New Year, Same Story...

Where common sense continues to be an outlier,  and hope (small h), remains the dream...

Remembering The Fall Of Rome (And It's Batshit Crazy Leaders)

As a kid I always wondered how mighty, kick ass Rome pretty much allowed itself to fall apart and rot from within as the barbarians trolled the gates. Of course, once you start reading just how insane its Caesars really were, you soon start asking yourself- just how was it that Rome managed to survive as long as it did?

Of course, our modern, interconnected world experiences everything at a considerably accelerated rate. And I have been amazed at what this country has been able to endure just in my lifetime, including a President who (while definitely not insane), at least kinda knew he was dumber than a rock in some round about, dry drunk kinda way- and didn't give a damn how many people lost their lives in his little macho military fantasies. Now we got someone running who not only doesn't have the slightest clue, but who actually thinks himself more intelligent than all human life combined. And even scarier, if such a scenario is even plausible (and it is)- there are people who actually think believe he is, while others simply revel in the fact that he'll forever be the ever lovin' dick that he truly is... (just like them- except w/o his $).

Civilizations in the final stages of decay are dominated by elites out of touch with reality.

          -Christopher Hedges
 

Season's Greeetings!

Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore's (R) interpretation of Matthew 5:5.

Currently clocking in at about 40% of capacity from my most recent loss to the flu (think Rousey/Holms, the extended version), I was aching to return to normal society- but alas, that feeling for human vitality and normalcy were cut short with last week's insanity. A sickening, deadening insanity that has metastasized into what now flauntingly mocks normalcy. Ignorance, fear and neglect begetting a violence so mindless that it in turn erodes the sanity and response of those of good will still remaining. So we never address the root cause(s), never attempt to dialogue, never ever dare to even consider a reset.

It's so easy to point at those 'dumb' kids shooting hell outta each other in every inner city in this country. They never learn, it's just their lot- just don't dare make same said and simple observation when it comes to the world at large... the one adults roam and rule.

So we will continue to threaten and arm ourselves for: prevention, protection, retaliation. Our planet is dying all around us, but not to worry: kick back with your Big Gulp, Supersize that Happy Meal, and make sure ya got enough hollow points to outlast your fries- You're Good To Go!!!

Amen...

Lies, Lies, Lies... Very popular these days. On the news, the internets, the mouths of the pettiest of Presidential candidates. As true now as it was then- make them big enough, repeat them often enough... and people will fall in line to follow.

Not as loud, or convenient or as popular, there are always the facts. And for that, we can always give thanks, thanks for that increasingly rare opportunity to glimpse through the window of sanity...

Addendum: And speaking of truth in advertising...

"I Was Appointed To Be Duped."

The Hoffman Report- How the APA, the CIA and the US Military colluded to excuse, allow and practice torture...

SOB Robs Wounded Vets

This SOB bastard started a totally needless war based on the lies he had manufactured to sell it, had thousands of our boys killed and maimed for life so that his Dick friend could make millions, performed a "comedy skit" about not being able to find any WMD, and is still not satisfied until he can reach into their pockets and make a few bucks off what's left of their bodies.

The man knows NO shame...

"We Need To See Them...

Because we created them."

Army Spc. Jerral Hancock sits for a portrait with his son Julius. It is believed that Hancock was trapped under the wreckage of his Army tank in Iraq for half an hour before he was rescued.

Courtesy of David Jay/Unknown Soldier

And for what? We're all made to feel guilty for not "supporting our boys" once the shit hits the fan- but we're never, ever asked to question why we put them in harm's way to begin with.

There are now countless people in and around Iraq who hate us; perhaps because they had nothing to do with 9/11, and yet had to suffer the revenge and full onslaught of the world's foremost military might. An yet the thousands we killed and maimed there for no good (or sane) reason will never get even this most perfunctory of acknowledgements.


Addendum:  David Guttenfelder also has an amazing essay on the plight of vets w/PTSD who are taking their own lives at home- an alarming 22 suicides each and every day! (via: PetaPixel)

Hugh Thompson- Hero, Role Model, Rebel

Talk about the ultimate unholy trio of overused, overrated buzz words in existence- made only the worse (if humanly possible) by using them in tandem! Yet, there is no question that Hugh Thompson owns the whole lot in every way imaginable for the actions he executed one insanely murderous day in Viet Nam. Namely, it was his direct intervention that prevented even more people from being butchered that infamous afternoon in 1968 at a hamlet called My Lai. And it was his basic sense of common decency that ignited his moral outrage into action- not the wanton blood lust of a rampaging Rambo, but the righteous indignation that allows someone to assume the role of one who saves lives, no matter the cost.

