The Postmodern Tribune

The Ron Paul Question

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Nearly eight years ago, flush with the zeal of the newly converted anarchist libertarian, I passionately advocated for abstinence from voting under any circumstances—forever. Four years ago, I expressed my doubts hither and yon about Dr. Ron Paul’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, sniffing as I had done a few years earlier that it was somehow not properly anarchist/libertarian to ever vote for anyone in any government election for any reason, even if it was for a candidate who was vowing to do whatever he could to roll back state tyranny and oppression.

As the song goes, I was so much older then but I’m younger than that now.

Like monks debating the meaning of a catechism, there’s been an awful lot of debate and hand wringing over the past several months as to whether or not libertarians, particularly anarchist libertarians, should tread to local polls and sully themselves with the electoral process and cast a vote for Dr. Paul. With no apologies whatsoever to my former self, I will be casting a vote for him in Illinois’ open primary come March 20th. In light of Paul’s 52% win in the state’s GOP straw poll this past November, right in the heart of Obama country, I have a strong suspicion that there will be far more than a few others doing likewise.

Dr. Paul achieved a respectable third place finish in the Iowa GOP caucuses with 21% of the total votes cast and finished second in the New Hampshire primary, where he won 23% of the vote. Polling for the upcoming South Carolina primary in just a few days doesn't look as promising for him, where he's supposedly only looking at winning 12% to 16% so far. This comparatively low percentage may very well be due to that state's deep economic entrenchment in the military-industrial complex.

But Paul is winning far more votes this time around than he did four years ago. Most of the mainstream media, with very few exceptions, have been downplaying his gains as a revolt of masses of people who are just too dumb to vote the right way. There is something in the air here and it has a strong whiff of insurrection. That is, insurrection against the ruling establishment that for nearly an entire century now, if not longer, has arrogantly presumed that there is no power too great for them to assume, no morals or ethics too sacred for them to violate, and no foreign country too far out of reach for them to exploit and subjugate.

What have I got to lose? My anarchist soul? Hardly. None of us, whatever our political ideology, ever chose or consented to this state that we have lived under since birth. We have never had any choice in the matter, not in any meaningful way. Should any anarchists, then, really damn other anarchists for taking up the offer of the first man in who knows how many generations to stand up and fight to push back the creeping tyranny we have tolerated for far too long and widen the margins of liberty? A man who, in fighting this fight, is mocked mercilessly on nearly a daily basis as crazy, a kook, unfairly derided as a “racist,” smeared as an “isolationist” who supposedly wants to cut off America from the rest of the world, and yet he still goes before the cameras day after day after day, in the face of all the mockery and insults, to make the case for liberty and peace before a national audience.

In light of the steam that Ron Paul's presidential campaign appears to be gaining, it looks like there's a genuine opportunity here and it holds too much promise to let it slip away in the name of some abstract, impossible-to-achieve purity of the stateless soul. We should seize upon every strategy for maximizing liberty that’s available to us and clearly the Ron Paul campaign is one highly viable vehicle for that goal, even if it’s surely not the only one. There are many different paths available to those who love freedom and liberty, and right now the Paul campaign is one of the most effective we have. It takes the struggle straight to the den of liberty’s enemies, which is the electoral arena. Like it or not, that is still an arena that is paid much attention by the vast majority of Americans. Even if Paul ends up departing that arena in defeat, he will still have scored a great victory for liberty for having exposed that many more Americans to what he calls the freedom philosophy. As far as we anarchists are concerned, that should be seen as all to the good.

If none of what I’ve written above persuades my fellow anarchists very much, then they should keep in mind that there are quite literally human lives at stake. As president, Paul wants to bring the troops home from the Terror Wars abroad, cease the U.S. government’s unnecessary saber rattling toward Iran over their non-existent nuclear weapons program, roll back the inhumane, stupidly destructive War on Drugs and restore the now nearly destroyed protections of civil liberties in this country. Even if his campaign does not end in an electoral victory, with each additional vote he receives the rebuke against the current rulers is louder and louder, and the more and more their confidence in their wars and persecutions wanes.

And I am frankly sick and tired of helplessly standing by while the government that taxes me uses those revenues to assault and mutilate defenseless children. If Ron Paul is the guy who's volunteering to do whatever he can to end that evil madness, then hell yes I'm voting for him.

If you thought a vote had the potential to save a single human life, would you soil your pristine anarchist soul to participate in a government election?

I’m pretty sure I could live with that trade-off.

You Can't Say Nobody Tried to Warn You

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:16:00 +0000

It's Getting REAL in the U.S. of A.

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:11:00 +0000

(See the addendum at the end of this entry.)

"May you live in interesting times." I know a lot of people who think that is an ancient Chinese proverb. Wikipedia theorizes that it may actually have originated in the English language as no one has ever been able to find a Chinese source. It is supposed to be the first of three successively more severe curses, says the Wik, the subsequent ones being, "May you come to the attention of those in authority" and "May you find what you are looking for."

I would think that one should view being alive at any point in time to be interesting, but we are most definitely living in an interesting time by anyone's standard. And I would normally dig that, I really would. It's just that I'd rather not be living in an interesting time during which "interesting" is synonymous with scary as hell. As the urban youth lingo has it these days, it's getting real in the good ol' U.S. of A.

The most ominous of recent developments is the passage of certain provisions in the most recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the legislation passed annually by the U.S. Congress that specifies and authorizes the U.S. government's "national defense" budget, which was signed into law by President Obama when the country was too intoxicated with New Year's Eve celebrations to notice.

The scariest provision, which most people have heard or read by now, effectively makes the United States internally a legitimate battleground for U.S. military counter-terrorism operations and thus anyone on U.S. soil who is somehow "part of or substantially support[ing] al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners"--per the mere assertion of the president of the United States--is potentially subject to military style "justice," that being indefinite detainment by the U.S. military without any formal charges or a trial. The law allows the U.S. government to reserve the option of indefinite military detainment for U.S. citizens as well.

In light of the facts that a U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was created in 2002, which effectively created a North American theater of military operations (regardless of how much they post the now meaningless phrase "Posse Comitatus Act" on their website); that the Pentagon has been giving away sophisticated military hardware to local police and sheriff's departments throughout the country (why does the Cobb County, Georgia police department need an amphibious assault tank???); that President Obama had two U.S. citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, assassinated by automated drones in Yemen on the basis of his own say-so that they were involved in terrorism for which still no solid evidence has been presented to the public; and that Predator drones are now being used within the U.S. itself for domestic law enforcement purposes--those developments make the current NDAA provisions all the more alarming.

Keep in mind that this is all against the background of an economic recovery that can be described as erratic at best and is not likely to pick up steam any time soon. It's been disclosed that the Federal Reserve System doled out a mind-blowing $16 trillion in ultra-cheap credit to corporations, banks and other financial institutions both in the U.S. and throughout the world. This most likely involved an extraordinary amount of monetary inflation that is bound to have incredibly severe and debilitating economic repercussions sooner or later.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to rattle their sabers at Iran and may very likely be preparing for some kind of regime change intervention for Iran's regional ally, Syria. The aforementioned NDAA includes new sanctions against the Iranian government, this time targeting foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran's central bank. This involves blocking Iranian oil exports to countries that do business with the U.S., though I should add that the bill graciously allows President Obama to grant exceptions as he sees fit. This breathtaking power grab over a significant portion of the global oil market--Iran is the fifth largest producer of crude oil in the world--must take effect within at least six months of the NDAA's signing by Obama, which would be by the end of June 2012.

I don't know much about the economics of oil, but I have to imagine that these sanctions on their own would result in escalating increases in the per-barrel price of crude oil for the long haul, unless the six-month warning gives other oil producing countries ample time to ramp up their own production in preparation for fulfilling any unsatisfied demand. (There have already been some increases in oil prices. Also see Pepe Escobar's latest piece on what he correctly calls an "economic war.") An increased cost of energy is something that millions of Americans already pushed into a financial corner really don't need right now, not to mention all those consumers in those countries that rely heavily on Iranian oil exports. ("Asian Spring," anyone?) I can't say I have that much confidence in Obama's omniscience that we should expect him to be able to use his newfound power over the global oil market in only the most stable and efficacious way.

But to make matters worse, the Iranians, who could only view the U.S. sanctions as yet another step toward war, have already threatened to seal off the Straits of Hormuz in retaliation. The U.S. has essentially vowed to take direct military action to reopen the Straits if necessary, even though former Obama adviser Dennis Ross, hardly the dovey peacenicky type, has said that the Iranian threats are more empty bluster than legitimate threat.

Meanwhile, the Iranian government has just sentenced to death a former U.S. Marine, Amir Mirza-Hekmati, a dual Iranian-American citizen they apprehended on charges of espionage, bidding up the stakes even further. Not to mention the latest development in the never-ending brouhaha over Iran's alleged but non-existent nuclear weapons program, which is that U.S. bureaucrats are now pissing themselves over the recent announcement that the Iranians have been able to achieve up to 20% uranium enrichment at an underground facility, which the Iranians insist is purely for medical technology. (Enrichment of at least 90% is required for uranium to be weapons-grade, but the U.S. government has never allowed scientific facts to get in the way of scaring up a good bogeyman before.)

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that what we have brewing here is a perfect shit storm of more and more foreign wars combined with massive inflation and economic/financial system crack-ups throughout the world and at home. Any domestic civil disturbances resulting from this highly potent concoction can now be swiftly answered with a massive crackdown by the U.S. government, with the assistance of highly militarized local law enforcement agencies, who have permitted themselves to quite literally make disappear anyone the president of the United States has subjectively defined as a party to "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States."

May we all live to see this interesting time resolve itself into something other than a massive web of chaos, tyranny and oppression.

Happy New Year.

ADDENDUM: I was remiss in pointing out Becky Akers' recent piece about the the NDAA's indefinite detention provisions over at LewRockwell.com. She makes a very good point here:

Where does all this leave us, the potential "indefinite detainees"?

If history is any guide – and it may not be, given the internet and computers’ long memories – , we’ll escape relatively unscathed at first. Ever since Julius Caesar captured some of Rome’s senate, dictators have tended to focus on political rivals initially, in descending order of threat. If a civilian remains president of the US, he’ll begin spotting remarkable similarities between "terrorists" and his competitors for office. After he’s eliminated them, he’ll focus on Congress: tyrants by definition do not share their power. The craven curs who blithely sold our rights will be among the first to regret the sale – bitterly.

But there’s little reason to believe a civilian will continue as president: armed men usually shove unarmed ones out of the way. The empowered military will probably realize almost immediately what so many troops before it have: politicians are at best a nuisance and at worst an unwanted "partner" in their power.

Once the commanding general has consolidated the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in himself – and imprisoned or executed their former occupants – we’re next.

I doubt it ever crossed Sen. Lindsey Graham's feeble little mind that the law for which he barked like a rabid dog could potentially be turned against him and his partisans one day.

Striking Some More Roots

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:49:00 +0000

I'm once again pulling guest editor duty over at Strike-The-Root.com.

Check it out.

On Miscognitive Consonance

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:04:00 +0000

While perusing the Interwebs recently I came across an ad for something called Americans Elect 2012. They splash across their website such catchy slogans as "Elect a President, Not a Party" and "Help Make History: Every dollar you give helps put your choice on the 2012 ballot." You can sign a petition, submit names of your ideal candidates for government office, submit questions to them, and do all sorts of other fun activities designed to give you that warm, fuzzy, self-deceptive feeling that the gang of thugs who retain a monopoly of force over your life will for some who-knows-what reason, presumably out of a superhuman capacity for altruism, put your particular concerns before the concerns of their own monopoly.

And if you could kindly pitch a few coins into their collection plate to help keep up this comforting illusion, 'twould be much appreciated by them. They'll give you a few nice big pats on the back for your trouble.

What caught my eye was an ad they ran on Antiwar.com that asked "Who will Americans elect?"

Unable to help myself, I found the organization on Twitter and tweeted to them, "Have no idea who they'll elect, but sure whoever it is will be corporatist, militarist pig."

To which #AmericansElect replied, "We hope you'll participate and have your voice heard, so you can get your candidate on the ballot in 2012!"

The first thing that struck me was that there was a communication problem here, for to my knowledge there is no candidate seeking government office who so fundamentally opposes corporatism and militarism that they have pledged to grasp those evils by the roots and completely do away with them.

But I've come to the conclusion that it's more accurate to say that there was a cognitive problem. Communication is not possible between two parties in the first place if one of the parties fails to correctly apprehend the basic facts of reality. A lot of critics of the political status quo frequently refer to what is called cognitive dissonance, defined here as the discomfort one feels when simultaneously holding two conflicting ideas. But I'm not sure that's quite the proper characterization of #AmericansElect's reply to my tweet. I would instead say that they're suffering from a debilitating case of miscognitive consonance, which I define as simultaneously holding ideas that are very much in harmony with each other but are fundamentally at odds with the known facts. In dialogue, that can result in the kind of non-sequitur response that #AmericansElect gave me without them so much as blinking an eye.

If you honestly believe that the kind of tyranny and injustice wrought by the corporatism and militarism I cited in my initial tweet can somehow be corrected, reformed or even--gasp! dare I mention it?!--abolished by casting ballots for the "right people" with the "right ideas" every 2-4 years, then yes, I guess it would make perfect sense for me to spend my scarce time looking high and low for such people, to read up on everything written by and about them, and to spread the good word to people far and wide to be sure to press the right button on their voting machine come Election Day 2012.

But if, on the other hand, you recognize the fundamental facts of our sociopolitical reality, which are that virtually nobody with the gumption to seek any position of coercive government power, let alone the most powerful governmental office in the entire world, that being the presidency of the United States government, would ever--ever--forego the use of the aforementioned powers of corporatism and militarism, and that even if somebody who honestly and sincerely intends to do just that were to materialize on the scene there is no way in hell that the vast mutually reinforcing network of power hungry bureaucrats, crony state-capitalists and other assorted sycophants of state power would ever--ever--allow such a person to set foot anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., then you must surely recognize elections as being totally useless enterprises.

