History Breeds Futility

WHY WE FIGHT EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID WARS

2007-01-12T01:40:00.000-05:00

DEPT OF DOOMED TO REPEAT DEPT

Editor's Note: This is part of a series drawing ideas from the book "Nobody Wanted War: Misperception in Vietnam and Other Wars" by Ralph K. White and published in 1968, reprinted in 1970. All blockquotes are from the book.

Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here.

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With so much analysis given over to why nations lose wars, and especially how nations with superior troops, training, equipment and treasure can lose in an exceptional manner - and considering the massive mismanagement, incompetence, corruption and sadism exhibited throughout the Iraq Invasion - it behooves us to ask, "What are the psychological factors that drive politicians, generals, nations, sometimes all three, to a war and, once the war is begun, drive them to remain mired in an increasingly disastrous conflict?"

Ralph K. White identified six forms of misperception that bolster the march to war and keep the fires of conflict stoked. These misperceptions generate a distorted view of the entire conflict and, consequently, lead to an inability to correctly consider appropriate solutions to any problems that arise.

Without further ado, here they are:

1. A diabolical enemy-image.
2. A virile self-image.
3. A moral self-image.
4. Selective inattention.
5. Absence of empathy.
6. Military overconfidence.

Here, these six things explain it all. They explain why our government tortures, gleefully, with complete disregard. Why the calls of a wider, regional war are already being pushed into the public consciousness. Why the war's supporters ignore the daily litany of brutal murders. Why intelligence was hand-picked and why they chose to believe it.

They explain why we bought it.

And why we won't, seemingly can't, end it.

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"Though the Kaiser could scarcely be called psychotic, [the aforementioned] passage has a ring of pure paranoia. To him, the British plot was real. With Germany's very existence at stake, he felt that Russia should be given no more time to get its enormous but cumbersome military machine under way. He decided on a strike-first policy, and once that decision was made, the Great War had begun."

The diabolical enemy-image hinges upon a black-and-white formulation. The enemy is not just doing bad, but evil to the very core, evil like a Disney villain, a black heart filled with hatred for everything that the good society holds dear.

Here is where the Other is created, in the dark pits of dense minds that refuse to recognize subtlety or empathy.

Propaganda is the carrier of the diabolical enemy-image - from the Nazi children's books vilifying the Jews to Daffy Duck cartoons caricaturing the Japanese. The goal is to make the enemy an easily-recognized target, to make anybody like them hated and despised.

The less differentiation the better. Iraq was easy to sell because so many people were still angry over September 11th when we were attacked by Middle Eastern Muslims and, after all, Iraq is full of Middle Eastern Muslims. Key radicals - Christian, Jewish, Ideological - were only too happy to inflate the conflict into a region-wide war or, worse, a global jihad where Muslims as a whole society were poised to clash with, well, the rest of us. Pure bunkum, but it sells.

In a nutshell, the diabolical enemy-image is marketing; It's how you convince one set of people to start howling for the blood of another set of people.

Of course, when you have Imperial ambitions, it tends to backfire. Your occupying troops bring that image over with them and apply it to the civilian population. Then you get a lot of resentment toward the very people we are supposedly helping.

Then you get brutality. War crimes. And lots of new enemies.

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"The chief dimension in which national decision-makers judged themselves, and expected to be judged by others, was not good vs. bad, or right vs. wrong, but strong vs. weak. The essential goal apparently was to be, and to seem, strong and courageous. The essential thing was to take a firm stand, a strong stand, and to do it with such firmness and such obvious lack of fear, on one's own part and on the part of one's allies, that the potential enemy would surely back down."

The virile self-image is comprised of traditionally masculine virtues and thus contains all the attendant father issues. The authoritarian mind is acutely aware of the virile self-image and internalizes those feelings easily. A leader is prized who is strict and forceful, who does not do "womanly" things like talk, compromise, or seek UN approval - in other words, someone who eschews diplomacy and jumps headfirst into confrontations.

Bush himself is wrapped up in the virile self-image. For him, leaving Iraq is a loss, which means humiliation, which means his own sense of manhood is at stake.

He isn't the only one, though. It is quite common for war supporters to cast withdrawal as a loss, with all of the baggage that formulation entails. The general tone is that the United States couldn't possibly survive losing a war, that the national psyche would be forever damaged. More bunkum.

"If the United States doesn't have the stomach to finish the task in Iraq, we put at risk what we've done in all of those other locations," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
-Vice President Dick Cheney

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"While their own moral nobility was perhaps less salient in the Austrians' minds than the diabolical character of the enemy or their own need to take a firm stand in the interest of self-preservation, the Austrian self that they thought worth preserving was also noble: peace-loving (they never for a moment sought a bigger war, and always feared it), civilized (they were a bastion of civilization in a Central Europe threatened by the barbarian tide of Pan-Slavism), economically rational (their empire was prospering in unity and would suffer economically if broken up), orderly (the Serbian assassins were violating elementary standards of law and order), and democratic (theirs was a limited monarchy, and the subject peoples were advancing toward full autonomy as rapidly as possible).

"It is not necessary to deny some truth in each of these propositions; it is necessary only to notice that the Austrians' picture was expurgated at one crucial point. It did not include even a candid consideration of the possibility that this noble nation might now be committing aggression."

Sound familiar?

In short, the moral self-image says that one's own nation can only do good, no matter what. And the enemy can only do evil, no matter what. My country, right or wrong - but it's never wrong.

It is the moral self-image that allows people to justify torture. If America does it, how can it be bad? It is the moral self-image that assures the citizens that illegal spying is all done for their own protection. It is even a component of Nixon's, "If the President does it, it isn't illegal," which Cheney has adopted and adapted to a remarkable length - the Unitary Executive can do anything it wants and whatever it does is good.

The easiest way of recognizing a person under the sway of the moral self-image is to look for an invocation of Good Intentions. When you see that, run.

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"Of all the psychological mechanisms involved in the misperceptions we have been considering, perhaps most pervasive is one that in some contexts may be called "resistance" or "repression" (though the Freudians give a more restricted meaning to each of these terms). Harry Stack Sullivan has referred to it more broadly as "selective inattention." It is involved on both sides of a black-and-white picture, when white or gray elements on the enemy side are glossed over and attention focuses only on the black, and vice versa.

"In nations stumbling toward war there are usually at least three other definable types or aspects of selective inattention: narrow time-perspective, narrow space-perspective , and absence of empathy."

Selective inattention is, perhaps, even more pernicious than the moral self-image because it is borne of ignorance, a willful ignorance that feeds from itself and grows even stronger. The moral self-image at least requires an internal justification of its position; Selective inattention is sustained by the less one knows, or chooses to know, and thus never demands a personal accounting.

Consider the Jamil Hussein non-story, which right-wing bloggers flogged for weeks. This story worked so well upon the right-wing psyche because it reinforced their own selective inattention. By their reasoning, if Jamil Hussein didn't exist then his reports weren't credible and therefore the AP is always lying and therefore the entire media is suspect. A broad brush which would allow them to ignore any negative reports out of Iraq while accepting the White House or Military version of events without question.

A large number of people supported the Iraq Invasion because the media itself was practicing selective inattention. Articles in favor of the war could be found in every major newspaper. Television news booked prominent hawks every night of the week. Anti-war voices were largely absent. Phil Donahue had the top-rated show on his network and was fired for airing anti-war views.

Intelligence agencies were laboring under the spell of selective inattention as well. They were instructed to find evidence of Iraq's malfeasance. Contrary analyses were ignored and thrown out. The OSP would filter all intelligence reports for the most inflammatory speculation, no matter how little confidence there was in its accuracy. The Administration wanted ammunition for its self-fulfilling prophecy, not evidence.

Narrow time-perspective comes in from the selling of the Iraq Invasion so near to September 11th, when tensions were still high. The threat of terrorism was reinforced by the Anthrax attacks. The time-perspective was completely distorted by claims that Iraq was racing toward completion of a nuclear weapon and would use it as soon as possible. The calls for immediate action in the face of a hypothetical threat made it easy to ignore the voices urging caution.

Narrow space-perspective also piggybacked on September 11th. It was evident when President Bush said, "On that day, we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors no longer protect us from those who wish to harm our people." Never mind that, in light of the nuclear threat during the Cold War, this statement is demonstrably, enormously false. Nevertheless, it struck a chord of immediacy in a large portion of the public. The feeling that any place in the US might be a target provoked a powerful fear response.

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Which leads us to the absence of empathy.

"In short, the Austrians were so wrapped up in their own anxiety and their own righteous indignation that they had little attention left for considering what was real to anyone else."

Empathy is one of the most effective ways to resolve the underlying grievances of a conflict. It allows consideration for another person's perspective and thus presents courses of action toward a resolution.

On that note, empathy is not sympathy. A common trick is to label anyone who suggests learning about the root causes of a conflict an enemy sympathiser, conflating understanding with sanction.

Perpetually mendacious blogs like Little Green Footballs, Blackfive, and RedState lack empathy to the degree of sociopathy. It might be the anonymity of the Internet that permits them to display their eliminationist tendencies so brazenly and accuse of treason anyone even slightly opposed to subverting the Constitution in pursuit of perpetual war. We won't even dignify them with links.

Maybe you are a terrorist sympathizer.

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"It is paradoxical but true that exaggerated fear can be combined with exaggerated military overconfidence."

The threat was exaggerated beyond reason. Weapons of mass destruction would never materialize. Saddam's harsh repression had kept major terrorist groups from operating effectively in-country. The idea that there was any danger to the United States was ludicrous.

There were assurances that the war wouldn't last long. That American troops would not engage in peacekeeping or nation-building. That it would be relatively easy. And cheap. The usual bromides were offered: We have the best military in the world, the Iraqis yearn for freedom, we will make the world safe.

So-called "experts" offered their speculative opinions on television during the run-up to war, downplaying any possible negative consequences. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the notion that more troops would be needed. The Project for A New American Century urged the US to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," military overconfidence taken to an extreme level.

And yet, the military operation in Iraq continues to go horribly wrong. The Bush Administration has been in error every step of the way and yet continues to believe that the beleaguered military can somehow achieve victory - without any clear definition of victory. Their overconfidence extends to their own abilities to manage the civilian side of a military operation - management which is increasingly drawing the ire of the actual military.

What it amounts to, in the end, is purely, simply hubris.

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Are we repeating the same errors of misperception as the President pushes the nation along the road to a war with Iran?

--THE MANAGEMENT

DOUBLE AGENT

2007-01-09T06:38:00.000-05:00

EVERYTHING'S BAD FOR DEMOCRATS DIVISION

There were some who questioned Joseph Lieberman's commitment to the Democratic Party when he refused to back down after losing the nomination in the Primary. When it was announced that he would become an Independent yet remain firmly committed to his Democratic principles, some were skeptical. When it was revealed that Mr. Lieberman would retain some Committee seats, some thought he would purposefully oppose Democrats.

Those concerns were completely unfounded. Right.

Consider this New York Times article, which states: "House Democrats' Security Bill Draws Doubts."

Doubts from whom?

"Many Republicans and some Senate Democratic committee chairmen said that the goal of 100 percent inspections was worthy, but that they were not convinced that mandates should be included in the bill."

So, a lead-in paragraph states that "many Republicans and some Senate Democratic committee charimen" want to take mandates from the bill. Who could these people be? We would expect the next paragraph to tell us about either a Republican or Democrat opposed to the mandates.

Our only clue is a curious one. The next paragraph goes like this:

“Airplane passengers must be assured that any cargo on a passenger jet will not pose a terrorist threat,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who now leads the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. “But we must achieve these goals in an efficient manner to allow for the free flow of commerce without placing undue economic burdens on importers or bringing air traffic to a standstill.”

There's Joseph Lieberman. But he's neither a Republican nor a Senate Democratic committee chairman, as the lead-in paragraph mentioned. He's an Independent - they say it right there. Sure, he chairs the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, but we were expecting a Senate Democratic committee chairman or maybe one of many Republicans.

All of which gives cover for the doom-and-gloom headline. Apparently Mr. Lieberman's doubts are enough to earn a headline.

Not to mention that nebulous word, "some." We used it in our opening paragraph. It's a slipshod word, used all the time in these situations to give the appearance of more dissent than actually exists.

In the case of our opening paragraph, the problem is that "some" should read "everyone."

In the case of the New York Times article, "some" should read "Joseph Lieberman, Independent."

In fact, the only other mention of a possible Democratic critic is Daniel Inouye. But no quote is given, only that he is in agreement with Mr. Lieberman that the security department should complete its testing of the new technology before employing mandates.

That's it. The other person they dredge up for a quote is from the Heritage Foundation. Was it necessary to talk to those clowns? Of course they would oppose the bill - it was created by Democrats.

Then there are "some security experts."

So, there you have the definition of "some": Joseph Lieberman, James Carofano of the Heritage Foundation, unnamed security experts and Daniel Inouye (who possibly would support the measure provided tests on the technology are finished).

We expect to see much more of this narrative. Democrats pass legislation only to come under fire from "some" dissenters.

And first on the list every time will be Joseph I. Lieberman. Just like always.

--THE MANAGEMENT

I TRUST GOOGLE MORE THAN SOME CLOWN IN-COUNTRY

2007-01-06T22:01:00.000-05:00

CONSERVATIVE LESSONS

How to discredit the Mainstream Media:

1. Pick a news story, any news story, so long as it contains some kind of horrible story about conditions on the ground in Iraq.

2. Find the referenced source.

If the piece uses "Anonymous," then demand the names of the sources so they can be "verified." Do not show any recognition that this would probably get them murdered.

If the piece gives an actual name, ask CENTCOM, who hasn't managed a damn thing properly, to tell you whether or not one single person in a country of several million that is now in absolute chaos and hasn't really focused on keeping tabs whatsoever since it happens to have a massive refugee problem on top of sectarian reprisal killings and an occupying military, whether a name transliterated into a vague English approximation connects to a real person.

3. When there is difficulty tracking this person down due to Iraq being a complete hell on Earth, parrot endlessly how this completely calls into question the nature of the media and disproves all of the bad news that floods out of the country hourly. Also, the MSM is made up of traitors.

4. Pretend that you know the first goddamned thing about journalism.

5. Make the claim that, because the report given by the source could not be verified, this means the MSM are actively lying instead of just being possibly mistaken (at no point admit that the initial report might be correct: see Haditha).

6. If the source is finally located, refuse to change the narrative at all. Demand that every single detail fit into your preconceptions. If the updated story is reported by the original news agency, then use your initial claim that the agency has no credibility to question the accuracy of the confirmation, despite the fact that they were vindicated. Circular logic is your friend.

7. Call the source a liar. Constantly move the goalposts of the evidence necessary to satisfy your own intellectual curiosity. Make outrageous claims that the source has been fabricated. At no point back up any of your own accusations and yet demand excessive answers to your questions.

8. Say that you will only accept the testimony of someone hand-chosen by you, who just happens to share every single bias you yourself hold about the current situation. Hem and haw about your "independent" investigation which will most assuredly get to the bottom of things.

9. When it turns out that the source is threatened with arrest from his own government as well as pressure from the US military, use this as a plausible excuse for denying the existence of the source. Reaffirm your belief that, for some reason, the media would invent a source and story whole cloth and spend money and time investigating and defending their choices while attempting to justify their existence to right-wing fanatics demanding the assassination/jailing of journalists.

