tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post1575959896417786526..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: Groundhog DayKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-68036937283039566462015-02-03T05:55:06.695-05:002015-02-03T05:55:06.695-05:00“There, in the unconscious, we sleep upon the psyc...“There, in the unconscious, we sleep upon the psyche's oceanic floor, together like some vast bed of kelp, each wavering strand an individual American, swaying in the currents of national suggestion. In the form of a giant Portuguese man-of-war, our government hovers, rippling above us, showering freshly produced national memory spores on the fertile bed of our forgetfulness. Schools of undulating corporate jellyfish pass over, sowing the brands of products and services ... followed by the octopi called media and marketing, issuing milky clouds of sperm to fertilize the seeds with the animating plasma of The Great Dream.” - Joe Bageant, Rainbow Pie<br /><br />War is the new normal and “yellow journalism” continues to thrive. <br /><br />“The four cornerstones of the American political psyche are 1) emotion substituted for thought, 2) fear, 3) ignorance and 4) propaganda.” - Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War<br /><br />To protect the power of the military-financial elite, weapons of mass distraction are unleashed by the evil axis of anonymous officialdom, spouting official lies and official spin, and imperial journalism on the public in order to strike fear and loathing of external enemies and manipulate and secure their submission and obedience to their police state policies.<br /><br />“Support Our Troops” substitutes for critical thinking. Our all-volunteer military is now something akin to a foreign legion. <br /><br />“Thank you for your service” has become a routine form of cheap grace.<br /><br />The new civic religion of honoring the troops at our stadiums and ballparks…<br /><br />“To stand in solidarity with those on whom the burden of service and sacrifice falls is about as far as they will go. Expressions of solidarity affirm that the existing relationship between soldiers and society is consistent with democratic practice. By extension, so, too, is the distribution of prerogatives and responsibilities entailed by that relationship: a few fight, the rest applaud. Put simply, the message that citizens wish to convey to their soldiers is this: although choosing not to be with you, we are still for you (so long as being for you entails nothing on our part). Cheering for the troops, in effect, provides a convenient mechanism for voiding obligation and easing guilty consciences…<br /><br />“The late German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a name for this unearned self-forgiveness and undeserved self-regard. He called it cheap grace. Were he alive today, Bonhoeffer might suggest that a taste for cheap grace, compounded by an appetite for false freedom, is leading Americans down the road to perdition.” - Andrew Bacevich, “Ballpark Liturgy: America’s New Civic Religion - Cheap Grace at Fenway,” http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175423/andrew_bacevich_ballpark_liturgy<br /><br />“If middle-class Americans do not feel threatened by the slow encroachment of the police state or the Patriot Act, it is because they live comfortably enough and exercise their liberties very lightly, never testing the boundaries. You never know you are in a prison unless you try the door.” - Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class WarDenis Nevillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-17063525300785064612015-02-03T02:04:14.681-05:002015-02-03T02:04:14.681-05:00Thanks, all. New distractions at home will only l...Thanks, all. New distractions at home will only let me come out and play once in a while.<br /><br />Patricia’s alert earlier about developments in Ukraine, and now Karen's report, renewed my concern about a resumption of the cold war, which just might turn hot in a jiffy, just as one little step after another led up to August 1914. But then I read the papers and began to relax. What’s to fear when we have the biggest and best––if not the brightest––military in the world?<br /><br />Like a basketball team that wants to stay on top, the Pentagon’s knights and pawns must practice continually. Otherwise, they’ll grow flabby and clumsy. Now that things are more or less winding down in the Middle East––just as Obama promised––we run the risk of our troops in the barracks losing their edge. So, deploy, deploy, deploy. <br /><br />Why is Putin being so unaccommodating? Does he believe the buffer state of Ukraine can protect him from our nukes––now being upgraded, by the way––which could turn Moscow aglow within twenty minutes? Which reminds me, how’s our Star Wars/Iron Dome thing coming along?<br /><br />Back in the Homeland, we cannot afford to turn off the lights in weapons factories. Our economy depends on weapons systems pegged at the level of hundreds of billion$, not trifling tens of billion$. Pentagon contracts will soon fall off sharply unless Obama does something real soon to jack up our all-volunteer foreign legion and the pivotal element of our manufacturing economy. Hence, his recent musing about a buildup in, over and around ISIS to contain the caliphate and his offer to provide more arms to the Ukraine. "Lethal" arms, yet.<br /><br />Similarly, NATO in the heart of free Europe has got to wake up and catch up. Look what just happened on the streets of Paris. Pull European troops out of their barracks and station them into the fresh air of French boulevards and German autobahns––and think about sending them a little farther south, too. The big banks say the new populism in Greece is getting out of hand. And "Podemos" in Spain is another anarchic eruption that’s becoming worrisome. <br /><br />If the European Union falls apart, what will become of NATO? If NATO gets laid off, what will happen to its grand plans for expansion? And where would that leave the US-EU trade treaties? That’s why wise heads in Washington say continued expansion on new fronts, like the Ukraine, is the only option. In this way we can pump up our economy and, just maybe, get lucky enough to win another world war.Jay–Ottawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10360356126450612113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-89567167414671445892015-02-02T17:44:39.700-05:002015-02-02T17:44:39.700-05:00Why, Denis!
Is that any kind of nice way to refer...Why, Denis!<br /><br />Is that any kind of nice way to refer to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)? <br /><br />Who, though having served in the military himself, has conveniently never spent any real time in a combat zone, nor has any sons or daughters of his own to offer up in sacrifice...errr..."honorable service"...to yet another land war in the Middle East?<br /><br />IMHO, a war in Syria against the distant threat of ISIS is something that the U.S. can well afford to sit out. Let the Europeans and our "regional partners"--who refuse to act unless WE do--figure this one out.<br /><br />Paris is not OUR homeland.<br /><br />I vote for better securing our borders and increasing scrutiny of visa requests by furriners who want to visit our shores. <br /><br />Oops! I forgot! We can't further secure our borders because that would be just sooo...well...sooo politically incorrect.<br /><br />Gotta keep that pipeline that feeds our permanent underclass flowing at any cost.Zeenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-27829673694940994782015-02-02T15:47:06.061-05:002015-02-02T15:47:06.061-05:00Is not sure why I am thanking you for writing this...Is not sure why I am thanking you for writing this, but I am. I knew this was going on, as I have a Ukranian friend born and raised there until he was in his late teens. Came to this country as a student to study viola and he stayed. He set me straight and explained it very well when the who fiasco started. What I do not understand is why we are unable to elect people to positions that will help us remove the neocons from power as we removed the Baathists in Iraq. Oh yeah, it just dawned on me.Ste-vonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-79562833890435924172015-02-02T15:28:08.495-05:002015-02-02T15:28:08.495-05:00Yes, “the annual spectacle of guts, glory, and gre...Yes, “the annual spectacle of guts, glory, and greed that is the Super Bowl.”<br /><br />I normally do not watch, but I did this year out of curiosity, just to see how decadent the bread and circuses could be. It was testimony to the bankruptcy of the nation’s soul.<br /><br />A gaudy diversion from more lunacy, more war in an age of especially phony patriotism.<br /><br />Chris Hedges writes that “Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., did not believe America had a conscience… He, perhaps better than King, understood the inner workings of empire. He had no hope that those who managed empire would ever get in touch with their better selves to build a country free of exploitation and injustice.” <br /><br />http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/malcolm_x_was_right_about_america_20150201<br /><br />From Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk:<br /><br />"They all need something from him [Specialist Billy Lynn] ... half-rich lawyers, dentists ... corporate VPs, they're all gnashing for a piece of a barely grown grunt making $14,800 a year .... It was just, so obvious, what had to be done ... Send in more troops ... go in blazing, full frontal smack down ... And by the way, shouldn't the Iraqis be thanking us? ... Or maybe they'd like their dictator back. Failing that, drop bombs. More and bigger bombs. Show these persons the wrath of God and pound them into compliance."