I'm not saying that the electoral system is and always will be rigged against voters of my political value preferences, but rather that it is in and of itself the strong arm of the supreme obstacle blocking me and others from ever achieving those values. Which is why I don't vote.

I'd rather take my marbles elsewhere.

Wee luv are warz

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Voluntary Self-Revelation

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:10:00 +0000

Visa and MasterCard decided last year to cut off all services for facilitating donations to WikiLeaks on the grounds that the whistleblower site was engaging in "illegal" activities by posting hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government cables allegedly provided by Pfc. Bradley Manning, as well as the notorious "Collateral Murder" video.

It hasn't been exactly clear that WikiLeaks itself has even violated any one of the thousands of laws laid down by that territorial monopoly of force and violence known as the United States Government, even by that deadly institution's own broadly defined standards. But hey, as a libertarian who recognizes the right of voluntary association, which naturally implies every person's right to dissociate, I can appreciate that even setting aside issues of "legality," the credit card companies have every right to withhold their services from whomever they want for any reason they deem. They shouldn't be forced into associating with any other organization against their will. Perhaps now would be a fitting time to spell out just how it is that the customers of Visa and MasterCard don't quite enjoy an equal right of voluntary dissociation since those companies effectively have a captive customer base largely thanks to the privileges bestowed upon them by that previously mentioned institution of force and violence, but methinks that's a lengthy discussion that would be best served another time.

Perhaps the owners and managers of Visa and MasterCard believed the claims of government counsel Harold Koh that the mere publication of those cables, which were previously available only to a few million of the U.S. government's most trusted employees, would possibly endanger any of the countless innocents helping the U.S. government to carry on any one of its many foreign wars and military occupations. Of course, nobody has ever discovered a single specific instance of any innocent person's life being put in danger as a result of any of those cables being published by WikiLeaks, but hey, you just never know, right?

But legal or illegal, endangerment of the innocent or no danger at all, it sure is curious who Visa and MasterCard will serve without hesitation, as evidenced by this screen shot:

Courtesy of the WikiLeaks Facebook page.

Striking At the Root Today

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:15:00 +0000

I'm the guest editor of today's edition of Strike-The-Root.com.

Check it out.

The Terrible Old Man

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Inequality of the Masses

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:04:00 +0000

New Strike-The-Root Piece; Unemployment; Bonhoeffer and Nazis; Revolutionary Moods

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:08:00 +0000

I have a new essay up at Strike-The-Root.com, "What I Saw and Heard at the Anti-War Protest." This is a little write-up of my observations of the US/NATO Out of Afghanistan protest I attended in Chicago on October 8th to mark the 10th anniversary of the Afghan War.

I've unfortunately been absent from blogging for quite awhile. This is largely due to having to spend much of my time lately job hunting. I was laid off about six or seven weeks ago from my bank job. Yes, I worked at a bank. In the real estate lending division, no less. On the one hand, I have to say I'm quite relieved that I'm no longer working in real estate finance, considering this little market crash that occurred in the last few years, which perhaps you've read about. On the other hand, even though I have a little nest of savings that should carry me, my wife and son for a little while, it's a little nerve-wracking that in the past several weeks I haven't been able to land another job.

In brighter news, I've been performing in a new play the past several weeks, Bonhoeffer's Cost, at Provision Theater in Chicago. This is a brand new piece written by Mary Ruth Clarke, who co-wrote the original story that became the movie Meet the Parents, and director Tim Gregory. Bonhoeffer's Cost tells the story of the German Lutheran pacifist theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was involved in the German anti-Nazi resistance and a larger plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. I'm happy to report that we've been packing in audiences with nearly sold out houses. So if you're in the Chicago area and would like an evening of thought provoking drama, buy yourself some tickets and come on over to Provision Theater. This play is running for only two more weekends and I'm told that those performances are selling out fast.

I'm planning to get back to doing some more blogging in the days and weeks and months ahead. There's been a helluva lot going on in the world these days. It feels as though the Earth is shifting beneath our feet. There are lots of people taking to the streets to vent their righteous anger and frustration at an economic system that's left lots of folks high and dry after they were forced to bail out Wall Street fat cats in order to save them from the consequences of their dumbass investment choices. Uncle's response to this revolutionary mood is, apparently, to try to gin up yet another stupid, costly, destructive war, this time against Iran.

We live in interesting times, whether we like that or not.

168

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:53:00 +0000

It's when I see news like this that I think, "Well thank goodness they raised the debt ceiling!"

Tiny Dancer

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:00:00 +0000

For anyone who remembers life in the 1970s--and that was the decade of my childhood--it has to give one a chuckle to look at this and think, "Aaaahhhh...simpler times, simpler times."

But they certainly were.

And I defy anyone who looks down their noses at rock 'n' roll or popular music to listen to this and deny that it can and often does rise to the level of great art.

Enjoy.

At the Mountains of Budgetary Bullshit Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:00:00 +0000

As of this writing it appears that there may finally be a deal between Congressional Republicans and Democrats to resolve the ongoing crisis over the unjust limitations upon the U.S. government's ability to expand its vast mountain of debt. To which I say, praise be to the gods! It looks like we may not be cast into the economic abyss after all. Thank goodness! But there is still a chance that this agreement may not come to pass, which of course would spell certain doom for all mankind. For surely we would then be headed for a disaster of biblical proportions--fire and brimstone coming down from the skies; seas boiling; earthquakes; volcanoes; the dead rising from the grave; human sacrifice; dogs and cats living together--mass hysteria!

For surely if The People's Government does not permit itself to borrow another trillion dollars or two, the elderly will be cast into the streets like so much garbage! Our brave young men and women in uniform will not be able to continue our valiant government's ongoing wars against all the evil-doers of the world, particularly those who want to subject all of the peoples of the West to a transnational Islamofascist caliphate in which we'd all be forced at swordpoint to either live under sharia or die! All scientific and technological advancement would suddenly come to a complete stand-still and we would soon find ourselves living in caves, hunting and killing our food with our bare hands, much of which we wouldn't even be able to eat until we made the legally required animal sacrifices to Allah!

Oh, woe, woe be unto us if the U.S. government does not grant itself the privilege of sinking you, me and all of our countrymen into another couple trillion dollars' worth of debt!

Just think of it! Without an increase of U.S. government debt totaling at least $1-2 trillion, the poor central banks of the world would be reduced to beggary as all of our children turned into illiterate savages unable to even count to five! Doctors would have no choice but be forced to resort to such primitive practices as bloodletting and leeches! For what else could they do without the generous government subsidies for themselves and pharmaceutical companies? Oh, the horror! The horror!

To make matters worse, everywhere I turn I am confronted by faces of desperation.

That Nameless Thing To Come If The Federal Debt Limit Is Not Increased

All around me--neighbors, friends, family--all of them are wracked by fear and terror of That Nameless Thing To Come If The Federal Debt Limit Is Not Increased.

"Did you hear?" ask random strangers passing me by on the street, clutching at me, their bodies trembling as sweat runs down their foreheads into their bloodshot eyes. "Did you hear? The government may not be able to borrow another couple trillion dollars right now. We are doomed! Doomed, I tell you!"