10. Demand the assassination/jailing of journalists.

11. When the source turns out to be, say, a police captain, scoff at how ridiculous it is to claim that finding a simple police officer and having them speak publicly about a possible sectarian killing would be a problem for anyone because, after all, law and order is absolutely fine in Iraq.

12. Demand photographic evidence. If they produce photographs, claim they have been doctored. If there is video, claim it is a trained actor. If the government confirms the source, claim that the government has been infiltrated. Remember: everyone is a dupe, a liar, a traitor or all three.

13. When it looks more and more like you were mistaken for hyping the story, refuse to apologize and claim hero status. You were only asking "the tough questions." You wouldn't have looked like such a fucking moron were the press not a pack of treasonous liars who refused to jump through every hoop you could possibly lay in front of them.

14. Declare that the story is about the media making things up even though there has been no evidence produced to actually support your affirmation. Complain that things are too vague to trust. Call yourself a skeptic; It sounds better than paranoid armchair "reporter."

15. Use the overblown flap to declare the media useless and call for tighter control. Demand that the military crackdown on the press in Iraq so that all the "good news" can finally be reported (no news would be good news). Go even further and demand more control of the media domestically.

16. Demand the assassination/jailing of journalists. And Democrats. And people who don't think Iraq has become shining beacon of stable Democracy. And liberals. And pacifists.

17. Go to Step 1.

--THE MANAGEMENT

IT'S ALWAYS THE END OF THE GODDAMNED WORLD

2007-01-06T05:51:00.000-05:00

WAGGING FINGERS, EMPTY HEADS

Attention! Young Women Unashamed of Sexuality, Society in Decline . . . Again/Still

Ace of Spades cracks the case of the Good Looking College Cheerleader Lowering Herself to Be Filmed Having Sex. It's a complete mystery. Yes, it's a complete shock and how could this happen and won't someone think of the children and no, I've never heard of digital cameras and Internet distribution.

For you see, in 1885 no young women would ever deign to splay her vagina on the Internet. Mostly because the Internet hadn't been invented yet. This seems to be a clear case where post hoc ergo propter hoc is not a fallacy.

Digital cameras, therefore easily-captured high-resolution easily-copied pornography.

The Internet, therefore pornography on the Internet.

VHS tapes, therefore pornography, poorly-copied and weakly-distributed, on VHS.

Or how about, Polaroids, therefore pornography on Polaroids.

Cheap mass print, therefore Tijuana Bibles.

Nevertheless, morals are in decline because now women will deign to splay their vaginas on the Internet.

The update tells us that the cheerleader's pics were probably stolen and placed on the Internet against her will.

Ace of Spades still manages to get in a few digs, saying that it's "risky" to take dirty pics in your own bedroom and also that it's "sleazy."

But hey, totally her decision. The dumb slut.

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Ace tells us something profound . . . ly stupid:

"Some will say stories like this, and the Texas high school cheerleader scandal, don't indicate anything more than the fact that the media is now giving these stories play. I.e., this has always been going on, now our sensationalist, 24-hour-cycle media is just telling us about it.

"That's nonsense. This has never happened before."

No, that was nonsense.

Never, ever before. We suppose the good Marquis simply made up the character of Juliette out of whole cloth.

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Interesting, completely unrelated fact: Google search for "cheerleader porn" yields 2,110,000 hits. XXX sites galore.

Who wants to place bets on how many of the young women on those sites were/are cheerleaders, or college girls, or girl-next-door types, or any other conception of "those kinds of girls wouldn't do those things" strawwomen that seem to typify conservative sexuality?

Shriek! This has never happened before!

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The main argument, in a between-the-lines way, is that "girls" don't do this, shouldn't do this, but here's a link so take a look, and absolutely no mention that the penis in those photographs belongs to a young man who, oddly enough, receives no criticism for his choice.

No, seriously. Monty from the comments:

"Ladies, here's a tip: someday, you might want to get married to a guy you really love. This guy may surf the internet tubes, and may run across that embarassing little video you did a few years ago when you still did "that kind of stuff". (Or your new guy's friends might help him out and just mail him the link or give him the DVD. 'Cause that's what friends do -- crush each other's hopes and dreams, and then laugh about it.) Your beau may not like the fact that his fiancee was famous for giving blowjobs to two guys at once, or dancing naked and drunk on a balcony while a group of guys groped her. I'm just saying. It's not the kind of thing that promotes the trust and matrimonial bond that makes for a long and happy marriage."

Translation: [Condescending opener], if you ever want to be desired by a man you must present the front of being virtuous, a virgin, even, because men are so insecure that they must never think of you being sexual outside of your authority. One day, while doing a harmless search for teen cheerleader pussy (hey, they want to find pictures of cheerleaders with their cats) they encounter you (gasp!) having sex or touching someone else or enjoying yourself without restraint. Once you spoil the whole virgin/whore dynamic then no man will want used goods. Also, none of this applies to men because they can fuck anybody they want and film it and it will only be the woman that is a slut for letting the guy do that to her.

Monty, Monty, Monty. Trust in a marriage should be based upon honesty, which means knowing things about another person that might make you uncomfortable and accepting them nevertheless. Building a marriage based around a whitewash of youthful indiscretions doesn't say anything good about the trust issue, and if the matrimonial bond can't handle a group grope or a few BJ pics, then don't ask her what she did when she was serious with a guy.

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The comments around the Internet go on and on and on, as they tend to do. Almost every cliche can be found - it's MTV, it's Sex and the City, it's the Sexual Revolution and birth control and women's lib and what it all boils down to is a bunch of men bitching that some young women don't feel ashamed when they have sex and they should feel ashamed. But young men don't have to feel ashamed because they're men. And wasn't it better when that double standard was firmly enshrined in a sexually-repressed society and nobody knew anything about sex?

Here is an insight into the moral conservative brain: The crucial idea is that the surface of a society, some would say the most repressed face, represents the actual society itself.

Therefore, there were no pedophiles in the 1950s because nobody would talk about child molestation and children weren't told anything about sex so it was that much easier to be traumatized by molestation and if you were an adolescent girl you were fighting against even stronger odds because a whole gender was aligned against you and you might be accused of encouraging any kind of sexual abuse. The same way that there was no rape until the women's liberation movement made up all that stuff, even though male-dominated law enforcement agencies would only go after rapists if the suspect was a black man and date rape certainly must be a new invention because how could a nice football captain in 1920 take a local girl out to the haystack and force himself on her knowing that his uncle the sheriff and his father the mayor would take care of any problems and, besides, he could intimidate her into not saying anything anyway.

And women back then certainly didn't have sex before marriage. Or if they did they were discreet. Yes, it was all backroom orgies and swingers parties. Never mind that disseminating pornographic materials would have gotten you arrested - and still can.

Does anybody remember Comstock and his laws? Might suppression and repression and the threat of law and force and social pressure all have mixed together in a sexist, genteel, hypocritical morass.

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People who take the time to become well-educated in historical social realities, especially about sex, will not be surprised by any of the sexual exploitation news stories because nothing's shocking, everything sexual has been imagined or tried all throughout history (excluding technology-specific kinks).

On the other hand, it's so easy to spot the ignorant. They're the ones shouting about moral decline and how permissiveness is making things worse. The blind spot is the one they carry around with them - they simply can't imagine that there exists sexuality outside of their own narrow experiences.

This isn't just prudishness; It's the Victorian notion that everyone else's sexuality should be regulated within a very small field of acceptable behavior.

Fuck that. Fuck that and put it on the Internet.

--THE MANAGEMENT

STEALING FROM MAD MAGAZINE

2006-12-30T19:52:00.000-05:00

HATER'S BALL: RIGHT-WINGERS EDITION

A lot of right-wingers piss and moan about something they call "moral relativism." They claim that liberals practice this (and not something known as empathy) and as a result cannot make any judgments or stand on any principles - that is, unless they're demonizing liberals. Then, suddenly, liberals are overly-judgmental (PC, you know) or a stickler for principles (unwilling to do "what needs to be done").

But the Right often practices its own brand of moral relativism. We present a few examples in this series we call . . .

You Know You're Dealing With a Right-Wing Moral Relativist When You Hear . . .

1. "Saddam Hussein was evil because he was a brutal dictator who suppressed dissent and, despite stabilizing the country, kept his people in abject fear and threatened neighboring countries and American interests."

"Agusto Pinochet may have been a brutal dictator who suppressed dissent and kept his people in abject fear, but he was not evil because he stabilized the country and worked in America's interest."

2. "Israel can be as aggressive as it wants in regard to Palestinians without being worthy of criticism because the Israeli people have suffered from oppression and are ideological allies of the United States."

"Palestinian aggression is always criticized because, even though they are suffering current oppression, they are not ideological allies of the United States."

3. "Muslim theocratic states are dangerous because they stifle opposing viewpoints, shun scientific thinking and perpetrate violent bigotry against minority belief systems and engage in historical revisionism to justify their repression."

"Christian theocracy would do the same in the United States, but that's okay because separation of church and state is a myth and the US was founded as a Christian nation and besides, Christians would never persecute minority beliefs."

4. "The Welfare State simply doesn't work. We need to eliminate the social safety net because lazy people are taking advantage of it. Giving people something for nothing is bad."

"The airlines need another bailout. And so do American automakers. And oil companies. And corporate farms. Keep those subsidies flowing. Giving businesses something for nothing is what keeps the country going."

5. "A Democratic President would be a tyrant who would demand extra-legal powers, subvert the Constitution and usher in a new era of fascism."

"A Republican President is above the law and should be able to spy on American citizens without obtaining warrants. A little fascism now and then isn't a bad thing."

-THE MANAGEMENT

GET THE FUCK OUT

2006-12-30T05:55:00.000-05:00

DEPT OF DOOMED TO REPEAT DEPT

Editor's Note: This is part of a series drawing ideas from the book "Nobody Wanted War: Misperception in Vietnam and Other Wars" by Ralph K. White and published in 1968, reprinted in 1970. All blockquotes are from the book.

Part I can be found here.

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During the later years of Vietnam, when it was obviously not only tragedy but vicious mistake, there were five different "solutions" presented to the American people, who would have no say in the matter: escalation, reclaiming, coalition, partition and withdrawal.

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The most recent idea of a troop "surge" has been correctly identified as a policy of escalation.

The escalation idea is not coming from the President's military advisers, but from clueless politicians who long ago abandoned any rationality toward Iraq and threw their lot in with Bush's own fairytale view - a Maxwell's Demon situation in which we are neither winning nor losing, and can never know.

"Those who favor escalation are not 'war-makers' in their own eyes. On the conscious level, at least, most of them feel that their desire for peace is as great as anyone's, but that they care more about freedom than some of the appeasers do, have more courage, and, above all, have a more realistic view of the brutal realities of the present situation. Even the 'reclaimers,' as seen by the escalators, are not fully realistic . . . As the escalators see it, the war in the South has bogged down and become an interminable, indecisive stalemate. A decisive victory in the South that would end the loss of American and Vietnamese lives, preserve South Vietnam's freedom and teach Communists all over the world to stay where they belong is simply not possible unless we have the courage and realism to strike at the heart of the beast, in Hanoi. That can be done - with some danger, but with no great danger - and it would quickly end the war. Let's get it over with. If we're going to fight, let's fight to win."

"Off the top of my head, I would say that Ethiopia is not afflicted with a pernicious and defeatist media machine that is capable of manipulating public opinion, and even if it was, it doesn’t look like the Ethiopian president would give a damn in any case. The word that comes to mind is resolve. When a leader resolves to send men into battle, he is obligated to withstand the criticism of the media so that the troops who are withstanding hostile fire from the enemy are able to decisively defeat that enemy."
-by Froggy, posted at Blackfive

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Reclaiming is a fool's errand. Just as reclaiming all of South Vietnam was an impossibility.

"The Communist-led anti-foreign movement in South Vietnam has actually been very strong ever since 1945. Those who do not realize this are indulging in an expanded territorial self-image."*

Battles in Iraq, such as they are, are fought over and over again. Somehow there is no army to be defeated, only insurgents who are indistinguishable from civilians and are replaced as soon as they fall.

How many times has Fallujah been "taken." How many times Ramadi?

How many more times?

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"Most Americans have cherished an image of the kind of democracy we want for the South Vietnamese. It is an image based on our Western experience: a unified country, with free speech and free elections, not intimidated by either side, in which the majority would win and the minority - still generously permitted by the majority to live and to carry on political activity - would accept the electoral verdict. As applied to Vietnam that image is radically inappropriate, both because of the non-Western traditions of the country and because over twenty years of civil war have inflamed factional hatred and suspicion. We can promote democracy in South Vietnam, but not by pretending that our kind of democracy is now feasibly for the South Vietnamese."

"Those purple fingers point in accusation to those who doubt the power and desire of freedom, who claim that all forms of government have legitimacy depending on the kinds of people over which they rule. The purple fingers pull the mask off a global media effort to cast the situation in Iraq in the worst possible light to belittle the effort made by the West to rescue millions from hopeless tyranny and in so doing, keep their own people safer.

"The purple fingers point the way to change the Middle East and turn it into a dynamo of philosophy, production, and freedom. They tell us we're winning, if some of us would only listen."
-by Captain Ed, posted at Captain's Quarters Blog

Remember all those purple fingers?

They're stained red. As are our own.

Coalition will not be implemented by the United States. The last person to be successful at quelling the infighting between rival clans and religions is now officially pushing up daisies.

---

"It is an immediately attainable and workable policy - unlike coalition, which is probably neither attainable, nor workable if attained."

In light of the first three possibilities, partitioning seems to be largely neutral. It should be noted that it has been successful in the past, in terms of providing relief from direct conflict. However, it does not address the underlying causes of conflict and therefore can result in back-and-forth border disputes or even larger conflicts.

As well as the possibility of a major grab for influence between the larger Middle East.

"Unlike our present policy, it realistically scales down our goal to what is possible, given the limited nature of the resources we are now prepared to invest. It seems feasible even with a substantial reduction of American troops."

The President, however, seems determined to think only of escalation, or however it will be branded in the new year.

Of course, the partitioning could occur no matter what he decides.

---

"If withdrawal is compared with escalation or with the present reclaiming policy, the arguments for it include all of the strong arguments cited above in the case against the reclaiming policy: cleanly ending the war, with all its cost in American lives and treasure, and in suffering for the Vietnamese; ending the alienation of American youth; ending the poisoning of our relations with allies, neutrals and potential enemies."

Get out now. Get out now. Get out now.

Hell, partition before we do it, just get out now.

-THE MANAGEMENT

*This is in reference to the idea that people come to associate their nation with a body-image, particularly in a virile sense. Anything seen as an infringement of territory diminishes a person's feeling of self arising from perceived ownership of that territory.

"All of this makes psychologically interesting the apparent assumption of a great many American militants that South Vietnam is self-evidently "our" (the Free World's) territory, that North Vietnamese Communists who cross the line as we defined it are self-evidently invading "another country" rather than, as they claim, trying to "liberate" their countrymen from foreign rule, and that to regard our presence in Vietnam (from 1950 to the present) as an infringement on Vietnamese soil is fantastic."

