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This post originally started as a short answer to Booman’s recent post Do We Have Basic Minimum Standards? It grew.
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Booman asks:
Q: Do We Have Basic Minimum Standards?
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: Not anymore we don’t.
Elucidation: Why? Because corporatist power (via its intelligence system) took over the media and succeeded in thoroughly debasing a working culture that had a certain “morality” at its hitherto unshakeable base. (See “Operation Mockingbird” for more on that…just the beginning of what has now happened.)
Read on for more.
Much more.
I find it more than a little…odd…that no one seems to have mentioned the plain fact that the band that got blown up in Paris (along with its many listeners) is named “Eagles of Death Metal.” Sorry…does no one else object to the term “Death Metal?’ Is there anything on earth more descriptive of the violence the U.S./European coalition has unleashed upon the Third World…the parts of the world that cannot match power to power w/the U.S./European military…over the last say 70 years or so?
Please!!!
I went and listened to a couple of their pre-Bataclan tracks…they are a good rock ‘n’ roll band (which really ain’t saying much compared to high level musics) that is basically selling rock as sex.
So what.
Right?
So what.
Business as usual.
So what? I don’t want to see anybody killed or maimed, but these guys are fronting for the further dissolution of traditional U.S./European society. Meanwhile 70+ years of real “death metal” has spawned a violent underclass in the Muslim countries that has found a way to bring that enemy culture down. That underclass is the dregs of the shattered Middle Eastern system come to take its revenge. They are no better…and no worse…than the dregs of our own system that are waging their own war against the system that marginalized them. Gang-bangers and far-right militias alike. Throw in the poor, sad, system-created nutcases that are wantonly killing innocents here while you’re at it.
It’s all broken, and we are the bull in the china shop that did the initial breaking.
In the name of “profit.”
“You break it, you buy it,” said Colin Powell as he tried to warn the neocons about their Iraq mistake.
Maybe he could have said it better by quoting an old Toyota ad campaign.
You asked for it, you got it.
We asked for it and we got it, alright.
We got it good!!!.
Question is…what’re gonna do about it?
Damned if I know.
Compound the mistake?
Looks like.
Maybe eventually pop a nuke cap or two on somebody’s ass?
Quite likely.
“It worked in 1945” someone is undoubtedly whispering into someone else’s uninformed…err, ahhh, uniformed…ear at the moment.
Bet on it.
Or…maybe we’re the turkey this Thanksgiving.
Gotta love the media, eh?
Jackass TV.
Good work, America.
Good work.
Happy Turkey Day.
And…WTFU.
AG
Outraged cries of “I’m BURNING!!!???”
Hmmmmm…
Maybe Putin’s gonna join in and fry a Turkey to help us celebrate.
Russia Deploys Warship Off Syrian Coast To “Destroy Any Threats To Russian Planes”
Watch.
More to come.
Much more.
Bet on it.
Watch.
AG
Maybe good will come.
Russia doesn’t have any reason to immediately reject an alliance with the Kurds in Rojava due to military ties to Turkey and the Syrian Kurds have no interest in expanding outside of Rojava and are seeking autonomy within Syria, not independence … so a deal is possible.
Assad doesn’t want anybody to have autonomy.
True but what Assad wants is rapidly becoming irrelevant and he is going to have to deal with realities. Daddies strongman government is gone and Assad doesn’t have the military capability of pulling it back together. The Alawites were not numerous at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War and with losses of up to 1/3 of their young men even less so in 2015. If his regime survives it will be from Russian military power and what internal alliances he can cobble together.
Very true. He will go from being a satellite to being a puppet, if he isn’t already. Can he survive without Putin propping him up? I mean that literally. Is he a dead man without Putin?
I don’t see how Assad can continue in power without Russian support. These strongmen always seem to have money socked away in Switzerland and a jet standing by, fueled and ready, so I doubt he will be put up against a wall and shot.
Did it ever occur to you that in the near future we might be thankful to Russia for supporting the legitimate Syrian government. Who could possibly want a Saudi theocracy with Islamic State running the show?
You might have noticed that in the commemoration in Paris today of the victims of the attacks two weeks ago religion played no role. The priests, mullahs, rabbis and all the rest weren’t tripping all over each other to get attention as always happens in the US on such an occasion. Which pastor will speak at Obama’s third inauguration, will he be pro same-sex marriage or a flaming homophobe, for instance? France has a system that’s more than worth fighting for: lay state. More democratic than the US.
You should address your questions to Obama. He started and supports this revolution. Who rules Syria of complete indifference to me.
You write:
I must ask you…please define what you mean by the word “legitimate” coupled with the word “government.”
This is not a trick question, I assure you.
Is the Putin government “legitimate?”
How about the U.S. government?
The Syrian govenment?
Any major modern government?
Definition, please.
“By the will of the people?”
Yes.
Maybe.
Until you consider the powerful forces that form “the will of a people” by massive propaganda exercises and other methods that enforce a Central Directorate’s/Permanent Governments’s/Plutocracy’s will on the population of a given country by hook, crook or any other method including massive shows of force.
Shows of force…like what happened to Edward Snowden, Julien Assange and Chelsea Manning when they blew whistles on the U.S.S.A….The United Surveillance State Of America.
Are you sure about that?
Why?
Because it is not “religiously” supported?
Is not the unquestioning belief in the so-called righteousness of a given culture in itself “religious” to some great degree?
“One nation, under God,” etc., etc., etc.?
,
Like dat.
Just askin’…
AG
Right Gilroy, another of your robotic, formulaic remarks. I’m perfectly aware of everything you mention. The governments you list are legitimate because the world recognizes them as such. Isn’t that all there is to it? According to you, which present-day government is legitimate?