Thompson was the man responsible for turning US arms in the direction of... US troops, and threatening to shoot them down should they advance to kill one more baby, one more innocent human being. With the temporary cessation of the slaughter, he then went about rescuing whoever was still alive, reporting what he had seen, and in so doing so, possibly saving countless other innocent lives in similar operations to come.

He received many a death threat (and many a dead animal on his doorstep) for his courage to speak out; and his partner revealed that his four chopper crashes in the following two months after My Lai may have not all been attributable to the Viet Cong. Ironically, it was Thompson who proved that at least some Americans were, in fact, still the good guys- by his ability to think beyond the myopic xenophobia of "My country, right or wrong," by his willingness to call out Nazi atrocities, no matter who conducted them. Rather than shirk from a showdown with authority, as had innumerable others who diligently murdered with military approval (and dutifully remained silent)- he made it live up to its stated moral obligation.

This humble helicopter pilot, who a whole nation should look up to with pride, has no streets or schools, stadiums or ships named after him, there are no statues standing nobly in his honor. And Clint Eastwood will never have the balls to make a movie about him- but he damn well should, someone should...

'71

One of the best "war is hell" flicks ever- and in my All Time Top 20 Movies. All traces of war rhetoric sentimentality are left at the Hollywood door; no right and wrong, no justice, truth or grand ideologies. Everyone gets turned into something they don't wanna be, save for those who already started as such. When everything around you is compromised, everyone on every side is expendable.

So we're left to deal with the uneasy realization that we create our own problems, and contrary to present day mythology- shooting our way out just prolongs and worsens them. Super heroes do not save the day, no miracle man vanquishes the evil doers with his magic gun. And we never do learn...

A Season Of Faith And Faithlessness...

Great little video, though I think it would have been better still minus the "faith plug" stuck in at end. While I most definitely believe in a higher power, the history of religion(s) preventing war and conflict throughout the world, and history is... well, let's just say they're a tad better at starting them; in fact, the case can actually be made that organized religions are also quite adept at making conflicts harder to solve.

I choose to place my trust in people whose faith comes in dealing directly with humanity: honestly, peacefully, without bias for god or country. Put your faith in that cause and one will follow in the best tenets of any major religion by default...

Honesty vs. Cowardice

Iraq War vet/peace activist Tomas Young died Monday. Tomas Young was a victim of a needless, unnecessary war fought at the behest of a man too cowardly to go to war himself. Instead, the coward chose to fly planes at home, and when bored of flying planes, just left and got drunk.

Mr. Young died a slow, excruciatingly painful death- a death that lasted a good ten years. While Mr. Young suffered, the man who sent him to death laughed and made fun of the needless, useless war he himself had created- a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives (many, women and children) was laughed at by those that didn't have to fight it. A needless war that created more conflicts and more enemies, persisting to this very day. 

Mr. Young is dead- but thousands of others, wounded and maimed, survive silent and unseen. The remainder of their lives spent in pain, while one man lives the rest of his in luxury and denial.

Four Reasons...

Four self explanatory reasons as to why we remain forever at war, forever ignorant...

Hear It And Weep...

Israel's Legacy Of Serial Child Murder

Tapper told Regev that Israel has killed more Palestinian children in the past three weeks than "the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in military operations since 2006."

"That is a lot of dead children," he said. "At what point does the Israeli government say, enough, we're killing too many innocent children?"

We are then told that "the deaths of these children pains the chief of staff of Israeli military." Well then- what the heck is everybody complaining about?

How many times can a nation repeatedly kill scores of children and get away with it? Clearly Syria has no qualms about killing as many children as they want, and it now seems- neither does Israel. This nation which repeatedly likes to remind everyone just how much more civilized they are, than say... Syria, currently seems hellbent on ignoring just how many dead children's bodies they are now accumulating.

But Stan! What about all those crazed Muslim suicide bombers killing innocent Israelis- many of them children! What about them, huh? Yes, crazed, desperate lunatics each and everyone- to be roundly denounced, condemned and eliminated in as expedient a manner as possible! Clear? 