Doomed, indeed.

I have locked myself and my family in our basement for fear of the terrifying chaos that would surely be unleashed upon all of humanity should the Republicans and Democrats of the U.S. Congress not agree on a deal to extend Uncle Sam's credit limit. Fortunately, I have enough food and water stockpiled to nourish us for the next few months, but what then? How will we and others survive after we have consumed all of our supplies, with brainless killer zombies roaming the land in search of the human brains they require to feed their mindless, parasitic existence--and all because the Congress could not agree on an increase in the Federal debt limit!

But I must not think of the killer zombies now. No, not now.

But I must confess that I am entirely consumed by fear of That Awful Entity That Would Surely Devour Us All Without A Raising Of The Federal Debt Ceiling.

But this latest news gives us all a ray of hope, however dim it may be. I shall continue to pray.

And I hope. Oh dear gods, I do hope.

May we all live to see the dawn.

Come Home, America!

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:00:00 +0000

I've recently added my name to hundreds of others (in the comments section) of a trans-ideological, multi-partisan open letter to President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress at the newly launched ComeHomeAmerica.us:

"Dear President Obama and Members of Congress:

"The wars in which the United States is currently engaged–in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Libya–are harming U.S. national and economic security, degrading the standing of the United States in the world community, fueling hatred abroad for Americans and undermining the rule of law. These unconstitutional wars have been justified on false premises, and most recently in the case of Libya there was not even the pretense of a congressional declaration of war, making it an impeachable offense. We urge you to end the current illegal wars and start a national dialogue about shifting U.S. foreign policy away from dominance through military might, and toward being a member of the community of nations.

"It is time to end all of these wars. It is time to initiate a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy away from domination of others through military strength and damaging sanctions. As a first step we urge a major withdrawal of soldiers from Afghanistan–as candidate Obama promised in 2008. This withdrawal should be at least as large as the 63,000 troop escalation the President put in place early in his presidency. This withdrawal should be defined as a clear first step to a complete withdrawal of all soldiers and private contractors from Afghanistan by the end of 2011. It is time to return to our Founders’ declared conception of the United States as a democratic Republic and not an Empire.

"The people signing this letter come from all segments of the political spectrum. We are conservatives and progressives, liberals and libertarians, from the right, left and center. We are Democrats, Republicans and independents. We represent a healthy and still vital American tradition, indicated by the fact that the majority of Americans want the United States to bring the soldiers home from these counterproductive and avoidable wars.

"The U.S. needs to normalize relationships with countries around the world, especially in the Middle East. We recognize that there are important natural resources in these areas. But we can achieve a sustainable economy in more effective ways than war and empire. The United States clearly has the wealth and knowledge to make this transition, and showing how it can be done would be an unparalleled service to our people and the world.

"This is the time for a profound shift in foreign policy. A perfect storm has demonstrated the urgent need to reconsider militarism and promiscuous interventionism:

"- The U.S. economy can no longer sustain a bloated military that spends as much on weapons and war as the rest of the world combined.

"- The U.S. economy is in dangerous straits with mass debt fueled in large part by military spending that makes up 55% of federal discretionary spending.

"- In war after war the US military has found that it cannot defeat people who seek to protect their countries and reject foreign domination, the very lesson of our own American Revolution.

"- Documents published by Wikileaks have added fresh evidence discrediting the idea of the U.S. being the 'good cop of the world.' Instead the world increasingly sees the U.S. government as one that dominates through threats, violence, bribery, spying and illegal actions, and is all too willing to use military force to achieve its ends. That is not the polity which the majority of Americans wish.

"- The rule of law has been undermined by ignoring Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which specifically states that Congress has the authority to declare war, not the president. Tactics used in recent wars, including torture and widespread abuse of prisoners, further undermine the rule of law.

"- Even with the raid on the Osama bin Laden refuge, the growth of stateless terrorism will not abate as long as the United States continues waging wars which commonly feature torture, midnight raids on families and the killing of innocent civilians.

"- War brings suffering on a massive scale and unnecessary war brings pointless suffering. Reliable reports indicate more than one million war dead in Iraq and millions more becoming refugees. There are constant reports of civilian deaths in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya.

"Mr. President and members of Congress, you have a historic opportunity to redirect U.S. foreign policy down the pathways of peace, liberty, justice, respect for community, obedience to the rule of law and fiscal responsibility. George Washington urged Americans to 'cultivate peace and harmony with all' and to 'avoid overgrown military establishments,' which are 'hostile to republican liberty.' It is time for Americans to reject fear and militarism and embrace the highest, noblest aspirations of our heritage. It is time to come home, America.

"Sincerely,*
[Please add your signature and hometown in the comment section below or write to akeaton at antiwar.com with 'Please Add Me' in the subject line.]"

It's nice to see that so many notable thinkers, academics and activists have signed their names to this letter: Medea Benjamin of CodePink; Austro-libertarian economist Walter Block; mutualist thinker Kevin Carson; legendary whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg and Sibel Edmonds; Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report; David Henderson, libertarian economist with the Hoover Institution; Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation; historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel; libertarian legal theorist Stephan Kinsella; market anarchist philosopher Roderick Long; longtime activist Ralph Nader; Leftist historian Thaddeus Russell; libertarian legal scholar Butler Shaffer; anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan; anti-war writer Laurence Vance; Jesse Walker of Reason magazine; libertarian historian and activist Tom Woods...That's just a brief sampling of the long list of impressive names.

It's clear that more and more people in this country, whose politics can be pinpointed all over the ideological spectrum, are becoming increasingly alarmed about the decade long "War on Terror," not to mention the several hundred U.S. military installations (and counting) throughout the world. This vast waste of human life and scarce resources must stop immediately.

Please consider adding your name.

Rules of Engagement

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 02:29:00 +0000

Good guidelines to follow for discussion of topics related to politics and/or current events with people who disagree with you:

1.) Give the other person the benefit of the doubt that they are arguing just as much in good faith as you are. Neither you nor they should assume that the other is the embodiment of all evil in the universe, or even “shills” for Big Business, The “Homosexual Agenda,” The Christian Right, Neo-Confederates, the Ku Klux Klan, the Conspiracy to Destroy Western Civilization, etc., etc.

2.) Though you most certainly are entitled to express any opinion you wish to express, it is more helpful to your case when your opinion is actually based on some verifiable fact(s) of reality. To enter into any argument is to implicitly accept the laws of logic, of cause and effect. Basing your argument on appeals to emotion and feelings at the expense of facts and logic will be to simply expose your own ass to the other person and anyone else observing the discussion.

3.) Be open to the possibility of learning something from the other person, even if their ideological disposition is diametrically opposed to your own. You may learn certain facts that you didn’t know previously, which is always a plus even if you don’t agree with the other person’s interpretation of what those facts mean or imply. You don't know everything there is to know about a given topic or issue, Mr. Smarty Pants.

4.) Political disagreements are rarely—if ever—a good reason to sunder long valued friendships and family relationships. There may be some exceptions to this rule, such as advocacy of genocide, slavery, or human sacrifices, for example, in which case said discussant is most likely a sociopath and so there may then be very good reason to be wary of any further association with that individual. But short of someone defending those kinds of ideas, political differences are no good reason to abandon relationships with friends and family that have long enhanced your life in numerous ways.

