"We Caved In to the Terr'ists!" - No - Common Sense Prevailed!

"Bwaaahahahaaa! We surrendered to dem North Korean terrorists! We need to remove 'the land of the free and home of the brave'  from the national anthem!  Boohoooo...Bwahahahaaa!"

Gimme a  break!  A major movie studio makes a damned turd of a movie about killing the leader of another nation  - then has the nerve to call it a comedy. Then  its phony "free speech" supporters (e.g. Judd Apatow, Rob Lowe etc.) whine like brats when theaters correctly pull it, unwilling to risk attacks- even from lone American psychos looking for any excuse to kill. And all this  transpiring pretty close to the same time polls have found most Americans (59%) believe torture is necessary in some or most situations.  Sorry, neither the film studio or the ones clamoring for it to still show the film (The Interview)  have any moral compass by which to set standards for anyone!

As I examined numerous online news sites yesterday evening I was appalled and amazed at some of the stupid comments, which have convinced me that most of the assholes who spout free speech blather (and demand to see this abomination of a flick)  are the same degenerates that support torture. Yes, it's entirely logical, as per this comment I read on one website, after the original commenter mentioned needing to acknowledge 'The Interview' was "terrible" and "objectionable for portraying the slaughter of a world leader as comedy".  The hare-brained response?

"It's good we have drones to eliminate those people with opinions like yours!"

This same jingoistic nitwit replied to a comment by me along similar lines, asking me how I could support using the threat of mass slaughter to halt a comedy. I informed the punk, asking him what planet he came from (Uranus?),  that no one supported either the hacking or the threats of a 9/11 slaughter but merely noted that when actions are taken which include making a film depicting slaughter of another nation's leader then there are bound to be consequences. We use the term "blowback" coined by Chalmers Johnson from his book by the same name.  This is why Sony never should have greenlighted this  $44 m mess of a film. It is NOT a matter of "free speech" but of common sense and sound judgment. A sane film studio, then, has the sense not to release a movie about assassinating a living leader - especially after it receives a heads up from thee Department of Homeland Security to the effect that "the film could provoke retaliation."

I also want to know where these self-proclaimed  "free speech"  people were when Ward Churchill of Univ. of Colorado- Boulder lost his job over an essay he wrote after 9/11, entitled "On Roosting Chickens". The obscure essay, dug up by a college sophomore with too much time on his hands, asserted that those working in the Twin Towers were "little Eichmanns" and conformed to the amoral ethics defined by philosopher Hannah Arendt in terms of the "banality of evil".  No matter how despicable you believe the essay to be, if you truly defend the "right to free speech" - you were (are) obligated to defend his right to write it without repercussions that impacted his life station. But no one with any power or in the media stood up for Churchill.It was as if a lynch mob punished him - and let's bear in mind he wrote an essay, concerning ideas - opinions - he didn't produce a film showing the murder of a real person.

Let us accept as a proposition that a nation - like a person- can go insane, either all at once or incrementally if the right conditions are evident and the right (wrong?) stimuli administered. In the process of going insane, the country's populace loses its bearings, its judgment and even common sense. Because it absorbs PR and propaganda it elects fools to office who actually plan to undermine its very security - even as it applauds torture, and making a movie showing the slaughter of another nation's leader. It can in no way ascend to a larger perspective to allow it to see its actions from the POV of other nations. It claims "exceptionalism" but is really not exceptional at all - it tortures like other nations, and lets the torturers walk free like other nations with dictators.  In the ultimate form, the insanity manifests as mass slaughter and even genocide.

Examples from history come to mind, including Rwanda in 1994 after years of talk radio led the resident Hutus to go on a genocidal rampage leaving more than 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered. Then there was Nazi Germany, where nonstop propaganda from the likes of Leni Reifenstahl slowly gutted the Germans' minds and sensibilities - leading them to accept actions, national decisions they otherwise would reject.  My good fortune has been that on two occasions - one in August of 1978, the other in May of 1985 -  I was able to meet and talk to actual flesh and blood Germans from the WWII era. One  (Kurt Braun) who had been a member of the Hitler Youth, forced to join at the point of a gun to his mother's head.

