Even as many (especially Reeps) have already rushed to judgment on the origin of the San Bernardino mass shooting, former CIA security specialist Michael Morrell - as well as columnist David Ignatius - have warned about getting ahead of the story. Morrell on CBS Early Show observed, while admitting the couple may have been "radicalized":
"They may not have been planning this particular event. They may have gone to this party, got angry and decided to do this event based on that anger rather than a series of plots they were actually planning"
Which would explain the huge store of weapons left in their home, including 4500 bullets and 12 pipe bombs. It also discloses the case may not as be as simple as labeling it "Islamic terrorism' when a workplace anger issue could have been the proximate trigger. Indeed, one of the victims - a 52 year old health inspector - Nicholas Thalasinos was one of the victims and a "Messianic Jew" who also "wasn't afraid to give his political and religious opinions" according to reports on MSNBC yesterday afternoon. One can then easily imagine him getting into a ferocious argument with Syed Farooq leading to him rushing out in a fit of anger then returning with a hell-bent Pakistani wife (who indeed may have radicalized him as some co-workers believe). The argument scenario is backed up by this report from The Times of Israel:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-victim-of-california-attack-had-argued-with-shooter-about-islam/
The piece notes "a heated argument weeks before the attack" but it may well have been revived at the party before Farooq "lost it" and decided to respond with violence. This also may be a lesson for us all, when we gather with family at Christmas to leave out politics and religion as topics for discussion! Because it turns out close family members are the prime murderers though you wouldn't know it from the media reports.
Morrell added one of the most salient points of all and Reepos ought to take note:
"Although they may have been (radicalized) terrorists, this may not have been a terrorist event. It depends on their motivation."
Morrell isn't being cute but simply separating proximate from distal causes. If in fact Farooq was enraged by what Nicholas Thalasinos said weeks earlier or at the party, say that he also "needed to be saved" - then the motive wasn't explicitly a terrorist one, to sow fear in a community. It was to get even with Thalasinos and any perceived as backing his views.
As for David Ignatius, he warned on 'Morning Joe' that it is unwise to jump to conclusions (as the Reeps have done) just based on the names of this pair, and also added that Obama is wise not to move too far ahead of the actual facts.
What worries many of us, as Charlie Pierce framed it on Chris Hayes last night, is how hateful rhetoric may stir the pot even more - leading to brutal attacks on peaceful Muslims just trying to live their lives - and who condemn this recent attack as vigorously as any white Anglo. This take recognizes how hateful rhetoric can prey on weak minds and lead to tragedies such as we've seen lately,
While the GOP candidates' histrionics is now forming a convenient political prop for exploitation, they forget that the actual nature of the shooters is not so critical as their access to mass destruction weapons and the rhetoric that triggered their radicalization. This is where "the bear sits with the buckwheat". Whether lone wolf killers infected by right wing memes (Robert Lewis Dear), or garden variety lone nuts (Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Adam Lanza), or right wing terrorists (Dylan Roof, Tim McVeigh) or Muslim terrorists (Nidal Hasan) - none could have wrought the slaughter they did without: a) access to lethal weapons, and b) having brains triggered by hateful rhetoric.
In the case of (a) irrespective of who or what group, none of the mass slaughters and mass shootings would have transpired if this nation had serious gun laws such as Australia's. (See the end of yesterday's post for details). Nattering gun lobby nabobs always insist "guns don't kill people, people kill people" but that trope got demolished when the first doggie that accidentally plopped on a loaded shotgun (resting on a couch) killed its human owner. One exception disproves the rule, or the trope.
The unholy truth is that most shootings are NOT ideological or random but rather domestic (in people's homes) - either suicides or one spouse (usually male) killing the other after a fiery argument. Assaying all mass shootings between 2009 and 2015, the Huffington Post found that 70 percent occurred in the home. Of these, 57 percent involved a family member or current or former intimate partner. 81 percent of the victims were women and children. These killings were not done by 'crazies' but usually normal people who simply lost it in the midst of a heated argument and reached for the weapon nearest and dearest - a gun.
The true fact here is that over the past several decades, the U.S., which once scrutinized the use and ownership of guns, has now been gutted by the crazies and their lobbies, mainly the NRA. Meanwhile, craven politicos genuflect to them at every turn and even yesterday the Repukes didn't even have the balls to vote for a sane law to close the terrorist watch list loophole (allowing those on the terrorist watch list to buy guns).
In respect of the hateful rhetoric issue (b), no, it doesn't have to be ISIS that creates the rhetoric to turn people into murderous zombies. In the case of Robert Lewis Dear, even in the wake of his butchery at the Planned Parenthood clinic here in the Springs, politicos were making excuses and blaming the target. The Denver Post in its Dec. 2nd Editorial ('Disgraceful Talk After The Shootings'), noted the vile words from Rep. JoAnn Windholz (R-Commerce City) even as the victims' bodies were laid to rest:
"Violence is never the answer but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves"
Which is nearly as disgusting as Hitler blaming the Jews for being gassed in his Auschwitz death chambers because they should have been sensible enough "to leave when they could". (cf. 'The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler', Robert Payne) . As the Post put it, the words:
"are almost chilling in their implicit acceptance"
Not only that, but many of us understand those words as a cue for other weak minds, or frustrated, angry ones - to take violent action.
