I promised you kittens diguised as lions – never let it be said I’m not reliable. (I’m not actually, but never let it be said). So here you are, as promised.
Awwwwwww.
I have more, but I don’t want to get you over-excited in this heat. (Speaking of hot, that last cat has the right idea: take it all off! That said, I’ve never seen a cat look more creepy or pissed off. I don’t think I’ll try this with my own cats…. –Martin)
Ever since Bush was elected in 2000 I’ve been watching the media for mentions of David Addington, the evil genius tasked with finding ways to bend and/or ignore the law for Bushco. I had given up reading the New Yorker recently because they were annoying me, so thanks to Watertiger at Dependable Renegade for pointing to this profile of Addington in the latest issue:
Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration?s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share?namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside. A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration?s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, ?all Addington.? Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon?s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was ?an unopposable force.?
Addington is one humourless, smallminded fucker.
He also has no compunction whasoever about turning America into a theocratic dictatorship – it suits his and his bosses’ political purpose. This article is a must-read if you want to know what unconstitutional outrage Bushco is likely to perpetrate next.
David Byrne has a blog, which is not a new thing, but I just wasn’t aware of it. It’s a good blog too.
Right now he’s posting from Argentina – wide-ranging insights into life after dictatorship, Agentina’s reaction to the world cup and the smothering of the indigenous music scene by corporate US acts, amongst other things.
We finish rehearsal just as the Mexican and Argentine players enter the field for the World Cup match that will decide which of them continues to the final rounds. The entire city has stopped for the game. All the club and band technicians gather round the TV. The national hymns are sung and the players take the field. Diego drives me to my hotel ? he?s not a big football fanatic ? the streets are almost deserted. All shops and restaurants are closed except a few where televisions can be seen with clumps of people huddled in front. All worshipping at The Church of Football.
We stop at a sandwich shop for a late lunch. It is manned entirely by women, which might explain why it remains open ? though there is a tiny TV sitting on the bar, which competes with the techno music. Diego mentions that he was in high school during the dictatorship. The world cup was here then ? in ?78 ? and he says that some claim it was used as a screen for many to go missing and become disappeared. The government supported the event massively and used it as a clever way to disappear people when few were paying attention.
Most people were then, and even now remain, in partial denial, many claiming they saw or knew nothing ? although many sensed that this was happening. As a high school student Diego went to visit some friends one day and no one answered the door. The house was vacant and remained so ? later his father said maybe they were taken. There was a general feeling of paranoia ? and for a high school kid the fear manifested in stuff that a typical school kid of that time might worry about ? that if your hair was too long or if you got caught with a joint you might be picked up. Only the repercussions of being picked up were ominous. Everyone was careful, political talk was hushed. Gunshots could be heard on the streets at night ? the military or police (often the same thing) doing business.
We really should be studying what happened in Argentina much more, given the increasingly repressive global economic system Bushco are determinedly propelling us toward. Argentina is, on a relatively small scale, what happens when the interests of capital and the military co-incide, as it has in so many places and times before and as is happening in the US (and Europe, again) now.
“It is widely believed that around this time a powerful segment of the local bourgeoisie came to the conclusion that the only way to profit from the frustrating stalemate of Argentine politics was to wager on instability” […] “Popular wisdom coined the ironic term patria financiera(fatherland of financiers) to refer to this segment of society”
Sounds horribly familiar, as does this.
“Chaos was welcomed not only by speculators, but also by certain pro-market capitalists. They viewed the economic chaos as proof that interventionist policies are often counter-productive and that the market should therefore be allowed to work itself out, regardless of the social costs. Some in the government also found the chaos useful because it generated a perception of threat that provided justification for repressing the insurgent violence that had been unleashed by a combination of domestic and international factors…” (My emphasis)
Economic and social chaos caused deliberately by greedy financiers so they can raid the economy and drain the government coffers while using that chaos to launch a dirty war to eliminate their political opponents.
Hmmm, where have we heard that before?
The difference between now and then is that the type of people in the US who supported the patria financiera in the seventies are richer and stronger than ever; not only that, they and their younger disciples have their hands on the levers of power of an increasingly global economic system – and some of them have a massive intelligence machine at their disposal.
We’re all Argentinians now.
Image by Monero Hernandez
Britons tire of cruel, vulgar US: poll
Sun Jul 2, 11:12 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) – People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose
IraqThe United States is no longer a symbol of hope to Britain and the British no longer have confidence in their transatlantic cousins to lead global affairs, according to the poll published in The Daily Telegraph.
The YouGov poll found that 77 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that the US is “a beacon of hope for the world”.
As Americans prepared to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence on Tuesday, the poll found that only 12 percent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.
A massive 83 percent of those questioned said that the United States doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks.
With much of the worst criticism aimed at the US adminstration, the poll showed that 70 percent of Britons like Americans a lot or a little.
Before I wander sun-wards with a cup of tea, I just noticed we broke 70,000 visitors. Woohoo! UK/Netherlands collaborations rock! Take that, A list bloggers!
Just wait till I break out the ‘kittens disguised as lions’.jpg’s – we might even hit 80k.