Myth and Mayhem

Ten years after the US invasion of Afghanistan, protests in Kabul against the American occupation join in solidarity with the Occupy protests around the world. As a criminal enterprise, the Pentagon’s Afghan adventure ranks right up there, and while the atrocities might not yet compare with the American military misadventures in Vietnam, the hypocrisy of fundamentalist allies become enemies and allies once again is tough to top. Independent Media Center — the folks who treated us to the truth in Seattle in 1999 — reports on the myth and mayhem of liberating Afghanistan.

De-funding Globalization

Reading through Bay Area coverage of the Oakland and San Francisco police clashes with anti-globalization protestors this week, I came across a useful suggestion in the Bay Guardian: transfer your funds from bailout bank accounts to credit unions. While this may be nothing new to pro-democracy advocates, it seems the time is right for the millions of us made homeless or jobless since 2008 to begin putting our money where our mouth is.

With direct deposit and online banking available no matter where you put your money, there’s simply no reason to keep supporting Wall Street financial institutions.

Displacement

Internally displaced persons are a special category under international law due to the fact that, although refugees, they have not exited their country of origin. Usually applied to those fleeing ethnic or religious conflict, they are increasingly displaced by economic circumstances, often as a result of deliberate state and institutional policy that excludes them from living a stable life.

As an internally displaced person resulting from institutionalized and culturally sanctioned greed, I find it difficult to accept that millions like myself within the United States have no alternative. Knowing that for the rest of our lives we will have to fight just to survive makes me all the more determined to oppose those who have caused this humanitarian tragedy.

Displacement, initially geographical, soon becomes social, leaving us outside the mainstream, and given the American propensity to blame the victim, over time becomes a stigma. In the ambience of austerity, this means those ostracized for not conforming to the brutal reality of market-oriented morality become brutalized. How they will respond to this cruelty depends on how they perceive themselves and their environment; given the misanthropic attitude of America’s rulers, our resentment, if mobilized effectively, could generate either social reform or civil war. For now, it’s too soon to tell.

Christian Dominion

Rachel Tabachnick discusses Christian Dominion and the Uganda prototype. As a charismatic movement of world conquest founded on bigotry and murder, this form of faith professed by such notables as Sarah Palin threatens democratic aspirations worldwide. As Tabachnick notes, Uganda’s legislated death penalty for homosexuality is just the beginning.

Guild Whups Baptists

Hats off to the National Lawyer’s Guild, including Bellingham, Washington attorney Larry Hildes in our previous home town of 27 years. Seems those fundamentalist Baptists are good at dishing it out, but not so tough when it comes to taking it on the chin. Good to know that once in a while free speech wins out over flaky religion.

Wise Use Militias

Talk to Action discusses militias and right-wing terrorism in the United States. Q&A in the comments section grapples with the important difference between facts and information in the struggle for democracy within a free market state.

A Totalitarian Objective

Privatization, first and foremost, is a totalitarian objective. The goal of eradicating the public interest depends on this misanthropic philosophy.

Subjugating public institutions to market tyranny, however, involves more than just greed and the misery it ensures. Pitting the poor against each other as they grovel for life’s basic necessities also mobilizes resentment against any group perceived as benefiting from the public good.

While we’ve witnessed this dynamic in operation since Reagan glorified greed as a national virtue, its institutionalization under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations has helped to propel bigotry as well. Eliminating social services for immigrants, jailing blacks, and terminating the sovereignty of indigenous nations are some of the most visible agenda items of this bigotry.

As popular resentment against the federal government is mobilized concurrent with the implementation of privatization, outbreaks of vigilante violence encouraged by state and market interests is a given. How we respond to this coming crisis will determine whether the crisis becomes an epidemic.

The research, education, and organizing we do in advance makes all the difference in what type of community action we can expect.

Against the System

Ayat al-Qurmezi, a 20 year old female poet in Bahrain, was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for reading a poem against tyranny. Inspired by popular pro-democratic uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, activists in Bahrain –  home to the US Navy 5th Fleet — comprise part of a growing challenge to US-allied Arab dictatorships like Saudi Arabia.

Mission of Madness

Securing a system of inequality in order to maintain the machinery of insanity, as expressed by much of federal policy in the United States, requires a constant replenishing of resources and influx of individuals to threaten and intimidate concerned citizens. Were it not so, those who continue to plunder the public purse and waste our wonderful world would not invest so much in media madness and the attendant spear-carriers for unearned wealth and privilege.

As a method of preventing free and open inquiry,  suppressing democratic dissent and punishing good faith participation in developing public policy is accomplished mostly without the aid of police. Instead, the mobilization of malcontents and use of vigilantes as a political pressure group are much more effective. In combination, the noise they are able to create through symbiotic media enables them to shout or scare the sensible out of the public arena. When the kind and caring are thus removed, governments and corporations founded on dominance and theft are free to pursue further acts of destruction.

In today’s world of globalized markets and militaries, this arrangement between elitists and opportunists not only plays to fear and greed, but also mainstreams suicidal schemes supported by religious hysteria. The fact that the spear-carriers — be they militias or millenarians — are oblivious to the manipulation of their fears to hate and seek revenge against opponents of oligarchy, does little to diminish the horrible impact they have. Once they have committed to this mission of madness, no crime against humanity or act of natural despoliation is too great; genocide and ecocide do not deter them.

Wishful Thinking

When reality is too disturbing, many fall into the trap of wishful thinking. Millions of Americans fell for the fantasy of Obama rather than the reality. The reality of his career, beliefs and allegiances was that he is an opportunist, funded and vetted by Wall Street. The evidence of that was readily available years before he became president, but a people desperate for hope and change chose to ignore it. Instead of backing a proven humanitarian like Winona LaDuke, they went along with Madison Avenue marketing. Now we pay the price.