On the same page, an article ('The Moral Blame for Violence in Colorado Springs') by the WaPo's Ruth Marcus makes this very point and ties the despicable rhetoric of the Right and Repubs in the months leading up to Dear's violent act. As she writes:
"If initial reports of alleged gunman's Robert Lewis Dear's comments about 'no baby parts' prove true - and logic suggests it was no coincidence, the Republican politicians who fueled the overwrought and unsupported controversy over selling baby parts bear some measure of responsibility"
Indeed, and as reported on the front page of the same edition, Colorado Dem Diana DeGette - on the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives- reported that in the course of the hearings eight Republican member used the phrase "baby parts" no less than 33 times. Did they not realize what they were seeding with their rhetoric? I have to believe they knew as much as ISIS does when it seeds the social media landscape with its own PR, hateful rhetoric and propaganda.
The ultimate source of the anti-PP rhetoric is encapsulated again by Marcus:
"The current effort to demonize Planned Parenthood....is a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotapes and overheated accusations. The organization has been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and manipulated by lawmakers and politicians that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them."
This again, re--introduces the issue of the limits of "free speech" and whether it can be prosecuted when it veers into hate speech or terrorist instigation. If we can prosecute ISIS renegades for spreading ISIS crap (like making homemade bombs) then surely we can go after right wingers for sowing mental bombs in the febrile minds of too many of our fellow citizens..
See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/65051/what-rough-beast-slaughter-is-the-standard-in-the-us
Showing posts with label Timothy McVeigh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Timothy McVeigh. Show all posts
Friday, December 4, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
The Tsarnaev Case: Why The Death Penalty Verdict Will Not Bring "Closure"
In 1990, after my wife's uncle was murdered in his home in cold blood, Bajans were up in arms that the two thugs - finally apprehended in Grenada - be dispatched to the gallows to get their just desserts. At the time, in fact, I was a strong death penalty advocate given my belief that a small island nation didn't have the luxury of entertaining life in prison for murdering rats. It simply didn't have the resources, or the manpower to dispense such sentences for stone killers (increasing in abundance since the island became a trans-shipmen point for drugs.) So the best solution was to "hang 'em high". My wife felt exactly the same way.
Then Amnesty International intervened in 1991, filing a suit in British and a local high court (Privy Council) that effectively claimed the island nation was guilty of 'cruel and unusual punishment' in singling certain varmints out for hanging, Barbados was in an uproar. Who the hell were these upstarts to barge into national matters that didn't concern them? Who were these foreign clowns to play fast and loose with our security? (Around this same time, and after a neighbor English girl was raped in broad daylight, we applied for a gun license - but were later told that we might use a machete instead since the wait for guns was at least ten years!)
Eventually, the two maggots who committed the foul deed escaped, but by then we had left the island for the U.S. All subsequent evidence is they were finally caught in Carriacou after 5 years and remanded to Glendairy Prison where they remain - hopefully to rot. By this time, all our vengeful passions had been spent - we just wanted to make sure they never got out again. (New solitary cells at the prison with multiple gates, doors now ensure that.)
This provides some background to my take on the Tsarnaev case, and let me make it clear this piece of terrorist garbage really has no more right to enjoy 50 or 70 years living than the filth murderers of my wife's uncle. However, there is one difference, life in the Supermax prison in Florence, CO would be a "hell on Earth" - as described by one guest of Chris Hayes last Friday.
But, on account of the death penalty verdict the appeals process could last decades, and there is no assurance any of the victim families would find closure anytime soon. (Despite what Jan Norton, mother of two victims claims). A very high price for vengeance. By contrast, in Barbados - before the Amnesty intervention - a convicted killer could expect to be hung within a year. Appeals were limited and the scumballs......errrr ...defendants....usually got the dregs of the island's legal talent to work with.
Not so in the U.S. According to a CBS News report last night, the waiting time is 15 years on average between verdict and execution. And that is only for the states. For the federal government (under which laws Tsarnaev has received it) it could be much longer. One Boston College Prof interviewed said it could well be decades, if ever. All that time, Tsarnaev could be rotting in Supermax.
True, Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2003 under federal law for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, but that was only because he waived his right to further appeals. Make no mistake that Tsarnaev will not do the same. (And the first appeal is automatic.) This is why the family of little Martin Richard pleaded for an end to it all by giving Tsarnaev life in prison. The family's statement read:
"We hope our two remaining children will not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them - which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring."
Another little discussed aspect is that the lethal drugs used in executions are running low and the Europeans are no longer prepared to send them for the purpose of executions. (The precise lethal cocktail drugs are not manufactured in the U.S.) Meanwhile, since Congress reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988 there have been only 3 executions - out of 71 death row inmates.
