A Transcript of Abu Bakr’s Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AviADrhX-v8

And this active wishing for a comeuppance on the clueless for their obliviousness is why y’all never win.

C-233, ironically, I’ve made the counterargument on this very site numerous times, that there are those truly responsible and those who are largely innocent or ignorant. I don’t retract that argument, but the brainwashed partisan hypocrites in recent years, down with whatever their own vaunted leader wants to do, simply for the sake of tribal identity, has begun to bring me around.

@ Ian
Your second to last paragraph is the chicken come home to roost. Nice…

Ian,

A profoundly stupid, contemptuous and presumptuous statement Mandos. Pointing out the perfectly predictable consequences of policies (in advance as well as afterwards) doesn’t mean I want ISIS to do anything in particular.

I was not referring to you. Obviously, with half a brain, anyone can see that you’re not literally supporting ISIS.

I was referring instead to jcapan,

For their comeuppance to be just, they should turn on one another, practicing the violence they have waged on the world’s most vulnerable for generations.

And jcapan’s hardly the only one to express this sentiment around here. There’s a nontrivial “comeuppance caucus” among “guns-and-butter” leftists, Not All Of Them, of course.

Look: there are in fact a lot of clueless and oblivious people among Americans (and Westerners in general). There are a lot of people who just live their lives and believe what approved forms of authority tell them. This is true everywhere that isn’t an outright war zone! I have long doubted that, even figuratively, approaching and considering these people with a kind of generalized contempt is the answer (and I’m probably sometimes guilty of it).

I think a lot went off the rails when that guy came up with that whole “authoritarian follower” meme. It’s satisfying, and probably even true. But I’m increasingly convinced that it’s not a sound basis for a political practice.

If the gays are the only group that’s currently “winning”, it has at least in part to do with an effort to get the ordinary people on board. Which they do. The basic plea of the gay rights movement is that they’re just, well, Queer as Folk.

The right is right about one thing: they too have contempt for the masses but they’re better at putting themselves in the shoes of the people just trying to get by. Even if it’s just to rob them. I’m sure it’s a useful talent for con artists.

I would caution that it’s important not to go overboard on idealized versions of the past. Reality is a lot less clear cut than the (for lack of a better word) “traditional” progressive narrative on Near Eastern political development.

All of those governments (including Iran and Iraq) had very pronounced authoritarian tendencies. Yeah, there’s some truth to the notion they were trying to be more democratic, but this is not a clear cut case of a strong trend cruelly cut short by external forces – external drivers didn’t help, to be sure, but the notion that a lot of these were going to overcome internal contestation is pretty speculative. The issues they were dealing with were huge – those positive developments were happening only in the largest cities and they were sowing even then the societal cleavages that *internal* authoritarian actors were able to exploit so effectively later on.

Similarly, the notion that the CIA wandered around downing governments at will is one that the early folks in CIA would love everyone to believe, but really their influence and success was a lot less in reality than the traditional narrative asserts. The most recent work on TP/AJAX sees profound disconnects between what Roosevelt (and a young agency that needed a success in the covert action field to justify its position) sold as history and what actually happened [it strikes me as being rather akin to hard core Petraeus-ites trying to take credit for creating the political developments that enabled the “surge” – they didn’t create it, they surfed off it and influenced it rather than directed it]. That AJAX “worked” was in very large part luck and due to indigenous actors.

At all levels of American society, there is a complete lack of empathy for the 100s of 1000s of innocents we have murdered or left with butchering cunts for dictators over so many decades. Why I should have one iota of concern for their well-being when they clearly don’t give a shit about legions killed in their names…

Which is it? I, we or their? Are you the “we?” If so, are you saying you have no concern for yourself and will gladly walk to the gallows for the we (if you truly believe you are of the we) and sacrifice yourself to the ISIS leadership (or any other rebel group that at its heart wants the genocide of all Americans and even Westerners) for your (once again, if you consider yourself the we) lack of empathy?

If so, have at it, but please don’t mind if I don’t care to join you. I have every much right to fight for my right to survive as the scumbag leader of ISIS regardless of his idealist strategized rhetoric. ISIS leaves you two options. One — surrender and be annihilated or two — annihilate before it annihilates you. Or, you can see it for what it really is. I leave what it really us up to your imagination.

Brian,

Cold does not miss that as much as he believes the west deserves authority through superiority.

So the “caliph” of ISIS invokes American terror and aggression to justify his own terror and aggression? So what. Hitler invoked America’s dispossession of the Indians to justify the Drang Nach Osten and the quest for Lebensraum. S0 what.

Let the “caliph” of ISIS tell it to ISIS’s targets and see if they feel better about it.

People like Cold are complete imbeciles who believe in the impossible. No empire lasts forever, that is just a law of nature, and America, by consent of their population, has been ratfucking the world since WW2, and now many developing countries are coming into their own, and are going to take their piece of the pie, whether Americans like it or not. Our giant pie share is going to shrink, jobs are going to be replaced by artificial intelligence, including white collar jobs, and there is no plan in place to make sure this transition is smooth, and there’s not a damn thing psuedo intellectuals like Cold can do about it. Oh, and they know it too. They know their power is waning. In America, brown people like me ARE going to take your white privilege, and smash into a million pieces. Cold, whatcha going to do about that? Not a DAMN thing.

In America, brown people like me ARE going to take your white privilege, and smash into a million pieces.

Are you a TSA agent? If so, it’s already happening. White people are being accosted at airports all across America by authoritarian brown people in uniforms. The movie The Reader (recommended) comes to mind.

I was born in Sarajevo five years before the civil war. My parents and I got out before the closed the airports. The Mujehedin who came to fight claimed to be protecting Muslims like my family, but had absolutely no respect for the local culture of tolerance and moderate Islam. They have been attempting, for the last twenty years, to radicalize and harden religious differences in a region that does not welcome twisted Arabic tradition masquerading as Islamic teaching. I have no sympathy for animals like Abu Bakr, because despite their claims they do not fight on behalf of the disenfranchised or the victims of violence.

They certainly didn’t fight on behalf of Bosniaks when they were torching peaceful villages and performing atrocities to ‘avenge’ a people that they didn’t understand and a culture that they hated. These people will use any excuse to sate their lust for violence and their need for control.

I understand that you are mainly focused on the atrocities committed by Western countries, and that is a laudable aim, but I wanted to give you a perspective from the side of the ‘victims’ they are claiming to represent.

@Celcius233

“nothing happens without the consent of the people. Either by commission or omission…”

Sort of damned if we do and damned if we don’t, huh? What does anything I’ve committed or omitted have to do with with the fact that Obama (for whom I did not vote, which would be a sin of omission, I guess) chooses to take the advice of Russophobes like ZBig or neocons like Kagan?
Wake me when we start to beat up on the actual criminals.

Western and Modern Industrial Civilization people tend to confuse WesterModern Industrial Civilization with human culture. Many non-Western peoples have shown themselves to be much smarter than yeast. Prior to Columbian Contact for example, many Indian Nations of the Amazon Basin were terraforming the Amazon to make it sustainably better for humans and nonhumans alike. We are beginning to discover and understand evidence of that fact.

Maybe isolated groups of HandiCraft Smart Man will survive Industrial Yeast Man’s slide to the bottom of Hubbert’s Pit. If the Ituri Pigmies or the Alpaca herders along the shore of Lake Titicaca are the last human survivors on Earth, then the future of Humanity will be in their strong hands.

Or will humans turn the planet into a big, acidic, ruined bottle of wine, all piss and vinegar and dead? For humans, at least.

Unfortunately, in the event of human extinction, the many poison pills we’ve created in the form of nuclear reactors will melt-down and poison the planet irrevocably for millions of years. Unless there are life forms that can quickly evolve to survive in a highly-radiated environment, it won’t be just us that will be doomed. It will be all of life on the planet.

Fukushima alone might have already started the process….

madisolation
July 8, 2014

Wake me when we start to beat up on the actual criminals.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There you go. And it is in the power of the people to do so; so, where the hell are they?
Look around the planet, there’s a lot of rebellion going on. But not stateside…

It seems that cold is just omniscient he’s also omnipotent. For example he brushed over one of my object lessons, obviously it doesn’t amuse him.

Stirling, my comment wasn’t a refutation of your bemusements, but rather an addendum. I look at all this as a group project where we collaborate like Howard Cosell and Al Michaels in calling the Monday Night Shadow Play on the cave wall.

And you’re wrong, it does amuse me — all of it. Life is tragic comedy — increasingly so — and maybe that’s just me getting older but everything these days is ironic satire, or so it seems.

Mandos

I think a lot went off the rails when that guy came up with that whole “authoritarian follower” meme. It’s satisfying, and probably even true. But I’m increasingly convinced that it’s not a sound basis for a political practice.

It’s certainly true, scratch most Americans particularly “liberal” “progressive” or “socialist” Americans and you’ find a raving authoritarian underneath. This authoritarianism becomes pronounced when it comes to how America and American armed forces — including mercenaries, are allowed to behave towards non-Americans.

mfi

Finally and despite what the usual establishment apologists will try to tell you the fact is that the overwhelming majority of people in Irak, and Syria were far better off under the Ba’ath – monstrous though those governments were than they have been since.

Under Saddam Irak had a superb health system which functioned right throughout the country, it had the best educational system in the Arab world, and members of the minorities and women had opportunities to educate and better themselves. They could also live their lives free from fear of being targeted for rape and despoliation simply for being members of the minority communities or women. The same applies to Syria.

What they have now is so close to the Hobbesian state of nature as to be indistinguishable from it.

In Iran since the revolution the living standard of the poorest in society has rocketed as has their access to education and healthcare. A fact usually ignored by Westerners is that the majority of Iranian university students are women. Nor although the female presence in such disciplines as bio-informatics is pronounced is this confined to the “hard sciences”.

The fact is that Western intervention has consistently made life drastically worse for the inhabitants of the region and no amount apologetics or strawmen will alter that fact. The rise of fanatical Islamic military activism is a direct result of the actions of Western governments and of governments allied to them.

mfi

I think for anyone railing against the american people (the ubiquitous “we” or “they”) being complicit/responsible for imperial aggression, they should consider a few uncomfortable facts:

Foreign entities including states (such as Israel) corporations and individuals have more influence on US policy than all the citizens of the US. Think supranational imperialist class in operation.