UNSATISFYING

2006-12-28T19:59:00.000-05:00

CAPMAGISTAN

Once again we delve the stygian depths of Ayn Rand's Army of Masturbatory Clones.

Making love to the posthuman Capitalissimo would be like fucking a love pillow that spits in your mouth while talking about genocide as an absolute moral imperative and reaming your ass with a studded metal phallus. And making love as a posthuman Capitalissimo is like fucking a love pillow with your own face digitally printed on its surface and an audiobook of The Wealth of Nations streaming into your ears.

In simpler terms, the whole Randafarian philosophy is but a teabag, dropping on a human face forever.

---

Leonard Peikoff, lazy, monstrous, unbelievably proud and unspeakably wicked, smells a shifting of the winds and reprints a garbled mess of fiction fit for the scribbled pamphlet of the local tinfoil transient.

The only way for Peikoff's screed to make sense is for him to completely ignore the Preamble to the Constitution, specifically the part about promoting the general welfare, as well as any notion of a Social Contract. The world he envisions must be a medieval morass of bloodletters and sawn limbs and rusty scalpels, free from the meddlesome hands of regulation and sterilization. Think of the waterheaded, multi-limbed ubermen that might be created in the contaminated labs of Peikoff's wildest dreams!

To (the term here is used loosely) wit: "[I]t is just as apparent if the government were to proclaim a universal right to food, or to a vacation, or to a haircut."

We're certainly with him on the first item. Food is obviously a necessity. Guaranteeing that people are fed, or at least making sure people don't starve, would be a damn good idea. Health care can range from immediately essential (emergency cases) to helping promote the general welfare (preventative care).

But vacations? Haircuts? Only an utterly disingenuous fuckupatamus would conflate survival with leisure and vanity.

To stupidity: "Some people can't afford medical care in the U.S. But they are necessarily a small minority in a free or even semi-free country."

Some people? We realize this speech is dated by about 250 years, but in 2004 there were 45.8 million people without insurance in America. This is slightly above one-third the total number of people that voted in the 2004 Presidential election - a trifle, to be certain.

Remember, socialized medicine has destroyed every country that has ever attempted such a dastardly experiment. That's why nobody has ever heard of Australia, Denmark, Germany, Israel, et. al.

---

John Stossel's latest corporate-sponsored op-ed dares to ask: Even though nobody cared about trans fats until they turned out to be unnecessary and extremely unhealthy and it wouldn't make economic sense for a restaurant to maintain the option to have your meals made with trans fats, doesn't it make sense to just keep using them because I was paid to say this?

Of course, Mr. Stossel is still totally allowed to use trans fats or lard or bacon leavings in all of his home cooking.

So long as he doesn't seek subsidized health care for his heart disease.

---

Watch out. Walter Williams might try to carjack you. We're just saying. You have to hedge your bets.

Oh, and Mr. Williams may try to minimize his association with idiocy, but not us. No, we proudly read CapMag.

---

Nicholas Provenzo wonders why we aren't training Marine Snipers to be unfeeling sociopaths. What harm could come from that? It should be simple to re-introduce them into society after an especially long, dangerous deployment filled with state-sanctioned murder.

Yessir, a little rational egoism. Because if there's anything a Marine Sniper needs more of, it's ego!

---

Ayn Rand was a Class IV Shaman who transducted a multifold dimensional array and pulled a blazing hate-chain of alien logic across the quivering void. It was this sinister and hyperquartite anti-logical particulate that formed the foundation of Objectivist thought.

That's the only explanation that makes sense.

-THE MANAGEMENT

WAR CHEERLEADING AIN'T MUCH FUN ANYMORE

2006-11-03T20:25:00.000-05:00

OPINIONS OF CONVENIENCE

The latest word on the gum-covered sidewalks of the blogodome is that there is a steady groundswell of Iraq Invasion water-carriers crossing over to the shrill, unserious, unhinged side - the one that believes Iraq to be a grotesque fiasco that must be halted, posthaste. In other words, they are joining with the approximately 70% of the American people who are operating with all cylinders firing. From completely oblivious to believing the obvious in only three years. Slow, sure, but there's always more room at the table.

And while newcomers are welcome, there are a few things to discuss. See, those of us completely unwilling to buy the justifications for the Iraq Invasion from the very beginning, for reasons that were completely rational, have been called traitors nonstop by every mouthbreathing right-wing simpleton for the "crime" of being opposed to an unjust, immoral war of aggression. That kind of smarts after awhile. So we aren't exactly keen on forgiving and forgetting. Forgive, yes, but never, ever forget.

So we have written out a few steps when it comes time to apologizing for being really, really wrong about the Iraq Invasion. Think of these as a way to atone, in a small way, for being duped by the same old jingoistic lies, the classics of saber rattling, the basest appeals to sunshine patriotism.

Answer as honestly as possible. The pledges are there as suggestions.

1. First, some thoughts at where the war currently stands. What, exactly, is your new view concerning the invasion? Was it ever justified? Is a drawdown necessary? How soon should we bring troops home?

2. Second, describe the tipping point for your conversion to a reality-based view. Was there initial doubt that slowly built into greater distrust? Was it an all-at-once moment? If you were conservative, have you changed affiliation or simply re-evaluated your conservatism? If a conservative who backed Bush, you must pledge to never peddle the cheap myth that "Bush is not a true conservative."

3. Direct people to instances where you carried water for the war effort. Do you stand behind your stances at this time or disavow them? Do you feel there was a time when the war was being waged properly? You must pledge to never advocate greater brutality in prosecuting the war, or suggest that an earlier policy of brutality might have led to a favorable outcome.

4. Direct people to instances where you criticized a war critic. Re-evaluate that critic's claims. Do they seem more prescient at this point, or do you maintain that they were in the wrong? Explain why you did not find these critics credible at that point. Are you more inclined to listen to them now?

5. Do you excuse your support for the war due to faulty intelligence which you had no ability to evaluate? Did you seek any contrary claims in the run-up to war, or did you only accept the official Executive line?

6. Have you ever questioned a fellow citizen's patriotism? What about their commitment to the troops? Have you ever labeled anyone a traitor? Will you repudiate those claims, even if they were only insinuated? Pledge to condemn others who make or have made claims of that nature.

7. Identify times when you insisted that everything was going great in Iraq. Find news stories pertaining to the relevant time period that contradicts your claims. Pledge to listen to the truth no matter how terrible.

8. Identify different predictions you made concerning the course of the war or the handling of the war by those in charge. How often were you wrong? How often were you right? If you were often wrong, pledge to preface all future predictions with a caveat pointing out your past misjudgments.

---

It seems unlikely that any of these questions will be seriously considered by any. The corporate media is in dire need of any amount of self-reflection and evaluation, which will never happen.

Nor will it happen to conservatism. Already conservatives are casting out the heretics and re-branding their once-faithful President as a latte-swilling liberal, untaxing and spending us all into oblivion.

So many wannabe-ocons sang the more war chorus with gusto. Some of them are now left disillusioned, after only the most abject and obvious failures have piled up again and again. While they are a start, questions are not enough to make up for their rah-rah toadying to the corporate-military-industrial complex and the Bush cult.

We suggest rosaries, self-inflicted scourging and a lifelong stigma.

-THE MANAGEMENT

CHRONICLES OF MENDACITY

2006-09-14T17:51:00.000-04:00

CAPMAGISTAN

Sometimes something comes along that is so mind-boggling wrong and inane, something that selectively edits so completely and uses the most primitive kind of 'might makes right' argument that one can't help but wish they gave an International Award for Complete Bullshit.

Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's chief propagandist and an authority on the world's most shallow ideology-masquerading-as-philosophy, writes an essay on history completely removed from the usual course of cause-and-effect.

The thesis is a flip-flop: Imagine if the extremism in the Middle East were not the result of US/British intervention and destabilization and colonialism (which naturally can entail both positive and negative results, the negative termed 'blowback' by the CIA), but rather our 'appeasement' in the region, i.e., our various withdrawals from confrontation, diplomatic processes, strategic retrograde maneuvers and small nods to local sovereignty. See, Middle Eastern extremism comes from giving Middle Easterners too much space, not meddling enough.

Peikoff justifies the British seizure of Middle Eastern oil fields, the creation of Iraq, the Red Line Agreement, by one simple principle: We got there first, we knew what to do with it and we had the guns. By those statements, property rights are meaningless. We're not sure what that does for his jerkoff philosophy, but there you have it.

---

"Reagan not only failed to retaliate after 241 U.S. marines in Lebanon were slaughtered; he did worse. Holding that Islamic guerrillas were our ideological allies because of their fight against the atheistic Soviets, he methodically poured money and expertise into Afghanistan."

Ideological allies? Not even Reagan was that senile. The Mujahideen were never seen as ideological allies. It could be argued they weren't even seen as allies, not in any traditional diplomatic sense of the word. They were useful idiots at best, funded, trained and agitated by the CIA in order to protect various American interests - partly, at least as the most surface narrative shows, to keep the Soviet Union bogged down in a costly, wasteful conflict.

Blowback is always inevitable, it's just that US intelligence agencies have never factored it into their calculations. They might consider, briefly, whether tainting Cuban milk destined for schoolchildren or secretly bombing large numbers of Cambodian civilians could piss some people off enough to, oh, say, organize into small guerrilla units formed around an intense hatred of US imperialist policies, but if the military-industrial-corporate masters will benefit more, then the infernal calculus demands action regardless of lofty notions of "consequences."

Political maneuverings are done with the same kind of blatant disregard for after-effects. Foreign leaders who act outside of US interests become targets, which often fuels their extremism and paranoia - and sometimes that paranoia is justified.

The whole article is an agitation for war. Terrorism is blamed on states and the solution presented is to depose those states. This is madness. Peikoff is the worst kind of idiot - he gets paid. Should we invade Ireland? What of Sri Lanka? Destabilizing Iraq created an even worse terrorist situation, one in which al-Qaeda now controls al-Anbar province.

Do not ever approvingly quote Paul Wolfowitz.

---

"A proper war in self-defense is one fought without self-crippling restrictions placed on our commanders in the field. It must be fought with the most effective weapons we possess (a few weeks ago, Rumsfeld refused, correctly, to rule out nuclear weapons). And it must be fought in a manner that secures victory as quickly as possible and with the fewest U.S. casualties, regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire. These innocents suffer and die because of the action of their own government in sponsoring the initiation of force against America. Their fate, therefore, is their government's moral responsibility. There is no way for our bullets to be aimed only at evil men."

That's it, folks, right there. The money paragraph. Invasion, murder, genocide - Peikoff calls those things self-defense. When he talks about elimination, he means total annihilation.

"Self-crippling restrictions" - also known as respect for the dignity of other human beings.

He's delusional, saying that Afghanistan is too devastated to breed fanatics even as the Taliban resurges, even as opium production rises under the watchful eyes of warlords.

What is it about the phrase "Clash of Civilizations" that turns people into gibbering morons flinging shit at the wall and then affecting that oh-so-serious look, contemplating the streaks approvingly?

It goes on and on, hitting all the neocon high-notes, fapping over World War II analogies and treating military matters as minor footnotes.

---

"Eliminating Iran's terrorist sanctuaries and military capability is not enough. We must do the equivalent of de-Nazifying the country, by expelling every official and bringing down every branch of its government. This goal cannot be achieved painlessly, by weaponry alone. It requires invasion by ground troops, who will be at serious risk, and perhaps a period of occupation."

Perhaps a period of occupation? Were you just about to say something about a cakewalk, flowers and candy, fund its own reconstruction? Were you about to say smoking gun, mushroom cloud, rape rooms, mobile bio-weapons labs? Were you about to repeat the same tired propaganda and pretend it means a fucking thing? Were you going to volunteer, out front, spit-shined, glorious conquest? If not, drop off the fucking Earth right now.

And on it goes, like a stream of diarrhea. Stab-in-the-back. Intellectuals are selling us out. Exterminate all the brutes.

---

Analysis:

Peikoff is a dangerous madman. It is clear he is stockpiling lunacy. Therefore, we urge the United States to unilaterally invade him before he can get ahold of any kind of weapon.

-THE MANAGEMENT

GRIM'S FAIRY TALE

2006-08-20T03:08:00.000-04:00

PSYCHOPATH'S CORNER: FUN WITH HYPOTHETICALS

Via Parrotline, a rundown of a right-winger post which offers yet another shallow paean to the necessity of hardening our hearts, gritting our teeth and facing the terrorist threat with unabashed brutality. For some reason this always necessitates abandoning a basic principle of human decency.

The title of the post? On the Virtues of Killing Children.

It isn't necessary to read the post. Right from the get-go the author, Grim, gets it completely, utterly wrong.

If you are writing an essay attesting to the virtues of a certain behavior or principle, it is implicit, by labeling it virtuous, that such an action is good and proper regardless of its context.

Charity, for example, can be considered virtuous because, even if a person derives personal satisfaction from the act of giving, the action itself has merit.

At no point in his phony Socratic dialogue against a strawwoman does Grim actually address how killing children might contain virtue, let alone virtues.

It is generally acceptable amongst human beings that killing children is always, in every case, a monstrous action. In other words, it is completely contrary to what might be called virtue. There can be no virtue, ever, in killing children.

Grim's title, and thesis, could only be the work of the most backward morality.

---

A quote:

"Here: That we pursue war without thought of the children. That we do not turn aside from the death of the innocent, but push on to the conclusion, through all fearful fire. If we do that, the children will lose their value as hostages, and as targets: if we love them, we must harden our hearts against their loss. Ours and theirs."

What does this mean in a military sense? What conclusion? In which instances? If we love them, it doesn't matter if we kill them - isn't that a bit like destroying the village to save it? What about the likely result: that killing someone's child will radicalize them and the people around them, no doubt creating even more terrorists where there were none?

No matter how heavyhanded and serious the tone, Grim's essay is a totally amoral formulation, and it is done for selfish reasons - he doesn't want to feel bad when innocent children die.

Grim loops his logic around and makes the usefulness of terrorism contingent upon giving a fuck about children.

But that's not the only reason terrorism works - adults can die, too, and property can be destroyed and all manner of unforeseen consequences can result. The state of terror is an overriding goal, and children are only one part of that equation.

Likewise, if hardening our hearts were solely about an act of will, then we could do the same as regards our own children, thus removing the ability to terrorize us by threatening them.

---

Now, Grim might have been able to make a case had he argued on the utility of killing children in specific military instances, provided there were any positive examples of such a strategy being successful.

By that we mean historical studies from military units in which a policy of completely ignoring the stigma against child-killing when attempting to suppress a radical group of individuals actually resulted in an acceptable resolution.

Because Grim's purported aim - to advocate child-killing as a strategy toward defeating an intractable enemy - isn't supported by any cases in history of which we are aware. It is, in fact, so obviously counterproductive that the idea should be immediately absurd to anyone familiar with human conflict of any kind.

He might have even been able to say that, in very specific cases, it becomes necessary to kill children in wartime. Children may be recruited to be combatants, and in those cases it is terrible what must be done - but such a response should never, ever be thought of as anything even approaching virtue.

---

It comes down to one unsurprising conclusion.

The only reason one would ever attempt to argue for child-killing is if the desired end state is genocide.

History seems to bear this out: The Old Testament, the Mongols, the American colonists, the Spanish explorers in South America. Where child-killing has been advocated, its goal has ever been extermination.