No one is saying that Tsarnaev should "get off easy" - but at the same time people, reasoning people, have to ask: At what price ultimate justice? 15, 20 or more years of the families dragged before the courts? Easy to say 'Of course!' when you're not numbered among them! But as usual when practical means are often best suited to exact justice, they are often overridden in favor of extremes that backfire.
In the Tsarnaev case, the priority ought to be letting this maggot start rotting - and the sooner the better. This, as opposed to letting him and his defense team lollygag for twenty years or more while the victim families go through hell in multiple court cycles - starting with the defense moving to have the next trial out of Boston.
Then Amnesty International intervened in 1991, filing a suit in British and a local high court (Privy Council) that effectively claimed the island nation was guilty of 'cruel and unusual punishment' in singling certain varmints out for hanging, Barbados was in an uproar. Who the hell were these upstarts to barge into national matters that didn't concern them? Who were these foreign clowns to play fast and loose with our security? (Around this same time, and after a neighbor English girl was raped in broad daylight, we applied for a gun license - but were later told that we might use a machete instead since the wait for guns was at least ten years!)
Eventually, the two maggots who committed the foul deed escaped, but by then we had left the island for the U.S. All subsequent evidence is they were finally caught in Carriacou after 5 years and remanded to Glendairy Prison where they remain - hopefully to rot. By this time, all our vengeful passions had been spent - we just wanted to make sure they never got out again. (New solitary cells at the prison with multiple gates, doors now ensure that.)
This provides some background to my take on the Tsarnaev case, and let me make it clear this piece of terrorist garbage really has no more right to enjoy 50 or 70 years living than the filth murderers of my wife's uncle. However, there is one difference, life in the Supermax prison in Florence, CO would be a "hell on Earth" - as described by one guest of Chris Hayes last Friday.
But, on account of the death penalty verdict the appeals process could last decades, and there is no assurance any of the victim families would find closure anytime soon. (Despite what Jan Norton, mother of two victims claims). A very high price for vengeance. By contrast, in Barbados - before the Amnesty intervention - a convicted killer could expect to be hung within a year. Appeals were limited and the scumballs......errrr ...defendants....usually got the dregs of the island's legal talent to work with.
Not so in the U.S. According to a CBS News report last night, the waiting time is 15 years on average between verdict and execution. And that is only for the states. For the federal government (under which laws Tsarnaev has received it) it could be much longer. One Boston College Prof interviewed said it could well be decades, if ever. All that time, Tsarnaev could be rotting in Supermax.
True, Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2003 under federal law for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, but that was only because he waived his right to further appeals. Make no mistake that Tsarnaev will not do the same. (And the first appeal is automatic.) This is why the family of little Martin Richard pleaded for an end to it all by giving Tsarnaev life in prison. The family's statement read:
"We hope our two remaining children will not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them - which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring."
Another little discussed aspect is that the lethal drugs used in executions are running low and the Europeans are no longer prepared to send them for the purpose of executions. (The precise lethal cocktail drugs are not manufactured in the U.S.) Meanwhile, since Congress reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988 there have been only 3 executions - out of 71 death row inmates.
No one is saying that Tsarnaev should "get off easy" - but at the same time people, reasoning people, have to ask: At what price ultimate justice? 15, 20 or more years of the families dragged before the courts? Easy to say 'Of course!' when you're not numbered among them! But as usual when practical means are often best suited to exact justice, they are often overridden in favor of extremes that backfire.
In the Tsarnaev case, the priority ought to be letting this maggot start rotting - and the sooner the better. This, as opposed to letting him and his defense team lollygag for twenty years or more while the victim families go through hell in multiple court cycles - starting with the defense moving to have the next trial out of Boston.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
The Crazy In The Cockpit: Could This Air Tragedy Have Been Prevented?
The Psycho before he commandeered the controls of Germanwings 9525
The name "Andreas Lubitz" will now live on in infamy along with that of Timothy McVeigh, Adam Lanza (Newtown massacre), James Eagen Holmes and Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold, the Columbine killers. As most of us are now aware, this Lubitz melted down just after the Germanwings flight took off from Barcelona, Spain, en route to Dusseldorf, Germany. After locking the pilot out of the cockpit he set the altimeter's automatic flight path on a dive to 100' altitude. Of course, as we know, in a place like the French Alps, no such altitude would be reached and the jet actually crashed into the side of a mountain at about 4,000 ft. with all 150 lost.
The evidence now in, from German sources and others, is the guy had a "psychotic episode". The German paper Die Welt reported today he was being treated for "severe psychosomatic illness" and actually had been prescribed anti-psychotic meds for "strong subjective overload syndrome" . He tossed his meds away along with the prescriptions (according to reports). In addition, he'd received a medical note of dispensation that he was unfit to fly- including on the day he arrived for the Dusseldorf flight! In other words, this psycho never should have been anywhere near the plane - far less inside the cockpit.