The US is not a democracy and the preferences of its citizens have zero effect on policy, especially imperial wars, but also social security, health care, employment rights, etc. Even republican voters are consistently to the left of democratic party politicians on every issue. Except gay/abortion/creationism stuff.

If anything is the “peoples” fault, it is, like the Jews in Germany, a failure to seize state power.

By this measure, it makes no difference if you voted or not, if you wrote angry letters or stood on picket lines. It only matters you didnt stop the machine. You are as culpable as anyone else.

Here’s a wonderful method to feel morally superior to everyone. Take the “brave” and daring and controversial position of damning regular working class or lower middle class Americans for the crimes of their government. Needless to say there’s no need to remind anyone of the so-called “Deep State”-that army of career bureaucrats and courtiers that do the business of actually running the government and setting state policy. I’ll take the influence of some asshole who was groomed for the civil service over some clown on tv that represents Nowhere, VA like where I live.

Do the American people deserve blame for the state of affairs. Yes, surely. But do they also deserve to suffer? I would not wish pain on anyone but the powerful. Before anyone starts complaining about “Well Americans ARE the powerful when compared to such-and-such”, remember well that the Elite in the Republic of Such-and-such still live much grander lives than most Americans and most people around this website.

Why must folks continue to try and outdo each other in violent denunciations of the common people? Again, I don’t think my fellow “citizens” are blameless, they are responsible for much evil by their ignorance and apathy.

Also, why must liberals be thrown under the bus? If the liberals are really as authoritarian as assumed then doesn’t that mean they are not liberal-but hypocrites?

Cripes; Jeez. I thought I was a doom and gloomer. (Hence the regular visits here) You make most of seem like Little Mary Sunshines.

Since we are ALL GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY….mass suicide seems the only answer!

You go first.

MFI for the win!

@ cripes
July 10, 2014

Okay, stop talking and think about it. I’m one of the plebeians and my *action* is simple; I have withdrawn all, all, material support from the U.S..
You figure it out as I have and I’m not giving any details for my own protection.
But, I’ll say this (I agree Ian), most Americans wouldn’t take the steps I have to withdraw all support from policies I cannot support. I’m a grumpy fuck because I’m sick of all the bullshit and blah, blah, blah; do something goddamn it!
And posting is not action…

Ian:

I don’t think everyone is against me, I am replying to those that replied to me above.

If Celsius or others are ready to blame common people for “allowing” crimes of state, he should state where his responsibility lies here.

I’m not talking with Noam Chomsky.

I think the facts I stated are indisputable. A recent Princeton U study seems to establish the accuracy of this.

“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. ”

see: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Eric Zuess, writing in Counterpunch, isn’t surprised by the survey’s results.

“American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it’s pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation’s “news” media),” he writes. “The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious ‘electoral’ ‘democratic’ countries. We weren’t formerly, but we clearly are now.”

Celsius and markofireland, both of whom I like in many things, are operating on the ridiculous idea we are living in some sort of “democracy” or representative electoral system. We. Are. Not. You never had a choice.

As Goering said, “the common people don’t want war (insert austerity, mass incarceration, etc)…that is understood.” As I said, the only issue is whether people can build institutions capable of challenging the dictatorship of the capitalist oligarchs, full stop.

Stockholm Syndrome is an ugly thing to behold.

Oh, and Dan, blaming your cellmate because he “allowed” your captors to mistreat you isn’t too attractive, either. And that, to me, is exactly what this argument sounds like–a shifty way of placing yourself out of the range of responsibility for failing to change the world.

I think these are two awful flavours that taste awful together — it is, as so many things are, a false dichotomy. The American voter *is* responsible, in a narrow but important sense, for what has proceeded. But it is partly because “the worst are full of passionate intensity”, the “left” or “progressives” or whatever have never managed to sell their agenda to a large portion of the population, who even, as Chomsky never tires of pointing out, might actually mostly already agree. That too is not actually a contradiction.

But the right has very much managed to convince a bunch of white retirees and “local notables” that their local positions are threatened: “Get the government out of my medicare.” These people have a reason to care: they worship the State as theirs, in its incarnation of the military and police. But the Government belongs to Those People.

I reserve judgement on the rest of Hanson’s “take”, but the part about swimming in politics rings very true. A great many lefties, particularly of the variety that I’ve taken to calling “guns-and-butter” progressives, are enthusiastic policy wants. Policy is what they want to do. Policy is what they want to change. Policy is what they think is important.

Politics, on the other hand, is a dirty thing for many. This is a mistake. The reality is that politics is what primarily is done, and primarily matters. Policy is at best a kind of by-product or effluent of politics. Actually worse: politics can exist happily without producing policy for a long time. The problem is that politics is not optional: you can’t not “play” it, and you can’t accomplish policy by withdrawing from it, but you can’t play it under the explicit expectation that there will be some point at which good policy will emerge. It may, it may not, but it won’t ever without politics.

A lot of guns-and-butterists, the more apocalyptic ones at least, like to talk about thermodynamics as eventually trumping these piddling political games, because the former is “real” and the latter an artifice. They’re wrong. Thermodynamics may (will) kill us all (somehow), but politics is also a force of nature in some sense.

“A lot of guns-and-butterists, the more apocalyptic ones at least, like to talk about thermodynamics as eventually trumping these piddling political games, because the former is “real” and the latter an artifice. They’re wrong. Thermodynamics may (will) kill us all (somehow), but politics is also a force of nature in some sense.”

And you like to peddle a sort of relativism that flies in the face of biology. You did this a while back in the identity politics discussion with a comment along the lines of guns n butter progs refusing to acknowledge blacks having a significant difference in common with other blacks. Here it is again. Youre half admitting to physical limitations while still pimping your pet issues. The “guns n butter” point is that any difference existing between races is trumped by the massive similarities between them, and thus harping on the typical identity politics talking points is actually divisive. We all need to eat, sleep, and shit. Every day, rain or shine. There is a hierarchy inherent to the human experience.

@Mandos

Precisely. Much of what passes for the “left” spends their time debating which humanitarian intervention to support or how to rejigger criminal laws to target men instead of women for transactional sex and so forth.

There is a groundswell of dissatisfaction and rage seeking an outlet that right-wing faux populism is moving to co-op. So Rand Paul becomes their voice.

Failing to sell our agenda to a population that already mostly agrees, we end up saying things like “I withdraw my support” to the government instead.

And people wonder how genocides are possible. They start many years in advance as dispersed seeds like we’re seeing at this space. This talk of “we” is a set-up for the Small People to, once again, take the fall when and if that time comes, and the apparent wish of many here appears to be that time can’t come fast enough.

To be called an “American” is quickly becoming every much the pejorative “Jew” was for centuries. And if you’re a Jew and an American, well, God help you if these people have their way — the gas chambers and crematoriums will seem like a vacation in Aruba in comparison to what they have in store.

Cold worries

Not a chance. I don’t worry at all. Just observe and postulate. I’ve graduated from the worrying phase. Never again.

Cold Holefieldmorrocobamaetc

believes it’s all a group game, commenting, so why point out his periodic transparent lies?
they are all designed to bolster the “American imperialism is flawed but must be maintained
to avoid a multipolar world which would be much much worse” line.

here the lie is

America’s like the Hotel California, though — you can check out any time you like, and you and your ilk obviously have, but you can never leave.

It’s why you have to keep checking back in. The allure and pull is too great — like a massive Black Hole. There’s no way to ignore it. It also explains why people keep Coming To America rather than leaving it.

Firstly, not a few come to America, discover either that it’s much less easy than it used to be to acheive the Dream, and leave.
Then there are the considerable who come, find the Dream wasn’t worth the culture-draining
rat race required to get it, and leave.
Then there are the expatriates who de-Americanize themselves quite well, thank you.
There are even the Inner Expatriates who are part of a quietist and-or not so ultimately quietist
revolutionary core.

Well, since you seem to have declined the opportunity to offer, Mandos, I will explicitly ask. Can you provide some substantive precision re the “guns n butter progressives” trope you keep pushing?

I cant find any consistency to what you say, other than the earlier noted relativist bent that keeps you the constant contrarian. More fool I for engaging.

More interesting to me continues to be how many on the left will go to virtually any lengths to deny any responsibility for virtually anything.
If you have no responsibility, you have no power and you can make no change. Curl up, and die. Ian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ain’t it so, ain’t it so. Cripes just oozes helplessness…

If you have no responsibility, you have no power and you can make no change. Curl up, and die. Ian

You can’t make yourself responsible for something for which you are not responsible. That’s the essence of being an aplogist and it’s tantamount to a false confession which is more common than many perceive.

Informational awareness, with the advent of the internet, is at an all-time high and yet the plot of carnage thickens, or so it seems. Meaning, all this information is not only useless, but it may be a hindrance to effective change because its immense power can be and is co-opted by the very forces that deplore any form of change. The status quo of power must remain unchecked in perpetuity so any notion of dissent is usurped in the womb before it develops, or better yet, it’s artificially inseminated and implanted in the womb so said dissent is the containable brainchild of the focus of that dissent.

Most people who think they are activating and resisting, whether it be in word, deed or spirit, are chumps who will never know it because the mechanism described above plays on the ego.

An Indecent Proposal

Try to be independent. You’ll get my fate. Tell me that’s not the mechanism I’ve described above. Even if my attackers don’t work for The Man, The Man uses them to destroy their own heretofore healthy tissue and organs — like an auto-immune disease.

Again, I’ve written many pieces about this. Google is your friend. I notice also the common assumption that a blog post or a comment should cover every single argument, with footnotes, which is not possible.

More interesting to me continues to be how many on the left will go to virtually any lengths to deny any responsibility for virtually anything.

If you have no responsibility, you have no power and you can make no change. Curl up, and die

Again, your arguments would be stronger if they were true.

Brian M is a case in point about the destructive ineffectiveness of the Left and left. He’s a militant who seeks not a greater understanding and truth, but instead lives to fight and argue because that is what defines his existence. Without it he would be dead for all practical purposes. In pursuit of his addiction, he carts around a wagon full of Strawman he keeps replenished as he plants them everywhere and anywhere like a virtual Johnny Appleseed.

