A LITTLE REBELLION

Dear Leader Hails 'Progress' in Afghanistan!

Earlier today, President Obama --with a straight face-- told the American people that great progress is being made in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda. We're "on track," he says.

But as Jason Ditz reports:

The vague claims of “progress” came with a five-page summary which made even more vague claims of progress, and both carefully ignored the grim Pentagon report to Congress just three weeks ago, as well as the equally grim, but classified, CIA report on the war.

Likewise no mention was made of the very public reports from groups like the Red Cross reporting the situation at its worst in decades, nor the open letter from top experts calling for the US to settle with the Taliban and leave as soon as possible.

No, today was the day for the administration to try to convince the American public that the continuation of the war is anything but what it really is, a disastrous commitment to a disastrous policy. Facts, clearly, have no place in such an attempt.

Exactly. Obama's comments today are an attempt to put a positive spin on a terrible situation that keeps getting worse and worse. Public relations at its finest.

But this PR isn't working, and the iron fist is beginning to be used against any vocal and public opposition to this god awful imperial war.

Last September, the FBI served warrants on the homes of anti-war activists in Minnesota and Chicago. Senator Dianna Feinstein --whose husband makes millions as a contractor for the Pentagon and the wars Feinstein supports-- has called for the Espionage Act of 1917 to be used against "threats to national security."

And a little after Obama's Orwellian word play this afternoon, came this gem:

Police arrest 100-plus anti-war demonstrators at White House fence

Washington (CNN) -- Police arrested more than a hundred protesters during an anti-war demonstration outside the White House fence Thursday.

The event was part of a rally that also was in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose website has revealed secret U.S. documents about Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.

"This lynch mob mentality is America at its lowest," said Daniel Ellsberg [!!!!!], a former military analyst who, a generation ago, leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times.

And Ellsberg's right. The lynch mob mentality that tends to sweep over a country, over decent, hard-working people who should know better is but one more tragic consequence of war and empire.

Whenever a politician mixes the word "war," "traitor," and "national security" together, out comes the rope to choke dissent, liberty, and any threats to the state's parasitic, top-down order.

For The Children

Whenever a politician is explaining or rationalizing an attempt to increase state power over the lives, freedom, and property over the citizenry, you can bet there will be an allusion to doing it "for the children."

As George Orwell and many other have stressed, the misuse or manipulation of language to define public debate is one of the tools used to impose increases of power and authority. Whether it's the militarization of education with "No Child Left Behind," the expansion of government healthcare, or the carpet bombing of innocent civilians, it's always done "for the children."

After all, how can you argue against that? What are you, against children?

Well Tom Blanton of the Project for a New American Revolution has decided to use the state's language to flip the argument on its head in an appeal to the most crucial issue of our time: peace and the social and economic costs of empire.

The idea that people love the state - and by extension, their rulers - more than their own offspring is disturbing. Americans may be guilty of this even more than the people of other nations because of the widespread belief in American Exceptionalism. In addition to the willingness to sacrifice their children in senseless wars, the love of the state (bordering on worship) manifests itself in other ways such as the allocation of scarce resources.

Despite the sanctimoniousness platitudes about personal responsibility and the vapid verbiage about government programs being for the children, Americans reveal their priorities when they support imposing massive debts on their chidren and future generations, year after year. Since 1957, the national debt has grown each and every year. This has occurred under both corrupt political parties supported by the American people. Not only does the debt grow year after year, it has accelerated in the last decade. Indeed, for people who claim to care so much about children, it is odd to bequeath them a welfare/warfare state saddled with massive debt. This does not even include the huge state mandated obligation to fund Social Security and Medicare for an aging population. Not only is the national debt irresponsible, it amounts to a financial crime to impose such a debt on people who can't vote, can't enter into contracts, and who may not even be born yet!

