no third solution

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Osama’s Death: Symbolism & Significance

May 2nd, 2011

Let me preface this by saying that I am not crying over bin Laden’s death (if it’s true this time). However, aside from quenching your thirst for retribution, in the grand scheme of things there is almost zero significance. Hell, for the better part of the past decade nobody even knew if he was still alive.

Symbolism? Yes. His death is symbolic in that it stirs up the sort of religious fervor, flag-waving, circle jerking blind nationalism that despots and tyrants have always used to their advantage. And for those who were personally affected by his actions, I suppose that symbolically they can feel that “justice” has been done.

undated photo of Osama bin Laden, via Agence France Press

But significant? No.

You are not going to be any safer. Al-Qaeda presents basically the same threat level that they presented yesterday, last week, or last year which is to say: virtually none. The “organization” has been essentially impotent since 9/11. Killing bin Laden neither strengthened nor weakened the organization.

Al-Qaeda is not going to disappear. The loose, networked organization known as Al-Qaeda is still out there. And although fear-mongers are already suggesting this event might incite some retaliatory action, I do not believe Al-Qaeda poses a significant threat.

America will not become more free.  The Empire will not shut down military bases in over 100 countries, withdraw troops from far-away lands, lower your taxes, repeal the PATRIOT Act, change its belligerent foreign policy, cease funding death squads and overthrowing popularly-elected officials in third world countries so that giant corporations have easier and cheaper access to their abundant natural resources, etc.

So… Let’s all hail the savior Obama, who has succeeded in banishing the great Devil, Osama bin Laden! And then, go pour another cup of the “America! Fuck Yeah!” Kool-Aid and get good and drunk on that stuff. You’re gonna need it to deal with the fact that, on this great day in American history, nothing at all has changed.

Back to your regularly scheduled distractions: Royal Weddings, singing contests on TV, sporting events, and iPads.

 

 

Obama’s Birth Certificate Means Nothing

April 27th, 2011

Much ado has been made about Obama’s place of birth. Recently, Donald Trump’s publicity stunt masquerading as presidential campaign breathed new life into the 3-year old rumor that Obama was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii and as such could not serve as President of the United States.

It doesn’t matter where Obama was born.

Whether Obama was born in Kenya or in Hawaii or in Antarctica or on Neptune is irrelevant. He still sold you out to Wall Street. He is still a murderous thug; commander in chief of a dangerously belligerent empire that wages perpetual war in order to secure cheap labor markets and resources for transnational corporations.

His place of birth doesn’t change any of that.

Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!

People got mad when Bush extended tax cuts to “the rich” yet Obama gave massive bailouts to Wall Street. People got mad when Bush put innocent people in Guantanamo, but Obama hasn’t released them. People were upset with Bush’s “war for oil”, yet Obama hasn’t withdrawn the troops.  All members of the political class are cut from the same cloth.

Even if someone proves Obama is “foreign born”, what will happen? Some other carefully groomed figurehead would take his place and do the exact same things.

It’s Only a Matter of Time…

March 21st, 2011

If you hold any even remotely “extreme” point of view it is only a matter of time before someone tries to censure you by labeling you a “conspiracy theorist”.

Someone did that to me recently, responding to one of my posts in defense of Wikileaks. I hastily deleted the trackback/backlink after reading the intellectual diarrhea that was his argument.

Firstly: I didn’t mention any conspiracy, or allude to any conspiracy at all. As if that is not significant enough, it’s entirely possible that there is no “New World Order” Illuminati behind the holocaust that is American Empire or the attempts to censor Wikileaks.

It doesn’t require a dedicated, focused cabal to do this sort of thing. All that’s necessary is that the actors involved, in however disjointed and dysfunctional manner is possible, act in their own best interests under color of law to conceal mistakes, missteps, and where they occur, crimes. It works like this in a nutshell:

The most powerful government in the world hates the fact that wikileaks is exposing its crimes.  Some members of this government (and others), without any real authority to do so, make vague threats pertaining to wikileaks and anyone assisting wikileaks. The corporations that rely on this government for corporate welfare, spectrum rights, credit monopoly, etc., play an extremely conservative hand ceasing to offer anything that could even remotely be construed as “assistance” to wikileaks. DNS drops them. Mastercard stops sending them money. Paypal stops letting them receive money. Amazon drops them from their s3 servers. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Consider what happened to Wikileaks in the immediate aftermath:

  • EveryDNS dropped support for Wikileaks, effectively removing the main site from the web.
  • Mastercard stopped customers from giving funds to Wikileaks
  • Paypal closed their account
  • Amazon ended mirroring or hosting the site content on their web servers
  • The Swiss Bank froze their legal defense fund
  • Etc.

All they had to do was make some threats and the corporations fucking crumbled, caved in to their demands.

You cannot say that you’re not a “yes man” and simultaneously reject the openness that something like Wikileaks provides.

We know that Wikileaks has revealed evidence of crimes which were previously held under lock and key, labeled confidential, swept under the proverbial rug. Without whistleblowers like Wikileaks, these injustices would never have seen the light of day, would never have been revealed for the crimes they are.  And there is evidence to back this up. Prior to the digital age, the record of States and their agents selflessly admitting to their own misdeeds is atrocious to say the least.

You might call for a watchdog, an overseer, an audit of some sort. But what is that? Another layer of bureaucracy, impenetrable to the public at-large and impervious to the real scrutiny that comes when the words and deeds of public servants are made public?

I don’t believe in democracy. I don’t believe in government. But insofar as you do believe in these institutions, how can you possibly endorse or defend the actions taken by your representatives and agent , without knowing the nature of these actions in the first place.

You can say that you do. But you can’t.

Saying that you do is just rationalization for abandoning your moral compass, while assuming that those who act on your behalf are in-fact acting on your behalf and in the interest of humanity as a whole (fuck your iPads and Happy Meals and $3/gallon gasoline if it comes at the expense of humanity, right?), without any transparency, without any way of validating your beliefs, and hence, your argument is a null program, a proof without premises.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics