Today me and my daughter Ashley went up to Hilltop Mall because we wanted to get photos of my granddaughter Mena taken so we could all have wallet-sized pictures of Mena looking insanely cute. And as we were waiting for our turn at the photo shop, I started asking Ashley questions about torture.
“Torture? Huh? What does torture have to do with wallet-sized cuteness?” Nothing. Get over it. As a blogger’s daughter, your job is to supply input — not to reason why. Okay then.
“Just suppose for a minute that all the Arabs in all the Arab countries throughout the Middle East who have been tortured over the past many decades by various American forces and spy agencies and corporatists — that they all suddenly got together with all the various Asians in all the many Asian countries west of the Indus and Urals where Americans have tortured quite a lot of people, and that all the Latinos from Mexico and all the many Central and South American countries where Americans have tortured untold numbers of people thanks to excellent torture techniques taught at the infamous School of the Americas, and that all the blood-covered Africans from all the economically-colonized African countries where American armies, intelligence agencies and corporations have tortured people over the past many decades since Patrice Lumumba and all the….”
“Okay. Okay. I get the idea.”
“And that all of these innumerable abused victims of American torture all banded together, consolidated all their armies and natural resources and anger and stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and then all of them came after us all at one time? All of them? And overran the entire USA from Boston to San Diego?”
“It might happen,” replied Ashley, “but it probably won’t.”
“Yeah, but just supposing that it did — then my question is this: If we absolutely positively for certain knew that all of these Others were going to do to us what we had already done to them — then how could we possibly prepare ourselves for such an event? How could we teach ourselves to endure or resist and/or even to survive such hard-line torture — like what Americans handed out at places like Guantanamo, Baghram and Abu Ghraib?”
I mean, of course, besides having to learn to endure the torture of having to spend a day at the mall.
“Haven’t got a clue,” Ashley answered. Me neither. How can you even begin to toughen up and prepare for something like that? Perhaps we could do what all too many Americans are already doing now — and become homeless? It takes plenty of guts to survive that. In order to be homeless, you really do gotta man up.
Or you could play continuous 24-hour loops of recordings of colicky screaming babies? Trust me, that would toughen anyone up. Or you could almost drown yourself in the bathtub each night. Or go without toilet paper? Or audition for Survivor?
There really isn’t any good way to prepare oneself for being tortured — except for this one: Stop torturing other people and then hope to God that they will then stop wanting to torture you in return. “What goes around comes around.” Didn’t Jesus say that?
PS: Considering that we were shopping at Hilltop Mall on a Saturday afternoon right after payday — considered by many to be the absolute primo time-slot for shopping — this mall was strangely deserted. On any given Saturday afternoon ten years ago, this place would have been mobbed!
PPS: Well, guess what? America already HAS been “invaded”. And here’s a video from MSNBC commentator Cenk Uygur to prove it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8GMNwDJzgo&feature=share.
In this video, we are shown an image of almost all our congressional representatives giving the prime minister of Israel many standing ovations, even though everything that Bibi had just said goes totally against our own national interests.
In this video, Netanyahu is stating that the West Bank and Gaza belong to him because his ancestors occupied it 2,500 years ago. Okay. But under that logic, then Congress needs to supply the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota with billions — or perhaps even trillions — of dollars so that they can take back the West Bank of the Potomac! Or else we should start supplying Italians with fighter jets and tanks so they can take back Jerusalem — which used to be part of the old Roman Empire.
America has already been invaded — and conquered! — by Israel’s corporatist lobbyists. In this video, you can watch Congress give our occupiers many standing ovations. Do you think that Congress would give the same kind of standing ovations to, say, American union leaders? Or Americans who want single-payer healthcare? Or American college students who want better schools? Or mayors of American cities pleading for better infrastructure? No way!
You think that Israel’s corporatist lobbyists don’t already “occupy” America? In his speech to an Israeli corporatist lobbying association recently, President Obama pretty much says it all when he addresses AIPAC president Lee Rosenberg by his nickname. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/22/transcript-of-obamas-remarks-to-aipac/
“Rosy, thank you for your many years of friendship,” says Obama. “Back in Chicago, when I was just getting started in national politics, I reached out to a lot of people for advice and counsel, and Rosy was one of the very first. When I made my first visit to Israel, after entering the Senate, Rosy, you were at my side every step of that profound journey through the Holy Land. So I want to thank you for your enduring friendship, your leadership, and for your warm introduction today.”
Even Obama is beholden to Israel’s corporatist lobby (and clearly not to the voters who elected him). I rest my case.
PPPS: America has also been “invaded” by its own political and military leaders — who clearly represent themselves instead of us.
Here’s an article by journalist Anwaar Hussain, describing how the people of Pakistan have been used, misinformed and manipulated by their political and military leaders — and how, as a result, the future of Pakistan has been pretty much doomed http://truthspring.info/2011/05/24/begins-the-fire-hunt/. But guess what? The same sorry conditions now engulfing these poor unwary Pakistanis are also now engulfing most Americans too. Too bad for us, suckers. The rich get richer and we get NOTHING.
And then there’s America’s third major “invasion” — by the Federal Reserve and the banksters and Wall Street, institutions that have absolutely no allegiance to America at all but rather to international cartels that play out grim blood-money oligarch games that also suck America dry. And where is the anger here either? Like Pakistan, have we too become just another minor nation of victims who relish the role of being masochists? Apparently so.
More and more, I am beginning to think that I’m completely wasting my time here even trying to write about possible viable solutions to all of America’s woes — or about various sensible ways to keep MY country from being swallowed up by its economic occupiers.