It's hard not to get that same underlying directive from Grim's bold statements that echo every mass murderer masquerading as a conqueror in history.

---

And notice that victory becomes possible only if we kill children.

The worst crimes are always masked by those words: what needs to be done.

-THE MANAGEMENT

AMERICAN POLITICS

2006-08-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

THE CENTER FOR ORGANIZED DECEPTION

A SHORT Q&A

Welcome to America!

We know some of our ways may seem awkward to visitors, but rest assured that our system is one of the finest in the world. We're here to take your questions and answer them in a manner that might be comprehensible to your miniscule foreign brain.

Q: I've been following the Lieberman v. Lamont race in Connecticut and I'm confused. How can a member of the House of Lords be challenged for his rightful seat? True, Lamont is landed gentry, upper crust to the core, but he seems to lack the proper deference to the throne of Bush II that Lieberman exhibits, a result of years spent honing the courtier instincts. How can we trust that Lamont would gain the necessary cravenness and servility befitting a US Senator?

A: Unfortunately, there are certain shady elements who are of the opinion that Congressional elections are held in order to allow challengers an opportunity to try for a spot in the US Congress; This is an urban legend. Elections are meant to be a formality. You are correct in your assessment that Lamont does not scurry about on his belly like a proper Senator. Have no fear - should he win he will be neutered and given a lobotomy, making him more than able to fill Lieberman's bipartisan dancing shoes.

Q: According to the Republicans, the Democrats are in trouble and unorganized and support terrorists. Why do the Democrats continue to deny their opponents' characterizations of them?

A: While it often seems as if the best way to win an election is to internalize the bullshit and often racist slurs of your political enemies, every so often such a strategy backfires and must be altered. Thus the Democrats have decided to use reverse psychology on their base, claiming that they don't support terrorists, aren't in trouble and are, in fact, organized. This kind of dense, coded language will send clear signals to the voters that obviously the Republicans would never lie through their fucking teeth in order to cling tenaciously to power. As if.

Q: The recent ruling that the secret NSA spying program is unconstitutional seems to seriously undercut the unchecked, rampant, lawless, vicious, malignant font of unlimited power due to the Executive Branch. What gives a federal judge the right to judge? How is the Vice President supposed to protect us from the immediate danger the United States faces from being able to make phone calls or send e-mails without government intrusion if he can't use his illegal electronic spying network?

A: Federal judges are apparently allowed to speak on the legality of certain programs. This is an oversight and will be corrected shortly. Rest assured that immediately after the verdict the government filed an appeal which allowed them to pry into every nook and cranny of your personal life. The Vice President cares. Especially since you appear to be running a few too many Google searches for hardcore teen pornography. This might make you a terrorist.

Q: I heard that the left-wing blogs engage in blogofascism and take marching orders from Sturmgruppenfuhrer Kos. What kind of insidious threat do these people represent?

A: Left-wing blogofascists satisfy all of Umberto Eco's checklist of Ur-fascism. They are a cult of tradition, as is evident by their constant appeals to progressive values and embrace of counterculture elements. They reject modernism, which can be seen in how they utilize emerging technologies and respect enlightenment values such as Reason and the scientific method. They believe in action for action's sake, as seen in their support for intellectual pursuits and liberal values. They think that disagreement with authority is treason, which should be obvious from their staunch opposition to the President and his policies. They hate diversity, which is why they support homosexual rights, affirmative action, racial and gender equality, tolerance, etc. They are staunchly nationalistic, from which arises their harsh critiques of the military, economic and social policies of the United States. They shun pacifism, evident by their intense objection to the Iraq war. They have contempt for the weak, seen by their belief in universal health care and a strong welfare net. You get the idea. These people are clearly dangerous and they are online. The damage they might to do the nation's strategic reserve of bits is nothing compared to what might happen should they target our bytes.

Q: A large percentage of the American people still believe that Weapons of Mass Destruction were found in Iraq. How fucking dumb are you guys?

A: Pretty fucking dumb.

That's all the time we have today. As you begin the plunge into the intricacies of the American political system, you may find that we're making a few changes. Please pardon our progress.

We're working on getting rid of the last vestiges of the solid bedrock of our founding principles and it's tough work!

-THE MANAGEMENT

CAPITALISM UBER ALLES

2006-06-27T00:23:00.000-04:00

CAPMAGISTAN

Libertarianism is just an argument for Anarchy by way of Money.

Every man for himself is the unifying mantra between Libertarians and Conservatives. They preach no government and disguise that sentiment by invoking Free Market in the prior case and States' Rights in the latter.

Pedantry continued, the Randroids are full on idee fixe when it comes to capital. The be all and end all is money (or property or assets), in perpetuity, forever and ever, on into eternity. The tunnel vision of the individual rights mantra renders them hopelessly solipsistic. Mention humanism or cooperation and you get the puppy-dog look, head cocked, eyes blank and wanting.

Off we go, then, yo ho yo ho, where the means are the ends and we all get the bends.

---

Andrew Bernstein writes a freshman-year philosophy paper about Communism (except he calls it capitalism) and pretends that stoned 17-year olds haven't made his exact argument after hearing Rage Against the Machine.

We've never had true Capitalism, man. Not really. Think about it!

"A consistent, non-contradictory implementation of the principle of individual rights necessitates laissez-faire; anything other or less is not capitalism."

And a consistent, non-contradictory implementation of common sense wouldn't base an entire philosophy on an idealized, untested premise; to do so would be jackassery.

The example Mr. Bernstein cites as "the closest to a laissez-faire form of government that mankind has come" is the northern US States in the 19th century. You might remember this period of history - before women could vote, before child labor laws, before unions, before wage laws or health care, when robber barons were free to do whatever the fuck they wanted. Utopia, for rich white males. Why didn't that stay popular?

Then comes the obligatory Maybe No True Scotsman half-fallacy:

"A related misunderstanding is the belief that the actions and principles of individual capitalists are necessarily representative of the nature of capitalism."

Let's run that through the Obfuscator X-500:

Don't blame capitalism for bad capitalists, because not every capitalist is representative of capitalism. Only the good ones represent capitalism; The rest are apostates. Any positive developments that can be attributed to capitalism will be solely attributed to capitalism. Any negative developments that appear connected to capitalism are not representative or, more likely, wholly different from capitalism.

"It might as well be argued that the murderous activities of Hitler and Stalin are necessarily representative of the nature of government (they are representative of the nature of statism)."

Here's a hint for Mr. Bernstein: Don't spend part of your essay constraining the definition of capitalism and then expect to craft a useful comparison to a general term like government. In case you need help -- Economic system : Capitalism :: Government : [Type of government].

Our last look at Mr. Bernstein's insight comes from his closing paragraph:

"The confusion of the history of capitalism (or the actions of capitalists) with the system's fundamental nature is an example of what may be termed the Empiricist Fallacy. Such a cognitive error involves treating the historical facts, rather than the philosophical essence of a political/cultural phenomenon as the deepest, most significant level of its explanation."

Witness a full-fledged example of mushy-headed platonic idealism. What the closing paragraph seems to argue, and rather unconvincingly, is that the problem with studying the history of capitalism is that people are so hung up on studying what actually happened. The whys and wherefores and all that messy real-world complexity that is just so damned antithetical to serious philosophical thinking.

What he seems to be against is any kind of method for determining the efficacy of, or even examining, a system, while at the same time repudiating historical research as a basis for correcting errors.

To be fair, he does allow that the historical facts could be a facet of one's study of capitalism, but makes clear that "the deepest, most significant level of its explanation" should be its philosophical essence.

Did he really just conclude a defense of capitalism by saying the equivalent of, "It's the thought that counts?" So if a woman's husband is abusive, she shouldn't look at her history of being abused as the deepest level of her relationship, but should focus instead on the fact that her man says he loves her.

In Summation: Capitalism is the best system even though it's never been implemented. Just like Communism, dude. And neoconservatism. End of history. Done. What's the word count?

---

Glenn Woiceshyn calls us on the pay phone at the Miracle Mile diner and lets loose a frantic, rambling tale of man's multiculturalism run amok:

"Multiculturalism - a creation of leftist, Western, nihilistic, post-modern philosophy professors - begins by promoting 'cultural relativism', which holds that all cultures are of equal value; no culture is better or worse than any other. Logically, this serves to de-value Western values, such as reason, science, productiveness, and each individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, by equating them with the most irrational and destructive practices of primitive, mystical cultures such as voodoo medicine, the subjugation of women by men, genital mutilation, and even cannibalism. As essentialized by Peter Schwartz, 'Multiculturalism is the debased attempt to obliterate values by claiming that they are indistinguishable from non-values.' "

We told him to call George Noory. And to never use the word "logically" again. And then we hung up.

---

Line 'em up, knock 'em down:

Elan Journo wastes an entire page trying to make the case for cutting off aid to North Korea without mentioning how many people would starve or directly agitating for war. But the author so clearly wants war. Just fucking say "war" next time.

Ben Lieberman bitches about not drilling for oil all over the US, without regard for environmental impact or actual need. Does he really think higher prices at the pump are a result of less available? Why aren't oil companies drilling all over Iraq? Here's a secret -- When a few companies control the entire supply of a resource, they can make covert agreements to restrict that supply in order to raise prices. See also: Enron.

Alan Caruba also bitches about gasoline while being completely dense. He attributes the price increase to "fears of military conflict in the Middle East, probably initiated by Iran." Way to pay attention. Then there's discussion of drilling in ANWR, which might yield 10.4 billion barrels of oil, at which Alan Caruba issues a challenge: "Well, if anyone considers an estimated 10.4 billion barrels to the nation's oil supply 'small', then one wonders what they consider large?" How about the Iraq supply mentioned above (115 billion barrels, with maybe 100 billion added onto that)? Then scoffing about environmental solutions to the oil situation, with nothing good enough to sate Alan. New technologies are worthless* -- after all, we'll never run out of oil!

*Why haven't any Randroids come to the realization that research and development of new energy resources is bound to have enormous profit potential? Why such a boner for oil?

---

Time to go wash our brains out with bleach and ammonia.

-THE MANAGEMENT

RATIONALIZING WAR FOR IDEOLOGY AND PROFIT

2006-05-04T22:33:00.000-04:00

DEPT OF DOOMED TO REPEAT DEPT

"There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible."
--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

Occasionally, though, the image of a tough, victorious fighter breaks through. We must clobber the North, or break the back of the Viet Cong. Refraining from more intensive bombing of the North is described by Representative Hale Boggs as expecting our men to "fight with one hand tied behind their back."

As part of the rationalization of the poor progression of the Iraq conquest, it has become necessary to develop endless variations using the narrative of unseriousness.

Perhaps the troops were hobbled by rules of engagement or the bombings were not total or there was too much focus on developing local relationships and not enough time spent destroying villages (naturally, to save them). Bonus points for resurrecting the White Man's Burden or viewing military victory as a mere act of Will.

Whatever the particular hokum peddled, there is never a doubt that continuance of the war is necessary.

"If President Johnson, aware of those sentiments, had not created such horribly restrictive rules of engagement and allowed our military to be more aggressive, victory would have been certain."
--Jim Simpson on Vietnam, Truth & Consequences

"In fact if the left had not come out so vehemently against that war but instead supported our troops and insisted on rules of engagement that enabled rather than hobbled our troops that outcome may have been different indeed."
--Wog's Wonderings, History as a Long Lens

---

There is a fierce pride in our strength; Joseph Alsop describes the launching and recovery of a mission from an aircraft carrier as a spectacle "to fill the mind with wonder and the heart with pride. The whole vast carrier was a single scene of elegantly, intricately efficient, and deadly purposeful activity with a single aim."

Mission Accomplished.

---

There is a strong tendency to equate compromise with surrender, and to insist on decisive victory, at least in the South. Richard Nixon once declared "The lesson of all history warns us that we should negotiate only when our military superiority is so convincing that we can achieve our objective at the conference table - and deny the aggressors theirs."

"Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory."
--President Bush in a speech at West Point

The Bush Administration has launched salvos against any plan but the head-beating-against-the-wall Stay the Course delightenment mantra. Progress, real progress, good progress, happy news we promise, always seems to be Six Months Away. The idea, one must suppose, posits the Iraq conflict as a wheel, degrading to a six o' clock position at some point before swinging upward toward nine. Perhaps this is a new doctrine of warfare, continuous systemic failure facilitating a counterintuitive catastrophe curve toward victory.

But danger arises when enchantment with a virile self-image causes selective inattention to important aspects of reality and misperception of the situation as a whole.

Americans were so damned focused on Bush's codpiece and his "Bring 'em on" rootin-tootin' tough talk that they didn't stop to ask any questions, and the major media didn't bother to ask any questions, and even if they had the White House wouldn't have provided any answers. The Neocons drummed out any sign of competence and blinded themselves to rational policy planning; Wishful thinking led to rampant stupidity.

There is reason to think that in America it has done just that, by leading militants to exaggerate the magnitude of the emergency and the degree of suffering and of risk that the war involves for America as compared with America's enemies. They often see it not only as "a terrible episode" (which of course it is) but also as a situation of imperative urgency, demanding all we have of courage and of manhood, a test of our moral fiber, a situation in which democracy must prove its "willingness to do what it has to do."

"To achieve this, the victor must be intransigent. He does not accept terms; he demands prostrate surrender, or death, for everyone if necessary."
--Thomas Sowell, The Moral Lesson of Hiroshima

Iraq has become the surrogate for the simplistic Clash of Civilizations crowd, the battleground of abstract ideologies unattached to living, complex human beings.

Saddam was inflated to demonic status, Iraq bubbled over with world-threatening weapons, something was imminent, something big. Indescribable. So potentially, hypothetically catastrophic that there was simply no other choice.

Rationalization operates largely by influencing perception of the concrete facts themselves. For instance, in order to feel virtuous about fighting in Vietnam it is almost essential for a militant American to believe that most of the Vietnamese people want his help; consequently, chiefly by focusing on some kinds of evidence and ignoring others, he manages to believe that they do want his help.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies."
--C.S. Lewis

The common refrain of "As the Iraqi people stand up, we will stand down," should be recognizable to Americans. It is functionally useful as a vague marker of progress, a fuzzy milestone that promises an end without describing how we will get there or how we will recognize it when we do. How many Iraqi units must stand up? How will we measure their effectiveness?

Throwing around words like "freedom" and "democracy" allow Americans to justify, to themselves, the terrible (and rising) cost of this war. It became not enough to stop nonexistent WMD production. It became not enough to depose Saddam. The objectives of the invasion became more and more abstract, utilizing nationalistic terms to color the war as not just benevolent, but humanitarian and revolutionary. The war must be seen as a moral necessity - in such a light it is highly resistant to even the most reasoned attacks against its continuance.

In any case it seems clear that projection is a major way of explaining to ourselves the morally questionable things we are now doing or are somehow associated with. Torture, for instance, is used by our allies, and we are using napalm. A typical defense when these things are challenged is to cite atrocities of the Viet Cong.

The Attorney General of the United States defends extraordinary rendition and torture and detaining people indefinitely without charges. All of this safe from the normal, and legally mandated, oversight.

