A Nation Led By Warmongers- Will We Now Prove It (Again)After The Iran Missile 'Show' Attack?

"Why of course the people don’t want war...But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”   -   Nazi leader  Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, 1946

"I just want to say this very clearly. A war with Iran is madness, and a disaster in the making. Do not believe anyone who tells you otherwise."  -  -Chris Hayes, last night, signing off on 'All In'

"The idea that- regardless of what we have in casualties, we must respond, is absurd.   We cannot allow the idea to spread that the president of the United States can will nilly drag this country into this type of quagmire again.

Every single Democratic presidential candidate should come out tonight and say no war with Iran. Every single member of the Democratic caucus in the House and the Senate should be baking the bills by Tim Kaine, Bernie Sanders and Mo Kanna in the House - and stopping the legal auspices for this war'  -Sam Seder, media specialist on 'All In' last night.

"I think it's very important for the American people to step up and say there should be no war with Iran.  There is a possibility of de-escalation but it requires sane voices and cool heads - certainly from Democrats in congress- who do not want to put service men and women in harm's way and to jeopardize the safety o the American people." - Former Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, last night on 'All In'.

"All you're hearing is the most extreme voices on either side, like the U.S. defense secretary saying he will be happy not to start a war but to finish a war. Then Iran's regime leaders saying they're going to target Israel and Dubai. Then the U.S. president says he will respond disproportionately. So you can see how these countries are not communicating at all. 

All of this is born out of the U.S. dumping the Iran nuclear agreement, which allowed communication between the two countries. That level of commuication now just doesn't exist when you need it the most."  -Journalist Cal Perry last night on MSNBC, reporting from Qatar

"We did not need to be here tonight if Donald Trump had not torn up the Iran nuclear deal. While the deal was in place Iran wasn't launching rockets at U.S. bases, wasn't launching its nuclear program, wasn't attacking shipping in the Gulf. All upended once we pulled out of the deal, so it was a huge error to do it and why we're in the mess we are in - which is a huge crisis of Donald Trump's making. 

At the end of the day the only way to escape a cycle of escalation is to have a channel to properly assess what the other side's intentions are. Just getting whipped up into a frenzy and saying 'they hit us now we have to hit them' is how we end up in a war nobody really wanted..."   -  Jake Sullivan, former national security assistant to VP Joe Biden, last night, on 'All In'.

"This has been wrought by the judgment of a president who was very clear over the course of his tenure that he knows more than all the generals. We have seen the diplomatic corps of the United States utterly gutted. We have policy made by tweet, by watching Fox and Friends.  There is no indication other than in a fantasy land universe that this is the moment we will see judiciousness on the part of the president of the United States. 

The chance that the United Stated will allow a missile attack to go unanswered is very low. .. so now we stand at a most dangerous hour, and this could very quickly become a wider regional war.  So we stand at the most dangerous moment in the Middle East that we have lived in for our lifetimes.."  -  Steve Schmidt, former Republican campaign adviser (to Sen. John McCain), last night on 'All In'


While  the Klingon motto has always been that "revenge is a dish best served cold" ,   Iran  didn't really have quite that luxury after Trump  assassinated Qassem Suleimani in a reckless drone strike mere days ago.  So now, from the news last night, we know it  has launched more than a dozen missiles at U.S. military sites in Iraq in retaliation for the killing last week of its top general, also a popular figure.  But no one was killed, by most recent reports - so it was more a 'display' aggression - to show the Iranian people that the assassination of one of the country's most popular figures would not go unpunished. Hence, the ball is in the U.S. court as to whether we march to full scale war or not. (Current NY Times reporting as I write this is that Trump has 'backed away from further military conflict' -  but we all know Dotard  Donnie has changed his febrile mind on a dime in the past.)
.
The question on everyone's mind is how will the U.S. respond?  Violently,  in disproportionate aggression, given we have a belligerent madman at the helm - and under political pressure from the specter of an impeachment trial ?  Or  smartly backing off with the realization that further escalation is not in this nation's interest, or the region's or the world's? (And after all, Dotard committed the initial true escalation by assassinating a high-ranking foreign official. Definitely NOT a proportional response to a few protests at the U.S. Embassy.)

The jury is still out as we await what many of us fear will be yet another precipitous and disproportionate response which will lead to the worst conflict since Vietnam.  So as we teeter on the cusp of yet another unnecessary war - which will likely make 'Nam look like a walk in the park-  it is instructive to examine how we mutated into a nation that seems to want to start wars more than pursue diplomacy.  