America is going to Hell in a hand-basket right now, and the only solutions to these troubles that our so-called leaders keep feeding us are the same old tired solutions that got us into this terrible mess in the first place — more unnecessary wars, more influence by bankers, more media lies, more anti-depressants (http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/david-swanson/36365/the-small-group-of-thoughtful-committed-citizens-has-been-drugged), more corrupt politicians — and more Americans who absolutely eat up all these faux solutions like they were pieces of Marie Antoinette’s cake.
Doesn’t anybody in America have any common sense left at all right now — except for perhaps a handful of progressive bloggers and some little old ladies like me? Or have any sense at all for that matter?
Say “Goodbye!” to the Social Security Program?
People who have been fleeced by swindlers often had soaring moments of euphoria, based on expectations of “easy money,” right before they experienced the OMG “The Money’s gone!” revelation that “things aren’t what they seem.” The Sixties philosophy of “Don’t harsh my bliss” might be used to avoid any mention this week of the potential for future dangers of the results from the electronic voting machines because good manners would require most conspiracy theory lunatics to let the Democrats revel in their moment of ecstasy. [Wasn’t there a Roman politician who while he rode to his coronation, had a fellow reminding him that “this too shall pass!”?] That would be rude and we won’t touch that topic . . . the hell we won’t !
It might not be very polite to point out that if the results of the New York 26th Congressional District’s special election cause the Democrats to bet everything on that issue in the 2012 elections; it will be too late to object if the results, which can not be contested, produce what appears to be a massive nationwide repudiation of health care (and by extension the Social Security program itself).
Did acting rashly get Gen. Custer into trouble? Should the Democrats read up on the philosophy of an ambush before going “all in” on Medicare?
Brad Friedman has worked relentlessly to bring the issue of the reliability of the electronic voting machines to the attention of the voters who belong to the Democratic Party and if America gets hustled into a humiliating “winner take all” contest in 2012, the “I tried to warn you” bragging rights will be of little consolation to him and other sincere partisan political pundits if he gets the rights to express that sentiment.
The World’s Laziest Journalist will, if the Democrats get skinned alive by the 2012 election results, will have his reaction measured on the Nihilism Meter (which measures from one to ten shrugs of the shoulders) and turn his attention to other topics.
Has Banksy been active in the Berkeley CA area recently?
In his book “Profoundly Disturbing Shocking Movies that Changed History!,” Joe Bob Brigs reports that the film “Ilsa She Wolf of the SS” the lead character, Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne), was based on the real life historical figure of a woman named Ilsa Kohler Koch. Is she related to some Americans who have been dabbling in philanthropy and political causes recently?
John Wayne teamed up with actress Marlene Dietrich for three movies in the early Forties. One of them, “Seven Sinners,” was a tale of life in the South Pacific and we are desperately seeking a chance to see that movie. Is it on VHS? Would that be one of the films shown as part of the Forbidden Island Monthly Monday Night Cult Movies series in Alameda?
Speaking of John Wayne, we’ve watched a number of Western movies on Video tape recently, and have noted that they almost always feature a speech with a hero elaborating on America’s principals of honesty, fair play, and a code of conduct using the principle of chivalry for the treatment of captured enemy soldiers.
We are waiting for some politician to give a stirring speech in Congress reminding America that the country holds itself to a higher level of principles than those exemplified by the Inquisition, Genghis Kahn (of “Citizen Kahn” fame?), and the Gestapo. We have abandoned hope for such a Frank Capra moment to occur in Washington D. C.
The World’s Laziest Journalist isn’t being paid to shill for the Democratic Party and so we feel free to continue our criticism of the Bush war crimes even if they are being embraced by his Democratic Party successor.
Advocating human rights for people suspected of conducting terrorist activities is as outdated and antediluvian as it would be to suggest that the Hayes code be reinstated.
In the 1940 movie “Dark Command,” directed by Raoul Walsh starring John Wayne, the script writer just had to inject some political propaganda and have a character assert that the Civil War was about cheap labor and not over the South’s campaign to continue the efforts of America’s founding fathers to administer the Constitution’s establishment of state’s rights. Is it any wonder that soon after that Congress had to hold hearings to reveal to the voters how communists were infiltrating America’s pop culture to sway their thinking?
Partisan political commentators must always follow the party line but curmudgeonly columnist critics of contemporary culture don’t have to be so boringly predictable. They can, if they choose, vacillate between liberal and conservative from one paragraph to the next. If the net result is to make readers stop and think about what the columnist is trying to say; that may be a clever way to lure readers into starting to think for themselves and not letting Fucks News do it for them.
When George W. Bush first announced his intention of using combat soldiers to bring democracy to Iraq, did any of the critics on the Left think that by 2012 the Democratic Party would be adhering to most of the aspects of the Bush administration methodology such as an attack on Libya without any Congressional approval (or debate even) or torture or attempts to straighten out the Social Security “mess”? Are we there yet?
If the Democrats go “all in” with the Medicare Issue and the results are a Republican landslide, will FDR’s New Deal then be as much of a quaint anachronism as is Howard Hughes’ movie “The Outlaw”? Will the Democrats then still consider critics of the electronic voting machines as conspiracy theory lunatics . . . or prophets?
According to Steven Bach, in his book “Marlene Dietrich Life and Legend,” (page 292) the actress during a radio broadcast to boost troop morale for the Allies, suddenly adlibbed this line: “Jungs! Opfert euch nicht! Der krieg ist doch Scheisse, Hitler ist ein Idiot!” It took Americans a short time to realize that reducing the German’s morale level was as desirable a goal as was boosting the spirits of the American soldiers.
Now the disk jockey will play “See What the Boys in the Backroom Are Having,” “Please, Mr. Custer,” and John Wayne’s version (from “The Quiet Man”) of “Wild Colonial Boy.” We have to go see if we can locate a VHS copy of “Destry Rides Again.” Have a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (Didn’t he get fired at the 1940 Oscar™ Awards?) type week.