- "Beijing isn't playing fair! Why isn't this backwards, uppity country doing what I want? Play American, assholes, or we'll start prying at your world interests!" They even say "Old-fashioned balance-of-power style diplomacy." Well, we internationalists are back on familiar grounds....
- "Hey, you can't go spying on diplomats when we're telling the truth! You have to wait for the canned messages. We're servants of the empire, not some common riffraff you can put on a surveillance camera!"
- First Bush, now Palin. I'm starting to think mis-speak is a conservative tactic to win over the less literate element in society, maybe some kind of linguistic anti-intellectual meme?
- Small business Saturday: little businesses are just baby big-businesses. But of course in today's political environ, the capitalist titans are in turmoil and the aging petty bourgeois, stirred by their decades of mis-education by mass media, are gaining confidence.
- Entrapment: nuff said on the case of the Christmas tree kid. "Mohamud believed he was receiving help from a larger ring of jihadists as he communicated with undercover federal agents, but no foreign terrorist organization was directing him, according to a law-enforcement official." The government is in constant threat of being torn down from all directions. All they need to do is find the group they want lynched and lure out the weirdos. Then its "OH NO SOMALIS." "OH NO, MUSLIMS." When thirty years ago it was "OH NO COMMUNISTS." And thirty years before that, "OH NO FASCISTS." There are so-called patriots in our midst who'd overthrow the government if they thought they could set up a goddamn dictatorship, and throw out all the colored folks.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
the front lines are everywhere
Here are some scattered articles about American fascism and decline.
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5 comments:
I am not sure you can call the Christmas tree incident entrapment. Since he already showed intent by trying to contact outside help for an attack, and the police seem to have merely provide him an opportunity then it is not entrapment. If you are saying that the official line is a lie, that the idea solely came from and was solely encouraged by officers of the law, then I can't argue as I do not know whether that is true or not. But if it happened as I read it, it is not entrapment if the police only provide you the opportunity and capability, (or in the case fake capabilities) to perform the illegal act.
Also, I find myself a little sympathetic to the diplomats because it is sort of like an e-mail. Imagine having your e-mails published al over with your candid thoughts for the whole world to see. I find it slightly unfair. I have been more frank about people when discussing them with others in e-mails, and wouldn't want it known by them.
Also, I don't get your statement on small business vs big business? Are you saying any privately owned business is bad? Was it just an attempt at sarcasm?
My particular point isn't about his intent, it's about the intent on the part of the government. What was this move calculated to do? What message are they trying to send to the Somali community here in America? They literally had to go out of their way to find him and arrest him, it's an unconventional use of resources.
Re: Wikileaks, this isn't just about clerks sending an email. From the Guardian: "Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Hillary Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA."
We're talking about using diplomats as spies.
Also, every corporation started as a small business. Family businesses, NGOs, and non-profits treat their employees worse than many corporations (leaving out the industrial sector in developing nations, now, just talking about white-collar and service-sector America). Mom and pop are alright, unless they're acting like Momma and Poppa Napoleon. How many workers are trapped in independent diners, franchises, and retail outlets, denied their rights to a democratic workplace?
I am not sure if it had to be out of their way. It says that he was searching for contacts in the terrorist community for help to do something, which could easily put him on the radar. You may be right and there was some secret underlying maliciousness but if the story is true as it is told, I find nothing immoral about a sting that targets a anyone, even if he is a Somali, who was seeking contacts to commit a terrorist act.
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I believe that if you set up a business, such as a restaurant, then you should have the right to make all the decisions and not leave things to a vote with your employees. I believe there are problems in our economic systems but private ownership where the owners don't leave everything to a vote is not the problem. And I don't see a democratic work place as a right.
Oh, and I fianlly found words for what I was thinking. About Mamma and Pappa Napoleon. My economic beliefs are that you should just quit such a job. The problem is that it is hard to find a job and so employees are taken advantage off. If there was regulation that prevented exploitation but allowed for employers to still be owners that many, though admittedly not all, worked hard to be, then that is the way to go. Not a total striping and dismantlement of private ownership (not saying that is or isn't your belief, but that is what I am arguing against.)
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