Happy arguing!

Conservative Analysis and the Libertarian Non-Moment

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 23:54:00 +0000

It’s painfully obvious that America is nowhere near a “libertarian moment,” Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch’s Hegelian, wishful “analysis” notwithstanding. James P. Pinkerton very effectively proves why at The American Conservative, though ironically not by his factual analysis (or lack thereof), but by trotting out all the half-formed impressions and shibboleths that continue to be all too typical of the unexamined assumptions of American politics.

Pinkerton is right to point out that Hamilton wasn’t the only unlibertarian member of who Americans tend to ubiquitiously refer to as the “Founding Fathers,” which shows that libertarians should stop citing them as some sort of pantheon of libertarian gods. Most of them were only for liberty to the extent that it suited their own pursuit of power. But the premise implied by Pinkerton’s own Founding Father worship hardly makes him more right than Gillespie and Welch.

Oh, oh, oh…who is going to protect us from the rapacious, evil corporations? Pinkerton sounds like a typical Progressive Leftist. I have to wonder, if corporations are all by nature so evil, why has he fallen into the trap of using one of the most nefarious products of corporations, the personal computer, to spread his paranoid anti-free market delusions?

Oh, but the internet was invented by government bureaucrats, so presumably that’s what makes it so safe and effective. Only it wasn’t invented by the government–the intranet was invented by the government, and any government employee who used it could tell you how clunky and time consuming it was. It was only after it was opened up to market actors that it was transformed into the internet and became only more efficient and more satisfying to the users as time went on. That’s no reason for Gillespie and Welch to predict digital utopia, but in Pinkerton’s just as happily fact-free, assumption-driven world, government is the greatest source of technology and scientific advancement, a proposition that’s just as dubious and effectively countered by the facts. Did Thomas Edison invent the light bulb on the taxpayer's dime? Did Henry Ford work out his mass production plans under the direction of Federal bureaucrats?

To the extent that there are certain corporations who can and do profit at the expense of others rather than by satisfying their desires, who does he think enables, facilitates and provides the skewed, perverse legal framework for such exploitation? Hint: Corporations can’t write their own laws, pick other people's pockets, print up their own money and subsidize themselves, nor do they have their own armed thugs with the legal privilege of forcing others to do their bidding. It is coercive government that political entrepreneurs must lobby in order for them to benefit from its monopoly power to bully the populace, and it is ultimately government bureaucrats who decide who gets which shares of the spoils, or if there are even to be any spoils to be had, whether in the form of taxation and redistribution, tariffs, import quotas, prohibitions, patents, copyrights or any other form of privilege. Without coercive government, the corporation has to compete for every dollar it gets by fulfilling the needs and desires of others. Without government levying taxation on hundreds of millions, all costs of aggression would have to be internalized rather than externalized onto any hapless taxpayers, thus discouraging any tendency toward aggression by corporations.

But if Pinkerton actually bothered to read any libertarian thinkers other than the overgrown adolescents Nick Gillespie and former “warblogger” Matt Welch, he’d be aware of these arguments and could respond to them instead of building straw men.

Oh, and by the way, if one is really so afraid that Facebook or other social media could be conducting clandestine espionage, there’s a very neat solution to that: DON’T SIGN UP FOR IT. Contrast that with the government thugs who can tap your phones, record your conversations, feel you up and porno-scan you at airports, and yes, even kill you if the president of the United States wills it to be done.

But no, libertarians like myself are all wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and conservatives and liberals have reality and elections on their side. They have had politics on their side, to be sure, and, thanks to uncritical assumptions like Pinkerton’s, coupled with an unwarranted, ingrained faith in the efficacy of government elections, they will continue to dominate politics for the foreseeable future. But the reality is that profit seeking private entrepreneurs of all stripes and sizes have been doing everything possible to make life easier for their fellow men while it has been government bureaucrats and politicians who have endeavored to bring us nothing but pain and misery.

We have little choice but to rock on as best we can.

Happy Secession Day

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Every Fourth of July (even though the Continental Congress had actually cast their votes for independence from the British Empire on the Second of July), Americans celebrate, whether they consciously recognize it or not, the idea of secession--or at least a historic event that was grounded in the right of secession as a fundamental political principle.

Here's to secession at every possible level--political, personal, spiritual. Here's to declaring your secession from all the many and varied kinds of tyrants of mind, muscle and soul.

Here's to freedom in all of its many dimensions.

The People's Republic of Sodor...?

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:00:00 +0000

My five-year-old son, like Robert Murphy’s little boy, has also been a lifelong Thomas the Tank Engine fan. And while I agree with Murphy that Thomas offers a lot of positive examples for children—peaceful cooperation, mutual respect, the virtues of a job well done, etc.—there are a few things about that show that have always gnawed at me just a little.

First off, it seems that Sir Topham Hatt has a nice little monopoly rule going on the Island of Sodor. Notice that there’s only one railroad on the entire island, and it’s owned and managed by Hatt. He has no competitors. Does he own all the other industrial concerns on the island as well? I can’t be positive--perhaps I’ve missed something--but it seems that he does. And while I’ve never been able to ascertain whether or not he in fact does retain a monopoly on final decision making authority over all disputes that arise on the island, it sure seems like it, judging from the many episodes that I've watched.

Second, all this “Really Useful Engine” talk, repeated over and over by Thomas and the other engines—it strikes me as some sort of utilitarian commie, power-to-the-proletariate sloganeering. And I don’t see that Thomas and his friends’ labor ever actually improve their living conditions. In fact, they seem condemned to sharing the same communal roundhouse no matter how much or how little they work. They maintain on the same level of subsistence day after day, year after year…as provided by Sir Topham Hatt and his crew. What motivates the engines is not the promise of higher living standards, but the fear of being scrapped. “From each according to his (useful) ability, to each according to his needs—or it’s to the dustbin of history for you, Comrade Tank Engine!”

Now, it may be objected that we’re talking about train engines here, not human beings, so of course they wouldn’t care to try and improve their living conditions.

Except that these “engines” have the ability to reason, choose values, and to act to acquire those values. They demonstrate the characteristics of free will. And they have those human-like faces. So are they all machine, or are they part human/part machine, like cyborgs? What kind of symbolic messages are these human-like machine creatures imparting to our children? Could it be, “Work as you’re commanded to work, no matter how little your life materially improves, for you are a machine that exists for the uses of others”? It’s damn creepy, I tell ya.

The more I think about it, the more it all sounds like the People’s Republic of Sodor to me. The fact that Thomas promotes the advantages of industrialism doesn’t necessarily make it a celebration of free market capitalism. The Soviet dictator Stalin, for example, was absolutely obsessed with transforming the USSR into an industrial society whether people wanted it or not.

I don’t know much about the political views of the late Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry, the English vicar who created Thomas. WikiPedia says that he was a pacifist who opposed England fighting in the Second World War. While I admire anti-war views, which I myself hold (though I believe pacifism to be a flawed position), it’s important to remember that, particularly in the early to mid-twentieth century, many anti-war folks generally held socialist political views in the deeply mistaken belief that socialism and peace went together as naturally as bread and butter. So it wouldn’t surprise me if Awdry subscribed to some kind of socialist dogma. But again, I can’t say for sure if he did or if he didn’t.

