Dear America: Stop Hating Smart People

by: Chip

Mon Jul 19, 2010 at 09:33:36 AM EDT

Mike Adams, professor and columnist for TownHall.com, really digs quotation marks. In his new article he describes how liberal "intellectuals" find "solutions" to difficult "problems", mostly by destroying society by advocating faggoty social programs.

"Intellectuals" are, apparently, very un-American. Even "intellectuals" American conservatives have taken a shine to are magically gutted of their "intellect", historically revisionized and whited-out by the Great American Cock which covers all those fruity, un-freedom-loving parts with the white gooey goodness of liberty. So a guy like Adam Smith, who humbly recommended a strong government amid all those free markets, becomes a flag-waving, gun-wielding, red-blooded American patriot, despite Smith's negligible status as a Scotsman.

And thus in demonizing "intellectuals" Adams continues the uniquely American tradition, at least of the last few decades, of taking a dump on folks we believe are smarter than us. Hell, who doesn't have an inner desire to cover a smug smarty pants with copious amounts defecation, metaphorical or otherwise?

Except Adams' charges against "intellectuals" and progressivism lack a basis in reality, as usual for such arguments. Adams contends the Great Society of LBJ is a direct cause for a spike in violent crime in the 1960s and 70s, a statement that all but screams 'logical fallacy' because, darn it, if the welfare state was such a poisonous monstrosity unleashed on a God-fearing population of libertarian bootstrappers, why didn't crime spike after FDR enacted the New Deal? Of course, conservatives like Adams would respond: "Fuck you Chip, you just hate mainstream Americans." And such a charge against my feelings toward flag-wavers just might be correct, although it has no bearing on the mud-butt turd bowl of bullshit conservative arguments against progressivism.

Now, don't get me wrong, we don't dig cut-and-dry support for any particular train of thought. We at Lib Porn feel nothing but contempt for fuzzy liberal jackasses of the artsy fartsy variety, those knuckleheaded quasi-do gooders with a belief that black poverty can be alleviated if we just paint enough Afro-centric murals around the ghetto. As far as staunch anti-porn feminists (of both genders) searching endlessly for pro-rape content in Playboy and sexist language in English class texts, well, we wish nothing less than Bird Flu upon them. Strict communists and anarchists who believe any sort of monetary transaction in our hemisphere negatively impacts a Tutsi in Rwanda needs to, for lack of a better phrase, calm the hell down. From fashionably liberal suburbanites to Back-to-Africa primitivists to art school dickholes who believe charcoal paintings will save the world, we have more than enough maddeningly wild hatred for the various retardations, brain-farts, and dangling dingleberries of the left. For realsies.

Yet despite the American conservative's disdain for those irrelevant little things only homosexuals and socialists love, otherwise known as 'facts', we have evidence of "intellectual" ideas like certain social democratic policies having a positive impact on the none-to-impressive regular folks like us. Of course, Europe isn't perfect, but the social democracy/capitalist mixture sure seems to work well. And darn it, America's own social democratic experiments were working rather well until our owners saw fit to allow our manufacturing sector to move to Mumbai, gut the unions, and replace welfare cheese with Ronald Reagan's wrinkled ball sack.

As for the spike in crime Adams mentioned? Well, he's full of shit. Despite the unrest of the 60s and 70s, crime really spiked in the 80s and 90s, coinciding with a hefty rightward shift in America wherein Reagan, Bush the First, and liberal darling Bill Clinton told the working-class to go fuck itself.

And, oh yeah, crack.

Nobody likes to feel stupid. So yes, guys like Adams - who, being a professor and all, must have one fuck of an inferiority complex, that or he really hates the Humanities professor in the classroom nextdoor - will thrash about to debunk the "intellectuals" and their totally un-American ideas. Except we call them "intellectuals" for a reason. The reason? They're fucking smarter than the rest of us. America's hatred of "intellectuals" will, we hope, eventually come back to bite the flag-wavers in the ass. Because hell, how can you hate smart people then tell bucktoothed Red State progeny to do well in school?

"Study hard, son. But not too hard. Because then you'll be a liberal faggot."

America, folks.    