Reinforcing this, yesterday morning on MSNBC, the clinical psychologist Dr. Ruth Wittersgreen proposed how the psychotic episode would have unfolded. First, there would be Lubitz dealing day to day with the stress of hiding his severe mental illness (which was so severe he had to be monitored over time) from the company. Second, if he fell into a pattern of sleep deprivation this would have directly triggered the "psychotic episode".
Amdist all this many have been asking, as one expert did on CNN this morning:
"Why this tragic communications breakdown between those treating Lubitz and the airline?"
Indeed. And here we also have parallels with the case of Aurora mass killer James Eagen Holmes, who was also being treated for severe psychological illness (at the Univ. of Colorado, Anschutz campus) prior to his rampage at an Aurora theater, slaying 12 and severely wounding dozens. Why wasn't this information passed on to the proper authorities? The canned excuse of "patient confidentiality" simply doesn't cut it -especially when the patient had produced violent diaries depicting himself as the "Joker" slaying people in a cinema. This all ought to have been out in the open, shared with the proper authorities.
In like manner, the fact Andreas Lubitz had been issued antipsychotic meds, as well as been issued an "unfit to work" notice, ought to have been known by Lufthansa. This was after he'd reported waking up screaming from nightmares. THEY should have known of his condition in the immediate time sense and by virtue of the medical personnel informing them, not trusting a psycho to share it! Of course, he would be determined to hide it, as we saw. Thus, this incident will militate in the future for medical professionals to directly share their diagnoses with airlines. No more hiding treatments, or "sick notes".
And no more balderdash that "he was fully fit to fly" - spouted out of abject ignorance traced to dated information. With much higher scrutiny, including background checks - not just for criminality- this tragedy might have been prevented.
It also might have been prevented had people -e.g. at least one of his ex-girlfriends, spoken the hell up after he was claimed to have said.
"After tomorrow everyone will remember my name."
Which interjects other famous declaratives issued the day before monumental tragedies, including:
"After tomorrow, those goddamned Kennedys will never bother me again!" - LBJ, night of Nov 21, 1963, to his then mistress Madeline Brown attending a party at Clint Murchison's Dallas home
"By tomorrow our names will be burned in everyone's memory!" - Dylan Kliebold in video diary kept by Columbine killers, Apr. 18, 1998.
Alas, no proactive moves could be made in response to the last, since it was only revealed after the Columbine massacre. On the other hand, timely action for the other two might have stopped an assassination, and a murderous airline crash.
Lastly, this incident is only the most recent in a string of deliberate pilot crashes since 1982 including:
- Feb. 9, 1982: Japan Air Lines crash blamed on captain declared "mentally unstable" (174 lost)
- Aug.21, 1994, Royal Air Maroc flight intentionally plunged in Morocco by unstable pilot (44 lost)
- Dec. 19. 1997, Silkair plane deliberately crashed off Indonesia. (104 perished)
-- Oct 31, 1999: Egypt Air co-pilot yelling "I rely on Allah" crashed plane with 217 on board into Atlantic Ocean.
- Nov. 29, 2013, Mozambique Airlines captain believed to have deliberately crashed plane in Namibia, 33 killed.
While these incidents are rare, in terms of general aviation statistics, they do induce dread in people because we disdain the possibility that a psycho might grab plane controls and take us on a one-way trip to perdition. The only way to prevent such events in the future is to delve into personnel backgrounds for signs of psychological 'hiccups' . No airline (or pilot) squeamishness on this score ought to be tolerated.
No one deserves to be in the position of an unwilling captive on a flight commandeered by a psychotic, left screaming with fellow victims in the final minutes as they approach their certain doom. And hundreds of distraught family members left to mourn in the aftermath. We wouldn't tolerate this BS for terrorists, and we shouldn't for psycho pilots or co-pilots!
See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/missy-comley-beattie/61543/andreas-lubitz-the-adam-lanza-of-air-travel
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-margolis/61566/terror-in-the-sky
Monday, August 4, 2014
Dissecting An Anti-Global Warming Crackpot: Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Satellite image of Arctic at point of maximal Arctic melting. Increasing warmth in the Arctic is destabilizing the polar vortex causing cold to intermittently spill southward into North America
Let’s admit that considering all the morons who know little
or nothing about climate change, the potential for education (or re-education) is minimal - given most
have likely never even taken a high school physics course. This is important because if they had taken such
a course, they’d at least know the differences between heat and
temperature, radiation and conduction, as well as between weather and climate.
At the very least, we’d expect them to be familiar with
fundamental physical principles such as entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics), and not to be running their gums off making
criticisms they can’t support and which problems at root they have little insight into.
Even granted all this, it still leaves a ‘grade A’ asshole like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) as a standout among the morons inhabiting the country – given this joker is actually a so- called “leader”. How stupid is this asshole? Inhofe is probably the most vocal global warming denier in the US Congress, and has virtually declared War on Science in the process. According to Inhofe, anthropogenic global warming is "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state." Is he serious? Evidently! Also evidently – they teach history as poorly in Okieland as they do science.