By now you’re probably asking yourself, “Is he kidding?” The answer is I’m half-kidding.

But subjective interpretation is an interesting thing.

On Blagojevich

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:58:00 +0000

I still stand by what I wrote about this whole tawdry affair two and a half years ago when he was removed from office:

"I feel no empathy for any power-seeking politician. If one gets tossed into the river by the other capos to swim with the fishes, well, he shouldn't be that surprised, and his cries of outrage will have no effect on my deaf ears. If you're going to run with that mob, then you deserve whatever they stick you with. There are a lot more people being railroaded by government legislators and prosecutors who are exponentially more deserving of my empathy than Rod Blagojevich.

"But as I've said before, this insipid idea being more or less blathered by the corporate media headbots that American democracy was this wondrous Eden until Blagojevich waltzed in and crapped all over it just about makes me want to vomit all over my next door neighbor's brand new Barack Obama commemorative china. I very nearly upchucked all over the steering wheel as I listened to several state senators via my car radio wax oratorical about why they were voting to remove G-Rod (as my wife likes to call him) from his privileged office.

"Blago, revoking his earlier pledge to refuse participation in his own political lynching, gave a speech in his own defense to the state senate shortly before their vote to remove him. The money quote:

"'There was never a conversation where I intended to break any law...take those four tapes as they are. Those are conversations relating to the things all of us in politics do in order to run campaigns and win elections.'

"I submit to you that this is what appalled his fellow tyrants so much: Stating explicitly what is the implicit philosophy of tax-funded office-holding itself, which is trading privileges for favors, and favors for privileges. The man spoke too damned honestly for his own good, and that's the real crime U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald caught him doing: Talking bluntly. And amazingly, I heard more than one of those senators pretty much own up to the fact that Blagojevich was indeed telling the truth. Yup, that's what we all do, and that's why I'm voting to remove him. This was typically followed by a lot of pointless blither-blather about the 'rule of law,' the need for 'ethics reform' in state government, and 'righting our ship'...Blah, blah, blah, blibbity-blahbbity-blah.

"If only a Federal prosecutor would file charges against Bush and Cheney for lying this country into a senseless, unnecessary, and destructive war and who knows how many other crimes. But to ever expect anything from government that resembles real justice, rather than mere knee-jerk reactions to having its game called out by one of its own, is pure fantasy, of course, and that's the tragedy of wanting government to operate contrary to its nature."

Rod Blagojevich is but one very, very, very teeny-weeny-tiny, insignificant tadpole in the scum-filled pond that is American statism. But people would rather focus their hatred and contempt on this little teeny-tiny tadpole because that's who the news media and their bosses--the biggest fish of all in the scum-filled pond--want them to hate.

Another way to look at this is to ask the question, "Who has Rod Blagojevich killed?"

Forcing Barack Obama to be pro-life:

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:01:00 +0000

Thank you, Tom the Dancing the Bug. (By way of Roderick Long.)

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings: 'Caleb Meyer'

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0000

In the Shadow of the Palin Eclipse: Bristol Palin, Liberals and "Blackout Sex"

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:00:00 +0000

You have no doubt seen the story going around the web or have seen it on one of the pop culture distractions on the Tee-Vee, but apparently Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol has made her own contribution to the confessional autobiography industry for our post-Oprah media age.

I normally don’t spend much time dwelling on stories about celebrity tell-alls, which are usually nauseatingly self-involved and rarely provide any insights I find of interest. I had a great suspicion that there wasn’t a whole lot about 21-year-old Bristol’s “journey so far” that I would have deemed worthy of my scarce time. But this story on one of Bristol Palin’s self-revelations published in her book, appearing on something called Poopeater.com, which I found linked on a friend’s Facebook page, happened to catch my eye.

The headline: BRISTOL PALIN REVEALS SHE LOST VIRGINITY WHILE DRUNK

From the second paragraph (emphasis is mine):

“The 'Dancing With the Stars' finalist reveals she lost her virginity to [Levi] Johnston when she got drunk for the first time on wine during a camping trip, then woke up in a tent with no memory of the blackout sex. Though she and Johnston agreed they should wait until marriage, she admits they were soon intimate again. She claims that in their rocky relationship, Johnston ‘cheated on me about as frequently as he sharpened his hockey skates.’”

If you Google around for the story you’ll find other related headlines: “Palin in Memoir: Lost Virginity While Drunk”, or, “Bristol Palin Lost Her Virginity in a Tent, Drunk On Wine Coolers.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Get it? The daughter of Sarah Palin, that self-righteous conservative crusader for God, apple pie and “family values,” had her first sexual experience in a tent…while drunk on wine coolers! Doesn’t that irony just crack you up? Of course, there is that one little insignificant detail: Basically, she was sexually assaulted by her “boyfriend.” Oh, well, I suppose that's what you get when you’re a 17-year-old girl and have too much to drink! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Isn’t the hypocrisy of the Palin family just hilarious?

This happened to Sarah Palin's daughter, you see. That's why it's so comically noteworthy to imply that young Bristol was a promiscuous little drunkard who really should have known better than to get so falling down drunk in the company of a young man in whom she had placed the most sacred trust that one person could place in another. We're talking about the kind of trust on which they intended to found a marriage, and yet she had the stupidity to allow herself, after she and this young man, in whom she had placed such sacred trust, to make an explicit agreement with him as to when they would and would not share the most sacred kind of intimacy that two human beings could ever experience together. The thoughtless little girl was then vapid enough to allow herself to be used essentially as a sex dummy by this young man while she was in what must have been at least a quasi-stupor, if not completely unconscious.

Perhaps you wouldn't ordinarily find such a story very amusing, but so long as a daughter of Sarah Palin is involved, you are hereby permitted to suspend all principles of decency and allow yourself to say all kinds of witty and amusing things about this.

Of course, we can always count on a “Progressive” liberal blogger to set us straight on the story, as exemplified by this gem of a contribution to DailyKos.com:

“I dont [sic] know what happened for sure, nor do I care too much…”

You can rest assured that when a liberal tells you that it’s okay to not give a damn about a 17-year-old girl basically being raped while unconscious, then it’s perfectly okay to not give a damn about a 17-year-old girl being raped while unconscious…Oh no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t use that term “raped," should I? What is it called again? Oh, that’s right, it’s called, according to the aforementioned Poopeater.com piece, “blackout sex.” This, of course, is what you call sex when a young woman who somehow, by some mysterious, coded communication apparently known only to a young man like Levi Johnston, signals her consent to having sex by virtually passing out in his presence after drinking too much. I tell you, these crazy kids today…

But seriously, the reader may question my usage of the terms "rape" and "sexual assault" in the context of this particular story. I did not see, after all, any reference to the experience in such blunt terms by Bristol Palin herself. It may also be objected that she chose to resume the relationship, including sexual relations, even after Johnston did what he did. But what the hell else do you call it? And if you can't call a thing what it actually is, you end up with terminology like "blackout sex," a disgusting, contemptible phrase that is deliberately used to mask an act of sexual assault. It implies that Palin somehow consented to the act while simultaneously blacking out. How is that even possible? The truly mindblowing thing is that the author of the article using such inexcusable weasel language is a woman. Ye gods....