Brian M on July11, 2014

I am amazed, in shock and in awe that you’ve entered that universe of cheeto-dust. Admiration for the courage. It’s easier just to elide, elide, or elide, abridgment is your friend. No need to feed the dark dwellers from under bridges or rocky caves. Notice how some subjects are repellent to such creatures such as the later posting about bookstores, like garlic and vampires it would appear.

Jesus, i go away a couple of days and find more straw man misrepresentations and personal slurs. Ian, included. “Take no responsibility” “curl up and die”

Whats wrong with you?

Heaping blame on the commoners for failing to follow the feeble left intelligensia is hardly courageous or responsible. Maybe its your intelligentsia that fails to lead? Lenin, I think wrote about this phenomenon with scorn.

If ya’ll feel better lobbing insults and knocking down strawmen in your little echo-chamber, blame yo’selves. As far as reposibility (a mealy, blame shifting word) and power, i was, repeatedly clear: The main question is can working people build institutions capable of challenging oligarchic dictatorship?

Thanks Mandos, for reasoned discussion and engaging the topic. Looking back on the comments, I still can’t believe the vituperation directed against common people and anyone who dares to question the wisdom of it. In addition to wishing for their comeuppance there is the laughable premise that lies at the heart of their, well, argument:

“Last I checked, America is still a democracy, albeit a broken one, nothing happens without the consent of the people.”

I have to wonder what the serious pwogwessives think will happen to them when the commoners get their richly deserved comeuppance? It strikes me they are operating under the stale assumption that US capitalism is operating as a national enterprise, extracting colonial wealth to the benefit of a privileged labor class. That’s so 19th century it’s kind of nostalgic. You know, coal miners in Cornwall should pay with their blood for the crimes of British Empire in India kind of thing.

There is still a residual advantage of citizenship in the old industrial economies, but Capital now is internationalist if it’s anything, deploying resources across borders without restriction and parasitically using American armaments and bodies as mercenaries, while depleting the economy of the host. If only the Left was more internationalist.

Of course, having decimated the Left in North America and Europe, there is a resurgence of the right globally, Europe included. I guess we’ll have to add Europe’s struggling workers to the list of those who must pay for the crimes of Empire. Oh yeah, they already are.

That’s the shame in periods of economic crisis, the fake populism of the right steps in to assume leadership of the unemployed masses. Failure of leadership?

Not this “debate” again. Okay, let’s stipulate a couple of things. One, we Americans are responsible for the government we have and two, your average coal miner in West Virgina has little, if any, direct control or responsibility over or for the actions of the empire.

But really, so the F… what!? This entire debate misses a gigantic point and is a good example of the internet meme of “First World Problems”. We have the luxury of this debate which is really just a way for us to score empty rhetorical points against each other. The point that is missed is that why should the victims of our policies care about this debate and how we parse blame amongst ourselves?

If I’m an Afghani burying my relatives because somebody sitting at a console in VA. or NV. made an “oopsie”, I should care that somebody is taking in the shorts in Appalachia or the ‘hood from the empire because…what? We’re all in it together? Well maybe from our perspective but damn sure not likely from theirs.

Celsius 233,

No, I’m not missing the point at all. What I’m saying is that whether one withdraws their support from the empire or whether one hold average joes/janes relatively blameless for the actions of the empire is really besides the point. Sure, intellectual posturing and naval gazing is always fun but the pov that should matter is that of the Iraqi or Afghani examples I an and I mentioned above.

Yeah, yeah, you withdrew your support and cripes average joe is just trying to make it day to day. Nice. You both get a point. So what.

Celsius 233,

Seriously? I get your stance and honestly don’t disagree that much but, goodness gracious are you proving cripes and Mandos’s key points.

By which I mean (I suppose I should clarify in light of the context) that unlike cripes I’m happy to assign blame to the ordinary American voter. For me the questions have been, which voter? and what is the blame-assignment function? and so on, and what I disagree with are the answers implied by the contributions of some of Ian’s regular commentariat membership. I think the answers to the Blame Questions lie much more (uncomfortably?) within the worldview of the weakling run-of-the-mill American liberal than many here would be willing to admit: the standard boogeymen of Tea Party voters, cranky old men, etc.

Then there is the blame to be assigned for those who apparently know better, but do not appear able to change the situation…

I’ve enjoyed watching the usual suspects make the usual excuses. Ducking, twisting, weaving, doing anything rather than accept either reality or responsibility. A few gentle reminders:

Government or rule to be somewhat accurate is only possible with, at the very least, the acquiescence of the ruled. Ruling a population becomes easier as you go up the scale:

acquiescence → reluctant or forced consent → willing consent → collaboration → cooperation → willing participation → partnership

Telling lies to yourself as you pretend that an increasingly supine citizenry do not bear responsibility for their actions and inactions will get you nowhere . The reason why your ruling class is a ruling class is because your citizenry choose to let them get away with it.