But, but... don't then come washing your hands and excusing yourself of child murder by gently whispering "collateral damage" in my ear. You're not arguing degrees of morality, you're arguing degrees of technology. One side kills innocent women and children as the consequence of high tech, push button, missiles and bombs, the other kills them with a decidedly more primitive... weapons delivery system. Both the rational and end result is the same- each trying to kill the other into submission by any means necessary, the blood of innocents deterring neither side. The moral high ground is highly absent here.

Israel- you were once a noble people fighting back against all odds in the Warsaw Ghetto. Now you find yourself top dog in the hood, and determined to remain so- no longer the bullied, but the bully.... like the childhood victim of sexual or domestic abuse that instead of learning from their experience, grows up to become yet another abuser doomed to repeat without conscience or remorse.

The Coliseum Revisted

Andrew Burton/Getty Images (via)

I wonder if this photo will someday end up in Mark Kologi's found photo garage? Some yungun will pick it up and wonder what outdoor show or fireworks display from decades past these relaxed vacationers were preparing to watch. They'll remember how much fun they had in their own youth celebrating with their families or neighborhood friends before the responsibilities of adulthood finally hit home. They'll bask in the temporary glow provided by warm childhood memories...

And then some grizzled old timer like myself will walk up and sadly inform him or her that those are not vacationers, those are not fireworks, and that those nice people came to view and cheer on the death and dismemberment of children and families, came to celebrate the hatred and carnage that one group of people can bestow upon another.

Memorial Day

Photo: Ashley Gilbertson

It was only last week when Bedrooms Of The Fallen by Ashley Gilbertson, which I had posted on before, popped into mind out of nowhere. It had been some time- what had ever come of it?

The book is now finally out and makes for a most fitting memorial and tribute to one side. But work this good, if it embraced a more inclusive approach, would have the potential to open hearts and minds on a universal level. Ashley Gibertson had made some mention back in 2010 that he was considering making a separate volume to memorialize the innocent Iraqi children and civilians that were needlessly slaughtered in this completely unnecessary war of choice. Wonder if there has been any progress on that front...

It seems that one way to ensure that these needless wars continue to occur again and again and again, is to only remember and honor one side, one viewpoint- and in this case (as in so many others), the side of the aggressor.

I realize that such a viewpoint will fall mostly on deaf ears, and only serve to infuriate others, but if we someday ever learn to question (and challenge) those who send us off to war on their own personal whim for their own personal aggrandizement, we may have the opportunity to mourn less, and see more of our children grow into responsible adults.

"On this Memorial Day weekend eve, we can finally admit that America has had for over 200 years a great bipartisan tradition of honoring those who have fought for our freedom by fucking them over once they give their guns back."         -Jon Stewart

WWl- Joe Sacco

I've posted on journalist/cartoonist (definitely not your usual combo) Joe Sacco before. This time he's not reporting on what he has witnessed and/or experienced personally. On a unique departure from his favored modus operandi, he delves into researching and depicting one of the bloodiest days in human history, namely... July 1, 1916-  the first day of The Battle of the Somme. You know, WWI- The War To End All Wars. This is his amazing 24 foot long (accordion style) panoramic and tribute to mankind's continuing fascination with killing itself in grand fashion.

RIP

English Bull Terriers-  dogs like no other...

Los Restos de la Revolución- Kevin Kunishi

"...sometimes I would lose track of which side this individual was on..."    -- Kevin Kunishi

Isn't that the lesson we never seem to learn- no matter the time, no matter the place?

The Gatekeepers

Finally caught up with this remarkable documentary, and one not to be missed. The Gatekeepers is filled with the behind the scenes revelations that lend insight not only into the tactics of Shin Bet (the Israeli Secret Service), but more importantly, into their mind set.

Surprisingly, many of these hardened warriors who have been on the front lines before they assumed their command positions (unlike many a US politico) reveal a more thorough understanding of the no-win situation they're in than one would think. They know they can't possibly win by military means alone, they know that they are also viewed as terrorists- and they know that they have now been hijacked by Right Wing, religious extremists... just like many Muslin countries, and just like the good ol' USA. Unfortunately, that simple, basic glimpse of "self awareness" seems blatantly absent when it comes to the general populace of all three...