Ah, but it's Sarah Palin's daughter, you see, which grants us permission to use language in such a way as to conceal behavior as heinous as Levi Johnston's.

But whether Bristol Palin herself recognizes what Johnston did as rape or not, and whether you yourself choose to call it rape or sexual assault or something else, and if Palin is telling the truth--and for the life of me I can see no coherent reason why any woman would make up such a story out of whole cloth, particularly considering her surname and the specific circumstances she describes--can we at least agree that Levi Johnston is a completely repugnant swine of a "man," to use that term loosely? And is there anybody, anybody at all in our ever vigilant news media who can spare a condemnatory word or two on the total pig who just assumed he was free to take sexual privileges with a young woman when she was clearly three sheets to the wind? Hm? Anyone? Anyone at all?

As for our liberals, they have a long and proud history of standing up for women’s rights, you see. So they’re the Authority on when and when not to give a damn about a rape victim. So in other words, in their tireless crusade for women's rights, it's perfectly acceptable for liberals to condition their defense of an individual woman's rights upon the potential for scoring points for their chosen political tribe. This is particularly true when the woman happens to be the daughter of one of your Cherished Leader’s competitors for the job of Cherished Leader Uber Alles.

Our liberal blogger friend continues:

“…but something does not ring right about Levi forcing himself on a drunk Bristol, and then her parents inviting him to the Republican National Convention.”

So sayeth our bleeding heart liberal expert on sexual assault. You know, she does have a point, doesn’t she? Look, it’s not as though victims of sexual assault ever feel too much shame or guilt to tell anyone about it right away, let alone their own parents, thanks to all sorts of completely screwed up blame-the-rape victim nonsense that’s been handed down through the generations. It’s not as though that even when family members are informed by rape victims of the crime perpetrated against them, the family will frequently feel shame and guilt themselves, and may even just go into a state of cognitive dissonance and just pretend that they never heard the victim’s accusation in the first place. Of course that never, never happens, does it? It’s not as though families of the sexually assaulted frequently react to such a charge in all sorts of crazy, screwed up ways. Oh, of course not.

Hey, if you have any serious, nagging doubts that everyone reacts to accusations of sexual assault within their own family in a perfectly coherent, rational manner, just go ask someone who’s been through the experience. If they’re willing to open up to you about it at all, no doubt they’ll tell you just how perfectly sensible were everyone’s ways of dealing with it.

But I can just hear some of my liberal friends now.

“Oh, come on, Bob,” they’re saying. “It’s Sarah Palin’s daughter. Sarah Palin’s a self-righteous, preachy, hare-brained dimwit. This just shows what a hypocrite she is. You just refuse to taste the deliciousness of the irony.”

And that is what causes their mischief—that we’re talking about Sarah Palin’s daughter. That’s all they can focus on—Sarah Palin, to the nearly total exclusion of all other considerations within a given context, even when that context is a young woman’s claim that she was essentially assaulted while virtually unconscious at the age of 17. This makes many of these “progressives” every bit as sickening and nauseating as the worst conservative GOP types. But progressives are so convinced of their own naturally endowed goodness and light as “Progressives” that they’re completely blind to it. When you try to explain this particular myopia to them you might as well be speaking Martian because they utterly and totally refuse to spare a single moment of critical thought on the actual points you are trying to make to them, no matter how much you can prove that you're really not a secret agent of the Republican National Committee. My own (at least, in my humble opinion) clever name for the extent that liberals allow Sarah Palin to obscure their vision of everything else related to a particular incident or set of circumstances is a “Palin Eclipse.”

What is it about Palin that totally blinds the American left and center-left liberals/Democrats to every other fact? Is she really the satellite that totally eclipses everything else in the land, casting a shadow over everyone? Seriously?

Some of the most frustrating conversations I’ve ever had were with liberal acquaintances about the mass shootings in Arizona that seriously injured U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and left a little girl and several others dead. They were all totally convinced that somehow, in some way, completely contrary to all the logical laws of cause and effect, Palin bore some kind of responsibility for the shooting when she was nowhere near the vicinity of the crime.

Their “evidence”? Her campaign used a “crosshairs sight” image in an online campaign ad that "targeted" scores of incumbent congressmen and women, including Giffords. To them, this was the “smoking gun,” if you will. That, and some other rhetoric used by Palin with militaristic sounding metaphors—mere words, descriptive, visual language—made her an accomplice to assault and murder. Never mind that that kind of rhetoric is used by politicians and their supporters from both parties all the time, and liberals themselves have never exactly been saintly exceptions when it comes to violent political imagery. Never mind that similar target images and militaristic jargon, like "behind enemy lines," for example, have long been used by liberal Democratic candidates as well as Palin. But some of the mental and intellectual gymnastics these otherwise intelligent and quite reasonable people employed to make their case against Palin for the Giffords shooting, the unbelievably fuzzy and muddled logic—it was all absolutely mindboggling to listen to.

But I suppose one of the fringe benefits of absolving people of their personal responsibility for their own actions is that you get to shift blame to the political opposition and accuse them of being responsible for the assault and murder of people they didn’t assault and murder. It never seemed to occur to most of these progressives and liberals that once this kind of twisted logic is normalized in public discourse, it can always be turned against your own political tribe in the future. The kinds of vaguely defined speech code laws that were being seriously proposed by the Democrats themselves after the shooting would have virtually guaranteed that.

Ah, but so what if we have new government laws policing our political speech? It’s all about Sarah Palin! Just stay focused on her, hold her image forever in your mind…Yes, that's it...Remember, she’s the Mistress of All Evil in the Universe. Everything must be done to stop her. Even if it means destroying what little is left of free speech in this country; even if it means inverting all the laws of logic and discarding to the dustbin whatever is left of any rational thought in this society. And yes, even if it means completely blanking out an act of sexual assault.

Now, to be sure, I have absolutely no sympathies for Sarah Palin’s political aspirations, and I’ll even go so far as to say that she could potentially be one of the most dangerous figures in U.S. politics today, if she were to stand a reasonable chance of getting elected president. I have little doubt, considering her overall worldview as a dispensationalist Christian, that she would quite gladly further transform the entire Middle East into even more of a flaming cauldron of armed violence than it is now if she thought it would save Israel for the second coming of Christ. Depending on where I was living in 2012, I would have to seriously reconsider my principled vow against voting if she were the GOP presidential nominee. A candidate who drives me to vote—it doesn’t get any worse for me than that.

But fortunately, Sarah Palin doesn’t have much of a chance of getting elected president, let alone winning the Republican nomination. She has so thoroughly pissed off the McCainiacs and the rest of the GOP establishment that she’s got about a snowball’s chance in hell of gaining their necessary support. It’s simply not going to happen. The Republicans will go in for who they consider a safe bet, most likely Mitt Romney, or the latest empty suit from central casting, Jon Huntsman. Palin may be good for tossing out raw meat to the hardcore right wing faithful during the primaries, but it will be one of the Eastern Establishment stooges, Romney or Huntsman, that they’ll nominate.