Kurt Braun, ca. Aug. 1978,  shows Nazi era films and how Germans were brain-fucked.

He showed me a sequence of vintage films - starting with Kristallnacht- that clearly depicted how the Germans' were gradually mind-fucked - to the extent that by the end  of the war they expressed shock that concentration camps even existed.  They had to be frog-marched by U.S. troops into places like Buchenwald and Dachau to see the spoils of what their Fuhrer had wrought.

I submit that the loony outcry from the pseudo-patriots and free speech phonies in the wake of this vile film being pulled -  with few people offering opposite opinions, shows how loopy and unhinged from reason we've become. We're more or less on the same track as the Germans ca. 1932, when one third embraced Hitlerian fascism.. It only remains to be seen what sort of fool we elect in 2016 that might take us all the way. Say some bombastic asshole like Chris Christie, with Ted Cruz as Obersturmfuhrer,.....errrrr.....VP..

As for 'The Interview'  being pulled by the theater chains, most dumbass critics don't seem to process that it was left to the chains themselves to deal with the threats . Other than allowing them out of their exhibition contracts, Sony provided nada nor any guidance.. Hell, it isn't even a matter of some actual terrorist  carrying out the threats. Given the U.S. population is riddled with nuts, many of whom own high -powered weapons, it would only take one lone wolf massacre - such as occurred in Aurora, CO in July, 2012-when James Eagen Holmes opened fire in a Cinemark Theater with his AR-15  and killed 12 and wounded 59. Then all the chains would reap the whirlwind, and all the twits now bawling about "the terrorists won" would be screaming "why didn't anyone see this coming and pull that film?"

Flash now to Hacktivist Hector Monsegur - now a security researcher - interviewed on CBS this morning, who disputes that the culprit was North Korea, as the U.S. is trying to claim. He noted first that "something like this to happen, it had to happen over a long period of time, You cannot just exfiltrate one terabyte or a hundred terabytes of data in a matter of weeks. It would have taken months maybe even years to exfiltrate one hundred terabytes of data without anyone noticing."

Which to me, suggests above all a disgruntled Sony employee who - given the content of the film - found it convenient to even leave North Korean 'tracks' (malware written in Korean) to mislead those trying to get to the source. Even Monsegur agreed the North Korean alleged language links don't tell him much as he's seen "Russian hackers pretending to be Indian, and Ukrainian hackers pretending to be Peruvian" - in other words leaving malware tracks to mislead. So we had better be careful before making wild accusations, or taking precipitous actions without 100 percent proof.

When pressed about the North Koreans as the hackers, Monsegur observed:

"In my personal opinion it's not. I mean look at the bandwidth in North Korea. I mean the pipes going in - they only have like one major ISP to handle all the data for the whole nation. That kind of information flow would have shut down the North Korean information flow completely.They don't have the infrastructure, they don't have the technical capability ...they do have state-sponsored hackers, very similar to Russia, to China and the good old USA."

Monsegur also suspects, like me, a former Sony employee (along the lines of Edward Snowden) downloaded all the info off Sony servers and sold it to someone else. Good luck on finding that lone wolf!

In the meantime, this country - now found guilty of the most abject and depraved tortures  (with a majority of its deluded people supporting them) - needs to back off and stop  its moral  posturing including yahoos squallering about the pulling of this disgusting flick out of theaters. And if you,  like the pundits,  make a really big deal out of protecting  "free speech" - be sure next time you support the speech of those like Ward Churchill too. Otherwise, don't waste your breath. Your 1st amendment eruptions don't mean diddly.

See also:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-sony-japan-ceo-interview-20141220-story.html

And:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/18/everyone_caved_how_much_of_the_interview_fiasco_is_actually_hollywoods_fault/


Excerpt:

"emails suggest Sony execs remained nervous about the film’s content, especially the ending. On July 9, Lynton wrote to Pascal, “we cannot be cute here,” saying they could work with “no melting face and actually not seeing [Kim Jong-un] die. A look of horror as the fire approaches is probably what we need.” Rogen, while willing to play ball, appears reluctant to completely scuttle the visuals in this Sept. 25 email to Pascal: “There are currently four burn marks on his face. We will take out three of them, leaving only one. We reduce the flaming hair by 50% … The head explosion can’t be more obscured than it is because we honestly feel that if it’s any more obscured you won’t be able to tell its exploding and the joke won’t work.”