Abu Ghraib was dismissed as frat pranks, or perfectly okay as retaliation for the actions of terrorists. That's right, justifying the betrayal of American moral standards by citing our zealous enemies.

Thousands of Iraqi civilians died during the war and hundreds die each week in the sectarian clashes that are a direct result of the instability created by the United States. Thousands of American troops have died, some of them on the wild WMD goose chase cooked up by Cheney's OSP.

But here's the equation. No matter how bad America acts, Saddam was worse. That's the justification given every single time.

Even if Iraq becomes a smoking hole in the ground, there will still be right-wingers clucking the phrase Saddam was worse.

Another is to speak of these things as "a regrettable necessity," or as inevitable in view of the nature of war itself, or of this particular war. In such expressions it is as if the guilt were shifted not to a concrete human enemy but to an impersonal Fate or Necessity.

In order to defeat the enemy, we must become as bad as the enemy.

We act to hasten our own destruction in the name of our salvation.

God told Bush to invade Iraq. He must have forgotten to tell Bush what to do afterward.

Since hurting or killing others is emotionally satisfying to a normally conscientious human being only when it is done in a mood of righteous indignation, there may be an unconscious need to work up such a mood, and in so doing to exaggerate all evidence of the enemy's criminality, while shutting off every impulse of empathy with the enemy as a human being like oneself.

Michelle Malkin, on Muslims.

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."
--Ann Coulter

The paranoid element in politics rises to its most irrational, most freedom-destroying pitch when it turns inward and seeks the destruction of "traitors in our midst." It happened in Germany in the years after World War I when Hitler, indiscriminately attacking liberals, democratic socialists, Jews, and Communists, and accusing them all of joining in the "stab in the back" that had allegedly led to Germany's downfall, engineered the establishment of a regime dedicated to the purging of such poisonous elements. It happened in Stalin's great purges of the 1930s. It happened to some extent in the United States in the McCarthy era, and it is happening to a nightmarish extent in Communist China as the main theme of the great "cultural revolution."

"And when he [Durbin] went out there, his intent was to whip up the American public against the Bush detainee policy. That's what his intent was. His intent wasn't to undermine the war effort, because he never even thought about it. He never even thought about it. But by not thinking about it, he made an egregious mistake because you must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor."
--Bill O'Reilly on Senator Durbin's comments regarding Guantanamo Bay

Buchanan, Limbaugh and Stein blame those who "brought down" Nixon for the fall of Vietnam and the Cambodian genocide. [link]

"The Dixie Chicks (Traitors in our midst) have pissed off yet more people and now the radio stations are revolting...I say take their seditious asses and try them all on the world stage."
--Liberalismisamentaldisorder

We are fast reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of Americans will be traitors of some sort in the eyes of the extreme right-wing.

It happens on a far smaller scale in the United States whenever an opponent of the Vietnam war, or an advocate of a compromise peace, is denounced as disloyal or as soft on Communism; and it happens whenever a right-wing conservative asserts that the danger of Communism "right here at home" is greater than the danger of Communism abroad.

"[W]e also have to understand that our words have effects, and put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we're going to pull out precipitously or immediately as some people have proposed. Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they're doing makes sense if that's the idea, if that's the debate. Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy. The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder, maybe all we have to do is wait, and we'll win. We can't win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States."
--Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Rep. Jack Murtha

There is another root of diabolism that has not been discussed: The mystery of weapons directed against an "innocent" self. Each side arms, believing that its weapons are essential for self-defense. The other side, feeling wholly peaceful and innocent because of rationalization and all the other psychological processes we have considered, cannot understand what these arms portend unless it is aggression. Similarly, any actual military action by either side, no matter how great the provocation, and no matter how defensive the motive, is perceived by the other side almost inevitably as aggression. The Arab-Israeli dispute is an outstanding instance of this process. The vicious-spiral possibilities here are obvious.

Likewise, the leadership of the United States cannot conceive of any other reason why Iran might seek nuclear power other than in pursuit of nuclear weapons. And not only that, but the nuclear issue is completely non-negotiable - either cease the program entirely or prepare for escalation.

Iran, naturally, prepares for escalation.

On both sides it is fear that motivates, fear masked by an image of strength. That fear pushes each side into a game of brinksmanship.

When a person goes looking for a fight, why are they so often surprised when they find one?

Finally, all the mechanisms that sustain an enemy-image once it is established come into play, including social mechanisms such as conformity, loyalty, and distortion in the channels of communication, as well as psychological mechanisms stemming from the need to reduce ambivalence.

-THE MANAGEMENT

[All italicized blockquotes are from the book "Nobody Wanted War" by Ralph K. White]

BACCHUS' VINE

2006-04-29T17:22:00.000-04:00

KEEP SHOVELING

"Explain it as we may, a martial strain will urge a man into the front rank of battle sooner than an argument, and a fine anthem excite his devotion more certainly than a logical discourse."
-Henry Tuckerman

The latest manufactured spectacle of race-hatred for political gain is the debate concerning a Spanish translation of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Yes, rather than allow our nation to concern itself with causes of Justice or seeking to contain the encroachment of the Executive on our privacy, we have instead chosen to make a mountain from a hole in the ground. The President, always willing to be a divider when the Republican Party demands sacrifice, agreed that the anthem should remain in English.

Naturally, Graymalkin is hot on the case, giving an incomplete history lesson.

When the words were written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, it was commonplace to recycle melodies. So Key used the melody from To Anacreon in Heaven, a somewhat bawdy (for the time) song created for the Anacreontic Society, a club of amateur musicians.

The anthem wasn't officially adopted until 1931.

There are four verses. Most Americans only know the first verse.

Even the first verse can give people trouble.

America the Beautiful is considered more popular, and a better song, than the national anthem. We agree with this sentiment.

You can check out this kos Diary for a Yiddish translation and the text of a Polish translation made in the late 1800s.

Or, if you enjoy your irony mind-shattering, you can venture over to the US State Department online, where they have not only a whole section in Spanish (along with four translations of the national anthem), but five other non-English languages - Including traitorous French!

The wave of immigrant-bashing nationalism is unsurprising given the current level of tension and dissatisfaction. The resurgent wave of Know-Nothings/Do-Nothings are little more than the Bowery Boys reborn, exploiting political trends as conduits for tribalistic atavism.

Freedom Fries was ridiculous enough, a self-satirical rerun of Liberty Cabbage. Now we've reached the point where the President must condemn a pop-music reworking of an official song with obtuse lyrics, an impossible melody and a long history of being translated into other languages as a nod to our multicultural heritage. Absurd bigotry makes a mockery of us all.

We have traded our dignity for a song.

FAT STACKS OF CASH

2006-03-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

CAPMAGISTAN

Here we are again, diving into the Stygian depths populated with those capable of misusing the word "objectively" to discuss any subject whatsoever.

That's right, we're shining a light on the Randroids and seeing what kind of misinformation we can extract before our brains start leaking from our tear ducts.

---

The first specimen is one Nicholas Provenzo, penning a lovely screed to state censorship. He titles it The Jay Bennish 'Diatribe as Geography,' which, we must admit, has a satirical bite to it. Thus it becomes impossible not to be extremely disappointed in the article, which is utterly joyless, nonsensical and full of high-handed smugness.

So, we've taken his "arguments" and blended them with SatiriCal, the artificial sweetening paste that pokes holes in authority using derision or wit. Also, it rots your teeth.

The Nicholas Provenzo 'Rant as Censorship'
now with SatiriCal (tm)!

Apparently Jay Bennish believes that educating children in a classroom involves more than rote dissemination of Government-approved "factites," bite-sized facts which objectively describe reality in the same way that donkeys describe ontology. He seems to think that a twenty-minute stream-of-consciousness leftist diatribe in which he invites questions and presents an opinion while encouraging his students to do the same fits into the idea of education.

Even though there was no attempt by the parents raising the complaint to deal with the matter administratively, instead opting to hype the story as much as possible, I fully believe that he should have been sanctioned. After all, those children were chained to their desks, and wholly unable to use their minds or their voices.

We must get rid of the public schools, except where they encourage blind obedience to a dimwitted figurehead.

---

Next we find Thomas Sowell in near-perfect form. Do read his piece "Big Oil: A Politician's Favorite Villain," alternatively titled, "It is Impossible to Believe that I have not been Bought."

There are several startling revelations in his love letter to the Oil Industry.

Revelation Number One -- The law of Supply and Demand ensures that prices are completely fair, everywhere, at all times. It's such a basic, oversimplified rule that there is no way it is inadequate at explaining even the most advanced economies.

Revelation Number Two -- Big Oil doesn't make any money at all! Since they follow Supply and Demand, they only charge just enough to squeak by. Those record multibillion-dollar quarterly profits are perfectly normal.

Revelation Number Three -- Coal is what all those politically correct environmentalists are referring to when they talk about "alternative energy sources." No, seriously. I hear hippies talk about coal all the time. What? Solar? Hydrogen? Wind? Sorry, I'm not following you. You're speaking gibberish.

---

It's a Thomas Sowell double-feature as we present Something for Nothing: Social Security.

There's some fancy adding and subtracting in this column to prove the startling fact that the government uses taxes to pay for things that private businesses could make cheaper and shoddier while defrauding the government out of millions in taxes.

Does Mr. Sowell use highways, that liberal big-government tax-and-spend handout program to improve interstate commerce and settle the western states? We sure hope not.

How does he manage to use the Internet, built as it was by ivory tower Universities and that government pork known as DARPA?

Does he purchase foods inspected by the USDA? Has he ever worked for minimum wage?

Anyway, the gist of Mr. Sowell's piece is that government is inefficient. Since he can't conceive of any way that governments could be efficient, we should just corporatize everything, because there is no possible way that corporations could be inefficient.

Mr. Sowell's America of the Future looks a lot like Snow Crash. Delightful.

---

Using the Reduci-Lator [patent pending], we have managed to extract a few common themes of most Randroid articles:

1. If only there were this perfect world that exists only in my head, then getting rid of program X would be a good thing, so let's get rid of it and see if that makes my perfect world manifest itself.

2. Money is morally neutral, therefore anything associated with money couldn't possibly be immoral.

3. Objectivity means never having to interact with actual human beings.

-THE MANAGEMENT

120 DAYS

2006-03-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

LIFE CENTER FOR ART IMITATION

"If, though full of respect for social conventions and never overstepping the bounds they draw round us, if, nonetheless, it should come to pass that we meet with nothing but brambles and briars, while the wicked tread upon flowers, will it not be reckoned - save by those in whom a fund of incoercible virtues renders deaf to these remarks-, will it not be decided that it is preferable to abandon oneself to the tide rather than to resist it? Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes the worst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend with Vice, and that, in an entirely corrupted age, the safest course is to follow along after the others?"
-Marquis de Sade, Justine

The most notorious book written by the Marquis de Sade, out of a lifetime's worth of notorious books, was penned on toilet paper while de Sade was locked up in the Bastille. He never completed the work.

That book is known as The 120 Days of Sodom. It is almost universally reviled, and for good reason.

The story follows four of society's elites, a banker, a judge, a bishop and an aristocrat. These four conspire to perform the most outrageous perversions imaginable in a secret castle, increasing their violence and intensity with each passing day, graduating to horrific murders.

Some might consider de Sade's libertinism and assume the work is an expression of his own twisted desires.

Those familiar with de Sade's works and philosophy might see a different interpretation.

The four main characters are the authority figures of society. They practice their predations on whomever they want, fully complicit and accepting of their companions' crimes. Their prisoners are reduced to mere objects, things to be acted upon, no rights and no feelings. Those familiar with rape know such an action is about power, not sex.

And it is with the psychologist's careful process that de Sade catalogues the assertion of power over human beings, beginning with the lightest of abuse all the way to horrific homicide.

150 Simple Passions. 150 Complex Passions. 150 Criminal Passions. 150 Murderous Passions.

---

"What is more immoral than war?"
-Marquis de Sade

Come and see how a free society debases itself. The Marquis must be laughing in his grave at an entire country complicit in such depravities. Funded by money given freely by free persons, encouraged by a government that praises its own goodness and morality constantly in public.

Look at the simple way in which their tortures became both more complex and more painful.

Such things are not done to people. Only when those hooded figures become things, become meat to be manipulated, then the torture can increase. And what's more, it becomes a game.

Laugh. Barking dogs. Thumbs-up. Blood. Get your picture taken like you're showing off a prize catch.

There was powerful death magic in Abu Ghraib - blood and shit and menses. The hoods, the underwear strapped to heads, the erasing of the face - an old voodoo revenge. The bindings, cuffs, zip ties, shackled to bedframes - crucified gods in different positions.

The newfound power, the stench of fear, of being in complete control, led to newer manipulations. Sexual violation was used to increase the pain. Degrading positions while fully nude. Sodomy with foreign objects.

Intelligence could not possibly be a goal at this stage to any but the most ignorant agent. By now a prisoner's mental state will be such that they are not likely to give accurate information. They are more likely to give false information just to please their torturers.

Still, not enough.

The pain was increased. The pressure was increased. Cuts and bruises. Dogs. Lacerations. Constant abuse.

And eventually, inevitably, murder.

---

These were not accidental torturers. They didn't fall into their practices.

They followed their authority, the CIA. Their authority followed the authority above them, Rumsfeld or Cheney or whoever.

All sanctioned by a government of free persons. Now well-known. Well-documented. Debated. Normalized. The common narrative is now, "Should we torture?" not, "We will not torture." Aided and abetted by the aristocrats. By the bishops. By the bankers. By the judges.

De Sade must be laughing at how easily it is for even a free society to go along with the tide.

And surely even he might be shocked to know that Abu Ghraib was not, and is not, the only place for the US to practice its bloodthirsty appetite.

---

"The extensive wars wherewith Louis XIV was burdened during his reign, while draining the State's treasury and exhausting the substance of the people, none the less contained the secret that led to the prosperity of a swarm of those bloodsuckers who are always on the watch for public calamities, which, instead of appeasing, they promote or invent so as, precisely, to be able to profit from them the more advantageously."
-Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom

There is little difference between torture in dark rooms on those suspected of wrongdoing and letting a bomb fall indiscriminately into a neighborhood. Power and dehumanization, the twin pillars of authoritarian political movements. The motivation and strategy, respectively, necessary to wage war.

We are in a terrible place.

Perhaps we would be better off like de Sade during the Revolution -- tucked safely away in a mental asylum.

It would be saner than being outside.

-THE MANAGEMENT

"There is only one thing that arouses animals more than pleasure, and that is pain. Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him . . . These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame. Under torture Bentivenga may have told the most absurd lies, because it was no longer himself speaking, but his lust, the devils of his soul."

"Lust?"

"Yes, there is a lust for pain as there is a lust for adoration, and even a lust for humility. If it took so little to make the rebellious angels direct their ardor away from worship and humility toward pride and revolt, what can we expect of a human being? There, now you know: this was the thought that struck me in the course of my inquisitions. And this is why I gave up that activity. I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly."
-Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

ADHD

2006-03-22T23:30:00.000-05:00

THE CENTER FOR ORGANIZED DECEPTION

It's time for our favorite activity -- Armchair Psychologizing.

Break out those DSM-IVs, boys, it's time to speculate on a person's mental state without performing a battery of standardized cognitive tests!

**Hangs stethoscope around neck**

Veddy interesting.