JFK noted in his Pax Americana speech at American University in June, 1963,  that we don't have the money or the resources to pursue endless conflicts.  Given the exploding deficits of this country right now (with military spending annually consuming 55 cents of every dollar of the national budget) , it's high time the U.S. cease pursuing ruinous policies of "Pax Americana" - in trying to force its will on other nations at the point of weapons of war.

How did the American war state get going? How did we reach a state of almost perma-war, with one conflict succeeding another in rapid succession? It helps to gain a historical perspective. If one looks back at the document track, one can pretty well discern that the incentive to meddle in other nations’ affairs – as part of U.S. foreign policy – probably commenced with The National Security Council (NSC) Directive ‘NSC 10/2’ on June 18, 1948. A key element therein warned that all activities to be conducted against “hostile” foreign states – on in support of “friendly” ones, were to be executed so that “no U.S. Government responsibility would be evident to any unauthorized persons.” The provision also had to be included that if such activities were discovered “the U.S. Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.”

Ratcheting up the effect, and consolidating the impetus to Empire- building was the document NSC-68, prepared by Paul Nitze of The National Security Council – completed by 1950. The document essentially contained the blueprint for unending strife and undeclared wars, all of which would be invoked on the basis of a zero tolerance threshold for foreigners’ misbehavior. The putative basis? To enable U.S. agitation, overthrow (or assassination) of democratically-elected leaders, and large and small occupations (ranging from the few thousand troops in the Dominican Republic in 1965, to more than 200,000 in Iraq by 2006.) The motivating force of the document was clear in this regard:“a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere”.

In other words, a warmonger's wet dream. Any place for which the U.S. even remotely construed a “defeat of free institutions” gave it license to intervene at will. This critical aspect is described thusly by Morris Berman[1]:

“Nitze emphasized the importance of perception, arguing that how we were seen was as crucial as how militarily secure we actually were. This rapidly expanded the number of interests deemed relevant to national security”.

In other words, it provided the formula for unending war, and the building of Empire. Gore Vidal pinpoints the emergence of the American Empire when he notes[2]:

“Since 1950 the United States has fought perhaps a hundred overt and covert wars. None was declared by the nominal representatives of the American people in Congress…they had meekly turned over to the executive their principal great power to wage war. That was the end of that Constitution”.


The key point to note here is not only did the U.S. invoke a specious doctrine[3] to entitle it to engage in warfare wherever it deemed the “need” (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.) but also to take out democratically elected leaders where and when they threatened U.S. corporate interests, such as Premier Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran (1953)- threatened U.S. Oil interests, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (1954)- threatened United Fruit Corp. by giving land to farmers, and Salvador Allende in Chile (1972)- strategic interests threatened.Even when specious doctrines weren't invoked, lies and deceptions often were in order to involve the U.S. in massive troop deployments and years of ruinous (to lives and treasure) military intrusions. For example, LBJ employed the ruse of the North Vietnamese firing on the Maddox and Turner Joy in international  waters in August, 1964 as the basis to ramp up the Vietnam War. Similarly, Bush and Cheney employed the ruse that Saddam had "WMD" to justify Operation "Iraqi Freedom" (a bogus name if ever there was one) and invade Iraq - which had not one damned thing to do with 9/11. (Though the numbskulls who watched FAUX News would argue with that!)

Meanwhile, at last count, the estimates (by the World Health Organization) of the total number of Iraqi civilians killed in the Iraq War, exceeds 600,000. And in Afghanistan we beold the ongoing  drain of the longest war on record, going on 19 years, to the tune of $3b a month.  The dead  have ranged from ordinary Afghans slain in misplaced gunfire on the streets of Kandahar to wedding parties obliterated by remote drones. As with Vietnam, when so many innocents were butchered (and others' saw crops destroyed by Agent Orange), this does not win hearts and minds. Rather, those hearts and minds side with the enemy when the mighty power isn’t around or bashing doors down and hurlng terrified occupants on the floor.

But why be amazed that our representatives voted for this atrocity, any more than that they voted for the misguided Patriot Act (in 2002), or the Military Commissions Act in 2006 which repeals habeas corpus, or the 'National Defense Authorization Act'? Do freedoms, real ones, matter any more? How can they when the most despicable provisions of the Patriot Act – which had been due for expiry in February, 2010-   were re-approved by the cowed Senate? To remind readers, these provisions include allowances for “black bag” searches of one’s home and papers without any consent or knowledge- in total and direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. (But since 83% of the country can't name 6 of the Bill of Rights, maybe they don't even matter any more!)  I wasn't personally amazed given I'd already seen callow Dems - led by Sen. Tom Daschle-  rush to approve the bogus 'Iraq War Resolution' in 2002. Thus did congress again cede its war- making authority and give Bush Jr. full scope to start his own war- to follow up daddy's invasion in 1991.

The sad and inescapable fact is that we won't be able to stop either the warmongers or the excesses of the Military-Industrial Complex until and unless we cease to glorify war.  Yes, we know the "lizard brain" still dominates in most of humanity, but that doesn't mean we must give it license to govern and rule our lives - including allowing our whole domestic infrastructure to deteriorate to ruin, while we engage in ever more unprovoked wars.   Or the  current case  we have now - of one unfit to lead lunatic poseur  (Donald Trump) initiating war to distract the news cycle and American populace from  his own political peril. 

As former Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson put it in the immediate wake of Suleimani's murder, when we needed a JFK at the helm we have instead a demented reprobate named Donald Trump.   Watch for this despicable  buffoon to get us deeper into a conflict that we don't need or want, all to appease his own pernicious and pathological ego. 

Update:  The Iranian regime has now admitted two of its surface-to -air  missiles struck a Ukrainian airline with the loss of 176 lives, nearly half of them Iranians.  This was after one of their missile batteries mistook the airliner for a U.S. cruise missile.  Let us note, however, Trump was ultimately to blame for this tragedy by initiating the strike on Suleimani based on LIES and no genuine intel that he was planning an attack on 4 U.S. Embassies. This was  admitted by defense secretary Mark Esper on Face the Nation Sunday.  Trump's reckless drone assassination then precipitated an outcry amongst the populace for revenge, which Iran sated with its missile barrage.  But had Trump not taken out the Quds Force leader no missile attack - a show attack- would have been needed.  The causal chain then traces directly back to Trump's lawless assassination drone strike as the trigger for the train of events that took down the airliner with all lives lost.   See :

Military Technology

Cartoon for January 15, 2020: Other Countries Using Drones to Kill Our President? That’ll Never Happen

----------------------------
[1] Morris Berman: 2006, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, W.W. Norton, page 118.

[2] Gore Vidal: 2002, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Thunders Mouth, p. 124.

[3] Of course, the ignominious “Bush Doctrine” – crafted under the auspices of the 2002 National Security Strategy – was even more noisome and outrageous, allowing for pre-emptive war as it made Iraq the gold standard for precedence. See: Berman, op. cit., p. 203.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

See also:

Donald Trump | Iran

‘So Far, so Good!’: Trump Tweets out Baffling Message after Iranian Attack

And:

Ted Rall

Iran

Iran Is Not What You Think

And:

Iran

To Kill or Not to Kill — That Is the Debate, However Meaningless

And:

Iran

No to Disastrous War With Iran

How Did We Go From Astronomical To Atomic Time?

Me, standing astride the Greenwich meridian which separates the eastern and western hemispheres, in July, 1978.

A question that often comes up during astronomy lectures concerns astronomical time- keeping. Most educated people are at least aware that it's based on the motions of the Earth (rotation and revolution) with respect to the Sun.  For much of the past 150 years precision astronomical timekeeping has been carried out from the Royal Greenwich Observatory outside London. (See images above). This is also the venue through which the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude ) runs, separating the eastern and western hemispheres and which I had the honor of standing astride in July of 1978.  As we were informed by one specialist at the time, this is the location from which Greenwich Mean Time is measured and which clocks around the world have adopted.

First things first, A “time zone” is defined by taking the 360 degrees through which Earth rotates in one day, and dividing it by 24, since it requires 24 hours to make one revolution. Thus, one standard time zone would be generated via (360 deg/ 24 hr) = 15 deg/h or 15 degrees of longitude per hour - so be 15 degrees of longitude in expanse. Thus, time zones (calibrated per HOUR) were marked out by LONGITUDE differences.

Time zones don’t mean anything until referenced or calibrated to a fixed position-location, and that is the Greenwich Meridian, defined as 0 degrees longitude. All longitudes west of Greenwich mark time earlier – and all longitudes east of Greenwich mark times later. Thus, Berlin will always have a time later than London, and London will have a time later than New Orleans, just as Barbados will always have a time earlier than London and later than Miami.

The time difference is referenced to longitude difference for the various central meridians. For example, if London is at approximately 0 degrees longitude, and New Orleans is at 90 degrees west longitude, then New Orleans is earlier than London by (90 deg/ 15 deg/h) = 6 hours. If the time in London is noon local mean time, then it is 6 a.m. in New Orleans.

In order to solve the problem of different local mean times, Greenwich Mean Time or GMT was developed, so people could compare the same clock times around the world. GMT is based on a 24 hour clock defined at the Greenwich Meridian. So, for example, if one is listening to the BBC from New Orleans and the time given is 13h 30 m GMT, then that means it’s 1.30 p.m. LMT in London. Since New Orleans is 6 hours earlier, than that means it’s 7.30 a.m. local mean time in New Orleans.

Thus, knowing GMT, one can always work out the time at one’s location if one knows the longitude difference relative to Greenwich. (Note for the purposes here, I ‘m taking London as having the same longitude as Greenwich. It's actually off by a few thousand feet but negligible in terms of computations.)

In the above discussion the key thread is that timekeeping was a more or less sensible operation, meaning it could be related to an actual object (Sun) and its apparent motions as seen from Earth. The problem is that over the centuries that followed time keeping became ever more abstract and also more refined in the sense the increments got smaller (ultimately reaching the second defined as 1/86,400 th of the time from one noon to the next.

But this required the ultimate abstraction of the fictitious mean Sun.  What exactly is the fictitious mean Sun? What, for that matter, is the fictitious Sun? Basically, the former is that fictitious entity which is presumed to travel always at a uniform rate every hour and every day. This fictional creation enables us to fabricate "time zones" based on the fiction that the Earth turns uniformly through 360 degrees every 24 hours, hence through 15 degrees every hour.

By contrast, the fictitious Sun is not so regularized so its motion is erratic. This is also referenced to what we call "apparent solar time" or "sundial time".  Based on comparisons of the two, one can then compute what is called the "equation of time", see e.g.















The above concepts are, of course, idealizations. In truth, the Earth's rotation rate is not stable over time, hence the lengths of time - especially the second- will be affected. Every tide that strikes the beaches of the planet takes energy out of its spin, through the combined actions of Sun and Mon.

This is good to know because it set the stage for atomic time. Why atomic time? Well, because atoms are not affected by tides.  Thus it was near the middle of the last century physicists decided that the "second" needed revision. Indeed, the second was not the second at all (1/86, 400th of an Earth rotation) but instead was equivalent to 9.2 billion oscillations of a microwave beam when tuned to the frequency of a cesium atom. The clear advantage is that one no longer needed to look at the Sun to set clocks. Thus did Judah Levine announce at one global time conference:

"I have bad news for you, Britain. We are stealing the Greenwich meridian!"

Which brings us to the singular disadvantage of atomic time: It is no longer sensible in the way that solar time had been. While one could mark the passage of time from noon on one day to noon the next and multiply by 60 minutes per hour then by 60 seconds per minute - then take the reciprocal, how could one process - far less measure - 9.2 billion oscillations of a microwave beam when tuned to the frequency of a cesium atom?.

Never mind, the accuracy is needed given much of the world (especially in the financial- commercial arena) now requires sub-second accuracy. For example, for financial clients latency is crucial. This means the time elapsed between ordering a trade and when it actually happens. Even a two second delay in the flash trade sphere could mean millions lost for some high end users.  These typically make dozens or hundreds of trades per second so even a millisecond delay is critical.

Note again, atomic time is not a system that has or needs time zones. It works on Universal Coordinated Time, or effectively GMT applied to every location on Earth.  Since the accuracy of worldwide UT is governed by atomic clocks, there is no tolerance for such things as "leap seconds". For reference, a leap second was last added to electronic clocks at midnight universal time on Saturday, June 30, 2012, with atomic clocks reading 23 hours, 59 minutes and 60 seconds before then moving on to Greenwich Mean Time. (Other leap seconds were added in 2008, 2005 and 1998.)

The leap second is added in order to compensate for changes in Earth's rotation.  But the worry of the atomic time lords is that if we get a leap second wrong it could  lead to global financial catastrophe. For example, if Tokyo markets are out of synch with New York's for even a fraction of a second and thousands of trades are delayed. Or, more technically, let's say for a 2 second period it is not possible to distinguish UTs of 00:00:00 and 00:00: 00 the next time, i.e. after a leap second is added. Then the order of trades would be impossible to decipher.  As far as any financial regulators would be concerned, causality itself would be reversed.

But Britain's time managers say 'hogwash' to this. The Greenwich Observatory position was best stated by Peter Whibberley in 2013 after a failed conference in Geneva:: "Removing the leap second would not be a minor technical change, but rather a fundamental change. Ever since mechanical clocks were created we have always adjusted to model the rotation of the Earth."