Our government tells us that the annual deficit for the year ending on September 30, 2010 was only $1.3 Trillion. This is touted as an improvement because it was less than the deficit of the previous year, $1.4 Trillion. Of course, the new deficit is simply added to the deficits racked up each and every year for the past 50 years.

Read the rest here.

Surveillance Society?

The Economist has a great story on the incredible advancements of technology and the infringement of individual freedom and privacy that this technology can lead to.

On the one hand, technological innovation has economic and social benefits:

“All this technology actually strengthens the human side of cities,” says Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s SENSEable City Lab. People who are always connected, he argues, can work wherever they like. And Mr Haque, the boss of Pachube, claims that “sensors empower people because measuring the environment allows them to make decisions in real time.”

On the other hand:

Smart systems are also undeniably useful as an instrument of control. Singapore has made an impressive job of smartening up its physical infrastructure, but its network of security cameras could also be used for enforcing rules more objectionable than a ban on chewing gum. Similarly, the operations centres and dashboards for local governments in China being built by Cisco, IBM and others beg the question whether their only purpose is to make these cities smarter.

Other deep fears brought on by smart systems is that machines could be hacked, spin out of control and even take over the world, as they did in the film “The Matrix”. As the Stuxnet worm and the May “flash crash” on Wall Street have shown, the first two are already real possibilities, even if the third still seems somewhat remote—although well-known computer scientists, artificial-intelligence researchers and roboticists met in California a couple of years ago to discuss that risk.

I tend to side with the less optimistic outlook, not because I am opposed to technology, but only because some of the most advanced and high-tech equipment belong to States. Innovation that serves the voluntary and spontaneous needs of people in the marketplace, like the Internet, tend to be horizontal, bottom-up, and decentralized.

But when they're in the hands of coercive States, they tend to be used to keep tabs, spy on, and control. In other words, technology is just an easier way for States to do what they always do.

But we should always be vigilant against all threats to individual freedom and privacy, whether statist or corporate, and this doesn't mean a nomadic rejection of technology. For example, the Internet is so decentralized and speedy that it is highly likely that even if a State wanted to take control of it, all it could do is huff-and-puff as it tries to keep up with the ever-complex actions of a market order.

On a side note, George Orwell would be spinning in his grave if he knew what his home and property looked like now. Apparently, there are now 32 closed-circuit cameras within 200 yards of the London flat in which Orwell wrote "1984." Irony, indeed.

Britain To Cut 600,000 Government Jobs!

For decades, Great Britain has slowly morphed itself into an Orwellian nightmare. The combination of a vast police state, an overseas empire encouraged by the US, and extensive government welfare programs has turned Britain into a poorer country with the largest government debt in the entire European Union.

But some in Britain are realizing that their welfare-warfare state can not go on forever. A few weeks after the Cuban government plans to eliminate one million government jobs, Britain is following the same sobering path by making their biggest spending reductions since WW2.

These cuts include an average of 19% of the budget, 600,000 government jobs which includes the budgets for welfare, police, and councils. In the next four years, $81 billion will be cut from the British State.

And this is incredibly encouraging news. Anytime the parasitical confiscation of the State is reduced it is always a good thing, and look for the spontaneous, voluntary order of the marketplace that emerges when coercive power of the State is reduced or abolished to flourish.

Here's British Chancellor George Osbourne revealing the plan for cuts:

 

Now if only an axe was applied to the American corporatist welfare-warfare state!

Be A Good American: Spy On Your Neighbors

Here is the latest phase in America's slide into a National Security State. Via Wired:

Dudes and dudettes: You know what’s totally radical? Reading your neighbors’ e-mail! So don’t you wanna be a junior National Security Agency deputy?

If so, the surveillance and cryptology crew at NSA has the right online companions for you: Cy and Cyndi, a pair of anthropomorphic snow leopards now kickin’ it with the CryptoKids, the Puzzle Palace’s team of cartoon animal hackers. Known as the CyberTwins and unveiled by NSA yesterday, Cy and Cyndi wear gaming headgear, talk into their hands-free mobile devices, and teach youths about proper online hygiene, all on the NSA website’s kids page, which actually exists.

Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell!

It's time to finally end one of this country's greatest injustices, the US military's official policy of "don't ask, don't tell" when it comes to civilian casualties. Just in this century, the Empire has killed at least a million Iraqis and thousands of Pashtuns in Afghanistan, with barely a murmur from the State-stenographers in the media. This policy is intentional, of course. As war criminal Tommy Franks once said, "we don't do body counts."

Because if a majority of American were aware, or cared, about our killing fields all over the globe, they might start to question some of the nauseating cliches that are indoctrinated into our minds by State schools and the mass media. Like how the U.S. government is "exceptional," "benevolent," bringing "liberty and democracy" to backwards people everywhere.

People might just come to the conclusion that the State is NOT a public servant, but a parasitical monster, looting, taxing, controlling, coercing, and killing in service of its political interests and the interests of those who cozy up to it. This is why it spends millions of dollars every year convincing you otherwise, the manufacturing of consent.

Without these myths, without the consent of the majority of the population, the State falls apart. For the sake of peace, individual liberty, order, and the free production of goods and services, it won't come soon enough.

On a side note, I just can not comprehend the national attention given to the other "don't ask, don't tell" policy concerning gays in the military. Why would ANYONE fight for the right to participate in the slaughter and destruction of villages, cities, and entire countries, to come home with missing limbs so that Lockheed Martin's stock goes up a few points? Gays have been persecuted for far too long by governments; they deserve better than military slavery.

Anarchy: True Checks And Balances

The Ninth District U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, in a recent case, validated the legality of the current CIA practice of flying "terrorism" suspects to foreign countries to be tortured. The ruling also reinforced the incredibly broad powers of the President to invoke the "state-secrets privilege" to stop lawsuits against the U.S. government. The rationale? "National security," of course.

What a perfect Orwellian word. You could fill a library with the crimes and bloodshed committed in its name.

"National security" does not mean the protection of the citizens' liberty and property, of course, but the protection (and expansion) of the political structure of the State and its corporatist buddies that benefit from government subsidies and the restriction of competitors. If perpetual war really made us safe and free, how come every U.S. war leaves us with fewer civil liberties, higher taxes, and more debt?

The Ninth Circuit's ruling also pokes holes in the arguments of proponents of "limited government." Having three branches of government (legislative, judicial, and executive) was supposed to provide effective checks on each other, "ambition to check ambition" as James Madison put it.

But the idea that a government court would tend to rule against the expansion of government power not only borders on absurd, but also has hundreds of years of evidence in this country alone to refute it. Like nearly every attempt to "reform" or check the power of the State, it has been futile.

The Founders were absolutely correct when they, standing on the shoulders of philosophical giants, argued in favor of restricting the occasional propensity of man to violate his neighbor's liberty and property, settling on the idea of checks and balances.

But the tragic mistake was assigning the job of protecting people against theft and coercion to the State, an institution that exists solely due to theft and coercion. It's like putting Ted Kennedy in charge of an AA meeting. Creating checks and balances against power is absolutely essential in a free society, but how can this ever be possible under the centralizing tendencies of a State?

Later on in his life, even Thomas Jefferson came incredibly close to rejecting the necessity of the State, and perhaps he was right. Societies that have had smaller states or no state at all tend to be more decentralized, where a market order emerges based on private property, voluntary exchange, and mutual aid. Jefferson's friend Thomas Paine recognized that a huge majority of order and civilization we enjoy comes from the combination of man's nature as a social being (commerce and cooperation) and man acting in his own rational self-interest.

In other words, free market anarchism --the abolition of coercion from human relationships-- is checks and balances taken to its logical extreme.