"Turncoat [??] Afghan soldier kills 3 British troopers"

by: fairleft

Tue Jul 13, 2010 at 20:01:04 PM EDT

"Turncoat Afghan soldier kills 3 British troopers"

That's the AP headline on Yahoo news at the moment. Hard. to. take. sometimes. So he's not a turncoat when he fights and kills for the US/UK occupation and its Karzai puppet, who was allowed to steal the last national election, but he is a turncoat when he joins the fighting majority trying to kick out the foreigners occupying a country, his country, for the fun and profit of those foreigners' corporations and politicians?

But the UK Guardian gets it worse:

Renegade Afghan kills three British soldiers
[subhead:] Murder of troops inside Helmand patrol base deals severe blow to government's Afghanistan exit strategy

Okay, yeah, I get it, 'renegade', so you can get in this connotation from dictionary.com:

-adjective
3. of or like a renegade; traitorous.

And murder? . . .

Right Wing Evangelicals Oppose Comcast/NBC Merger (?)

by: Chip

Fri Jul 02, 2010 at 13:21:20 PM EDT

As much as I love democracy, it can be scary, especially in America. There is but one fragile, sometimes porous group standing between sanity and a Christian theocracy. Mind you, I'm not contending a Christian theocracy in the US would be similar to, let's say, Saudi Arabia. I doubt there'd be honor killings...or at least not that many. A Christian theocracy in America would look like the Disney Channel, only not as profane, with less Jews and more Kirk Cameron. And a mishmashy, not-nearly-coalesced  group of relatively intelligent folks fortunately stand in the way of this theocracy, mostly by fucking more often than right-wing Christians. Anyway, this morning I actually thought I'd found common ground between we, the sane and humbly intelligent citizens, and those who'd rather dangle on Jesus' hairy nipples. I was wrong.

As I perused AVN.com's articles today, I thought I found a hopeful nugget about a coalition of Christly dingleberries - headed by the Parents Television Council (PTC) and Focus on the Family (FOTF) - opposing the upcoming merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal. I said to myself, "Wow, these people are usually mindless trollops but hey, this merger of media giants is going to limit our already-shrinking freedom of choice in media. Good on them for defending freedom of choice!"

Except this coalition has very little interest in matters of choice (unless it's the choice between which "textbook" best invalidates carbon dating methods, on sale for just ten bucks at the mega-church bookstore). The coalition's primary concern? They're super pissed about Comcast making money off skin flicks. Surely, they believe this merger of television monoliths will result in an unending wave of up close anal penetration scenes flooding the airwaves and thus transforming their wholesome white babies into homosexual drug addicts.

Well you shouldn't be surprised. PTC and FOTF are notoriously anti-porn. (In fact, both groups are anti-everything that isn't wholesomely Christian...in a right wing sort of way. Just how Jesus said it should be, or some shit.) As there is no empirical evidence that pornography harms consenting adults who view it, these knuckleheads - and indeed, most right wing anti-porn activists - instead attack the adult industry with stupid, arbitrary buzzwords like "obscenity" and "indecency". Of course, there's no way objectively judge what's 'obscene' and what isn't. For instance, I don't believe sex is obscene at all. Yet PTC and FOTF do, and they try as hard as they can to censor it...and usually succeed because our nation has a bunch of retardedly arbitrary obscenity laws.

Porn isn't their only target, obviously. They oppose any kind of supposedly naughty stuff in the media.  Even children's cartoon characters are targeted for, ya know, telling people to be nice to each other. For example, FOTF founder James Dobson bitched to the FCC when SpongeBob SquarePants sang a song about being open minded and tolerant, because that was obviously meant to turn children into homosexuals.

Once again, these boogers of Christ show themselves as apathetic towards democracy and freedom of choice. Oh yeah, they run to the polls to oppress fags and, closeted racists that they are, oppose any sort of multiculturalism. But when the issue of the day is yet another corporate merger which, by it's very nature, takes a big capitalistic dump on the average American's freedom of choice, the right wing faithful could care less...unless Comcast shows a few titties now and then.

I guess they don't care about a handful of wealthy cunts controlling information. As long as it's titty-free and shows re-runs of the 700 Club, anyway.  

