The Editors, yesterday:
Liberals complain that Obama hasn’t changed tactics in the War On Terror, but that is not true. He has, for example, banned torture [...]
Reality, today:
The US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan contains a facility for detainees that is distinct from its main prison, the Red Cross has confirmed to the BBC.
Mirwais was watering his plants one night when American soldiers came to get him.
He is still missing half a row of teeth from the beating he says he got that night and he says he cannot hear properly in one ear.
US troops accused him of making bombs and giving the Taliban money.
Mirwais says he was taken to the ‘black jail’.
More, and more. Honestly, I am beginning to suspect that war is bad.
May 11, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I will not hear you say bad things about war! Not in this house, young man!
May 11, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Lemon chicken? Is that a new euphemism for shit sandwich?
May 11, 2010 at 9:54 pm
The good old days:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050614/news_1n14gitmo.html
May 11, 2010 at 8:39 pm
I dun given up. I think I’m through voting in this lifetime.
As government becomes less responsible to its people a government, it becomes more authoritarian. The more fucked things become as a result of government irresponsibility, the more government uses that fuckedupedness to justify exerting more authority.
Why let the rich and powerful make fools of us when we can make fools of ourselves? No, wait, that’s the teabagger motto.
<We have nothing to fear but nothing itself?No, that’s the DJScrew party slogan.
I told you I didn’t feel good. That’s it! Good old Democratic party! R.I.P.
May 11, 2010 at 10:14 pm
and the less people who vote the more authoritarian the government.
May 12, 2010 at 6:12 am
I understand the power and value of voting, KR. I also understand that this power and value are not fixed but are largely hypothetical.
There are times when the crunch comes down, and that is that. Hitler was voted into power. I suspect that this wasn’t because well-meaning/well-informed voters like yooze’n'me stayed home. It was because the national fabric itself had turned into a lemon chicken plaid.
So to clarify: I actually will still vote but I just won’t give a shit. History will do as it will, and it will currently turn the majority of Western government (at least) into authoritarian forms by the end of two more decades.
Why? Because we’ve fucked off the time we had to prevent our oil-based economy from collapsing into itself rather than phasing into something better. This will make increasingly hard times for everyone, period, can’t.do.zip.about.it.but.ride.it.out.
Hopefully there will be a better economic platform waiting on the other side. There are any number of promising avenues. But homo saps are determined to learn the hard way.
May 11, 2010 at 8:40 pm
“As government becomes less responsible to its people a government, it becomes more authoritarian.”
ahem: As government becomes less responsible to its people, it becomes more authoritarian.
I need to find my glasses or lay off the promethazine.
May 11, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Fewer are being tortured, because [http://www.docudharma.com/diary/21088/obama-cutting-down-war-prisoner-population-with-battlefield-executions there are fewer to torture.]
May 11, 2010 at 8:57 pm
May 11, 2010 at 10:09 pm
but… but… we’re obots. we love him. Oh man, that watered down healthcare bill still gets me wet at night, and sometimes during the day, much to my embarrassment…
May 12, 2010 at 7:03 pm
I got chills reading this.
May 13, 2010 at 7:22 pm
try running around in wet undies all day long. talk about chilly.
May 11, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I’ve always been one to note real politic and reality based solutions based on the real chemistry of the legislature, what is doable and undoable, but this is unnecessary and stupid. My only guess is like most Democratic Administrations they don’t want to be proclaimed Doves and lose office to people who are more hawkish, but at this point those calculations are incorrect as they are losing base enthusiasm, the policy is self-inflicted damage and this policy in short isn’t helping them retain their margins. The Obama Administration can’t triangulate like Clinton because Obama isn’t a White Male. So in short, let you freak flag fly, run to the base, increase turnout amongst those people who have given up, fight the tough battles with the Corporations, as we’re set to lose seats and the majority in the House anyway. Let ‘er rip. All this hemming and hawing safety picking is fucking bullshit at this point. There is no practical reason to implement bad policy.
May 12, 2010 at 12:12 am
I also don’t know how to adopt different policies given the viable candidates. Does kicking out more Democrats from Congress and replacing them with a new set of Tom Delay politicians going to ecsaberte the problem? If I don’t vote then I increase the chance that these Republicans who I disagree with 98% will replace the Democrats I disagree with 30% of the time. I wish we had a more viable third parties and a Congress that reflected the nuances of the American political opinion. We don’t, and won’t until serious campaign finance reform, that’s not on the agenda. It also take twenty years of public education where civics is put on par with math and reading. That’s not coming and if it did local school boards would teach, “jesus done it.”
I think the best way to change the agenda and the choices that are made is by taking personal responsibility for your democratic role in the republic by going to your local central committee meetings, and developing a quorum, committee by committee, staying rationale, developing new ideas, understanding the mechanics of our government so you know the players, and how the gears turn, and which lever inflates which ballon. You have to understand the system to change it. You can’t change the system from outside unless you’re Martin King.
