ever soar over
the sick slaying of the innocent
accumulating abominations
flag-pledged atrocities
Appraise Fallujah
surrounded & caged
as the cowering cringing unarmed [natives] peasants
are shot, burned & barbequed
just slaughtered sitting ducks
in a ‘free-fire zone’ shooting gallery
Ponder
upon your sanctimonious attack
at a school in Bajour
where 69 children are massacred by joystick
as you deceive yourself
into believing
it did not happen
white washing your hands
turning as you walk away
This is Sand Creek
Wounded Knee
My Lai
Haditha
too many other schooled
contorted & distorted great triumphs
To whit
no doubt in my mind
the next war crime called
a ‘battle’
or a ‘humanitarian bombing’
will be fervidly anointed too
sanctioned of course
by church state and school
the cold falsity
ta ta.
So Dennis: How'd Your prediction back on Nov 7 turn out?
"My prediction: Nationwide there is going to be a huge backlash of people voting (R), having had a guts full of a "do-thing" (D) Party who never even fought to raise the minimum wage. And more and more every day is the Party of stealing taxpayers money to piss away on a foreign "war" that does not affect them in WaKeeney, KS.
"People are tired of identity politics. People do not have the patience to wait another two years for a huge change in direction in both domestic and foreign policy. The (D)'s are going to run out of voters who care about which bathroom a Trans person can use.
"A conservative candidate, like Trump, who actually has the guts to stand for real issues (like dropping out of NATO) is going to be attractive to more and more."