If not they’d have been cognizant that the “wall of separation of church and state” – while not explicitly in the Constitution, was formulated by
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
It thereby became an unspoken, unwritten principle that has
been practiced on many judicial levels since.
Why am I picking on this cornpone, cornball fool? Well, because he’s once more
stepped into a mammoth clump of cowshit regarding global warming (which I will get to) and likely is
too dumb to even know it. Recall, Inhofe is one of the leading global warming deniers in Congress, and is
well known for having called global warming
"the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American
people." Which makes one wonder
if this Okie yokel even knows the definition of “hoax”. Sure, it’s a one
syllable word but even those can give a dimwit fits and Inhofe fits the
bill. He is also one of the Republican
Party's leaders in the culture wars and is why many of those with similar IQ
love to jump on his bandwagon.
Even before he became one of the biggest, proudest global warming deniers Inhofe already made a name for himself as noted by “Rational Wiki”. Thus, “in the hours following the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
This was after a
building had been blown up by a domestic terrorist named Timothy McVeigh in April, 1995 killing 168 innocent people
and injuring 680 others. It shows clearly the level of assholinity at work in
this troll’s brain – making you wonder how a state could be so clueless (i.e. have so many
clueless, lamo voters) as to catapult him into any position above dog catcher.
Back to global warming!
“Reading things he’s
said about global warming is like
perusing a denier’s
playbook of nonsense” according to one Slate piece on him. Readers
can check them out to see if they agree.
This brings us to his more recent anti-global
warming nonsense. His most recent exhibition occurred barely days ago (July 30)
and some readers may recall the context. That is, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
had submitted a resolution simply acknowledging that global warming exists and poses a threat to
the interests of the United
States
But it was all too much for Inhofe who saw to it
the resolution was scrapped – since as usual it didn’t get the absurd 60-vote
filibuster proof majority- thanks to the Repukes siding with Inhofe’s denial. After
the Dem’s failed effort, Inhofe came
unhinged with his usual claptrap against global warming and calling it a “hoax”
and a “waste of money”.
Inhofe’s action was so egregious, that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
(D-R.I.) took to the floor and magnificently schooled him on reality.
But Inhofe’s shenanigans echoed his stance from
back in January this year, when – after the polar vortex had made itself known
(bringing sub-freezing temperatures to much of the nation) he promptly jumped
onto the bandwagon of the ignorant dolts by proclaiming global warming was
“therefore laughable” because no predictions based on it squared with the extreme
cold temperatures.
He must have forgotten or never processed that- as originally proposed by Prof. Gunther
Weller (of the Geophysical Institute)
more than 25 years ago, a polar vortex
(Weller called it a stable polar
cyclone) existed and was
subject to instability as the Arctic warmed. Weller was one of the first to
predict back in 1986, when I was also at the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks,
AK, that the Arctic would warm up to 7F faster than the rest of North America.
His predictions have since been borne out.
Also, with increased warming in the Arctic
we’ve seen the circulation in the vortex weakened and the vortex’s cold spill
southward – discharging energy and creating
the record breaking cold observed by much of the nation last winter. We’ve
seen some of the same dynamic at work this summer when much lower than average
temperatures penetrated far south (with the jet stream) into the Midwest – sending lows into the 30s. A typhoon that
struck Japan
It’s become a Republican mantra to say, “I’m not a scientist” as if that gives them license to sputter any
idiotic bollocks they want. But the
proper response to a statement like that is what Charlie Crist, gubernatorial
candidate for Florida
And the most aggravating nonsense is the repeated
claim, as from the likes of Inhofe and his denier lackeys, that “there’s no
evidence for global warming” Really? Then how account for the scores of receding,
melting glaciers? Images and videos not long ago made available as in this PBS program, see:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899
http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899
But these knuckleheads would likely merely assert
that “PBS is in on it” , i.e. gaming us with fake footage created in a CGI lab, and
are part of the "global warming conspiracy” that Inhofe and his lot believe in.
What this conspiracy is all about I have no idea, but it seems to be something
along the lines of spending lots of money on more science and less on energy
(i.e. allowing the oil drillers to take over the whole country and turn it into
a shit pile between the natural gas and oil shale fracking)
How does Inhofe get away with this? Easy! Because
like most rabid deniers and anti-science buffoons in congress he’s hugely funded by the oil industry.
In this way the idea of unjustified doubt is sown among a public that
largely lacks a science background. We call this agnotology. Derived from the Greek 'agnosis' - the study of culturally constructed ignorance- it is achieved primarily by deliberately sowing doubt for political or economic ends. The agnotologist and his ilk succeed once the following trope is emitted and embraced by the power structure, as well as ill-informed citizens:
‘There is still so much uncertainty, we shouldn’t invest money to solve the climate problem,’
‘There is still so much uncertainty, we shouldn’t invest money to solve the climate problem,’
As "evidence" that global warming is a hoax Inhofe has cited the Oregon Petition, and he persists in saying that there is a scientific consensus that climate is getting cooler. In 2010, he said that “I don’t think that anyone disagrees with the fact that we actually are in a cold period that started about nine years ago.”