I know that the people get what the people put into their government but with all the opportunities to wrestle away the agenda and the prescriptions away from the idiots is a matter of showing up in the right place at the right time and understanding where policy comes from, how candidates are selected, the power of endorsements. You could go to 500 marches and not have the same effect of intelligently working a large local party infrastructure. Keep showing up because the choices are made by those who do and those who do are managing personal interests and egotistical ambition, such that rifts can be exploited and you can gaffle the whole scene if you can count. People don’t realize that there are many positions on boards in local government that are unfilled even in major cities. Get on one of those, qualifications include a pulse, and get known around City Hall. Call your local Representatives and become konwn by their offices. The point is this, there are in-roads for knowledgeable people who are well briefed on the issues, take them.
May 12, 2010 at 12:16 am
Everything you need to know about intra-committee or legislative politics you can learn from the show Survivor and the Bobby Caro LBJ series. Numbers, picking off floaters, the power of solidarity.
May 12, 2010 at 6:15 am
“My only guess is like most Democratic Administrations they don’t want to be proclaimed Doves and lose office to people who are more hawkish, but at this point those calculations are incorrect as they are losing base enthusiasm, the policy is self-inflicted damage and this policy in short isn’t helping them retain their margins.”
I thought that before but I see no evidence of such appeasement. Instead, I see rigid reinforcement of the post-911 Guantanamoid status quo. These guys aren’t stupid: they KNOW they’re losing votes.
May 12, 2010 at 8:23 am
And the conclusion is? They just don’t care? Why would that be? Are the corporations preparing their ‘end-game’ wherein the hollow illusion of democratic republics is shaken off, and the Newe Feudalism is revealed? Or do they maybe also believe in the Maya calendar 2012 thingy?
May 12, 2010 at 9:13 am
Maybe they’re thinking they can just ride the demographic wave, counting on the GOP to continue being repellant to hispanics and blacks. If that’s the case, it makes some sense to be risk averse. It’s just too bad that there are real fucking problems that need to be dealt with yesterday. Too bad for us punters, that is.
May 12, 2010 at 9:18 am
I haven’t given it much thought as of yet. I’m still sulking over losing my pony. But if I were to guess, I;d say that the corps are planning anything but a takeover, at least not the smart players, but simply to take the money and run. Quarterly profit plan horizons don’t fit well with schemes of grand domination.
The top positions in government and corporations are heavily dominated by psychopaths, and they simply don’t think like we do. One of the few things we know about psychopaths is that they usually don’t give a shit about us except if doing so will get them what they want.
That they *seem* to not much care anymore about what we want suggests we’ve little left that they want.
And the meek shall inherit the mess?
May 12, 2010 at 10:31 am
It is kinda like the objection people make with the real false ‘holy rollers’: do they REALLY not fear God at all? Because they sure put up a good act, and yet, on the off chance there really is one, boy is She gonna be pissed at those who take her name and then screw the choirboys. Similarly, if they really fear no coceivable backlash at all, the corp perps are treading on really thin ice. Shit hitteth the fan now and then.
May 12, 2010 at 10:46 am
“It is kinda like the objection people make with the real false ‘holy rollers’: do they REALLY not fear God at all?”
If you’re crazy enough to believe that shit you’re perfectly incapable of behaving consistently with those beliefs.
May 12, 2010 at 10:37 am
Conceivable, that is.
Also, for porgie, I wanna say — good analysis, too, but risk aversion makes the most sense where you basically have a monopoly, i.e. no obvious competition. Sarah Palin may not be such a joke that we will still be laughing about it in 2012. And there’s a few others out there in gooperland that are more plausible, and yet, less attractive personalities.
May 12, 2010 at 10:45 am
I don’t think Sarah is a threat at all, her own self. She simply hasn’t got it and we are foolish to forget that. She is in no way presidential. But she is a terrific test lab for a right-wing loony demagogue who would give the rabid right something to chew on until they discovered that they have well and truly screwed their inner pooch and that of everyone else.
Sarah is, I feel, the Britney Spears of politics, still in her pre-grownup phase where she’s *so* cute and all the het-guys wanna do her.
Lord knows I do. She is such a slut.
As for Obama, I admit total confusion and an entire COBE of cognitive dissonance. I would rather listen to Alan Smithee’s entire series of Self-Help for Po Widdle Pwoggies — in quadrophonic surround-sound with video sexercise accompaniment — than see my precious pony behave as he is and has.
May 12, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Fuck you, Oborg. Fucking die in a ditch with a mouthful of blood, you shit spewing self-righteous boot-licking demotard fuck. You dipshit moral cretins have been fucking ignoring your God-Emperor’s torture program since even before the BBC reported on it.
Call your fucking congressfuck and offer to suck his dick, pwoggie bloggie shitbreath.
May 12, 2010 at 6:57 pm
This is supposed to be a sexercize video? All hate and no Sarah? This country IS going to the dogs.
May 13, 2010 at 7:24 pm
We have been ignoring the torture since before we knew existed! We are very good at ignoring things of which we’re not at all familiar.
May 13, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I was ignoring it before it even *happened*. Top that!
May 12, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Yopu got to give it to Smitheeboy, he does not disappoint.
May 12, 2010 at 2:14 pm
I like the new, calmer Smithers.
May 12, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Apparently somebody here made him angry.
May 12, 2010 at 10:48 am
P.S. Nice vid, Theeds. That’s the kind of crappy ugly agitprop-as-music noise I can get behind.
May 13, 2010 at 4:01 pm
More on Gulfzpilla:
http://www.unknownnews.org/1005-10.html