American self-styled ‘progressives’ need to get to grips with why despite the fact that their opponents — the American radical right, have repeatedly proved themselves to be incompetent, incoherent, corrupt, and deeply and profoundly unlikable, the American electorate and the citizenry at large prefer them to the American so-called left. Endless excuses are advanced but the simple fact is that when Americans see the ‘left’ as it is now constituted and compare it to the incompetent, incoherent, corrupt, and deeply and profoundly unlikable extreme right that now dominates your political discourse and system they choose the incompetent, incoherent, corrupt, and deeply and profoundly unlikable extreme right as being the lesser of two evils. It never seems to occur to American ‘progressives’ and ‘leftists’ that they are to use an internet catch phrase “doin’ it wrong”. As so many commenters here proved repeatedly with eloquence and conviction they will do anything, anything rather than accept responsibility and work effectively to effect change. It’s your enemies’ greatest weapon and you hand it to them freely.

mfi

mfi,

“American self-styled ‘progressives’ need to get to grips with why despite the fact that their opponents — the American radical right, have repeatedly proved themselves to be incompetent, incoherent, corrupt, and deeply and profoundly unlikable, the American electorate and the citizenry at large prefer them to the American so-called left.”

I agree with your main point but, the above is not really true in terms of electoral preference. On the federal level, Romney and McCain lost, Bush won twice through pretty blatant chicanery and a very dubious Supreme Court decision and Clinton won twice. Overall, whether Democratic or Republican, they all are/were a bad lot but the last really rightwing POTUS elected was Reagan. The Senate has been a stalemate though it currently leans Democratic, the House has swung back and forth and is now Republican controlled.
The radical right has done very well at the state level but, even then, it’s a mixed bag. Where they have really done the best is in the all important media/propaganda war.

You know, there is an ongoing enormous government-and-business funded effort to understand the nature of feelings and opinions and how they originate and how they spread and how they affect people’s choices and actions, and “hardcore” progressives are just so behind the curve on these things its not funny. And what makes it even sadder is that the basic versions of these things are out there either free or cheap to read and use. (Some costs substantial money but first things first.) The Obama team knows about it and partly used it to crush Romney, because they had the “creative class” on their side who knows how to deploy it effectively. But too many people think that scary appeals to Florida sinking under the waves or whatever ought to be enough to counter this…no matter how lucky you get and how well-funded your global warming campaign is, there’s no point unless it takes into account how to sell products.

@ mandos

I happen to think it’s partly because the progressive tendencies with the real answers do not know how to communicate their ideas, and they do not know how to communicate their ideas because they…are not able to relate to many of their citizens,

In a lifetime’s worth of experience in dealing with them I’ve learnt that it’s because as a rule (there are a few exceptions but they’re statistical outliers and no more than that) American progressives are defined by what they lack. They certainly lack empathy as you correctly state above far more importantly however they lack principles and anything that even remotely resembles integrity.

there’s no point unless it takes into account how to sell products.

Yup. But you need to take this further. A slick salesman can sell anything – create one bubble after another. A really good salesman believes in the product he sells and makes his customers believe in it too. A really good salesman creates repeat business.

mfi

I don’t know — America can’t be all that bad, can it? I mean, despite the bad press it gets here and at other venues, people are still lined up to get in. Don’t they realize that they’re clamoring for a reckoning? All these immigrants, legal and illegal alike, who have arrived from 1965 are every bit as much Americans as the “White” Europeans who arrived at the turn of last century.

Coming To America — The Melting Pot

mfi,

Oh c’mon. I was working backwards from the present to the past based on your contention that the “American electorate and the citizenry at large prefer them (American radical right) to the American so-called left” which is why I mentioned Reagan being the last real rightwing POTUS being elected by the electorate that, according to you, supposedly prefers them.

I went to the next level down and pointed out how the two chambers of Congress have vacilated control between the two majors parties over the recent years. Then you derided the vacilation, or the actual changed voting results, as irrelevant and lumped them all into The Authoritarian Party which is fine by me but undermines your point though it’s a neat trick. Sure, if you lump all the politicians of both major parties into one party and I suppose put “the left” outside of that of course you can then declare that “American electorate and the citizenry at large prefer….” because in that formulation Bernie Sanders might as well be Louie Gohmert.

Also, how is saying that the radical right has done well at the state level telling myself a “comforting lie”? Wha…? There’s nothing comforting about that at all as control at the state level is incredibly important and probably has a bigger day to day impact on peoples lives than any other level of goverment.

Anyway, by the generally used meaning of the term, the radical right’s overall electoral success has been so-so and whether the citizenry at large prefers them is even murkier. The big caveat is that they have been astoundingly good at marketing/media/propoganda which matters a lot.

Your original contention was overblown. If you want to amend it by throwing all pols into an Authoritarian Party pot that’s fine by me because, as I said in my other post about the POTUSs, they are mostly a bad lot working off the same generally evil script but, the folks who are putting people of one party or the other into the various positions in and control of government may have a different understanding of the meaning of their votes and who they are voting for than you do.

@ ks July 14, 2014

Reagan’s was the first Presidency to carry out neocon policies. Every single administration since then without exception has implemented out neocon policies. If you want to dispute that go ahead, none so blind as those who wantonly choose be blind.

Your implication was that the radical right was only successful at the State level. I pointed out the truth of the matter.