U.S./Canada Chosen G-20 vs. Objective G-20 (w/ chart)

by: fairleft

Tue Jun 29, 2010 at 15:47:32 PM EDT

Well, apparently the G-20 was chosen by the G-7 (in particular the 1999 U.S. and Canadian finance ministers), and that's anti-democratic, of course, and as you'd expect 'The West'-centric. Is it possible, instead, to choose the G-20 transparently and objectively? Well, maybe. Going along with the ostensible, official purpose of the G-20, to gather together finance ministers representing power over the largest chunk possible of the world economy, why not simply call together the finance ministers representing the largest chunk possible of the world economy (sorry, but minus Taiwan).

Using the CIA list of countries ranked by GDP as measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), here's how that would look:

MoveOn Digs Petraeus, Also: Fuzzy Liberal Bitches

by: Chip

Fri Jun 25, 2010 at 11:58:57 AM EDT

Man oh man, you have to love the 'liberals' at MoveOn.org. If you, like me, envision a bunch of self-satisfied Prius drivers with hemp messenger bags when you think of MoveOn, well, you can probably agree that these people are a bunch of weak-kneed jerks hanging off the Democratic donkey dong.

After bashing General David Petraeus for juking the casualty rate stats in Iraq in the 2007 Petraeus Report, MoveOn finally removed an anti-Petraeus ad on their website...after Obama fired the general who totally talked shit in Rolling Stone and promoted Petraeus to run all that unfortunate business in Iraq. As usual, those warm, fuzzy 'liberals' who pretend to be some unabashed force for progressivism and change swing happily in the direction of the Dem's collective nutsack whilst dangling from the hairs of Obama's crotch-fro. The charges of falsehood against Petraeus thus magically vanish not just on MoveOn's site, but in the minds of so many pedestrian 'liberals' across the country.

Now, don't get us wrong: We're not in the business of bashing folks who've made an informed decision to change their minds. The ability to change one's mind is a good thing. Fuck all the "flip-flop" shit. Flip-flops are shoes, bitches, not the practice of thinking critically about one's course of action and determining that maybe you should have gone the other way.

But there's a world of difference concerning MoveOn and fellow suddenly-Petraeus-ain't-so-bad 'liberals', who've suddenly forgotten how super duperly pissed they were about Iraq. True, Obama and Co. are scaling back our forces but there are still 50,000 US troops in Iraq and the White House has made no mention of bringing those poor bastards home. Where's all that liberaly rage? As a matter of fact, MoveOn folks are generally pretty enthusiastic about cheesy television ads decrying the war. Has      Little Alex's mother had a change of heart because now her favorite black guy's running the war?

Once again, the fashionable 'liberals' - generally more concerned about their image, self satisfaction, and ameliorating their own creeping sense of white guilt - have abandoned their professed principles in favor of settling for Their Guy. Where are those enthusiastic war critics who did little between 2003-2008 but burn Bush in effigy? How about those fruitcakes who sang about the public option at the AHIP conference last fall? Actually, outside of the usual protesters (teenage anarchists taking a defiant stance against corporate guitars and PETA members confronting the barons of the fly swatter industry) mainstream 'liberals' have scarcely criticized the still right-of-center policies of the White House.

Sure, we know the Democrats are usually the (slightly) lesser evil (most of the time, sort of) when compared to the ever-batshit insane Republican/Tea Bag rank-and-file, not to mention their (even more) blatantly full-of-shit leadership. But while the Democrats are currently in power, the so-called progressives reveal themselves as nothing more than limp dick leftists, barely concerned with actually sticking to progressive principles as long as Their Guy won. It doesn't matter to them that BP dumped more cash into Obama's campaign war chest than any other candidate, or the bitchly manner in which Democrats punked out on the public option. Just as these half-assed fashionably 'liberal' douchebags still cherish the memories of the brainfartingly non-liberal policies of Clinton (selling out unions, Welfare-To-Work, etc.), they'll defend Obama simply because he's Their Guy, no matter what progressive ideals they supposedly believe. Or, at least, what their bumper stickers tell us they believe.

They really dig bumper stickers.  