1. Narcissism. Patient has set himself up in a fantasy world where he is a great hero fighting the War on Terror, saving the common people from unspeakable horrors. No tactic is too horrible for him to use in this fight -- pre-emptive war, torture and constant lawbreaking. He has a wicked vigilante streak and can be spitefully vindictive.

2. Avoidance. Patient fears press conferences because he might be asked difficult questions. He sets up phony town meetings so that he won't have to face criticism. He doesn't read newspapers. He refuses to deal with the international community. Most striking was his ignorance during the hurricane Katrina disaster, both before and after the storm.

3. Dependency. Patient cannot make decisions on his own -- listens to a select few and ignores all others, especially those that don't support his prejudices. He shifts responsibility for mistakes done under his leadership. He continually campaigns in order to seek out whatever meager support still exists for his Presidency. The early days of his Iraq campaign were validating, but now that popular opinion has shifted he seeks war with Iran in order to recapture the same feeling of support.

Diagnosis: George Bush is suffering from several mental disorders.

We would suggest that all of these taken together, along with certain other peculiarities of the President, seem to paint a picture of a man playing the role of a child-king. There are times when Bush comes off as a megalomaniacal comicbook fanboy. Given all sorts of toys to play with (Real live army men! All sorts of cool NSA spy gear! CIA cloak and dagger agents!), he plans grandiose schemes to save the world.

And when he fails miserably? He either ignores the fact (Iraq) or runs away from it (Katrina). He has never stood up as an adult, pointed to his chest and said, "I take full responsibility for failure and will ask for help to prevent the same mistakes in the future." Instead he's like Billy from the Family Circus. He runs around messing things up and when asked about who did the damage says, "Not me."

Due to patient's obvious dysfunction and history of drug abuse, we recommend electroshock therapy. Treatment to be administered in Dick Cheney's basement.

-THE MANAGEMENT

For your further consideration.

SOMEBODY CALL THE WHAA-MBULANCE

2006-03-22T22:33:00.000-05:00

HATERS BALL: PUNDIT EDITION

Ben Domenech proves once again that home-schooled children can grow up to be just as sub-par and uninformed as the public-schooled.

He takes a certain umbrage at a study claiming that whiny, insecure children grow up to be conservatives. Talk about the obvious.

What he neglects to consider is any kind of basic rational viewpoint about the study.

We hate to do the work for people paid far more than they're worth, but we'll do it anyway.

The study made no claim that adult conservatives were whiny and insecure. No matter how much that would seem to bear out in reality.

You know what? Let's run this through the Dumb-It-Down-Er:

Boop! Beep! Whiny children seek strong authority and are resistant to change. They desire clearly-defined limits and do not accept new information easily. These conclusions are consistent with observations of conservative politics, unless you've been living in a hole for the last ten years.

Thanks, Dumb-It-Down-Er!

Is there a special word for the irony sink generated by conservatives whining about a study claiming that whiny children grow into conservatives? Megalo-Ironical?

---

We would also like to point out the terrible job The Star did at finding someone to provide unneeded "balance" to their shocking expose' of Science Being Practiced (gasp!).

"I found it to be biased, shoddy work, poor science at best," [Jeff Greenberg] said of the Block study. He thinks insecure, defensive, rigid people can as easily gravitate to left-wing ideologies as right-wing ones. He suspects that in Communist China, those kinds of people would likely become fervid party members.

Excellent. Now we know that (1) Jeff Greenberg doesn't approve and (2) he likes to make claims about things he "suspects" in an attempt to counter an actual study. That's just how things are done outside that Ivory Tower full of eggheads with their "data" and "calculations" and "conclusions that do not match a GOP-crafted narrative."

---

Here's Ben:

"So the idea that perhaps a small number of kids from the Berkeley area may not be a truly representative slice of the American population is just silly. Professor Jack Block, the author of the study, defends his work by explaining to the Star that 'within his sample . . . the results hold.' Surely, his statistics professor is very proud."

That last sentence was chockful of dry, acerbic wit; Truly a bon mot. Ben has put that lousy stuffed-shirt in his rightful place.

Of course, a responsible professional would answer exactly the same as Block.

Only an idiot, or a conservative (but I repeat myself), would try to defend their work by saying, "Well, I'm positive that outside of my sample the results hold one-hundred percent because I have special mind powers. That's what sampling is all about -- doing very little work and then drawing the broadest conclusions possible. It would be irresponsible of me to not use my work to oversimplify the entire world into an easily-manageable and comforting reality-tunnel."

---

Ben winds down his post by rejecting child psychology. No, seriously. Check this out:

"It's always better to just let kids be kids and keep the psychologists out of the way[.]"

Especially if they might have an actual cognitive disorder. But look on the bright side.

They might grow up to write a blog for washingtonpost.com.

-THE MANAGEMENT

Recommended Reading: The John T. Jost study that made the error of linking conservatism with authoritarianism. Who would make that mistake? Conservatives are always criticizing their leaders. Especially the President!

BETTER DEAD THAN RED AMERICA

2006-03-22T20:19:00.000-05:00

HATERS BALL: PUNDIT EDITION

The Washington Post's online presence continues on its journey to prove that lack of credentials, leaps in logic and poor taste are no barrier to employment so long as you're conservative.

The latest example of rising way above your own ability is Ben Domenech's new blog, Red America.

He sets the tone for what will surely be a year of recycled Limbaugh invective and poorly-worded, non-sequitur polemics.

---

We arrive at his first post only to be greeted by three paragraphs of Republican-fluffing, dismissing the left with the merest wave of no argument whatsoever and mentioning what the right is for without ever mentioning what they have done.

Everyone should be familiar with the rhetoric already. If you aren't, count yourself lucky.

The real treat comes right after the partisan cheap shots.

A suggestion to name the newest wingnut welfare blog "Red Dawn" is floated. Ben zings all those strait-laced squares in the boardroom by telling them, "Well, only if you want to make people think it was a gun blog."

See, he immediately thought of Red Dawn, a schlocky waste of celluloid about Russia attacking BFE and getting defeated by a group of scrappy teenagers. It might have been mildly rousing to a twelve-year old boy with a treehouse, but shouldn't occupy anything other than a trivia slot in a functioning adult brain (example: C. Thomas Howell would go on to star in the even more execrable Soul Man).

Ben uses his example of cluelessness about Red Dawn to discuss how very ignorant the mainstream media has been about conservative America. We often use inconsequential action films to illustrate foolish notions about general schools of thought.

Really, though, what worries us most is that Ben talks as if the movie were still relevant. It's not.

---

Personally, our selection for cheesy pic espousing conservative values would have to be Toy Soldiers. Either one.

The one from 1984 yields this delicious description:

"While on a vacation in Central America, some American teenagers are kidnapped by terrorists. A rescue mission is sent after them, but they manage to escape and join up with a mercenary fighting the terrorists."

You don't even have to see it. Absolute genius. And completely perfect for a post-911 world. As if that weren't good enough . . .

The one from 1991 is even better:

"When terrorists seize control of a boarding school, a group of trouble-making boys decide to resist them."

Now keep in mind that the terrorists in both of these movies are South American. But they could easily be replaced in a wingnut fantasy by Islamofascists.

Commies, however? Does that still resonate?

Man, we sure are clueless about conservative America.

-THE MANAGEMENT

Bonus: The Poor Man tells us just how much Red Dawn "sucked nads."

Bonus Bonus: We wonder very much why Ben didn't object to the blog title Red Dawn because, in the context of the movie, it's an obvious reference to the Soviets. That would have made a much funnier scenario than the strawgroup he conjured.

NEOCON REALITY TUNNEL

2006-03-19T22:14:00.000-05:00

PNAC ATTACK

We would like to discuss two of the Ideal Fables that contribute to the core of most neocon reality tunnels:

1. The Golden Age - that at some point in the past (never quite specified) the world was in a fixed state which was so free from strife and trouble that to shift the culture back to such a time would result in a utopia, even though this did not, apparently, happen the first time around.

Hence, this Age is rarely described as an actual date. Instead, it seems to be an amalgamation of fundamentalist moral code mixed with Leave It To Beaver-style idyllic family life. Never mentioned, but certainly completely acceptable in this Return To Neocon Erewhon: segregation, overt racism, misogyny, women as submissive servants, children as property, purging of heretics.

This is also the reference point for the ridiculous notion that America was founded as a Christian nation.

2. The Volk - the typical appeal to the simple, hardworking nonexistent People that may be evident in any kind of nationalist movement. They are held up as heroes so long as they keep their fucking mouths shut and stay within their class. They become, in essence, a prop. When referenced in speeches, they are mythologized. This same strategy becomes applied to policemen, firefighters, military - again, unless a member of any of those groups should speak to the contrary.

---

The Golden Age myth attracts religious fundamentalists and political conservatives alike. The siren song promises unity of the type that is deeply attractive to neocon values: a theocratic state is recognized, dissent is marginalized with use of force and society is deeply controlled such that any abnormality is punished. There is never any thought given toward failure to maintain control over such a culture or how to handle corruption in such a repressive system.

Like Marxism, historical events are seen as leading to such an Age, during which all people will naturally conform. Such a world view leads to eliminationist fantasies - the problem, according to the ideology, is that the Golden Age is blocked by various opposition forces. Removal of these forces will cleanse the body politic and nothing bad will ever happen again.

In other words, it's a fairy tale. Happily ever after. Neocons love this idea, they peddle it at the same time they sell neverending conflict, assuring nations that after a minor round of conflict "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

Plato's legacy resides strongly in neocons. They view things like freedom as idealized forms that are untouched by gross materialism. Freedom-as-Ideal is too transcendent to be tainted even when Freedom-as-Practice becomes subverted.

In its most virulent form, this desire for a Golden Age becomes nearly eschatonic. The very shock of living in the world may produce an undiagnosed psychosis hidden beneath religious or political masks. The experiential world can no longer be addressed competently, so all actions flow from the desire of how things should be rather than any kind of professional judgment of an actual situation.

The Golden Age is a concept fit only for comicbooks. As an ideology it combines all the worst promises of inevitability with the contradiction of utilizing fascism in order to ensure the inevitability materializes, while at the same time discounting any resistance.

That's right, it's the stupidity of the self-fulfilling prophecy with the assurance that it will fail completely.

---

The fantasy of the American Volk is not restricted to a common ethnic identity, though where it does manifest it typically bears light skin. Perfect little boxy communities of white people, all of them well-behaved and united in their beliefs.

There are other aspects rooted in just as much fantasy: our country was built by strapping, moral individualists, devout Christians, perfect gentlemen infused with pure bravery. Historical figures are divided up into camps of all-good or all-bad. Paranoid fantasies abound. Poor minorities deserve to be poor, while poor Volk are kept that way by the ruling elite in collusion with the lawless minorities.

Bunk.

Anybody reminiscing about the purity of small-town working-class America has either never been small-town or working-class, or has a seriously defective memory. Revising historical figures to match one's own deeply-held beliefs is the first sign of a Volk-praising wanker.

Xenophobia and racism, both overt and covert, are the hallmarks of Volk movements. They are easily exploited by those wishing to foment violence, often more than willing to escalate their frustration by lashing out. They sometimes borrow a stark, revolutionary anti-intellectualism (a la the Khmer Rouge or the Four Cleanups Movement) while praising ignorance as simplicity and authoritarian as traditional.

The most important thing to know about the Volk is that they have half the intelligence of His Majesty King Mob.

---

The American Volk concept is deeply intertwined with the Golden Age myth:

In that pure past where nothing bad ever happened (because nobody would pay attention anyway) there were only good and bad people -- the good people only did good things, in fact, all good was done by these good people (hindsight) and the bad people only did bad things, which happen to be anything not fitting a very narrow morality. The bad people prevent that pure past from being realized again and thus must be eliminated.

The good people are good only so long as they go along with the plan to usher in the return to the Golden Age.

Whatever is done in service to the Golden Age is permissible; Morality-in-deed is thrown on the trash heap of expedience. Good intentions are put to work paving the road to Hell.

The bad people can only be redeemed by fully embracing the principles of the Volk and the drive toward the Golden Age; There is no such thing as a loyal opposition.

---

The good-and-evil tool makes it far too easy to reject critical analysis and embrace self-serving revisionism. A dichotomy is the blunt instrument of the dictator: us and them, good and evil. It allows the most horrendous mental shortcuts, such as equating dissent with treason or pacifism with troop-hating.

The vast oversimplifications of neocons are nothing more than baffling delusions, Dark Age fatalism mixed with an imperialist-corporatist sense of entitlement.

America was built by individuals, and each of them represented many different thoughts and desires. It sounds banal and obvious to have to write such a qualification, but the right-wing seems particularly good at ignoring the reality of societies over their homogeneous wet dreams. America was built by strong and weak men and women, moral and immoral.

In fact, the idea of independent America itself started as the treasonous dream of a cabal of privileged intellectuals. The American makeup stands in direct contradiction to an idealized Volk.

Our strength resides in our differences; Our success depends on how inclusive we can become to all, not how holed-up in cliques we can remain.

-THE MANAGEMENT

THE DEEP ONES

2006-02-17T21:24:00.000-05:00

HATERS BALL: PUNDIT EDITION

Ann Coulter's shtick seems very familiar.

If you should have the gross misfortune of reading a transcript of her pseudospeeches, you might wonder if she's just fielding material from an upcoming book, "Totally Tasteless Jokes About Liberals (with a Muslim Chaser)."

Her routine is really just Andrew Dice Clay's mundane obscenity shat through a white supremacist's puckered sphincter. Her zingers are about as edgy as a grade-school snaps contest. Her analysis of current events, if sufficiently dumbed down, might be fit for a Prussian Blue concert. Her whorish, skeleton looks titillate the conservative erectile dysfunction crowd just enough for them to cheer on her tedious diatribes against liberals, Muslims and organisms with functioning neurons.

Consequently, her most ardent supporters beam at her neverending stream of epithets, which grow ever more deep South, and only-kidding death threats.

In truth, her 'just a joke' mantra is a wink to all like-minded bigots listening in that they aren't alone in their eliminationist fundamentalist power-fantasies. Ms. Coulter represents that most ghoulish of creature: the charismatic hatemonger. The energy she channels comes straight from the fear response, which she easily redirects into frustration and hatred.

The best she could offer the world would be an apology and a quiet suicide.

---

Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, couldn't be more pleasant. Like getting a morphine shot while your perforated bowels spill waste into your bloodstream. Sure, you're getting poisoned, but you're also getting numbed.

She's the tender face of bigotry. She has the dubious honor of being the token minority advocating institutional racism. Which, we assume, means that in Dante's Inferno she would have some particularly brutal poetic punishment, like being forced to sodomize herself while feces poured eternally from her mouth.

She dedicates a large portion of her writing to lame justifications for rounding up Muslims and placing them in internment camps. This seems to be the sum total of her domestic anti-terror policy. We can only assume, based on her demeanor, that her foreign policy couldn't be anything other than genocide, though done with a serious, professional expression. And only, of course, because we were "forced" toward such action.

For her, the best recourse in the face of violent extremists is to react with extreme violence. She also advocates casting the net as wide as her hatred will allow, which turns out to be pretty undiscerning.