EOD

mfi

I’ve met survivors and descendants of victims of US incendiary bombing of Tokyo. Likewise, I know several Japanese Americans who were interned in out west, as well as their descendants. And for these crimes, I’ve felt both shame and guilt for what my country did (before I was born, mind you). Turning to our own lifetimes: Let’s say you travelled to present-day Chile and were confronted by former victims of torture under Pinochet or families of the “disappeared,” or if you were to encounter an Iraqi or Pakistani father who has lost a child to American bombs (authorized by warcriminals from both parties), how would you feel? I for one would be nearly paralyzed by shame and guilt at failing to prevent the horrors they’ve suffered through. That’s part of being a citizen. Such natural human reactions mean we too share in the responsibility.

I’ve met survivors and descendants of victims of US incendiary bombing of Tokyo.

How about survivors and descendants of victims of the Japanese Rape of Nanking? So let me get this straight — you feel shame and guilt the Americans didn’t allow further Rapes of Nankings by firebombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Where was the responsibility of all these Japanese you felt sorry for when their boys were raping and murdering with reckless abandon in China? Or is it only White people who should feel shame and guilt, and all other colors are granted immunity because, well, because they’re inferior and “we” have to accommodate that gap with shame and guilt if “we” take advantage of “our” superiority?

Why Japan Is Still Not Sorry Enough

Keen observers know that Japan’s ugly territorial disputes with its neighbors aren’t really about fishing grounds or oil and gas reserves or ancient historical claims. What they’re about is that the Japanese still – still – won’t admit they did anything wrong during the Second World War or during their long colonial rule in Asia.

It’s quite clear Japan is still a screwed up society and it’s not properly reconciled its horrendous actions during World War II. I find it difficult to feel sorry for those who can’t feel sorry. The soldiers who took part in the Rape of Nanking, and some are still alive, are completely unapologetic for their direct actions in that horrible war crime (one of so many). In fact, they’re heroes, not butchers.

@ Celsius 233 July 16, 2014 At present America isn’t a well-functioning democracy and it’s arguable whether it ever was such. I think it more accurate to say that it started out as a republic with functional elements of representative democracy that were in turn parts of a system of checks and balances. What it has degenerated into is an oligarchy with increasingly dysfunctional checks and balances including an increasingly dysfunctional electoral system. But it got that way because its citizenry chose to allow their ruling class to seize ever more resources and power. If you want to be a citizen of a reasonably functional liberal democratic state then you MUST fulfill the duties and responsibilities of a citizen of such a state. Americans including ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ Americans aren’t willing to do that and therefore share in the culpability of their rulers.

mfi

@ jcapan July 16, 2014

I for one would be nearly paralyzed by shame and guilt at failing to prevent the horrors they’ve suffered through. That’s part of being a citizen. Such natural human reactions mean we too share in the responsibility.

Understandable as it shows you’re a decent human being. However guilt only arises to the extent someone is culpable. If somebody tried but failed to prevent these atrocities then while they may have feelings of guilt they do not have culpability.

It’s a problem that first responders often have. “If only I’d got there quicker I could have …” I’ve seen some very fine people have nervous breakdowns for just this reason. The cumulative despair that you couldn’t do more can break you if you let it.

mfi

Back on topic. A few days ago Elias Farhat wrote an article for As-Safir in which he discussed who exactly were ISIL’s allies (see: As-Safir July 11th 2014″Who are ISIL’s allies?” http://assafir.com/Article/20/360602 )
His purpose is to highlight the Turkish role in what he says is a de facto alliance with Da’ash (hereafter ISIL):

1. That prior to invading Iraq, ISIL reached an agreement with the Turkish government allowing the Turks to guard the tomb of Suleiman Shah (Suleiman Shah was the founder of the Ottoman state’s grandfather) and that this access includes unfettered access through ISIL checkpoints to replacement units.
2. That ISIL freed forty Turkish lorry drivers who they detailed in Mosul but killed twelve Arab Sunni imams in Mosul for refusing to pledge allegiance.
3. That even prior to their invasion of Irak that ISIL in Syria had shown they had a very sophisticated comms set-up and (he implies) that this was supplied by Turkey.
4. That the new military equipment especially transport that ISIL needed to mount its seizure of Iraki territory all came either through Turkish ports and then transported through Turkish checkpoints or were supplied directly by Turkey.
5. That about 14,000 ISIL figthers are currently being treated in medical facilities in Turkey set up by the Turkish military for that purpose. In other words that isn’t for humanitarian reasons it’s a political decision. (He says it very bluntly وهذه ليست مهمة إنسانية تركية، بل قرار سياسي بإخلاء الجرحى الى المستشفيات التركية. ) .
6. That ISIL has seized Syrian oil fields and is selling the oil to Turkish oil distilleries all of which are either owned directly by the Turkish government or fall under its authority.