However, I have skewered this BS multiple times, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/george-will-no-warming-for-last-16.html
The media often talk blithely and disparagingly of “conspiracy theorists” – but there is perhaps no bigger one than Jim Inhofe. (And we are talking nutso conspiracy theories here, not valid ones like the JFK conspiracy!) For example, in an address to The Washington Briefing: 2006 Values Voter Summit Inhofe asserted that global warming is a conspiracy cooked up by the UN to destroy America and in his own words climate science "kind of reminds ... I could use the Third Reich, the Big Lie ...”
Forget for the moment if his analogies were correct, and the EPA really was the “Gestapo” Inhofe would be sitting in a concentration camp about now. It shows he knows about as much of the Third Reich as he does solar magnetohydrodynamics.
Who’s involved in this massive conspiracy of Inhofe’s? It seems to vary almost with each time he yaps about it. On one occasion the fool blamed it on George Soros, but later he appears to have added Michael Moore and MoveOn.org to the list of people who are really behind the alleged climate change hoax. At least he’s consistent in picking out ‘small fry’ to be behind such an enterprise, given that 96.2 percent of all climate scientists support its reality!
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/margaret-kimberley/57452/climate-change-point-of-no-return
and:
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/this_is_climate_change_ohios_water_crisis_was_a_manmade_disaster/
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
You’re Damned Right I Want The Scumball Boston Bomber to be a White 'Murican Yahoo!
Timothy McVeigh (left) and Eric Rudolph
So if the bomber ends up being a Muslim and/or a foreigner from the developing world we all ought to worry, especially given the fact our military state is already malignant and eating up our annual budgets. From our own history (see e.g. Oliver Stone’s ‘Untold History of the United States’), when such individuals break laws in such a high-profile way, the U.S. media and especially warmongers cite them as both proof that entire demographic groups must be targeted, and that therefore a more systemic response is warranted. This is what transpired after 9/11, so instead of mounting a specific and targeted police action we went ape shit and launched two all out occupations that will now end up costing us well over $5 trillion.
We cannot afford to do that shit again! And there will be other damaging consequences. You can make book that conservo imps, aka Repukes, will again demand NO defense spending cuts or any Afghanistan withdrawal, despite having already squandered whatever good will and chance for dignified pullout we once had. They will also further expand surveillance by our already overgrown and intrusive National security state as well as other encroachments on civil liberties. (Read: more black bag searches to break into your house, DL your computer content, then put it into black box files at the NSA)
You can also bet your sweet bippy that conservatives will cite Boston as a reason to block immigration reform. Think I’m exaggerating? Look at yesterday’s comments by right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham, whose talking points often become Republican Party doctrine. Though authorities haven’t even identified a suspect in the Boston attack, she (like other conservatives) seems to already assume the assailant is foreign, and is consequently citing the attack as rationale to slam the immigration reform bill. But you can be sure this will only be the beginning. Look for Patriot Act II next with the demand that all Americans carry “papers” wherever they go!
So YES, I absolutely want the fucker culprit to be a Whitey, preferably a white Southerner, maybe former military- who learned how to make claymore- type pressure cooker bombs in EYE-raq.
Insane? Race Traitor? Fuck no! Eminently rational! Here’s the skinny: white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for any mass killings or mass shootings. Just because Adam Lanza and James Holmes each murdered more innocents than the Boston bomber doesn’t mean all white men are now suspect, stopped on the streets and frisked or asked for ID. Even red-haired whiteys (like Holmes) don’t have this happen to them!
Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means white non-Islamic terrorists are typically portrayed not as representative of whole groups or ideologies, but as “lone wolf” threats to be dealt with as isolated law enforcement matters. Meanwhile, non-white or developing-world terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and religions that must be dealt with as systemic threats — the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to civil liberties legislation to foreign policy shifts.
Author Tim Wise accurately observes:
“White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation. White privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”
DOH!!
Given such undeniable and reprehensible double standards, the specific identity of the Boston bomber (or bombers) emerges as not some minor detail. It arguably has momentous significance to our future national policy direction, how much more our civil liberties will be curtailed, how much more our deficits will explode from “defense” spending and how much more anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Xenophobia is spread…..like a cancer. Anyone who can't see this is a blinkered moron.
Moreover, it will almost certainly dictate what kind of governmental, political and societal response we see in the coming weeks. That means regardless of your particular party affiliation, or even if you have none, if you care about everything from stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you better fucking hope the bomber was a white domestic terrorist. Since only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on multiple other issues, hurling us further into national decline. To know this is true is to simply consider how America reacts to different kinds of terrorism.
Now, although FBI data show fewer terrorist plots involving Muslims than terrorist plots involving non-Muslims, America has mobilized a full-on war effort exclusively against the prospect of Islamic terrorism. Indeed, “War on Terror” has come to specifically mean “War on Islamic Terrorism,” involving everything from new laws like the Patriot Act, to a new torture regime, to mass surveillance of Muslim communities.