Thus she manages skull-curdling amounts of cognitive dissonance without breaking a sweat. The only time she comes up for air from her flogging of another easily-exploitable anti-Muslim "scoop" is to take lazy potshots at Clinton and, naturally, liberals.

She also has a penchant for styling herself as a watchdog for subversive attacks on the troops. She takes on softball military causes, invents some enemies and then sings paeans to her own good judgment and swift action.

Since she seems to have such affection for defending the armed forces, and such hatred for the jihadists, we suggest she get down to a recruitment center. According to her bio, she was born in 1970, which puts her well within age limits to serve her country as more than a cautionary tale against dumbing yourself down just to get an audience.

We suggest the Marine Corps. Parris Island knows just what to do with such talented, opinionated egomaniacs.

And there are probably more than a few drill instructors in need of rim jobs.

---

If we were to compare the queens of anti-Muslim punditry, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter, to two figures from fascist history, we could easily go with Hitler and Goebbels.

Ann as der Fuhrer, ridiculously ugly, spittle-laden shrieking squalls against the "infection" threatening the world, and Michelle the good little propagandist, coating her animus in a self-congratulating "for the good of the world" shlock.

Of course, using Nazis is so overdone.

How about Michelle as Lenin, shrewd, seemingly-incisive but in actuality spectacularly dense, misreading history at every turn and presenting the flawed conclusions as insight. Ann, then, is Stalin, blunt, brutal and dumb as a sack of hammers, with no policy whatsoever other than conquest and domination.

-THE MANAGEMENT

EXCLUSION

2006-01-22T22:23:00.000-05:00

DEPT OF CONSTANT FEAR

"The average American, like the average man of any country, has but little imagination. People who speak a different language, or worship some other god, or wear clothing unlike his own, are beyond the horizon of his sympathy. He cares but little or nothing for the sufferings or misfortunes of those who are of a different complexion or of another race. His imagination is not powerful enough to recognize the human being, in spite of peculiarities. Instead of this he looks upon every difference as an evidence of inferiority, and for the inferior he has but little if any feeling. If these "inferior people" claim equal rights be feels insulted, and for the purpose of establishing his own superiority tramples on the rights of the so-called, inferior.

"In our own country the native has always considered himself as much better than the immigrant, and as far superior to all people of a different complexion. At one time our people hated the Irish, then the Germans, then the Italians, and now the Chinese. The Irish and Germans, however, became numerous. They became citizens, and, most important of all, they had votes. They combined, became powerful, and the political parties sought their aid. They had something to give in exchange for protection -- in exchange for political rights. In consequence of this, they were flattered by candidates, praised by the political press, and became powerful enough not only to protect themselves, but at last to govern the principal cities in the United States. As a matter of fact the Irish and the Germans drove the native Americans out of the trades and from the lower forms of labor. They built the railways and canals. They became servants. Afterward the Irish and the Germans were driven from the canals and railways by the Italians.

"The Irish and Germans improved their condition. They went into other businesses, into the higher and more lucrative trades. They entered the professions, turned their attention to politics, became merchants, brokers, and professors in colleges. They are not now building railroads or digging on public works. They are contractors, legislators, holders of office, and the Italians and Chinese are doing the old work.

"If matters had been allowed to work in a natural way, without the interference of mobs or legislators, the Chinese would have driven the Italians to better employments, and all menial labor would, in time, be done by the Mongolians."

-Robert Green Ingersoll

---

We would encourage a readthrough of Orcinus' thorough appraisal of the Minutemen, the undeniably racist (though members will vehemently deny it) anti-Mexican-immigration group. Ostensibly they present their case as gravely concerned about the porous nature of America's borders, yet only truly focus on the southernmost border (except in minor instances where stories from the Canadian border can be hyped to play on the same fear response).

Vast alterations in a nation's political structure often bring fear of the Other to the forefront of public discourse. Since politics constantly resembles a chaotic Charybdis, vilification of the Other runs on a cyclical loop, with only the type swapped for one more current. The tactic should be seen as purely diversionary and entirely predictable - find a great source of frustration, amplify and direct it.

It should be remembered that the Red Scare of the early 1920s swept all kinds of dissidents in its wake - pacifists, anarchists, unions, even people only resembling radicals (one must assume a kind of know it when I see it judgment call). The fearmongers used every kind of scare tactic to push their repressive social agenda. The government expanded its surveillance of Americans to ridiculous levels.

Time marches on. The same tactics still work.

---

How you too can make an enemy from nothing:

1. Foster hatred toward people that can be lumped into an easily-recognizable group (typically, obviously, by skin tone/ethnicity).

Create derogatory referent terms for the group, which will act as "code words" for those sympathetic to your cause. These terms can be dispersed into the media -- even those offering rebuttals will be forced into using your language, thus lending it legitimacy.

2. Paint that group as acting toward a single, sinister agenda; Or, conversely, as solely responsible for myriad social and criminal offenses; Or, preferably, both.

Be sure to blame them for all negative aspects of history as well. Rely on people's ignorance; It will never fail to exceed your expectations.

3. Target that group with pressure-inducing measures -- extra scrutiny, harassment, phone taps, whatever it takes. Treat all members of that group as suspect, no matter their individual situation.

Point out and overhype all negative news items involving that group while ignoring all other similar actions by those not belonging to said group.

4. Begin making broad arrests of group members based on little evidence. Be sure to encourage violation of due process without explicitly denying it.

With such a wide net you are bound to make mistakes - cover them up, do not apologize, never admit guilt.

5. Wage the information war as well -- make sure members of the group are greeted with suspicion everywhere they go. Mask overt hatred with shoddy justifications -- a good number of moderates may be duped by this tactic.

If you employ paid demagogues, don't bother getting them to disguise the bigotry - this way extremists will recognize their own and offer support.

Attack opponents by painting them as "sympathizers" willing to allow the group to commit any act whatsoever out of misguided coddling and/or deliberate malevolence.

6. If you have acted competently, you will have driven many in the group toward extremism. When their extremism rises, you now have a convenient excuse to bring even more pressure to bear.

Encourage your own extremists to escalate while simultaneously disavowing any knowledge of their actions and possibly even expressing public disapproval. At the same time mainstream your extreme elements.

7. Eventually, with enough prodding, enough exacerbation, you can justify any extreme measure taken in your crusade against the enemy you helped create.

Act as you will in your wide-ranging persecution.

-THE MANAGEMENT

TRUE INDIVIDUALS FOLLOW A SINGLE PHILOSOPHY

2006-01-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

CAPMAGISTAN

Welcome, Randroids!

For those unfamiliar with the startlingly ridiculous theories of Ayn Rand, you're very lucky.

To get a feeling for the basics, try elementropy's primer.

Then, when you're ready to give your brain a good soaking in unadulterated greed-worship, point your cold, objective, wealth-lust at Capitalism Magazine.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your egos!

"When I say "capitalism," I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church."
-- Ayn Rand
And when we say "capitalism," we mean grab all the shit you can and screw everybody else.

Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to.

---

Shorter Edwin A. Locke:

We must honor Dr. King's struggle to correct racial injustice by getting rid of affirmative action. No, seriously. In my perfect world, where employers aren't prejudiced, this works out fine. And if we get rid of affirmative action I am entirely confident that such a world will be realized.

---

Shorter Thomas Sowell:

Step one -- Create wealth . . . somehow
Step two -- ??
Step three -- Cure poverty!

Also, the left is stupid.

---

Shorter Michael J. Hurd:

Dictatorships have no rights. Therefore, we must bomb Iran's nuclear facility. But we won't, so we'll just have to wait for Israel to start a nuclear war.

---

Shorter Walter Williams:

I have never, judging by my highway construction analogy, ever seen an actual highway construction project in my entire life. And judging by my explanation of economics, I have never seen an actual economy in my entire life. I also call the estate tax the death tax, because it kills puppies.

In conclusion, people affected by the capital gains tax are not actually rich, no matter how much money they make.

---

Shorter Michael J. Hurd - again:

I did not actually read anything about the illegal NSA spying program, but Bush said it only applied to al-Qaida making phone calls, and that's good enough for me, even though a cursory search would show that the program was done without warrants and sometimes against purely domestic phone calls and not even solely against al-Qaida. Instead, I'll position the debate as one concerned with spying in general, even though I know that's a fakeout.

---

Shorter Thomas Sowell - again:

Housing prices are low except where environmentalists build their parks. And by "environmentalists" I mean rich people, and by "parks" I mean country clubs. Or I would if I were in the least bit honest. Which I'm not. I also completely made up stuff about a "preserve farmland" movement, which for some insane reason isn't mentioned on the Greenpeace website but totally sounds like something a bunch of crazy environmentalists would support. Developers rule!

---

Shorter Walter Williams - again:

Nobody's poor. Thomas Sowell's cure for poverty must have worked. If for some reason, in contravention of my pre-established, completely objective conclusion, somebody is actually poor, then all they have to do is move to a place where they aren't poor.

---

For a possible source of great amusement, gather a group of people similar to those witnessed above. Then get them to explain, in great detail, how every other philosophy other than their own is completely and totally subjective and, therefore, wrong.

It could be interesting to see how they might present one woman's arbitrary ego-driven materialism as "Objectivism" without the slightest recognition of any inherent irony.

However, such a gathering is not recommended in the slightest, as even minor doses of Objectivism can inflate one's sense of self-superiority to dangerously solipsistic proportions.

-THE MANAGEMENT

UNLIMITED WORLD AUTHORITY

2006-01-15T18:45:00.000-05:00

KEEP SHOVELING DEPARTMENT

"This war on terror has no boundaries. We have to go where these people are, and we have to take them out."
-Sen. John McCain
Do you know what else has no boundaries? Fantasia!

We have officially crossed into a realm of pure fantasy.

Because now America, as a matter of course during its War on Terror, has the ability to completely ignore sovereignty* and international law and use force on foreign soil without approval, even murdering civilians** in our attempts to eliminate viable targets.

We suggest construction of a mighty tesseract, in order to extend our Self-Justified, Continuous war into more perpendicular terror-spawning dimensions.

---

"It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do? The Pakistani border is a real problem."
-Sen. Evan Bayh
What, indeed?

Honor our treaties and agreements? Take a step back from our war-fueled zeal? Question the practices of the CIA?

Of course not. No questions are relevant in an age where questions are rendered insignificant by the next gaffe the administration spits out. Questions are considered treasonous, unless they're asking how brilliant is the President or how craven those favoring Iraq withdrawal.

Perhaps, once we have soundly trounced Iran, which should be a flower-strewn walk in the park, we can do something about that problematic Pakistan border.

*"Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a - you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities."
-George Bush

I guess if Bush doesn't explicitly give a country sovereignty then it clearly can't possess it.

**We refer to dead civilians as collateral damage. Warbloggers like to tender their statements when such things occur by pointing out that "mistakes get made" and "wars always have collateral damage" (not that most of them have ever been in combat) without ever considering whether certain civilian casualties could have been prevented by altering strategy or changing our tactics.

In other words, to them neither ends nor means matter -- what matters is that the stated end was a good one. This means that anything can ultimately be justified by invoking a higher good or secondary goal, even if the actual actions were faulty.

---

Apologies for the following educating moment. We realize facts are frightening.

Nevertheless:

"The carpet bombing that had started covertly in 1970 to stop America's enemies from Vietnam using Cambodia as a base outraged the American public and crippled Cambodia as a nation."
-BBC News

I suppose we can forget about what happened to Cambodia in 1975.

-THE MANAGEMENT

DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS

2006-01-15T16:53:00.000-05:00

DEPT OF DOOMED TO REPEAT DEPT

True story.

In 1976 an Army recruit died of swine flu.

There was a pretty big panic as more soldiers came down with the illness that, in 1918, had killed 500,000 Americans.

A plan was hacked out to inoculate everybody in the United States.

$135 million was appropriated.

The inoculations began. People started getting sick. And dying. Only not from swine flu.

40 million people were inoculated by the time the government stopped the program.

The inoculation caused many cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome as well as other autoimmune reactions.

Dr. Anthony Morris, then director of the Virus Bureau of the FDA, said that there could be no vaccination because there had been no cases on which to test it.

He was fired.

More people died from vaccine-related illnesses than from the swine flu itself.

Now the government is considering plans to vaccinate the entire US against anthrax.

Here's their idea of informed consent.

Good luck, everybody. And trust your government.

After all, they've never steered us wrong.

---

We know how much it hurts to think about the anthrax vaccine controversy, since it's now been relegated to that ever-growing bin of things that Republicans refuse to acknowledge and therefore aren't actually problems.

But it's not as if the FDA, in collusion with the DoD, ignored all findings that the vaccine was effectively useless and was, in fact, extremely harmful. They wouldn't do that.

And they'd never suppress the fact that the vaccine has never been tested on human subjects using any kind of formalized process, or that a safe dosage was never established using the FDA's own guidelines.

Such accusations would be patently ridiculous.

The thing is, though: People are getting sick. And, as usual, very few people care.

---

This is not without precedent.

After all, from 1932 to 1972 the US Public Health Service injected syphilis into 400 poor blacks in Tuskegee, Alabama. Without telling them. Or treating them.

Years later that experiment got the blessing of the CDC, the NMA and the AMA (the same organization that burned Wilhelm Reich's studies rather than, let's say, subjecting them to the scientific process).

Then there's the cases of Vietnam Veterans being exposed to Agent Orange.

And while not necessarily deliberate, the government certainly did, and continues to do, their best to deny any ill effects. After all, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Diamond Shamrock, Uniroyal and other assorted manufacturers have a whole helluva lot of pull.

There is a present-day analogue to this as concerns the use of depleted uranium weapons.

And then we have the infamous MK-Ultra project. The government did a swell job on this one, since most people assume it was strictly an invention of crackpot conspiracy nuts.

Of course, the whole damn thing yielded a great body of work. We especially like the heading "Covert testing of substances and devices on unwitting subjects." But it's not like it was real.

Consider that the whole Gulf War Syndrome thing, the disease that the government wouldn't even admit existed until November of 2004, might be connected to that fucking Bioport toxin.

Think we're bitter much?

It's not like Bioport is going to profit from making their helpful vaccine, right?

And it's not like they would use people as guinea pigs, right?

MAKING THE CASE

2006-01-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

CENTER FOR ORGANIZED DECEPTION

Here, then, is one line of reasoning*:

We have not been attacked by terrorists since September 11. Therefore, all measures taken by the president, such as illegal domestic surveillance and outsourced torture, have been effective in preventing another attack.

I believe this line of reasoning is supported by the precedent established in Lisa v. Homer. Here is the relevant citation:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you? [Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock. [Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

-THE MANAGEMENT

*Not to be affiliated in any way with Reason.

COURT OF THE SUN KING

2006-01-07T02:22:00.000-05:00

CENTER FOR ORGANIZED DECEPTION

"I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and I have found true patriotism among the people, but never among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy: despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the king often has great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that American courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your Majesty," a distinction without a difference. They are forever talking of the natural intelligence of the people whom they serve; they do not debate the question which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure him that he possesses all the virtues without having acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the rank of his concubines; but by sacrificing their opinions they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil of allegory; but before they venture upon a harsh truth, they say: "We are aware that the people whom we are addressing are too superior to the weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of their temper for an instant. We should not hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world." The sycophants of Louis XIV could not flatter more dexterously.

