Napoleon gave the world its first truly modern legal code, and Hitler gave it the the crematoria, but to a Ukranian farmer is there really such a difference between one invading army and the next?

At some point one must admit that the lesser evil is nevertheless evil, and the idea that forestalling doom by approaching it with more hesitant steps is by some measure a kind of progress is one of the looniest I can imagine. Is it true that John McCain is "a real nutcase." Yes. But so too are his principle opponents, and the fact that the Candidate of Gender and the Candidate of Color seem intent on a marginally more circumspect policy of killing foreigers and a somewhat less intrusive version of the domestic surveillance state matters hardly at all. Indeed, I suspect it will be worse. It took the cataclysmic disregard for basic propriety--what I would call George W. Bush's radical honesty--to make our darling "progressives" realize that they live in a vicious, torturing empire, and should a suave talker like Obama or a dull bureaucrat like HRC take the Awful Office, these same progressives will be more than happy to go back to more noble pursuits, like scoffing at Chomsky and mocking the patchouli-wearing jerks protesting at the School of the Americas. The writing is already scrawled on the waiting wall.

Let the Donk "retake" America. That isn't especially my concern. I am happy to admit that America exists, but I'm afraid that my ontology curls up and plays dead when it encounters the more bearish notion, embraced in the old "bipartisan" fashion, that America therefore must exist. What began as a genocidal slave-republic, matured into a genocidal continental empire, and transcended itself into a global hegemon is not redeemed by the fact that we enfranchised the ladyfolk or reluctantly half-emancipated the Negro or, I don't know, bombed the fuck out of Serbia. Critiques predicated on "reform" are apologia for ongoing crimes. "We will tiptoe into your house to murder you" is hardly an improvement over coming in with murderous shouts and guns ablaze. Insofar as this ineffectual electronic pamphlet has an intellectual commitment, it is to the devolution of America, and to understanding that whether you're in the shallow end or the deep end, you're still swimming in the pool.

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/

One of the best bloggers around, A Tiny Revolution even half guessed him as the return of Billmon once. Worth a read, especially for our deluded government worshiping friends. And please, no more gay jokes just because you disagree with him.

Well, no.

The Pope of Rome is Roman Catholic which is quite difference from belonging to a catholic church. The early church was catholic but the Romans wiped them out in favor of a religion that suited an empire.

Sorry to disappoint.

I must take leave now; but no, God did not strike me ... ahggg ...

"You guys never give up. Like roaches." -- L.W.M.

lwm: I am afraid!

Nice smear job oh hater of freedom everywhere. I feel sorry for the bitter old frightened men who hate that others want to be free. I bet you hated all the wonderful 60s songs lauding freedom; went for bubble-gum no doubt.

"... Actually, everyone did not think that. I was chatting a few months ago with former OC Weekly Publisher Will Swaim, and we laughed at how strange it was that the foreign-policy establishment couldn't figure out what was obvious to a few lefty editors at an alternative weekly and some righty editorial writers on a suburban newspaper. The skeptics had one thing in common: We didn't trust the government to give us the straight scoop. We understood that government officials tend to manipulate the facts to reach a preordained conclusion. ..." (STEVEN GREENHUT Sr. editorial writer and columnist --- The Orange County Register)

This is what the left and right have in common when they are wide awake; government lies to you about everything. Everything. I would rather believe a whore's story about how he got into journalism than the "intelligence" peddled by the government.

By the way, the whole article, "5 years later, we told you so about Iraq" is a great read.

http://www.ocregister.com/
articles/war-iraq-editorial-2008187-last-everyone

n/t

I find that typos and other errors appear only after posting.

I think that proof of the other world (daemons or whatever) is to be found in this phenomenon. I think those so inclined should apply for a government grant to investigate the military (perhaps homeland security) usefulness of this fact that I have uncovered; unfortunately for me, I have no interest in becoming involved at this point.

So, anyone is welcome to idea with the full knowledge that no one will know that you did not think of it first.

Enjoy.

"... the labeling of people with meaning-depleted abstract nouns is a slothful substitute for the concrete thinking required for apprehending people's attitudes and opinions (including their own) regarding specific issues or complex phenomena.

Assigning superannuated political labels to people, either pejoratively or with approbation, is the intellectually lazy way of avoiding the work involved in perceiving and placing in an appropriate conceptual context the specifics of someone's expressed opinions or beliefs ..." -- Associative Individualist

Spot on.

I find it amazing that both "conservatives" and "liberals" in my town want to help the homeless (other problems would work here also) but you can not get a meaningful dialogue as to want to do since "conservatives" are never going to talk to the damn socialists; and the "liberals" are never going to talk to the damn fascists. So the homeless guy (often a vet) goes hungry while well fed people call each other meaningless names.

I find that Americans find labeling a thing or problem to be much more meaningful than actually solving problems; or even just doing the best with the hand you are dealt since many problems are intractable.

It might have been ... ah hell, goodnight.

http://tinyurl.com/2jfc5a