<br /><br />[Senator Huckleberry J. Butchmeup (R-S.C.), who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, said on Sunday that 10,000 American "boots on the ground" (i.e., bodies in boxes) will be required in Syria.]<br /><br />“When people ask him does he pray, is he religious or specifically saved or Christian, Billy always says yes, partly because it makes them happy and partly because he feels that’s pretty much the truth, though probably not in the way they’re thinking. What he’d like to say is that he’s lived it, if not the entire breadth and depth of the Christian faith then certainly the central thrust of it. The mystery, the awe, the huge sadness and grief. Oh my people. He felt Shroom’s soul leave his body at the moment of his death. A blinding whoom! Like a high-voltage line blowing out, leaving Billy with all circuits fried and a lingering haze like he’d been whacked by a heavyweight who knows how to hit. A kind of concussion, is what it was. Sometimes he thinks his ears are ringing still.”Denis Nevillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-9281472940510426212015-02-02T14:18:26.666-05:002015-02-02T14:18:26.666-05:00Thank you once again for putting it all together s...Thank you once again for putting it all together so succinctly and thoroughly, Karen. And thank you, too, annenigma, for your comment. <br /><br />The "Times" editorial/opinion page that includes "Mr. Putin Resumes His War in Ukraine," is followed by "Putin's Evolution" by Maxim Trudolyubov.<br /><br />The opinion piece includes this statement regarding Putin: "A more rational leader would be busy making sure that the economy was growing and that his base of supporters was happy." He could be describing our “leader” and our government.<br /><br />This rush of biased and unfounded opinions from the NYT make the remarks of last week by Dean Baquet ring hollow: " Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, believes his newspaper - in company with the mainstream media - failed their audiences after 9/11." The word “hollow” does not convey the full significance of the remarks in light of what is presently happening in Ukraine. <br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/opinion/mr-putin-resumes-his-war-in-ukraine.html?emc=edit_ty_20150202&nl=opinion&nlid=37368871<br />http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/opinion/maxim-trudolyubov-putins-evolution.html?emc=edit_ty_20150202&nl=opinion&nlid=37368871<br />http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/jan/28/new-york-times-editor-we-failed-to-do-our-job-after-911Patricia M.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-10309932857779487352015-02-02T13:46:50.870-05:002015-02-02T13:46:50.870-05:00Excellent Karen! Thank you.
Someone named Cedar ...Excellent Karen! Thank you. <br /><br />Someone named Cedar Cat said this as part of his/her NYT comment to their editorial 'Mr. Putin Resumes His War in the Ukraine': <br /><br />"At least the Russians know their news is propaganda. Seems like we're still lapping it up over here."<br /><br />How can we blame people for not being engaged or caring when they don't even realize what's really going on? I'm always surprised to hear people actually believe that Obama ended our wars instead of just changing the name of the mission and expanding them to more than a half dozen other countries. And now Russia is supposedly taking over the world starting with Ukraine. The old Domino Theory of Viet Nam is coming back like a bad penny. <br /><br />The propaganda is definitely working. Shame on the NYT for being the print arm of the propaganda machine. I guess they wiped off the crusty blood from their hands from Iraq and Afghanistan and now they're rubbing their hands together, eager for some fresh blood and headlines. Just think of the new leaks, scoops, and other perks they're earning for being loyalists to the regime. Those will bring in new eyeballs, clicks, and ad money. War also provides the easiest news to pass along, regurgitated directly from the maw of the Beast, pre-formed, to be spoon fed by stenographers. No need for real journalists. <br /><br />Wars make money. The NYT and other news media will always be for war. It's every advertiser's wet dream.annenigmanoreply@blogger.com