But the atomic clock masters aren't buying it, and therein lies the conflict and the basis or failing to resolve the issue.

Former British science minister David Willets, however, is unrepentant about British intransigence. As he notes:

"If we just fixed time by the atomic clock it would, over centuries, diverge from time as measured by the rotation of the Earth. The Sun would then not be at its highest in the sky at noon. The (Prime) Meridian would no longer be at Greenwich but slowly heading towards Paris. Leap seconds allow us to keep the time of day linked to the rotation of the Earth even as it slows. The purists disapprove of this but we should not sever the link between time and the pattern of our lives on Earth."


I for one believe he makes a solid point. Already technological gizmos (see previous post) have majorly impacted social areas of our lives, wreaking havoc in many as they are unable to break free of the electronic social twitter tethers. Now add in disruptions of time perception, where one might look to see an estimate of the time - say by the Sun's altitude in the sky- and behold it is totally out of synch with one's quartz watch.   All this plays into the horrific picture painted by Morris Berman in his book, The Re-Enchantment of the World, portraying a grim time when humans have lost all connections to the natural world .

Do we really want this in the interest of efficiency? At least for the time being any changes regarding the leap second will be postponed until 2023 when the next time conference meets.

Atheists Still Among Most Hated in US Of A - Along with Muslims

How one Reepo blogger portrayed atheists.

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, we now know which groups have earned the most vitriol in the good ol' US of A.. Atheists and Muslims actually appear to be in a statistical tie. While atheism itself is not a religion (it has no consistent belief system or rituals or sacred texts) it is often included in religious polls to help account for those who reject religion, instead of just non-affiliated believers. My own take, and it's just me, is that such surveys usually succumb to a dog whistle type of approach that arouses the supercilious sanctimony of most of the American faithful who thereby  invoke their fantasized moral superiority.

 But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Given the absurdly  high level of xenophobia in the United States toward Muslims since 9/11,largely fueled by the Fox-heads, Murdochites and other Reich wing media,  it is not surprising, but it's still depressing to find these two groups  - containing many upstanding citizens - to be ranked so unfavorably. Worse, atheists are shuffled to the bottom and universally disliked by just about every religious group there is. WHY?

Why are  ‘Muricans so damned scared of us? Well, I suspect for the same reason they’re terrified of Ed Snowden (61% see him more as ‘traitor’ than patriot) and also because they lack the cojones to live their lives as authentic, critically thinking individuals – not merely consumers. So, they amble through the day scared of their own shadows and anything that smacks of being a threat in their little consumer toy world. They are also the toddlers who most want the NSA to change their panties for them, and keep them "safe" - probably lest those nasty Muslims and atheists come after them.

 But that's just my jaundiced view and it could be wrong, or an over-generalization. Anyway, let's get to the finer details.

Among those polled, atheists received a rating of 33 or lower (on a scale between 0-100) from 40 percent of respondents and only 20 percent of respondents gave atheists a rating higher than 67. (I warrant that this 20 percent are actually among the upper quintile of I.Q. in the country, that is, roughly 120 on the Wechsler scale. Hence, the vast majority dissing atheists are uniformly DENSAN.)

Interestingly, while many tend to conflate the U.S. with its evangelical Christian base, Jews and Catholics ranked the highest on the list. Noted Hemant Mehta on the Friendly Atheist blog:

“[…] When you removed Evangelicals from the survey, their own approval rating dropped from 61 to 52, suggesting that Evangelicals think much more highly of themselves than the rest of us do.”

What makes that so interesting is no other groups in the poll have that kind of drop if you remove them from the list. Meaning they may have less political leverage than even they believe. But again, this isn't terribly surprising. As the old cliché goes: "The squeaky wheel always gets the attention" and the evangelicals have received top political attention for so long precisely because they keep so much noise.  Jews and Catholics would more likely be favored because together they comprise more of the populace, and are also much less obnoxious than evangelicals.

But dishearteningly, the data also shows that no religious group likes atheists very much, and also atheists and  evangelicals both seem to be the archenemies of the US religious spectrum, ranking each other under 30 on the scale. I believe in the case of the fundies it's probably because they're so obnoxious with their 'Elmer Gantry' style mode of proselytizing. In the case of the atheist, I believe most critics are simply terrified of us - well, because people by nature fear what they don't understand and most haven't a clue what an atheist really is. (Many imagining the depiction in the graphic)

When it comes to the political demographic, Republicans really hate atheists, which they ranked at 34. The only group Republicans hate more are Muslims, which they ranked one point lower at 33.  This is not surprising, really, because we all know repukes are the most intellectually bankrupt, infantile, anti-scientific, and xenophobic bunch there is in the USA while atheists are among the most scientific, intelligent and independent thinking.  Hence, a mutual hatred would be expected!

Naturally also, among Republicans the stock of evangelicals soared, to a ranking 71, a full 4 points over the second spot held by Jews. This also is not surprising since an anti-scientific, regressive and knuckle-dragger party would naturally be enamored of a religious group that most reflects its anti-scientific, knuckle-dragger values. Or as they say in Barbados, “scheit stick to scheit”.

Democrats were slightly more favorable to atheists, but not by much. They ranked them 46, pushing Mormons under at 44, but were slightly more trusting of Muslims at 47. This also is not too surprising given most Dems today are nominal and basically unthinking  toadies of the corporate state. Since consumption and making money are what’s most important to them, they would not trust a group that appears so “anti-American”, i.e. as to refuse belief in a deity.  (Besides still believing that “most atheists gotta be commies”)

Why is hatred for atheists so universal? This is far from the first poll to suggest that atheists are the most hated religious group (or non-religious group) in the US. For reference, a  2011 poll found that US citizens trusted atheists on par with rapists. With this kind of fervent hatred and distrust, what does the future hold for a group so hated in their own country? Not much – and I would advise any atheist who wants to run for office to latch onto a Potemkin religion – just for show – first. The large native nitwit populace certainly won’t cast votes for you otherwise, even if you’re running for the school board!

 Earlier, in March of 2006, a University of Minnesota study by Penny Edgell, Associate Professor of Sociology, and co-authors, Doug Hartmann and Joseph Gerteis  disclosed that atheists occupied  the bottom rung of social respect for minorities in American society. At that time, we were regarded as contemptuously as communists were in the 50s, and rated in social worth below Muslims, immigrants and homosexuals.[1]

The 2006 study noted that a significant number of respondents associated atheism with an array of moral misbehavior, including criminality and materialist emphasis. In addition, the findings “seemed to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”[2] 

This take is nothing short of astounding given that as a nation and people, Americans are notorious for giving short shrift to the “common good” as evidenced by consistently voting for no-tax, low tax or tax cutting candidates. This despite the fact they know the outcome will starve government of the resources needed to advance the needs of the vulnerable, such as the 17 million kids currently on food stamps - and deprived of enough food because of last December's cuts to food stamps. Seems to me then that these Americans are projecting their own self-interest, miserliness and disrespect for the common good on atheists! We know that this psychological projection is a common device when people feel inferior to, or bested by another group. So they project their own defects onto the hated, perceived superior group.

The truer fact is that Americans (especially the Reeptard crowd who are hardest on atheists)  may not like to confront, is that the U.S. has been committed to a rugged individualism since the country’s founding. The historic confluence of free market capitalism (exalting such individualism) and evangelical Christianity probably occurred in the U.S. ca. 1885 with the publication of the Rev. Josiah Strong's book Our Country, Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, [3]

As author Richard Hofstadter notes, the acceptance of Social Darwinism in the U.S. coincided with the visit of Herbert Spencer in 1882, for a speaking tour. Spencer, for those unaware, was a British philosopher who sought to extend the principles of natural selection in Darwinian Evolution, to society as a whole.  As Hofstadter also points out[4], Spencer absolutely repudiated all state assistance to the poor, needy, physically feeble, or infirm. In terms of the role of natural selection in “social evolution” such aid amounted to unwanted artificial interference in nature. Not to mention, meddling in the “natural development” of a superior society.

We know the Rightist-corporate elite (including many of the ‘robber barons’) latched on to this as a kind of dogma, and then performed another “miracle” of sorts, by blending this hyper-individualism with Christian virtue (proto-Calvinism and its work ethic), and a strict, constructionist view of The Constitution.  That Americans forget this basis for rejecting the common good in the national zeitgeist, while blaming atheists for it, is nothing short of amazing in terms of hypocritical acrobatics. Or it perhaps discloses a tragic absence of historical knowledge or perspective. (Or psychological projection as I already noted.)

In general, the respondents believed they “shared a basic sense of moral right and wrong” with everyone but atheist fellow citizens. Difficult to comprehend when the bulk of those actually in prison for major felonies are members of one religion or the other! And this study emerged after more than 30 years, during which Americans have been led to believe by their media that the seeds of social tolerance had finally sprouted.

 That  these "Americans", who pride themselves as being inheritors of the principles of liberty from John Stuart Mill, Franklin, Jefferson and others, could descend to such an abominable level of prejudice was appalling in itself.  That it could still manifest in the 21^st century is even more outrageous.

Of course, author Morris Berman has noted another, more depressing alternative: that graciousness, tolerance and humanity may no longer be possible in a nation (in the words of Nicholas von Hoffman) rife with a collection of “asses, dolts and blockheads.”[5] A people that choose to live in a self-fabricated  consumer and media fantasyland, or a bubble cut off from all reality. The question is why any sane, rational and well-informed atheist should take a cue from such a forlorn lot or allow their prejudices to dictate future behavior.

The only response of a rational atheist is to laugh these demented yokels off and make common cause with the Europeans who at least have grown up enough (most of them) to doff the religious nappies..

---

[1] University of Minnesota News, March 31, 2006, “Atheists Identified as America’s Most Distrusted Minority, According to new U of M Study.”

[2] Ibid.

[3] See, e.g. ‘The Vogue of Spencer’, Chapter 2, in Richard Hofstadter: Social Darwinism in American Thought, American Historical Association, 1955.

[4] Op. cit., pp. 41- 42.

[5] Morris Berman: Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, W.W. Norton & Co.. page 282. Berman cites a number of authors, including Hoffman, who agree most Americans live in a bubble divorced from reality and take their truth directly from an untrustworthy government or corporate media allied with them, rather than finding it out by their own research and independent thinking.

Neocon Bill Kristol : 'Muricans Are Wimps for Being "War Weary"

I've already excoriated the neocon Robert Kagan and now it's time to go after William Kristol, son of Irving Kristol, and long time neocon blabbermouth and pseudo-moral scold.  What sewage pit hatches these assholes, and how do they manage to get so much media attention? One can argue the media (both 'liberal' and conservative) are to blame, as well as blogs (even like mine) but then if we ignored these rats we'd never know what plans or ruminations are percolating in their febrile brains and how they might affect our already distorted national policy.

After all, what kind of nation projects its "self interest" all the way to Asia and Europe, to the point of scolding the Russians (like some old school marm) for tending to their own national security and self-interest? Only an empire would do that, not a sovereign nation that ought to be first invested in its OWN domestic security - namely providing for its citizens and re-building its crumbling infrastructure (most recently getting attention with the 100+ year old gas line in NYC that went ka-blooey after a gas leak, killing five citizens).

Thus, the hog swill that Crimea entails some kind of American interest is just that, hog swill. Moreover, our leaders - like Obama, Biden and Kerry, in their belligerent, threatening rhetoric (with overtones again of a 'school marm' who's gonna 'punish Putin's defiance'), keep harping on Russian responses as marking offensive moves - when they are in fact defensive.  As I showed in the previous blog post on applying game theory to the current crisis, the U.S. brought this aggressive Russian response on itself by not playing the sequential geopolitical game correctly - effectively pushing its creature NATO right up to the doorstep of Russia. As Col. Lawrence Wilkerson put it 2 weeks ago on MSNBC, how would you expect the Russkies to respond?

Anyway, when one uses deep politics to examine this sort of scenario one beholds the wretched hands of the neocons writ large. These fuckers weren't satisfied with their little escapade in Iraq - based on LIES- and essentially gutting our coffers to the tune of over $3 trillion with over 4,000 Americans dead (plus 600,000 Iraqis) they then wanted to stir up a shit storm in Syria and Iran. Putin helped Obama save face and avert U.S. involvement, then the neocons really got pissed and decided to stir up unrest right on Putin's doorstep, in Ukraine.   Putin, as invested in his nation's real self-interest and genuine geographical security, made the only response he could - a show of force - to show the U.S. and NATO that they weren't going to be able to do whatever the fuck they wanted.

Flash now to neocon William Kristol, whose clones are buried deep in Obama's administration.  This editor of the Weekly Standard, has a new essay up at the Standard’s website, decrying American war-weariness and chastising politicians who use Americans’ desire to avoid war as “as an excuse to avoid maintaining our defenses or shouldering our responsibilities.”

In other words, according to this turd, squandering 3 trillion on a useless venture and with hundreds of thousands killed (over 4,000 Americans) wasn't enough. We're all slackers in the war arena, we are pussies, wussies and wimps. We are no real citizens! 