South Africa's new high-speed rail not for country's poor

by: fairleft

Thu Jun 17, 2010 at 00:18:30 AM EDT

The Gautrain is the high-speed rail vanity project that accompanies the football stadium vanity projects (even when there were perfectly serviceable older stadiums nearby) that South Africa has built for FIFA but cannot afford. Here is a high speed rail project where the social wrong and white elephantism absolutely cry out. The basic injustice is described in the following paragraph:

All in the Name of the Beautiful Gain: On the World Cup in South Africa

South Africa desperately needs large-scale public infrastructure, especially in the area of public transport which in some cities, including Johannesburg, is almost entirely absent. The Gautrain, which was launched on Tuesday the 8th June (just in time for the big event) is probably the biggest irony here: in a country where the large majority rely on unsafe private mini-bus taxis to travel long distances on a daily basis, the Gautrain offers high speed, luxury transport for tourists and those travelling between Johannesburg and Pretoria . . . who can afford it as a single trip between the airport and Sandton will set you back a massive R100.

The injustice was first a major issue five years ago, with the news that the cost projections were boosted from $1 billion to at least $3 billion. And note the paragraph at the end, reporting studies that found bus-only lanes on the Johannesburg-Pretoria highway would do the job of the expensive rail line at a fraction of the cost:

Fox Contributor Identifies the REAL Ruling Class!!

by: Chip

Wed Jun 09, 2010 at 13:57:47 PM EDT

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that a tucked-away opinion article/blog in the belly of FoxNews.com isn't going to send shockwaves through our nation's political consciousness (if you could even call it that, collectively retarded as Americans are). Yet we're rarely privy to the true emotional outrage or, indeed, the more graphic manipulations of language at The Top, for lack of a better term. The Top of any institution, whether it's the military, the government, or your local police department, is generally populated by folks smart enough not to say the wrong thing or, more accurately, what's really on their mind.

The Top of the conservative media is sufficiently intelligent to understand they are, in fact, some of the greatest movers-and-shakers of our nation's retardedly fragile political landscape. They know who they are, they know who they represent: the groin-grabbingly wealthy motherfuckers who are truly our ruling class. We sane and humble citizens with a capacity for critical thought have reconciled ourselves with this reality. Others, not so much. FoxNews.com contributor Andrea Tantaros, for instance, just    posted an article explaining how the Marxo-Kenyanists in the White House and their union buddies are totally the real ruling class, thus cementing Tantaros' position as a foot soldier blabbermouth harping to her own ideological choir which is, I loathe to admit, a choir full of thunderously backward people.

Tantaros asserts that the Tea Party victories of Nikki "We Just Said We'd Bang Her Three Articles Ago" Haley and Sharon Angle show the voting public as an angry one, vehemently rejecting a "ruling class" working toward a "vast expansion" of government power. And oh, that government power is "bankrupting" America.

Except Tantaros and the Tea Party leadership who spew this same garbage sentiment are willfully ignoring the reality of our nation's economic landscape. Angry working and middle class Tea Baggers are being particularly manipulated into thinking that corporate dominance and free-market-as-a-domestic-policy are actually symptoms of liberty-fueled Americanized awesomeness. It wasn't corporate greed and our government's lack of loyalty toward its own lower classes who stole the Tea Bagger's factory job, it was those damn jigs and Mexicans. Systemic corruption born out of a sick orgy between the wealthy elite and their elected puppets hasn't driven down our wages, it was that Hispanic welfare queen begging for food stamps. Tantaros, in one short article buried in the opinion section of FoxNews.com, effectively summarized the psychosis - and code word racism - of all those stupid motherfuckers with Lipton bags hanging from their Revolutionary War costumes.

Of course, much of the blame stops right at the voters' feet. Quasi-libertarians half-assedly subscribing to an economic ideology they scarcely understand accept a revisionist view of American history in which: 1. There was actually a magical time when the Austrian school's approach provided ample employment for the working masses, thus ensuring they wouldn't live hand-to-mouth (like that awesome period of time Upton Sinclair wrote about in his upbeat novel, The Jungle), 2. Working-class Americans never had a standard of living lower than their Western European equivalents, 3. Our Recession, much like the Great Depression, was facilitated by the combined efforts of ACORN, homosexual blacks, and union shop stewards.