Interesting article from a normally very shrewd and well-informed commentator and one that highlights an all too often neglected feature of this fight particularly amongst the it’s ‘all America’s doing’ school of analysis. Local actors are entirely capable of acting on their own initiative and in pursuit of their own goals and interests. The Turks could have choked ISIL to death a long time ago by simply interdicting their supply lines. Instead they’ve been actively helping ISIL from the start and they continue to do so. The real driver behind ISIL is the Turks rather than the Saudis, GCC donors, and the Americans. The problem they will soon face however is that the ISIL successes in Irak mean that the Turks will no longer be able to kill them off by chopping off their ‘tail’.

mfi

mfi

Would you know some reputable NGO that is getting assistance to ME refugees? I wish to avoid the usual suspects such as the UN WFP, Red Cross, etc., or those either serving political agendas or themselves. Reports such as:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-conflict-how-millions-of-pounds-of-western-aid-destined-for-the-needy-is-falling-into-hands-of-isis-9610491.html
place themselves out of consideration for receiving support, no assurances can be made the aid is delivered as proposed. The UN WFP is more interested in filling my inbox with the latest emergency need, no telling how much is left over after UN salaries are deducted for helping the alleged needy. I would have asked on most recent post but a colderasshole contaminated the comments already. Thanks.

@ Formerly T-Bear July 16, 2014

PS: Agreed about the latest troll. I didn’t think it’d be possible to miss marocobama but bless his scaley hide at least his regular meltdowns were amusing in a pitiable kind of way. The current one is deathly dull, it just wanks itself in public grunting monotonously as it does so. I’m considering organising a sponsored troll drive – surely there has to be one good one left.

mfi

PPS: for “but they’re an explicitly Catholic charity which for obvious reasons doesn’t both me but may disturb you. ” please read “but they’re an explicitly Catholic charity which for obvious reasons doesn’t bother me but may disturb you”.

Really I should proofread better.

m

@ Formerly T-Bear July 16, 2014

I’ve done a lot of work with CAFOD in the past and they’re very principled about not making sectarian distinctions in who they help, in my experience they’ve not been subverted into being an arm of the State or de facto government in a particular piece of territory. Would that the same could be said of some of the better known charities/humanitarian agencies. (And thank you for caring enough to try to take some action to relieve the misery).

mfi

Appreciate the long, thoughtful comment, and I think what MFI said in response can stand in for my own views of what your mother did.

And generally I agree that responsibility, the lion’s share of the blame should be apportioned to those in power, then or now. And I’m aware that 130 comments later that this may be distracting from that admirable, ever-challenging pursuit, but I can’t really buy the degree of moral absolution you seem to be pushing. Your mother, those few like her and indeed the historical record says they were few, sure.

“But what’s the point in blaming the Californians who went along with them?”

If their lesser fascism is to just be wiped clean that’s where you lose me. Should their blame equal Warren’s. Perhaps not, but they are certainly guilty of heinous crimes in their own right, against their god or human conscience. Because racists held power in most southern state houses during the civil rights era, does that absolve rank and file members of the clan who lynched blacks. What of our Nobel-winning drone assassin, who may have received votes from some of us here, do we not share in blame for validating his crimes?

“Orders were orders, the law was the law, and there was a War on.”

Sure, and if I led Nazi butchers to Jews hiding in my barn, there’d be no need for atonement. My hands would be spotless. I guess I can’t quite get around to that way of looking at it, however much the architects of such obscene policies deserve the bulk of the blame.

Absolving those who are complicit is an insult to your own mother’s fine example. What of the Freedom Marchers, abolitionists or war protesters of generations past–if their relatively inactive peers are not to be condemned, why bother to praise their sacrifice. If collectively we’re not at least marginally to blame, why then should are some of us so obviously worthy of praise.

mfi,

“Reagan’s was the first Presidency to carry out neocon policies. Every single administration since then without exception has implemented out neocon policies. If you want to dispute that go ahead, none so blind as those who wantonly choose be blind.

mfi”

What are you talking about? You’ve done sone good work and have some good thoughts but goodness you can be a pompous ninny at times. I didn’t and don’t dispute ANYTHING about Reagan and I’m well aware of what he represented and “launched”. I simply mentioned him as an example of rightwing electoral success at the POTUS level. Now if you want to wave your magic wand and lump everybody who came after him into the same bucket, have at it.

Also, I made no such “state only” implication. Your willfull misreading of my original and subsequent comments is rather odd. You seem to be arguing based on your own fixed ideas which I tend to agree with, rather than what I’ve said.

Oh well…EOD indeed.

Again, I appreciate the response. For my own part, I reject this all or nothing approach. But I’ll let you have the last word.

Which is to echo Ian’s point on military approval, and I’d extend it to consideration of the number of people willing to be cops in this country.

@jcapan

I reject this all or nothing approach

I wish I knew what “all or nothing approach” you were referring to. It’s not mine.

I’ve tried to make clear that I don’t absolve those who commit injustice or atrocity. They are responsible for their injustices and atrocities. And I don’t absolve who passively allow others to commit atrocity and injustice. They are responsible for their passivity. Where I draw the line, however, is in blaming or putting moral responsibility on ordinary people for the crimes committed by their rulers and the elites who serve them.

That’s not” all or nothing,” it’s appropriate proportionality.

Nothing positive for ordinary people is gained by placing responsibility or blame on the least among us for the crimes and injustices of those who actually wield power. That’s how you get situations like the constant murder/summary executions of the homeless and mentally ill by police in this country, that’s how you get such an appalling level of imprisonment, that’s how you get the horrors taking place in Gaza today, and that’s how you find the victims of the global financial meltdown blamed for their own plight.

It’s wrong. Fundamentally wrong.