By contrast, even though the U.S. has endured a consistent barrage of attacks from domestic non-Islamic terrorists, the privilege and double standards insinuated into our national security ideology means those attacks have resulted in no systemic action of the scope marshaled against foreign terrorists. In fact, according to Darryl Johnson, the senior domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, the conservative movement backlash to merely report the rising threat of such domestic terrorism resulted in DHS seriously curtailing its initiatives against that particular threat. In the meantime, DHS, the FBI and others have relentlessly tracked every move of Occupy Wall Street, e.g. http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html
Cruelly and hideously, the 9/11 attacks came just as we had a budget surplus of $400b and the opportunity arose for attention to domestic needs such as infrastructure. The over-reaction to those attacks set us on a full scale war footing that has bled us in the intervening years since. The Boston bombing, meanwhile, came at the very moment the U.S. government was planning to withdraw from Afghanistan, considering cuts to the Pentagon budget, and discussing civil liberties principles and debating landmark immigration legislation.
Hence, and more hideously, the Boston attack could easily become the fulcrum of all of those contentious policy debates and that ultimately depends on the demographic profile of the assailant.
If recent history is any guide, and the bomber ends up being a white anti-government extremist, white privilege will likely mean the attack is portrayed as just an isolated incident and it will have no bearing on any larger policy debates. Entrenched white privilege will work to not only insulate whites from collective blame, but also to insulate the political debate from any fallout from the attack.
If instead of my expectations (and hopes) it turns out to be a radical Islamist al Qaeda operative or derivative cell that did it, watch out! ‘Murica then hurtles further into the shit hole and massive national decline, along with deprivation of civil liberties, more massive military buildup, retrenchment of any progress on multiple fronts. Oh yeah, and exploding 'war" deficits!
In other words, we likely fully enter the dumpster of history up to our collective eyeballs and ears as opposed to just our asses.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
BOSTON MARATHON BOMBINGS A GOV’T FALSE FLAG OP? NO!
I am really getting sick of the Right and its paranoid clowns calling out government “false flag” operations every time they think they see the hidden hands of gubmint! Now, with the Boston Marathon bombings, as before with the Newtown Sandy Hook massacre, we’re seeing it again. All the Tea Creeps are crawling out of their crevices to blame one or more government agency operatives for planting the Boylston St. bombs, to justify the DHS going after the Tea Party and their funny hat “patriots”.
Recall in the case of Sandy Hook, über Clown Alex Jones called it a false flag operation, insisting gov’t spooks or operatives recruited Lanza to kill those 20 kids and 6 teachers in order to plant the meme to snuff out their guns. Despite howls of protest the fucko never relented in this piece of mind- boggling babble and codswallop. No, he’s now double downed on it!
Now he sees the Boston explosions as a “false flag” attack committed by the government. The objective this time: Expanding the Transportation Security Administration’s reach to sporting events. Are U kidding me?
One of the bozo’s actual tweets as reported on salon.com:
"Our hearts go out to those that are hurt or killed #Boston marathon – but this thing stinks to high heaven #falseflag
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) April 15, 2013
Yeah, right! How about UN-Real Alex? Jones on his radio show speculated that it may have to do with the sudden drop in the price of gold, a favorite commodity of paranoids everywhere. He babbled:
“With gold plunging, what could this signify?”
Uh well, maybe that too many earlier gold purchasers realized it was a fool’s errand and switched to the stock market and rising DOW instead (which is almost as big a fool’s errand but not quite) – or maybe heeded my persistent advice and departed from speculative BS entirely to stay in fixed income instruments! Who knows? But to jump to a false flag conclusion without an ounce of documentation is nutso!
We might have never known the CIA link had Cuban- CIA double agent Ignacio Rodriguez-Mena not blown the whistle on them, evidently enraged as he might have been on the flight except his wife was late arriving at the departure terminal. Interestingly, Rodriguez -Mena was also the person former CIA spook Brian Latell tried to implicate as sending a hidden signal to off Kennedy, back in 1963. A claim totally disproven by researcher James Douglass who exposed this subterfuge in his book ( JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters , p. 251. )
Back to Alex Jones and his babble and what defiles all conspiracy research is how he referenced the Boston events to 9/11 saying:
“I said on air that they’re getting ready to blow something up. To fire a shot heard round the world like at Lexington and Concord, and then they do it at this same place on the same day!”
In other words, he’s a 9/11 conspiracist who also believes 9/11 was also a false flag operation, wherein the gov’t planted the bombs to take down the two towers as a way to secure billions in security funding. But history appears to have left Alex and his delusionary - paranoid, "Hatriot" minions behind.
This year, Patriots’ Day also fell on Tax Day, another important date for right-wing extremists. ALSO, few people know that the 26th mile of the Marathon was dedicated to the 26 Newton victims and families. Now, how many gun nuts, their militia pals et al have gone off their rockers the past week calling down the Newtown families and Obama for trying to get a Senate bill passed for universal background checks? Something that ninety percent of normal Americans side with - based on recent polls.