And the most maddening trait of these people? They actually believe the welfare state is the tool of the ruling class. The wealthy bastards at The Top of the conservative media and corporate America are smart enough to leave the most mind-bendingly idiotic rhetoric to the foot soldiers. We at least have to give Rupert Murdoch and Co. credit for not being so shameless as to point their million dollar forefingers at the most vulnerable of American citizens, and those who (sometimes) represent their best interests, while screaming "Oppressor!"  

Contact US State Dept. To Feed Starving Gazans !!!

by: blues

Sun May 30, 2010 at 23:18:25 PM EDT

(202) 647-4000 (24-hour number)

They take a short LIVE message, then send you to a typical phone maze. (I did it.)

Also send an email to:

publicaffairs@panet.us.state.gov

This is real time.

FoxNews.com, "Biden: Agent of Belgian Supremacy"

by: Chip

Wed May 26, 2010 at 13:08:00 PM EDT

Americans should show gratitude to FoxNews.com for blowing the lid off the story of the year: Joe Biden is, and probably has been all along, a sleeper agent for Belgium. Biden showed his true colors when, while addressing the European Parliament in Belgium, he referred to Brussels as the capital of the free world. Surely, this instance of anti-American hatred from this administration was matched only by Obama's decision to bow to the emperor of Japan, thus changing the outcome of World War II and subjugating our nation's citizens to the iron fist (which is presumably clutching a bunch of tentacle porn) of Imperial Japanese rule.

FoxNews.com adroitly presented the facts. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union and home to NATO headquarters. As such, Belgium is the (dark, black, socialistic) heart of the burgeoning European terror that Obama and Biden are allowing to wash over America in a tidal wave of communist healthcare and atheistic homo-loving that will surely leave billions of American babies dead in its wake.

Certainly, real Americans have suspected Biden, and by extension Obama, of being agents of Islamo-fascist-slash-Euro-Stalinism ever since The Kenyan helped Bill Ayers and The Weathermen murder all types of Christians. But Biden's wild assertion that a Third World country like Belgium could possibly house the capital of the free world is a slap in the face to the proud Americans in Washington, DC who defend democracy and peace through the Patriot Act and sending undesirables to Jordan to get their fingernails pulled out.

Real Americans must rise up and combat this Euro-Murderism before Belgian soldiers storm our shores. Aided by the brown-shirted forces of the European Union, all led by the karate-kickingly evil warlord Jean-Claude Van Damme, the Belgian-Biden-Obama reign of terror will stand as the greatest threat to American sovereignty since Jacques Chirac aided the Taliban during the 9/11 attacks.

And of course, the loony left will applaud Biden's Brussels statement. They'll say that it shows a more internationalist side of America, one that doesn't take a narrow-minded view of world affairs in which America kicks major ass and fucks evil with the Great Freedom Dick while Europe sips wine, surrenders to Iran, and produces terrible remakes of the American sitcom The Office. Then again, as FoxNews.com told me, those loony lefties will never understand that American Exceptionalism necessitates a world view that holds the USA on a pedestal, forever unwavering, a beacon of civilization and free market Christianity shining in the stupid commie face of everyone not draped in Old Glory or jamming out to Toby Keith amid Mexican-punching libertarians.  

deficit terrorism - they're serious - pix

by: fairleft

Wed May 26, 2010 at 19:08:22 PM EDT

They can't be serious, but they are. Somehow the financiers and 'the market' have taken control of our politicians and the mainstream media, and are going to practice anti-deficit terrorism against their populations, here and in Europe, already hit by deep recession and mass unemployment. Taking Keynes and common sense and doing the opposite, where does it lead? Why do we have to find out?

Dean Baker:

. . . Even though the US and many eurozone countries are projected to be flirting with double-digit unemployment for years to come, their governments will be focused on cutting deficits rather than boosting the economy and creating jobs.

The outcome of this story is not pretty. [fairleft: You could've put that a little stronger, Dean] Cutting deficits means raising taxes and/or cutting spending. In either case, it means pulling money out of the economy at a time when it is already well below full employment. This can lower deficits, but it also means lower GDP and higher unemployment.

This might be OK if we could show some benefit from lower deficits, but this is a case of pain with no gain. . . .