Lynton and Pascal ultimately allowed the film’s ending despite their misgivings and despite the industry’s general reluctance (see Sacha Baron Cohen’s “The Dictator,” a Gadhafi-style fictional tyrant leading a made-up country) to directly provoke volatile dictators in the first place. They had a lot of money wrapped up in the project, after all, and Sony’s job is to make entertainments that make money. 

If You're Against Radical Jihadists - You Need to OPPOSE Attacks on Syria!

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
— Martin Luther King, Jr.,

"As always, the war’s stated purpose — “a punitive strike against the Syrian government” — is just a cover story. The U.S. and its possible allies, France and Great Britain, all have an interest in regaining influence in Syria, which requires Assad’s collapse. But beyond the geopolitics, there are deeper and darker hidden motives for launching a bright new war. We, or at least our government and the economic interests it serves, are addicted to war. This addiction is the Washington consensus. Almost every politician who rises to prominence has to embrace this consensus."- Robert C. Koehler,  'Stopping A War Before It Starts', smirkingchimp.com today


The image this morning (on CBS's Early show) of rebels standing over butchered, headless bodies ought to be a last wake up call for Americans, i.e.  who the hell might comprise a large portion of Assad's opposition. It also brought to mind the video  images of a few months ago, when a rebel dug his paws into a downed Syrian regime defender, ripped out his heart, and ate part of it. Look, these oppositionists are not angels. (Assad sure as shit isn't either, but that's the point! It's an internal civil war between Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam!) Also we still don't know - despite even smarmy liberal bloviators - that this opposition or factions within it,  didn't actually launch the gas attacks to drag the U.S. into the fray. It's not incomprehensible, and despite all Kerry's gum flapping he hasn't presented any forensic evidence showing the gas was industrially manufactured - as opposed to home made.

On Steve Koroacki's MSNBC program ('UP') Sunday, guest Hillary Mann Leverett, professor at American University, came out swinging and gave a wake up call to the mainly pro-attack zombies:

'What if Assad didn't order this? What if this wasn't a Syrian troop chemical attack. What if this was perpetrated by al Qaeda affiliated oppositionists. The consequences here for going into Syria are even more grave than Iraq. Because if we go into Syria and the al Qaeda groups get away with mass chemical warfare- and that's what happened - and we think they're going to stop there - that's the definition of insanity."


Prof. Leverett then pointed out that the Russians and Chinese didn't pull their people out of Syria like the U.S.  but went to the last chemical weapons attack sites in March. What did they find? According to her:

"They did forensics on the ground themselves and found two striking things which have not been covered here in the press at home: One was that the rockets used to deliver those chemicals were home made rockets. Not military or industrially produced. The other thing they found is that the sarin was not military ordnance or industrially produced, it didn't include stabilizers. So maybe the Russians have a point."

Why haven't these been covered by the media at home? Maybe because they're as hot to trot for an attack as Obama and the M-I-C is! Maybe because they can't wait to televise another late night attack with flashes and noise that they seem to believe subs as a real life video game. But....the people on the ground won't be laughing or entertained.


Okay, let's cut the crap. Despite all the Neoliberal warmongering and pundit baloney and BS that  this planned attack on Syria is a "punishment operation" - let me make clear for all remaining sentient citizens that it's an act of war and will be perceived as such by Syria and its allies. Hence, it will invite retaliation and likely massive retaliation! There is no soft soaping this - and what is ambiguated by an above-the- law Empire as "punishment" will be seen by the sentient and sensible global citizen as a pre-emptive,  aggressive strike against a sovereign state - that hasn't killed one single American or demonstrably been proven to affect American interests.