For all these reasons, Jones predicted that while “they might blame it on the Muslims, they’re going to blame it on the Tea Party.”
Somehow I doubt it, Alex! As I blogged on before, http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/03/radical-right-terrorists-need-to-be.html
the Right’s lunatics and extremists always seem to get away Scot-free while the vast bulk of violent hate acts are committed by their side. Typically, yes, either radical Islam or the Left gets the blame, and indeed the Occupy movement had the feds tracking it for over a year spying on its every move,
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html
Something they haven’t done with the Right. But maybe now they should – no matter how much they use the term “false flag”!
Recall in the case of Sandy Hook, über Clown Alex Jones called it a false flag operation, insisting gov’t spooks or operatives recruited Lanza to kill those 20 kids and 6 teachers in order to plant the meme to snuff out their guns. Despite howls of protest the fucko never relented in this piece of mind- boggling babble and codswallop. No, he’s now double downed on it!
Now he sees the Boston explosions as a “false flag” attack committed by the government. The objective this time: Expanding the Transportation Security Administration’s reach to sporting events. Are U kidding me?
One of the bozo’s actual tweets as reported on salon.com:
"Our hearts go out to those that are hurt or killed #Boston marathon – but this thing stinks to high heaven #falseflag
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) April 15, 2013
Yeah, right! How about UN-Real Alex? Jones on his radio show speculated that it may have to do with the sudden drop in the price of gold, a favorite commodity of paranoids everywhere. He babbled:
“With gold plunging, what could this signify?”
Uh well, maybe that too many earlier gold purchasers realized it was a fool’s errand and switched to the stock market and rising DOW instead (which is almost as big a fool’s errand but not quite) – or maybe heeded my persistent advice and departed from speculative BS entirely to stay in fixed income instruments! Who knows? But to jump to a false flag conclusion without an ounce of documentation is nutso!
But we know, those of us in deep politics (talking of the political Left) that the only real, documented government false flag operation was Operation Northwoods, engineered by a cabal of Right wing extremist generals in 1962. I provided 2 pages of the actual seed documentation for its basis -with Freedom of Information Act -released former Top Secret docs. See e.g.
And the documents below the two photos of me shown in London – just before an IRA terrorist attack in 1978, and in Barbados (with 3 nieces) just before we saw the floating bodies from the just bombed Cubana Airlines Flt. 455 in October, 1976- thanks to CIA and hirelings Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lusano.
We might have never known the CIA link had Cuban- CIA double agent Ignacio Rodriguez-Mena not blown the whistle on them, evidently enraged as he might have been on the flight except his wife was late arriving at the departure terminal. Interestingly, Rodriguez -Mena was also the person former CIA spook Brian Latell tried to implicate as sending a hidden signal to off Kennedy, back in 1963. A claim totally disproven by researcher James Douglass who exposed this subterfuge in his book ( JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters , p. 251. )
This is also why no one should believe anything the mainstream media or its talking dopes claims concerning the “man” who killed Kennedy, in this the 50th anniversary year of the assassination.
Back to Alex Jones and his babble and what defiles all conspiracy research is how he referenced the Boston events to 9/11 saying:
“I said on air that they’re getting ready to blow something up. To fire a shot heard round the world like at Lexington and Concord, and then they do it at this same place on the same day!”
In other words, he’s a 9/11 conspiracist who also believes 9/11 was also a false flag operation, wherein the gov’t planted the bombs to take down the two towers as a way to secure billions in security funding. But history appears to have left Alex and his delusionary - paranoid, "Hatriot" minions behind.
As Alex Altman of TIME noted, yesterday was “Patriot’s Day” which has significance for the militia movement. Altman noted that Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Murrah Building Massachusetts , it’s declared a civil holiday commemorating those battles outside Boston
In addition to the Oklahoma City Bombing, which occurred on the 19th, the date also coincides with the deadly raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco , Texas
Another reason to suspect Right wing whackos and Teepees: This year, Patriots’ Day also fell on Tax Day, another important date for right-wing extremists. ALSO, few people know that the 26th mile of the Marathon was dedicated to the 26 Newton victims and families. Now, how many gun nuts, their militia pals et al have gone off their rockers the past week calling down the Newtown families and Obama for trying to get a Senate bill passed for universal background checks? Something that ninety percent of normal Americans side with - based on recent polls.
For all these reasons, Jones predicted that while “they might blame it on the Muslims, they’re going to blame it on the Tea Party.”
Somehow I doubt it, Alex! As I blogged on before, http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/03/radical-right-terrorists-need-to-be.html
the Right’s lunatics and extremists always seem to get away Scot-free while the vast bulk of violent hate acts are committed by their side. Typically, yes, either radical Islam or the Left gets the blame, and indeed the Occupy movement had the feds tracking it for over a year spying on its every move,
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html
Something they haven’t done with the Right. But maybe now they should – no matter how much they use the term “false flag”!
Alex Jones and his paranoid groupies may not like to hear it, but all the signs point to the militant, gun- fetishizing Right ( already freaking out about “Obama using the Newtown
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