"For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and adulation will follow power. The only means of preventing men from degrading themselves is to invest no one with that unlimited authority which is the sure method of debasing them."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

I can think of nothing more degrading, more craven, than blind support of an elected official. That a human being sits at the head of every office of this country I am entirely certain. Respect for the office is guaranteed, but respect for the individual holding that office must be earned by consistency of word and deed in conjunction with the laws of our land.

The fact that the Presidency is a singular title does not endow the holder of that title with more reason, more judgment, more rights, more humanity than any other citizen. It most assuredly does not allow them to overstep the law because they are concerned with expediency.

If anything, such a unique office should demand more humility before the people and more oversight by the people. That, for the privilege of serving the people, the President should seek for himself a higher standard.

---

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."
-John Adams

While it is often said that we are a country of laws, we are more than that -- we are a country of rights. These rights need not be earned, they are not granted upon citizenship, nor subject to certification or fee. While we must respect the forms of government which other nations have formed, we must recognize within their people these same rights, whether guaranteed by their laws or not.

Force can only restrain exercise of rights, never revoke possession of them.

---

"His Ministers, generals, mistresses, and courtiers soon found out his weak point, namely, his love of hearing his own praises. There was nothing he liked so much as flattery, or, to put it more plainly, adulation; the coarser and clumsier it was, the more he relished it. That was the only way to approach him; if he ever took a liking to a man it was invariably due to some lucky stroke of flattery in the first instance, and to indefatigable perseverance in the same line afterwards. His Ministers owed much of their influence to their frequent opportunities for burning incense before him...."
-Duc de Saint Simon on King Louis XIV

"Bush's real friends are his old Texas and school buddies from Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School. He calls them all the time -- but the talk is usually comforting and jocular, of sports and old days. They rarely dispense pointed political advice or brace him with bad news. Chief of staff Card is widely described by insiders as a decent and honorable man, but also as a family retainer who tells the president what he wants to hear. Exhausted by predawn arrivals at the White House, Card is expected to step down soon (though he denies the rumors that he wants to replace Treasury Secretary John Snow). The lead candidates to replace Card are all loyalists, like OMB Director Josh Bolten, or Bush's old confidant and former Commerce secretary Don Evans (who is lukewarm about working full time in Washington)."
--Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, Bush in the Bubble

---

"Louis XIV., playing at backgammon, had a doubtful throw; a dispute arose, and all the courtiers remained silent. The Count de Grammont came in at that instant. "Decide the matter," said the king to him. "Sire," said the count, "your Majesty is in the wrong." -- "How so," replied the king; "can you decide without knowing the question?" -- "Yes," said the count, "because, had the matter been doubtful, all these gentlemen present would have given it for your majesty."

The President's most recent admission of unlawful surveillance on American citizens raised a chorus of assent from many in his court. This outpouring of agreement is not exceptional. What seems so remarkable at this point is the highly-dissonant sound of opposing voices emanating from the throats of conventional yes-men.

When the courtiers no longer give his Majesty a pass, what will happen to Versailles?

---

"It was this love of praise which made it easy for Louvois to engage him in serious wars, for he persuaded him that he had greater talents for war than any of his Generals, greater both in design and in execution, and the Generals themselves encouraged him in this notion, to keep in favour with him. I mean such Generals as Conde and Turenne, much more, of course, those who came after them. He took to himself the credit of their successes with admirable complacency, and honestly believed that he was all his flatterers told him."
-Duc de Saint Simon on King Louis XIV

"Of all the president's advisers, Cheney has consistently taken the most dire view of the terrorist threat. On Iraq, Bush was the decision maker. But more than any adviser, Cheney was the one to make the case to the president that war against Iraq was an urgent necessity."
-Newsweek cover story Nov 17, 2003

We come, at last, to the Honorable Mr. Cheney.

He appears as Louvois, the war minister, inflaming the President's aggressive passions, playing on his pride and strong belief in mandates, from both God and the People. Pushing for neverending war while draining the coffers beyond all previous records.

Though we must discount Louvois' skillful reorganization of the army, for Cheney has demonstrated only that he can underequip and misappropriate every branch of the military.

Perhaps we may even find a bit of Colbert in him, relentless corporatism bearing the torch of the mercantile tradition. He represents that great intersection of State and Corporate interests, fully able to appease businesses by force of law.

Comparisons of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to Cheney's constant machinations toward investing the Executive with ultimate authority (in effect nullifying the protections of Constitution), though, might be too much of a stretch.

---

"While conversing with the philosopher Bernard de Fontenelle one day, Louis XIV remarked upon his lack of faith in the existence of honorable men. 'Plenty of honorable men exist, sire,' Fontenelle replied, 'but they do not seek the company of kings.'"
-Bernard de Fontenelle

"Never imagine that skill and talent are all that matter. In court the courtier's art is more important than his talent; never spend so much time on your studies that you neglect your social skills. And the greatest skill of all is the ability to make the master look more talented than those around him."
-The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene

Not enough that the King himself displays marked lack of talent, but those around him seem lacking themselves. Lest some feel this issue resides firmly in the realm of left-wing sour grapes, they must ask themselves some very tough questions concerning the reason behind the appointment of candidates considered almost unanimously unqualified or underqualified.

How can a person display incompetence such that his own selected sycophants must continually struggle to keep the general consensus toward their patron slightly above the low-tide mark of buffoonery?

The filling of government posts should not be used as a dumping ground for wheedling toadies and shameless bootlicks. The meritocracy should be a linchpin of conservatism, but how to explain the mass of the right which feel they deserve their position as unproven appointees simply because they dropped some dollars into Bush's coffers?

What manner of person equates wealth with merit?

WHAT WAS INTENDED

2006-01-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

MISREADINGS

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

After several read-throughs of this sorely outdated and willfully inflexible document, we are saddened to say that we were unable to determine the location of these phrases:

"By Blessings of Liberty we mean unlimited Executive powers including the extralegal ability to monitor and collect information obtained through warrantless surveillance of American citizens. Also, by Welfare we certainly do not mean any kind of government-funded social program."

-THE MANAGEMENT

WHY DON'T THE PACIFISTS ENLIST?

2006-01-05T01:46:00.000-05:00

DEPT OF DOOMED TO REPEAT DEPT

"This century will go down as the bloodiest century in all of human history. We'll have lost 160 million people, killed by conflict. Is that what we want in the 21st century? I don't think so. If we want to avoid it, we have to learn from our mistakes in this century. Vietnam was one of those."
-Robert McNamara

"We didn't go there as journalists with antiwar sentiment. With the country at war, my country at war, I want the country to win, whatever the definition of win is," says Rather. "But I was increasingly struck by the difference between what was being said in Washington or Saigon about what was happening on the ground ... and what the reality was.

"The reality was, it was a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day death struggle."
-Dan Rather

"We couldn't win the war in Vietnam, not because we lacked military power, but because we were allied with a corrupt regime in South Vietnam that had lost the confidence of the people there. And because we were trying to argue that we could defeat the guerilla forces there with napalm and with strategic bombing and using chemical warfare -- it just didn't work. Finally we decided, after many, many years, to withdraw."
-George McGovern

A comforting, simple lie told of the Vietnam war and America's subsequent pullout as the country fell to the big bad Communism:

It was liberals. It was the media. It was the peaceniks. It was the liberal media peaceniks who lost the war.

How very comforting.

Surely no fault to be found in the misguided Domino Fallacy. No fault found in attempting a traditional war against guerilla insurgents on their home turf -- lessons from 1791 Haiti never learned. Hell, lessons from French entanglement in 1950s Vietnam largely ignored. And, naturally, no blame directed toward Truman's backing of the French after breaking WWII promises to recognize pesky Vietnam's independence.

-It must have been those liberals, the ones asking why children burned. Or the traitor of My Lai, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., who interposed his chopper betwixt much needed collateral damage civilians and our own brave fighting men. Or those loony leftists with the gall to ask difficult questions in a free society concerning the reasoning, method and purposes behind commanding certain other citizens to fight, kill and die.

Certainly not the pacification-destruction of villages along with forced relocation. Or training special squads that grew from petty thugs into warlords. Or body counts used as a measure of progress. Or defoliating the jungle by dropping highly toxic chemicals willy-nilly.

-It must have been the media, erroneously reporting by showing death and destruction in all its bare horror. That dissident Walter Cronkite, pathetically shedding tears on a news station, saying that the war could no longer be justified. How dare they risk life and limb to embed themselves amongst our troops and then have the audacity to actually report things.

"By lying about the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War, the media managed to persuade Americans we were losing the war, which demoralized the nation and caused us to lose the war."
-Ann Coulter

"The North Vietnamese communists have themselves conceded that the anti-war protestors are to thank for the communist takeover of Vietnam. The Jane Fonda's [sic] and Tom Hoydens are directly responsible for the bloodbath that followed in Southeast Asia."
-FrontPageMagazine

Certainly we should avoid blaming the North Vietnamese communists for planning and executing the takeover; They wouldn't have thought of the idea were it not for Jane Fonda and
Tom Hoyden.

-It must have been the peaceniks -- that long-haired overwhelming political force, no policy gets done in Washington without first consulting the pacifists. It was those pesky foes at Kent State with the temerity to perish when shot. It was the returning troops, a little too eager to discover the reason America had largely abandoned them to mental problems and mystery illnesses and crippling wounds and drug addiction and traumatizing memories.

Not the prospect of a prolonged conflict with a vaguely-defined goal. Not thousands of Americans being forcibly sent overseas. Not the completely random and amazingly "successful" bombing runs, many of which found their way to neighboring countries. Not the "hearts and minds" mantra that never took into account living, breathing people.

"Just as in Vietnam, our troops are being subverted. The very same neo-communists bastions of anti-American pacifists in this country are doing it all over again."
-Marie Jon'

---

The big question: Does it seem reasonable that, if citizens were to see many terrible things being done at the behest of a government meant to serve and answer to them, they should demand greater transparency and very seriously ask very difficult questions concerning the conduct of their military supported by their monies?

The other big question: Would it be reasonable to expect that a society which guarantees freedom of the press deserves to receive information -- no matter how terrible it may seem, or how much our own honor may appear to suffer, or how dispirited we might become therefrom -- because such instances offer clear choices of what kind of country we wish to navigate toward: one dedicated to openly admitting our own deficiencies and working to correct them, or one attempting suppression of any criticism, allowing abuses to go unchecked?

---

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later
Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam
Signals Intercepts, Cited at Time, Prove Only August 2nd Battle, Not August 4;
Purported Second Attack Prompted Congressional Blank Check for War
Johnson-McNamara Tapes Show Readiness to Escalate, Even on Suspect Intel;
Top Aides Knew of Mistaken Signals, but Welcomed Justification for Vote

The Vietnam comparisons will stop when opportunities to make comparisons cease to exist. We regret this does not appear likely in the near future.

-THE MANAGEMENT

ATTN: IMPORTANT MEMO

2006-01-03T00:28:00.000-05:00

RETRACTIONS AND CORRECTIONS DIVISION

Dear Conspiracy Theorists,

In light of recent developments in the United States political system, we no longer have need of your long-winded rants on how the federal government is plotting one thing or another to make slaves of us all. It is now abundantly clear that such is the case, and has been for quite some time.

While we appreciate your past efforts to alert the public by lecturing on the New World Order and often drooling obscenely, your particular insights are no longer needed and were, we are sorry to say, off-base and naive.

From now on certain Conspiracy Theories will be referred to as Official US Government Policy.

That said, there are a few clarifications we feel need to be made in order to minimize the number of errors in reporting on Official US Government Policy:

Re: FEMA. In the X-Files movie, FEMA was a shadow government poised to suspend all civil liberties and manage the country under martial law. We now know that FEMA is merely the branch of the shadow government in charge of ensuring that as many minorities die in times of crisis as possible, as well as confounding all efforts to effectively aid them after said crisis. We regret any confusion this may have caused.

Re: The NSA. Some feel the NSA manages Project Echelon, which monitors private communications in the US, filtering and collecting information on citizens without their consent. This is untrue. It is not called Project Echelon. It is called "a personal favor for the President."

Re: Civil liberties. There is no overarching plan by the Executive Branch to suspend civil liberties. The plan is instead piecemeal. Fewer people notice it that way.

Re: Concentration Camps. We have heard some groups report that the US has concentration camps within its borders in order to round up citizens unwilling to submit to a one-world government.

In some versions, the UN is implicated. This is completely false. The one-world government will be led by the United States, which will abolish the UN. The alleged concentration camps are not within US borders -- they are instead located in countries around the world so as to be free from Congressional oversight. At least until Congress is abolished.

Re: Satanic Government. Rumors abound that the Presidency is in league with Satan. Utterly ridiculous.The Presidency broke ties with Satan in the early 90s, shortly after Satan invaded Heaven with weapon systems sold to him by the US. There are now plans to invade Hell and depose Satan, in order to spread Freedom to the Damned.

Re: Vast Left/Right Wing Conspiracies. These terms have been merged. Henceforth the proper usage is Vast Political Clusterfuck.

Re: Votescam. Now a registered trademark of Diebold. Forget that you may have ever heard of such a thing. There is no possible way that a private company with no oversight could tamper with unverifiable digital information in machines which they constructed.

Re: Global Warming. This utterly laughable notion should be disregarded at all costs. High temperatures, increase of tropical storms and melting polar ice caps should be referred to as Perfectly Natural Highly Anomalous Weather Fluctuation No Reason To Be Alarmed. All queries should be directed toward the completely objective Agency for Investigating P.N.H.A.W.F.N.R.T.B.A, funded by a real thorough (we promise) energy conglomerate.

Re: The Jews run everything and wish to take over the world. This has been modified in light of the Global War On Terrorism. The proper formulation is now, "The Muslims wish to run everything and take over the world." Though it is, apparently, acceptable to affirm that the Jews run Hollywood.

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The following theories, which do not quite meet Official US Government Policy standards, have been superseded and do not require further investigation or elaboration:

1. John F. Kennedy was assassinated by some kind of labyrinthine conspiracy.

We get it. Nobody cares. From this point in time, the commonly accepted scapegoat is Bill Clinton. Feel free to add all the convoluted connections your heart desires, just make sure the endpoint is always Bill Clinton.

2. Aliens do stuff/trade technology/mutilate cattle/stick things in your anus/have already invaded.

You know what, just blame this on Bill Clinton, too.

3. The US, since 1933, has been in a state of perpetual National Emergency. Therefore, the President may, at any given time, suspend the Constitution, enforce martial law and inter hundreds of thousands of US citizens in detention camps without due process or criminal charge.

Dude, we're at war! We don't even need to declare a National Emergency. Blank check, muthafuckah!

---

Also, please refrain from any more comparisons alluding to George Orwell's 1984 or any work by Franz Kafka. We are well aware of the concept of Newspeak and still cannot recognize it, even when it's employed nearly every day by the media, political figures and our own families, so further lessons are redundant and ineffective. And Kafka's continual drumming of man's constant and unfulfillable quest for meaning doesn't make anybody feel better.

It should also be noted that we cannot seem to tell systemic incompetence in our government from organized malevolence. As a result, we let a few too many things slide. We should have realized this sooner and regret the oversight.

We will try harder in the future to recognize the difference; Though no effort will be put forth to stop either.

Thank You,

-THE MANAGEMENT