Yes I did get a bit carried away about France. Some things Hollande said were useless: ‘we’re not seeking revenge, we’re resisting’, as if a whole army of Nazi zombies had descended on France.
Yes he will make the situation worse in Syria, etc. Now your turn: explain why if you see no way of getting out of the situation confronting us, as you said in a previous posting, what is the value of your noncommittal criticism about something which you haven’t specified, as far as I can tell. You’re not going to pull my leg and tell me you’re for something which someone might call revolution. Anyway, if you answer, I would appreciate it if you would try to take on a less condescending tone, You come across as a bit of a scold.
P.S. I’m rabidly anticlerical. The ceremony near the corpse of Napoleon only confirmed my prejudices. A basic building block of my view of the land I grew up in is that it’s polluted by religious fanaticism. Thanksgiving is the national holiday celebrating it. You give me a witch, I’ll give you two!
You write:
The world recognizes them as such.
Yup. Guess so, if you say so.
Only…which “world?” here seem to be so many, now. And which governments?
Is Assad “legitimate?” Apparently Russia thinks so and the U.S. does not.
Apparently.
Why do they disagree?
Because of oil.
Assad’s doing business w/Russia, not the U.S.
So it seems the word “legitimate” is…tricky.
Was the BushCo theft of the presidency “legitimate?”
I dunno.
Not as far as I am concerned.
Here are the first two definitions of the word from Google.
According to the first one, everything is legitimate if it isn’t proven to be against “the law,” even if those laws are written by the criminals who profit from them.
I tend to favor #2, myself.
You?
According to me, which present-day governments are legitimate? “…able to be defended with logic or justification…valid, sound, well founded, justifiable, reasonable, sensible, just, fair, bona fide?”
By the 2nd definition? Of the ones about which I have some personal knowledge…I have traveled widely for a living for almost 50 years…maybe some of the Scandinavian governments. Maybe. Possibly New Zealand as well. And Cuba. So far. Add Ireland to that “possible” list, and Scotland if it ever succeeds in seceding. Canada is moving in the right direction but its proximity to the totally illegitimate U.S. forces it into compromises which most of its population does not really support.
Any government that has gone all in regarding the Middle East since Bush I’s initial attack? On any of the major sides?
No.
Illegitimate like a…awwww, you know…
You want me to …”explain why if you see no way of getting out of the situation confronting us, as you said in a previous posting, what is the value of your noncommittal criticism about something which you haven’t specified, as far as I can tell. You’re not going to pull my leg and tell me you’re for something which someone might call revolution.”
You feel that tug on your pants leg?
Here goes:
As far as I am concerned, real “revolution” comes one mind at a time. That repeated “WTFU” that I use? I mean it. One mind at a time, awakening to the truth of the matter from the American Dream of entitlement that has been hypnomediated into the brains of most Americans since the invention of radio. Most white Americans, for sure!!! The U.S. is…and has been, at least since the end of WWII and arguably right back to its original sins of slavery and Native American genocide…a scourge upon all eaker nations that it can reach. “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage?” Please!!! At whose cost? Once you take a good, strong bite of that mushroom, there is no going back.
Ever.
I do keep trying, and not only here. In my non-digital life as well.
Legit.
Bet on it.
AG
The whole Middle Eastern imbroglio is simply the result of surrogate powers standing in for the Big Boys during whatever time they survive. When they feel threatened by their boss or have some sort of brain fart about how much power they have, they start playing both ends against the middle. And then they are removed and a new surrogate is eventually installed.
Look at Egypt for all you need to know on that account.
“Arab Spring” my ass!!!”
Just another (fairly complex) replacement scam.
AG
Can’t agree entirely with that. Surely some Arab people want an end to dictators and “Kings” exploiting them. We should not be surprised that their legitimate aspirations have been subverted into Terror and dictatorship. Look at the history of the French Revolution. Or the Russian Revolution for that matter.
I am not saying that the Arab Spring was not a heartfelt movement on the part of those who were in the streets, Voice. They just got out-hustled. By masters of the hustle.
The Long Hustle.
Since pre-WWI. Read T. E. Lawrence’s “The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom” if you have not done so already. Living history.
AG
THAT I agree with 100%
“I don’t want to see anybody killed or maimed, but…”.
Arthur’s attempt to deny his “chickens coming home to roost” sentiments here is undermined by his use of “…but…” in referring to the innocent victims of mass murderers.
Here’s another asshole who employed the vile “…but…” to defend a mass murderer today:
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/11/cnn-brings-rep-adam-kinzinger-attack
I’ll give AG the very least of credit: at least he didn’t blame this rock band and their fans for their own murders as they were being murdered, as Asshole Congressmember Kinzinger blames today’s murder victims at the Planned Parenthood clinic with his use of the awful “but”.
Then again, Arthur has told us Frog Ponders that he thinks Americans’ access to family planning services, including abortions, has led to a breakdown of the morals in our country, so who knows what Arthur’s opinion on today’s attack in Colorado Springs might be.
You write:
Certainly you don’t.
Here it is:
A devolved society continues to come apart at the seams.
All of the seams.
Deal wid it.
AG
One man’s “coming apart at the seams” is another man’s “freedom”.
True dat. On any number of levels.
AG
Further…you also write:
Please show me where I said this.
All that I have said here indicates that I believe it is about how it is entirely the other way around.
The ongoing, totally corporate media-induced breakdown of the traditional morality of this country has led to wanton murder on all levels.
All levels, from top to bottom, from economic imperialist wars to batshit crazy gangbangers, equally batshit crazy lone gunmen randomly shooting up public places and everything in between.
Deal wid dat as well.
AG