It's not just me, a "rabid" die-hard liberal (actually socialist) saying this either! Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies(appearing on MSNBC's 'The Cycle yesterday )  laid it on the line that NO , the U.S. isn't "following the world" (on any issuance of a "red line")  to address any humanitarian concerns in Syria,  it is pushing the world to follow its lead. But he added that this could have severe repercussions because no matter what we believe, our aggression and attacks will be regarded by the Syrians (as well as the Russians, Iran) as an act of war- inviting full retaliation which could assume myriad forms - from massive cyber attacks, knocking down power grids,  to Iranian missile attacks on the U.S. fleet, to Russian bombing of U.S. destroyers in retaliation for any collateral damage.

Lt. Col. Shaffer  also warned of the possibility of  accidental killing of their technicians,  who help maintain the Syrian air force. Think Putin wouldn't retaliate for killing Russian techs or other personnel? Think again!

And again, keep in mind the images of the radical jihadists we've already seen. Why are so damned many elites - who really don't have that much  real skin in the game (other than egos) -  convinced the jihadists are in the minority? And because of the assumption of jihadi minority status or having no part in the gas attacks, the U.S. can feel free to hurl cruise missiles into Syria.  Could it be an inability to think?  This is the hypothesis of the late Chalmers Johnson, in his book: Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. 

Johnson references Hanna Arendt's A Report on the Banality of Evil (p. 21) and the model of Adolf Eichmann as a "desk murderer" which also applied (according to Johnson) to  George W. Bush. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who "order remote controlled killing of the modern sort" including "the firing of cruise missiles from a warship at sea " or the "firing of a Hellfire missile from a Predator, unmanned aerial vehicle controlled by 'pilots' thousands of miles away". These cowards are also "desk murderers" and every bit the contributors to the banality of evil as Eichmann.

How do people, including leaders, become "desk murderers"? Johnson notes (p. 22):

"First, they lose the ability to think because, according to Arendt, 'thinking conditions men against evil doing'".

What  she means is that before one commits an evil act, if he THINKS properly first, he will insert the act into a frame of exterior reference to forecast the effects on all those affected. Like a chess player, he will be able to see 6-10 moves ahead on how he can't advance a certain aggressive plan (i.e. taking the opponent's queen) without serious penalty. Hence,  the thinker will see the adverse consequences his act will lead to, and back away from the precipice.

Let us bear in mind again, as I wrote before, many evil acts are committed with good intentions. The evil then inheres in improper thinking,  which feeds the creation of false beliefs i.e. "We must be the world's guardians of  international norms, law and morality and it's our right to punish all other nations if they act bad." And then leads to an apparent rationally justified evil act.

Johnson goes on (ibid.):

"Jerome Kohn adds, 'With some degree of confidence it may be said that the ability to think, which Eichmann lacked, is the precondition of judging, and that the refusal as well as the inability to judge- to imagine before your eyes the others whom your judgment represents and to whom it responds, invite evil to enter and infect the world'. To lack a personal conscience means 'never to start the soundless, solitary dialogue we call thinking."

What must the putative leader be wary of, whether military or political? According to Johnson (ibid.):

"Instantly and unthinkingly following orders, submission to clichés, stock phrases and adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct - which have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality. That is, against the claim on our thinking attention which all events and facts arouse by virtue of their existence."

Instead of going all around the G-20 in St Petersburg and trying to badger the assembled delegates into joining him in an act of evil folly, Obama needs to find a quiet room, and in his solitary being,  think of what he is emotively planning to do:  inflicting this long distance "limited punishment" on Syria. If he is still able to think and has not been overly preconditioned by conventional responses,  mental artifacts and expected codes (or HIS OWN "red lines"), he will see what he thinks is a national "good" is not the answer.

Let us hope he follows this advice!

On a further note, it's been reported (e.g. at salon.com) this morning that Pope Francis has urged leaders of the Group of 20 to abandon the “futile pursuit” of a military solution in Syria and work instead for dialogue and negotiation to end the conflict.  Obama, you paying attention?

See also:   http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/51460/all-scrubbed-up-nowhere-to-show

and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-c-koehler/51459/stopping-a-war-before-it-starts

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/51820/syrian-rebels-embrace-al-qaeda