In the meantime, the progressive-left liberals have to come to terms with the fact that for all of the very real creepiness of Sarah Palin’s politics, she is not actually in power at the present time and nowhere near it. In fact, unless they ever lived in Alaska while she was governor, virtually none of her most vitriolic liberal critics have ever lived under her rule.

The fact is that it is Barack Obama that they must confront, the man who actually is at the pinnacle of the U.S. power structure, the man who easily duped them into voting for him three years ago with vaguely defined “Hope” and “Change.” It is him and his policies that they need to scrutinize. They need to remove the rose colored glasses and face the facts of what he’s actually been doing, which is not terribly different from what McCain-Palin would be doing right now if they had won in '08 instead.

That is, liberals sorely need to take a damage assessment of the past two and a half years and finally admit to themselves that they helped create, and have been effectively supporting, George W. Bush’s third consecutive term: The foreign wars have intensified and increased; the creepy police state tactics are not only still with us but have actually been ratcheted up a few notches; the national security state bureaucracy is bigger and more bloated than ever; torture continues to be used not only with suspected terrorists who vanish into legal black holes, but are used on U.S. citizens as well; and Obama’s health care reform is essentially a massive hand-out to Big Pharma and other politically connected corporate interests, and which, by the way, borrowed at least one component from Republican Mitt Romney.

Obama insults liberals' intelligence in ways that are at least equal to Bush’s idiotic lies, if not worse. Obama's celebrated, so-called “withdrawal” from Iraq has to be the most glaringly disgusting example. It at the very least rivals Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment of May 2003 for its nausea inducing, self-refuting stupidity. It’s not a “withdrawal” if there are still about 45,000 or so U.S. troops still there, as well as who knows how many tens of thousands of tax-funded “private” contractors. And labeling them “advisors” doesn’t change the fact that they’re still killing and dying over there. Even now, the Obama administration is pressuring and cajoling their buddies in the Iraqi government into “inviting” U.S. forces to stay there far beyond the Status of Forces Agreement deadline, which is supposed to be the end of this year. The U.S. will never, ever leave Iraq on Obama’s watch.

Truth be told, Obama must be a far more effective imperialist than Bush ever was. He’s been executing the very same foreign policy as Bush, even more so, and the liberal resistance has not been nearly as intense as it was during the Bush years.

But I guess that's not nearly as important as casting aspersions on Bristol Palin's claim of sexual assault.

Gotta hand it to those progressives. They sure have their priorities straight, don't they?

The Rich and Powerful Get Richer and Powerfuller

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 02:10:00 +0000

Ron Paul offers a clue as to who and how.

Yesterday and Today

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Kaercher) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:00:00 +0000

This is my first full length post since March 1, 2009. It seems like only yesterday this country of ours was mired down in multiple wars, an economic meltdown, unbridled government surveillance and harassment of the people...Yup, getting back into this blogging thing will be just like riding a bike. Nothing much has changed in the past two years, has it? So much for Hope and Change©.

Let’s quickly review what’s been happening the past couple of years:

The Iraq War continues apace, President Hopey McChangey’s insulting and offensive little song and dance last year notwithstanding. Despite the celebrated “withdrawal”, 50,000 US troops and who knows how many thousands of “private” contractors remain in that country in an “advisory” capacity—in other words Americans are still killing and dying in Iraq, as are Iraqis. All US forces are supposed to be withdrawn by the end of this year, and if you believe that will actually happen I’m looking for investors for a beautiful new construction project in Vegas. Just drop me a line.

The Afghanistan War is still on after nearly an entire decade, with something like 100,000 US troops in that country, a good 60,000-70,000 more than were there at the end of George W. Bush’s eight-year crime spree. The July 2011 deadline for withdrawal is fast approaching, and if you believe that will actually happen please refer to proposal at the end of the above paragraph. Too many wholesome, God-fearin’, America-lovin’ American youngsters are having a good time to pull out the rug from under them now. You know, Support The Troops© and all that.

On top of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Hopey McChangey heaped on a brand new war of his very own in Libya, though he may have been nagged into that one, depending on whom you believe. The breaking news coming over the wire is that the U.S. House of Representatives has just tacked a measure onto a military spending bill prohibiting any funding for St. Barack's Libyan misadventure, but I wouldn't bet on Senate approval with the likes of John McCainiac, Lindsey Grahamcrackers and the reality-challenged John Kerry hanging around.

Julian Assange and (presumably) Bradley Manning gave Americans some hard truth and a lesson in the superiority of decentralized information networks over big, coercive, bloated, cumbersome, costly, highly centralized monopolistic bureaucracies like the United States government. They got trumped up rape charges and what is essentially torture for their trouble.

And how about that “Arab Spring”, huh? A great many Islamo- and Arabophobes throughout the Western world were blindsided by upsurges of young Arabs on the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, all demanding an end to the oppressive regimes and ongoing violations of their rights largely subsidized by the American taxpayer. Many of the aforementioned Islamo-/Arabophobes almost immediately began wringing their hands in fear of al-Qaeda finally establishing that whole kooky Middle Eastern caliphate thing that certain radical Islamists had always daydreamed about. Hey, if they have the unmitigated gall to rebel against US supported sock puppets it automatically follows that they must be terrorists, or at least the tools of terrorists, right?

Our betters continue to crap all over our individual freedoms and rights as much as ever. President Obama recently made sure to get up bright and early for a transatlantic sign-off on renewal of certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act that were due to expire. Can't keep searches of private business records, wiretapping and surveillance of the general populace waiting, y'know. Yes we can!

After ten years and trillions of tax dollars spent, US Navy SEALs stormed a luxurious mansion in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden following a dramatic firefight. Only it wasn’t a mansion, it was more like a shack. And there was no firefight, they shot the unarmed Master Terrorizer at point blank range. And they killed one of his wives and put his young daughter in the hospital. But alas, there was much jubilation as the families of the victims of the US embassy bombings in Africa and the USS Cole attack finally got justice.

And the Fed has been doing all it can to finance all of these fiascoes and simultaneously lift the ailing U.S. economy by printing reams of new cash, i.e., purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of new government bonds. But the word on the street is that the real unemployment rate remains stubbornly in the vicinity of 22% or more.

Oh, I could go on like this all day--but I'll save it for the days and months and, perhaps, even years to come.

But I hope that the foregoing does not give you, dear reader, the impression that we here at The Postmodern Tribune will be spending an inordinate amount of time yammering on about politicians and their assorted criminal beneficiaries. Jeez, I think I'd rather stick a hot poker in both my eyes than spend all my waking hours obsessing over those crooks and clowns.

There's a helluva lot more to politics than politicians and their kept corporatist whores, and there's a helluva lot more to life than politics. The vast tapestry of human existence consists of all kinds of ideas and experiences. The beauty of human action in all its forms is its great spontaneity and unpredictability. No matter how bleak and depressing things may seem, there are lots of people all over the world who are choosing to make something wonderful happen.

That's what I live for.