Which is why it doesn't shock me that the Ninth Circuit justified the torturing of innocents or the right of Obama to do anything he wants as long as it's in the name of "national security;" government courts have been rubber-stamping the expansion of government power for centuries. After all, if absolute power corrupts absolutely, why wouldn't they?

UPDATE: The always great Glenn Greenwald has the best analysis I have found so far on the Ninth Circuit's recent decision here.

LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT...

Over the weekend, Wikileaks finally released over 91,000 classified documents it has obtained concerning the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

And the leaked documents reveal some truly frightening facts. Hundreds of civilians killed, covert killers, torture, and a sharp increase in Taliban strength in power as opposition to the occupation grows are just the most eye-opening aspects of the leak.

Despite their supposed "opposition" to each other, liberals and conservatives* have united in one great, common cause: the defense of these U.S. government war crimes.

All day, right-wing radio has dismissed the Wikileaks leak as a "non-story." So what if a bunch of civilians were killed and the U.S. government intentionally hid it from us? According to Rush Limbaugh, the U.S. killed hundreds of thousands of civilians by bombing Dresden, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Tokyo, so what's the big deal? This is war, kill them all!!!  It is truly amazing what some people will do and say to rationalize MASS MURDER.

Not to be outdone, the very liberal publication Mother Jones took time to spit on Wikileaks. After all, "their" guy has the massive power of the State in his hands, so we wouldn't want to be too critical would we?

And don't forget about the statist mainstream press. When Wikileaks released the video of U.S. Apache helicopters strafing civilians in Iraq, CNN edited out most of the actual footage to make the U.S. government not look so bloodthirsty. Nothing to see here, American sheeple, go back to Tiger Woods and Mel Gibson.

Immediately after Wikileaks released the classified documents, the U.S. government publicly condemned it, saying that it "threatened national seccurity." And actually, they're right. This leaked footage definitely threatens the security of the national thugs in DC and their immense power, which is why it is going after Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, with far more zeal than say, Osama Bin Laden.

Meanwhile. the heroic solder, Bradley Manning**, who supposedly helped leak the Afghan War documents (as well as the Apache helicopter footage) may face 52 years in prison.

I can just hear the voices of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Orwell whispering, "We told you so....nothing good can come from centralizing power into a political State." Every facet of life then becomes attached to it like leaches. The press becomes eager to please their masters rather than expose them, to attack any signs of rebellion or disloyalty as sedition.

This is what 21st century America has come to: the war criminals in the U.S. government are always given the benefit of the doubt, while whisteblowers are locked in cages.

*It actually makes sense that the mainstream left and right are so eager to hush this story and defend the DC regime. After all, it takes two steps at a time to march, like ants, and go forth to kill for the State. Left-Right-Left-Right-Left-Right....

**UPDATE: It is an uphill climb, but thanks to the power of the web, it is much easier to learn the truth and help combat government abuse. If anyone is interested at all, I highly recommend going to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ to get the full story on this American patriot.

The 30-year Afghan War?

From Jeff Sparrow at Crikey.com:

Last week, with very little fanfare, Afghanistan became the longest war in US history. In Australia, John Faulkner says Australian troops will be deployed for another three years minimum, a prediction that US strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg immediately dismissed as hopelessly optimistic. “The war will no more be over in three to five years than it is right now … if Australians are committed to supporting this strategy, they can figure on 10, 20 and 30 years of involvement,” he said.

Thirty years: that’s a whole lotta war. And to what end?

Last week, the new British PM David Cameron told his troops: “This is not a war of choice, it is a war of necessity. […]  If we left tomorrow, those [terrorist] training camps could come back tomorrow, because the Afghans aren’t ready to look after their own security. As soon as they are ready, we can go home.” That’s the line here, too — but, actually, few of the war’s supporters now even pretend to believe it.

Bush called it "the long war." Obama calls it "the good war." And with no end in sight to this god awful occupation, the Amerikan empire grows and grows.

After all, we have always been at war with Eastasia.