Kristol went on to claim that the wars in Korea and Vietnam “had more satisfactory outcomes” than those in Iraq and Afghanistan but nevertheless were concluded with “war-weariness,” too. “So American war-weariness isn’t new,” he writes. “Using it as an excuse to avoid maintaining our defenses or shouldering our responsibilities isn’t new, But that doesn’t make it admirable either.”

Actually, this is all horse shit and bollocks. The type of tripe only an ignorant fool devoid of historical knowledge would buy. Vietnam wasn't a necessary war at all, started on a pretext thanks to LBJ - who used NSAM 273 to neutralize JFK's NSAM-263 that would have seen pullouts of all personnel by 1965. Having done that, LBJ then used the ruse of the Tonkin Gulf incident to obtain a resolution so he could pour over a half million American troops into what was basically a civil war-  leading to the loss of 58,000 American lives.

During the Korean War, the  United Nations- American forces approached the Yalu river (separating North Korea and China)  precipitating a massive Chinese intervention from around Dandong.  Thus, the American assembly of client states pushed its hand too far leading to the conflict ending in a stalemate (technically, the war never ended - only a truce was signed. ).

Both of these conflicts can be traced to the misbegotten doctrine NSC-68 , authored by Paul Nitze which proclaimed:

"a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere”

This critical aspect is described thusly by Morris Berman[1]:

“Nitze emphasized the importance of perception, arguing that how we were seen was as crucial as how militarily secure we actually were. This rapidly expanded the number of interests deemed relevant to national security”.

In other words, invoking this specious justification the U.S. had license to project its "sphere of influence" all over the planet - become cop of the world, and impose Pax Americana at will. No place was free from Amerikkan influence, and that meant no other nation could exert its own influence, i.e. within its own geographical region, without coming up against some show of American client state force if it :misbehaved". Of course, any idiot can see this is a prescription for endless war.  If you are going to claim the whole world as your sphere of influence, then any other nation that remotely rivals you in military might (as is the case with Russia) will challenge you at some point, if for no other purpose than to tamp down the yen to empire building predicated on an insane, irrational doctrine.


The final bit of foolishness from Kristol occurred on his approvingly quoting a letter to The Wall Street Journal that claimed the only people who could justifiably claim to be war-weary are members of the military, Kristol goes on to argue, “the idol of war-weariness can be challenged” and that “[a]ll that’s needed is the rallying.”

Let's clear up first that the WSJ letter writer is off base, if only because those "war weary members of the military"  had the option NOT to get involved in any wars at all, OR the military....period, full stop. I am writing of the fact that no one twisted their arms to sign up for the military in the first place, it was their own volunteering that put them into harm's way. And - if they did it out of belief in their "patriotic duty" - that again was their choice. (Ask Pat Tillman about that, and how he ended up killed from 'friendly fire' which the Pentagon tried to hide)

As for Kristol and the neocons, we have known for decades what their shtick is about and it was laid out in clear terms in the book, Neoconomy. That is, foment endless wars, conflicts and brush wars across the world so that the bulk of money is consumed for military bullshit and reckless adventures. Then, leave nothing for the general or domestic welfare, including for infrastructure.

This is why we can afford no more neocons, or neocon enablers, in office.

Sadly even Hillary - a neocon for sure, doesn't get it, so she will get no vote from me in 2016 if she should be a D-candidate. I will vote for Bernie Sanders first, even as a write-in. Enough of this "lesser of two evils" shit. Lesser of two evils hasn't gotten us much if neocons still occupy top State Dept,. posts and dictate much of our foreign policy.

. She declared at some conference: "What Putin did is illegal. It is against international law" (Yeah, like the U.S. Iraq war - which YOU voted for, wasn't!) It is not because we gave the poor little Baltic states NATO protection (Errrrrmm...yes it was!) People need to say that and be very clear that this is a clash of values. (No, it's a clash of spheres of influence and the U.S. has projected its too FAR!) And it's an effort by Putin to rewrite the boundaries of post-World War II Europe." (No, it's Putin's Russia seeking to right the broken promise that the U.S. made, under Bush Sr., that we wouldn't push NATO eastwards! Learn the damned history! You hubby was partly responsible for expanding NATO!)

See also:

NATO's Warmongers:  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-cloughley/54851/the-belligerent-alliance-natos-warmongers

The Washington Post's Anti-Putin Group Think:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54891/washington-posts-anti-putin-group-think

Herding the Media Sheep:  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/gary-leupp/54854/herding-the-media-sheep-ap-blasts-russian-propaganda-war


[1] Morris Berman: 2006, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, W.W. Norton, page 118