Mark Weisbrot:

Unfortunately the European authorities . . . are . . . committed to punishing the weaker economies by having them cut spending even if it causes or deepens recession and mass unemployment (over 20% in Spain). . . .

Schlumberger Engineers Flee Six Hours Before Oil Rig Explodes

by: blues

Sat May 22, 2010 at 13:52:15 PM EDT

ADropOfRain.net

Story circulating in New Orleans...

BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you'll see why.

SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.

SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the "company man" (BP's man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo [helicopter] to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo's scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you're here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB's corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB's expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

6 hours later, the platform explodes.

What Israel did to Miss USA's hometown

by: fairleft

Thu May 20, 2010 at 15:55:28 PM EDT

Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure
Robert Fisk
Tuesday, 15 August 2006

They made a desert and called it peace. Srifa - or what was once the village of Srifa - is a place of pancaked homes, blasted walls, rubble, starving cats and trapped corpses. . . .

New Miss USA Rima Fakih moved to the U.S. when she was 6 or 7 from the village of Srifa, in southern Lebanon. Media guyland wants 'her controversy' to be some sexy photos (see P.S.) but in fact there's only one scandal connected to the new Miss USA: what Israel did to her hometown.

Srifa was a bustling hillside village. Then yesterday the Israeli jets came
Clancy Chassay outside Srifa
The Guardian
Thursday 20 July 2006

. . .

Singling Out Israel in Berkeley: 5 Reasons

by: fairleft

Mon Apr 12, 2010 at 17:56:34 PM EDT

Yaman Salahi*** wrote ably that Singling out Israel is the right thing to do, but I don't think he voices all of the arguments as to why in particular a single-minded activist focus on BDSing institutions connected to the illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories is a great strategy and the right thing to do.

So, given that Israel is just one among many nations grossly violating the human rights of people under its control, why is it smart for activists to concentrate some of their activism on making Israel  - rather than, for example, Iran, Sudan, Sri Lanka, or North Korea - stop its unjust, inhumane policies towards occupied Palestine? . . .

In desperation, we turn to chimp-level 'right wing' economic proto-thinking

by: fairleft

Wed Apr 14, 2010 at 19:07:16 PM EDT

At a time when real disposable per capita income minus government transfer payments (or "take home pay minus government assistance") has sunk to its lowest levels since the giant recession of the early 1970s, most major television and radio networks continue to trumpet both efficient markets and the imagined evils of Keynesian, counter-cyclical programs. With only modest exceptions, so does the money-driven world of think tanks, the rest of the press, and the government itself.

We are thus driven to conclude that the sometimes wild assertions and arguments advanced by Tea Partiers largely reflect the poverty of economic and political analysis in the establishment media. . . . Political establishments and governments refuse to countenance critical discussion of social and economic problems. They marginalize alternative views, while beating the drums unceasingly for orthodoxy. When a crisis hits, however, no one believes them. So disaffected citizens set to work with the only tools they have - bits and snatches of traditional economic and political thinking - to analyze their predicament on their own. It should not be surprising that such efforts often end up being hard to tell apart from Alice in Wonderland or even Goya's Black Paintings.

http://static1.firedoglake.com...

by way of

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.c...

Pics: Kyrgyzstan anger to action to revolution

by: fairleft

Thu Apr 08, 2010 at 02:05:01 AM EDT

Praiseworthy courage, and inspirational, cuz it's nearing time for the rest of us to think about doing similar. When are regular working people gonna get angry enough at the cut backs and the cost increases that the Western elite consensus says 'must' get much much worse? Angry enough to, you know, imitate our Kyrgyzstanian betters, perhaps? The comments under the Times of London report on the revolt were instructive:

Sarf of the River wrote:

The UK could do with a pro-democracy movement.

Max Bygraves wrote:

I saw the footage on the BBC.

It looks like 28 days later.

I wonder if it'll happen here, when people go hungry . . .

rob robbo wrote:

It's sad that people have died, but when any government is corrupt, it's the duty of the population to overthrow them by any means.

Government austerity measures were particularly clumsy, brutal and extreme in Kyrgyzstan, of course, so it became time for anger and action. The immediate trigger (fuel price increases) of the revolt, links to background on the 'Great Game' between Russia and the U.S., and the (yay, bad!) implications for the U.S. war on Afghanistan, all below the fold. First, this is what the first 21st century revolt against austerity looks like:

U.S. soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan: heroes, poor helpless victims?

by: fairleft

Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 16:44:20 PM EDT

Handicapped by feeling he has to argue inside the manufactured 'frustrated do-gooder' image of President Obama, rapper Lowkey nonetheless -- in Obama Nation -- above speaks some 'never allowed in the mainstream media' truths about what U.S. and other Western 'colonial policing' soldiers actually do for a living. Their job has two parts: to kill and maim peasants trying to take their countries back from Western invaders and their treasonous puppets, and to kill and maim anyone nearby or slightly suspected of being peasants trying to take their countries back from Western invaders and their treasonous puppets. If there were a God, what would she/he say when one of these Western/U.S. killers for no damn good reason asks for admission to Heaven? 'You poor thing, come right in and make yourself at home'?

globalization & the piracy business model

by: fairleft

Mon Mar 29, 2010 at 18:10:12 PM EDT

The Somali pirates' business model, as reported in an annex of a UN-Security-Council-sponsored report last week (h/t to Counterpunch):

A basic piracy operation requires a minimum eight to twelve militia prepared to stay at sea for extended periods of time, in the hopes of hijacking a passing vessel. Each team requires a minimum of two attack skiffs, weapons, equipment, provisions, fuel and preferably a supply boat. The costs of the operation are usually borne by investors, some of whom may also be pirates.

To be eligible for employment as a pirate, a volunteer should already possess a firearm for use in the operation. For this 'contribution', he receives a 'class A' share of any profit. Pirates who provide a skiff or a heavier firearm, like an RPG or a general purpose machine gun, may be entitled to an additional A-share. The first pirate to board a vessel may also be entitled to an extra A-share.

At least 12 other volunteers are recruited as militiamen to provide protection on land of a ship is hijacked, In addition, each member of the pirate team may bring a partner or relative to be part of this land-based force. Militiamen must possess their own weapon, and receive a 'class B' share - usually a fixed amount equivalent to approximately US$15,000. . . .

Kucinich abandons left fight against insurance bill

by: fairleft

Wed Mar 17, 2010 at 14:41:27 PM EDT

He has a history of this, going back most should-be-infamously to his screwing of antiwar voice Dean (not that I'm saying Dean was an authentic antiwar voice) by telling his supporters to back pro-Iraq war Edwards in the 2004 Iowa primaries. And in early 2004 K had many supporters in Iowa, so the screw over was important to Dean's very poor result. Dean's loss utterly deflated the pwoggie antiwar left and assured a strongly pro-occupation, 'try to out-Bush Bush' Democrat would be nominated in 2004.

(For the story on the above, see http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOL... and http://ericblackink.minnpost.c... )

Why does Kucinich knowingly humiliate himself by making authentically leftist noises on the health insurance bill and then embarrassingly bail on them? Is it a deliberate strategy to deflate the real left and (repeatedly) alienate it from being involved in U.S. politics? Or is it masochism, the thrill that Dem Party bigwigs live for?

Kucinich is (and since 2004 has been) the best the real left can do?

His justifications and more interesting stuff below . . .

Afghanistan bans coverage of Taliban attacks

by: fairleft

Mon Mar 01, 2010 at 16:06:53 PM EST

AP - Kabul, a couple days ago.

AP - Kandahar yesterday.

Afghanistan bans coverage of Taliban attacks
Sayed Salahuddin and Hamid Shalizi (Reuters)
Monday, March 1, 2010 2:08pm EST

Kabul - Afghanistan on Monday announced a ban on news coverage showing Taliban attacks, saying such images embolden the Islamist militants, who have launched strikes around the country as NATO forces seize their southern strongholds. . . .

"Marines push 'The Breacher' against Taliban lines!!!"

by: fairleft

Fri Feb 12, 2010 at 14:02:52 PM EST

Marines push 'The Breacher' against Taliban lines
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
Associated Press Writer
Thu Feb 11, 9:44 am ET

Here's another dumb headline: