Years of past reports on consciousness and community and transcending god and state! Most active 2007-17. More recently on Facebook & X.com as @CarolMoore1776. Youtube/CarolMoore & CarolMooreSongs. CarolMoore.Net and Secession.Net will be back up 2026.
I've been fuming for a couple of days about two articles I read detailing problems with the mainstream media. I even tweeted them. (Link to top, link to bottom.)
Well, today The Donald (Trump, for posterity) socked it to the media in a way that really punishes them for their lazy, biased, ratings/money-driven reporting. After complaining that Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post to influence Washington politicians and help his company Amazon, Trump declared
... And believe me, if I
become president, oh, do they have problems. They're going to have
such problems. And one of the things I'm going to do, and this is only
going to make it tougher for me, and I've never said this before, but
one of the things I'm going to do if I win -- and I hope I do and we're
certainly leading -- is I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they
write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can
sue them and win lots of money..... We have many things
to do. We have many, many things to do.
Can he "open up our libel laws? Probably, a Post writer replies. He also can push to tax internet sales, or find some phony law that Bezos or the Post allegedly is breaking and use it to break their connection. So many ways to destroy them, so little time.
What of the "many things" he also can do to other media outlets, without congressional approval or a Supreme Court OK? He can use his administrative power as defacto head of the Federal Communications Commission to threaten the licenses of any radio, television or cable channel going out over the publicly administered airwaves. (And, of course, fulfill his past threat of "closing up the internet" to anyone who says anything he doesn't like.) So Americans won't dare raise too much of a fuss when he cracks down on protest, free speech, freedom of association, etc. etc. etc.
Which led me to make two more tweets! The first (bottom) on FCC licensing and the second (top) on what Trump will do to protesters, which I sent to TheFix (aka the Washington Post writer noted above).
Of course, the one good thing Trump talks about that probably drives media moguls craziest is Trump's promise to be neutral on Israel. His way of getting back at all the New York Jews he thinks have screwed him?? (It's not human empathy for Palestinian land loss and relegation to defacto concentration camps by the Israelis, I'm sure...)
Yup, all the people who made dough off news stories about Mussolini and Hitlers' crazy rants in the 1930s sure found out where that got them, didn't they?? Let's start getting serious about how dangerous this guy could be.
He may not have Hitler's shriveled genitals, but he's got some sort of
shriveled ego problem that could be very dangerous.
Update:The Post response? An interesting Hitler comparison and then - everyone should drop out but Rubio! Raw Story is more on target: "Trump can’t handle media criticism — so now he’s promising to disembowel the First Amendment"
I didn't think I'd be writing about Bernie again (in part because Dem establishment will never let him win, even if they have to put Joe Biden in there). But I heard the phrase "Bernie Bros" for the first time on Saturday and immediately investigated. I realized this was a phrase for the obnoxious young males harassing and insulting not just Hillary Clinton but anyone they think is her supporter.
I immediately found so many recent articles about the topic that I won't even bother to figure out which are the best to link to. (See graphic of 2/13/16 search returns below.) If you are interested, just do a news or regular internet search and decide which article you want to read.
Having been more a butt of harassment by left wing than right wing males in my life, I certainly understand how vicious they can be. So I almost sympathized with Bill Clinton complaining about the "campaign" denigrating Hillary and her supporters online. Except, of course, that Bill is a lying rapist and Bernie has denounced the "Bernie Bros" tactics. (I'm sure if Bernie knew about the disgusting tactics of one of his anti-Secession "Bernie Bros" he'd denounce him too - maybe even kick him off his campaign staff, if he's on it, which he might be.)
In short, a demographic of more young males than young females just increases male psychosis and gang-related activity. And sometimes means the powers that be feel the need to use oppression and wars to suppress and/or get rid of a lot of those trouble makers. (Does a female surplus of more young females than males mean peace and stability? Interesting "thought experiment.") Anyway, there's been a lot of work done on the topic in the last few years which I'm very lax on writing up. Still learning which are the best wordpress themes to use... arghhh....
Obviously as a libertarian, I can’t support a HUUUGE statist like Bernie Sanders. I like to think he IS the least likely of the Demopublicans to get us into a nuclear war, which is my biggest issue. But I’d trust the libertarian or green party candidates far more on that issue. Let's face it, Sanders' anti-freedom socialist protectionist corporate statist policies would destroy the economy, probably leading to a really big warmonger being elected in 2020. (The current Republican crew already wants to first strike North Korea and/or send Japan after them! Make the Middle East sands glow. Take on Russia and China militarily....etc. Oi, I'm heading for my bomb shelter in the hills if they win!)
Protest poster vs. US bombing Serbian media center
My little dirt on Sanders is my one run in with him in spring of 1999 when for three months Bill Clinton was bombing the heck out of Serbia. Supposedly it was because of Serbia's mass murder of Muslim Kosovars, which proved to be an exaggerated charge. (Just like Hillary Clinton’s exaggerated charges against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. At least Bernie was “wary” of that war.)
Carol spring 1999
The war happened soon after the release of the film “Wag the Dog” about an attempt to distract the electorate from a presidential sex scandal by creating the illusion of a fake war with Albania. Of course, Kosovars were largely Albanian Muslims whose growing numbers and terrorist attacks were driving Christian Serbs out of their lands. The Monica Lewinsky scandal and the bombing of Serbia happened soon after the release of the film.
One would like to think Bernie has gotten smarter. After all, the real goal of bombing Serbia was to prove that the United States would be the ones drawing boundaries in Europe, even in countries friendly to Russia. During the bombing some in the military were calling for sending ground troops in, which Russia warned could trigger nuclear war. Clinton did not do so. Bernie at least is "wary" of the United States continuing to expand NATO and poke the Russian bear.
Anyway, one day during the bombing I joined an organized group of peaceniks lobbying against the war, going office to office in the US House of Representatives. We were received politely in all the offices and with greater enthusiasm by an aide in the office of our D.C. representative who was against the war. And then we walked into Bernie Sanders office - and all hell broke lose. He was really mad at us for daring to complain about his vote, yelled at us and practically kicked us out of his office. Ever since I’ve thought he was a real ass, to be kind.
I don’t remember off hand if we went to his office before or after he had Vermont protesters arrested at his Vermont office or before or after one of his staff members quit because of his stand on the war. Here are excerpts from a relevant press release and personal letter.
[Burlington, VT] I am writing on behalf of the anarcho-socialist-feminist and anti-racist left in Vermont, some 25 of whom are sitting next to me in this occupation. We are in Bernie's Sander's office to help bring a halt to the escalating war in Yugoslavia and the ongoing war against Iraq, both supported by Sanders....Bernie became an imperialist to get elected in 1990.... The Vermont Democratic Party leadership has allowed no authorized candidate to run against Bernie in 1990 (or since) and in return, Bernie has repeatedly blocked third party building...Sanders continues to support sanctions even though the Iraqi body count has now passed 1.5 million. Just as he has supported every bombing of Iraq since 1992. When Clinton sent military units to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in October, 1994 because Iraq moved troops inside Iraq closer to the Kuwait border (apparently about 100 miles away), Bernie supported this because "we cannot tolerate aggression."...Among his other discredits, Sanders supported the Federal Crime Bill that give the gave the capitalist state more than 50 new pretexts to execute members of the working class--because those without capital get the punishment. He did this while courting the Vermont Police Chief's Assn....On a related issue, Bernie was recently asked by the local press why he was the only member of Vermont' s three member Congressional delegation who had no person of color on his staff. Bernie responded that "we're hiring the most qualified people we can." ...At 6:30 PM, one half hour after closing time, Philip Fiermonte of Bernie's staff had 15 of us arrested for trespass. Sanders refused a conference call with those in the occupation, which was carried out nonviolently and with no disruption to his staff.
Sanders' staff policy analyst Jeremy Brecher wrote a letter of resignation to Sanders over the bombing of Serbia soon after. It was widely circulated among peace groups at the time. It said in part:
On 4/27/99 I presented you with a memo laying out an alternative approach to current Administration policy. It stated, "The immediate goal of U.S. policy should be a cease-fire which halts Serb attacks on Kosovo Albanians in exchange for a halt in NATO bombing.... The House Resolution (S Con Res 21) of 4/29/99 which "authorizes the president of the United States to conduct military air operations and missile strikes in cooperation with the United States' NATO allies against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" supports not only the current air war but also its unlimited escalation. It thereby authorizes the commission of war crimes, even of genocide. Indeed, the very day after that vote, the Pentagon announced that it would begin "area bombing," which the Washington Post (4/30/99) characterized as "dropping unguided weapons from B-52 bombers in an imprecise technique that resulted in large-scale civilian casualties in World War II and the Vietnam War." It was your vote in support of this resolution that precipitated my decision that my conscience required me to resign from your staff.
A 2015 Alternet article covered the staffer's resignation and mentions more recent “troubling” behavior by Sanders. While he voted against the 2003 Iraq war, “he also voted in favor of authorizing funds for that war and the one in Afghanistan.” More recently, he voted for a $1 billion aid package for the (neo-NAZI- riddled) 2014 “coup government” in Ukraine.
Alternet says Sanders also supported Israel's 2014 bombing of Gaza which left over two thousand Palestinians dead and a significant percentage of the population homeless. At a town hall meeting Sanders stated that Israel might have "overreacted", but merely blamed Hamas. He did not mention Israel’s starvation of the Palestinian population or continuing confiscation of Palestinian lands in the West Bank. After a woman asked why Sanders refused to condemn Israel's actions, he told critics: "Excuse me! Shut up! You don’t have the microphone.” See this Alternet article for the dirt on his position on the land-grabbing-ethnic-cleansing-through-bombing-and-starvation state of Israel.
This video of Sanders yelling at a protester also was widely distributed during 2014.
Decentralists and secessionists in Vermont comment on Sanders in this August 2015 Bill Kaufman article in the AmericanConservative. While applauding some of Sanders' accomplishments, Kaufman writes “On the down side, Bernie is impervious to facts. He’ll say anything to advance the movement, and he’s not technically lying. You have to know the truth before you can lie, and for Bernie the Truth is what is required to be true by Marx’s scientific theory of history.” Typical commie!!
Flag of 2nd Vermont Republic
Kaufmann notes that one secessionist leader of the Second Vermont Republic was quoted as saying that Sanders wasn’t happy when he was invited to become President of a secessionist Vermont Republic. Of course not, he doesn’t want to break up “big power”, he wants to concentrate it in the hands of the “right people”, all of whom doubtless will be very left wing and as intolerant of dissent as Sanders has been.
I joke that if Sanders or Trump get elected, either might impose martial law. Trump, if he can't get his way with Congress and Sanders when millions of right wing conservatives start a serious secession movement. Who knows, skeptical peaceniks might join them, especially if it was a war clearly for his buddies in Israel. But don’t worry, nonviolent libertarians and decentralists will work to try to make it a peaceful secessionist movement...Considering the military is less likely to follow a socialist dictator than a fascist one (i.e., the Republicans and maybe Hillary), would Sanders crank up the printing press to bribe the military into crushing us? Give them all the weapons they want and tripple their pay and pensions? Probably any president out to crush American dissent and/or secession movements would have to do so. Hopefully, we'll build a movement big and broad and peaceful enough that we'll never find out.
To end, our local peace group “Stop the War Now” was skeptical of the reasons for the allegedly “humanitarian” war against Serbia.
We called the vicious bombing of urban and civilian sites “Humaniterrorism”.
When I suggested we call our march to celebrate the end of the three month bombing campaign “Not A Victory”, the group happily accepted the proposal.
And I wrote a song about it a couple of us sang as we were marching...
As a bisexual, libertarian, feminist who hopes for the personal and political liberation of all people - male and female - I can't help but think about the topic of my last few posts. I refer to the topic of rampant sexual predation (Bill Clinton) or bisexuality (Bush, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Rubio) among presidents and presidential candidates. I believe privacy for those in the highest political positions dissolves when these people can be blackmailed or otherwise influenced, harming the lives of millions.
I do remain
uncertain about why someone found to have an extra-marital affair so
easily can be exposed in the media, leading to various sanctions. These might
include bad publicity leading to divorce and loss of job, or at least
of reputation. Yet being a closeted male bisexual or gay male in high position is a carefully guarded secret which media
and even political rivals will not expose.
Some reasons might include some or all of the below:
* Per the posts below, hiding such secrets is an opportunity for blackmail by media and special interests to be exposed and wasted.
* Also, in male dominated professions like politics and journalism “boys will boys” attitudes rule.
*
Hurting male reputations and careers is important. Hurting women and
children in families is not as important. So guarding gay or bisexual
relationships is more important than hiding extra-marital ones.
*
There is a high concentration of LGBT’s in media and government who have
teamed up with other powerful special interests, Republican and
Democrat. They help keep peers “in the closet”, even as they subtly
blackmail chosen closeted individuals to advance their own causes.
*
Presidents and congress make it clear they'll cut off from sources or
even pull the licenses of any major media - especially television media -
that dares to expose them. Of course, if police accidentally - or
purposely? - make a police bust which makes the newswires, all bets are
off. (And the threat of arrest is yet another way to keep the closeted
ones in line.) Minor media and independent writers like me, of course,
are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists”.
Thinking about all this reminded me of an article from the 1980s by radical feminist John Stoltenberg. Parts later were included in his book Refusing to be a Man (PDF). The relevant quotes from the book are:
pg 74: Under
patriarchy, normally acculturated males assume —correctly—that the same
impulse to sexual violence exists in other males. They therefore
endeavor to enter into homoerotic truces—nonaggression pacts contracted
between men who tacitly agree to aggress against “others” (women, and
sometimes weaker men, or men of other races) instead of one another.
When a group of men shares power over “their” constituency of women,
that sharing assuages their fears of one another’s potential for
aggression. In their hearts, men grow up terrified of giving offense to,
and being attacked by, more violent males.
pg 75: The
values that inhere on a “small” scale in homoerotic transactions
between men are the same values that inhere on a grander scale in all
transactions between male-owned and male-supremacist nation-states.
(You can see how this might be yet one more feminist nail in the coffin
of the nation state, as far as I - the webmaster of Secession.net - am
concerned!)
Not outing closeted males, or even those
cheating on their wives with other women - even when it threatens
national security - is just another example of “nonaggression pacts
contracted between men who tacitly agree to aggress against ‘others’
(women, and sometimes weaker men, or men of other races) instead of one
another.” So unless a male has so trampled on the pact or otherwise
deserves destruction, his secret will be safe. And all the males will
make sure both the “weaker” men and women whose lives and jobs they
control also keep their mouths shut.
Next question,
how does this principle apply to the transgender issue? I’m sure the
issue has a lot of these alpha males torn on the issue. On the one hand a
lot of these male to "female" transgenders are still large or
aggressive males (most transgender keep their penis and testicles, even
if they do hormone replacement surgery). Many are men with successful
careers in sports and the military or other expertise which makes them
still dangerous. I don’t know of any transgenders who are “outing” the
fact that the “nonaggression pact” exists and going around openly
rejecting it.
My guess is, as long as transgenders
continue to agree to the pact, they will be allowed as “women” to
control weaker males and women-born-women, including those they
encounter in womens bathrooms, locker rooms, shelters, prison cells,
etc. As long as they aren’t caught molesting the women controlled by
other powerful and/or “alpha male” members of the pact, they will be
safe. And I'm sure many males fee that if transgenders happen to
infiltrate and destroy the feminist movement with a lot of cultish
baloney meant to mesmerize women into passivity, more power to them!
These types of males are just SO TIRED of all that uppity female back
talk. (Note that Stoltenberg has become a transgender apologist; but
while there’s life, there’s hope he’ll see the error of his ways.)
Yup....sounds familiar.... just another male plot...
Chris Christie called it about the boy in the bubble. Turns out it's the Robot in the foamy pool bubble. I'm almost starting to feel sorry for him. Too bad Christie's an anti-abortion warmongering prosecutor, I'd really like him... (Updating post below with the dirt on GW Bush's drunken bisexual sex orgies.)
Making fun of the alpha males can be quite a release but have to get more substantive...Fix your websites Carol! Stop messing around! (OK, an expose on Sanders coming asap and then I'll stop...)
Update 2/26/16: After the 2/25 debate where Rubio took on Trump and his jokes about Trump on 2/26, ("Did Donald wet himself??") I've got to say that Rubio has a great career waiting for him in standup comedy. If he sings, even better. Then he can hang loose and fully be his happy bi-guy self. Same thing Obama should have done. I mean lightweight pretty boys running the world is just as bad as heavy weight fools like the Bushes and sex mad bombers like the Clintons. Abolish large nation states so we don't have to waste more time on this silly madness!!
After the coffee-buzz posting of yesterday afternoon, a late evening continuation on the topic...
It looks like the Rubio story has been around for a few weeks now. Duh... Here's some gay sites' titulated and/or skeptical responses, focused on those "foam parties" where photos appear to show naked men in foam-covered swimming pools doing who knows what under the foam.(1, 2, 3) And a couple stories about his friend Barrios’ renting to gay pornorgraphers and defending their activities in court.(1, 2) Rubio has been mocked by other candidates regarding his high heeled boots, with the inference he’s gay.(1, 2, 3) In response, not only has he created a Youtube ad on the “Rubio Crime Spree” (which jokes about absurdly false allegations as opposed to the actual details of his arrest). And on the Jimmy Fallon show he joked about his boots, including ruining an earlier pair at a “1990s foam party in Miami”. He infers it’s a fully clothed heterosexual party on a normal dance floor.
Rumors of Hillary’s bisexuality have been around for twenty years. Even the Daily Mail covered Bill Clinton’s former lover Gennifer Flower’s 2013 allegation Bill told her Hillary was a very active lesbian. One site actually mentioned the potential “blackmail” issue of hiding such relationships. The National Enquirer, which revealed the Flowers affair in the 1990s, has been insisting Hillary erased hundreds of emails because they were with or about her women lovers.(1, 2) A former Clinton insider confirmed stories of her affairs. And conservative gossip Matt Drudge bemoaned the fact the major media doesn’t cover the issue, despite her lovers' names being leaked by the National Enquirer. And Hillary in 2015 actually responded to the allegations telling a gay magazine: “It’s not true, but it is something that I have no control over. People will say what they want to say.”
For 9 years Americans had heard about Bill Clinton's alleged and admitted sexual affairs and aggression against women. We figured we’d be safe from such gossip with the "straight" George W. Bush. But evidence of G.W. Bush’s bisexuality began leaking out and over time probably became the most detailed of all these powerful individuals. Various minor sources have covered his possible affair with a college roommate, their trysts with homosexual prostitutes, homosexual orgies in Mexico, and his one or more affairs with men in the White House. Books have been published detailing some of these activities. (See sometimes accurate sources like PrisonPlanet, Rense and Veterans Today. Or do a search of the internet for more information.) PoliticalHotwire shows photos of Bush kissing and hugging a male who allegedly is a gay prostitute who frequently visited G.W. in the White House. G.W.’s activity even is alleged to be related to family political decisions. Could it be true that his father George H. invaded Panama because his dictator friend Manuel Noriega was threatening to publicize sexual photos of G.W. with men? And how might this ongoing secret impact Jeb Bush, should he be elected president?
As for Obama, even the Huffington Post covered allegations he was a coke head and gay prostitute in high school and enjoyed the Chicago gay bar and bathhouse scene after college and law school. In between it’s alleged he was in gay relationships at Occidental College and at Columbia University. The Guardian has a story on his Pakistani housemate in NYC whose photo does make one believe rumors they were lovers. Wayne Madsen went into great detail on Obama a few years back: on Obama’s finger nail polish at Congress; his gay days in bars and bathhouses in Chicago; and other details. Vice.com has a more recent update.
The issue of possible blackmail by special interests is easily comprehended by most people. However, too many still reject the idea that people should be free to be gay or bisexual and hold political office. I did notice that Wikipedia actually has a category listing of bisexual politicians!
A feminist insight is that males feel they have a right to be closet bisexuals, cheat on their girl friends and wives (possibly bringing home disease). And they have have the right to have the whole thing dismissed with a wink and a nod by male dominated professions like politics and journalism where “boys will boys” attitudes rule. And some women, like Hillary and her lovers, also have been successful in keeping a lid on it. (I'd be more sympathetic to her if she had not repeatedly been accused of insulting and intimidating women who were victims of her husband's sexual assaults!)
Of course, young people today are far more free about announcing their sexual identities (even when confused, like so many self-styled “transgenders” and “genderqueers”) and their sexual preferences. So maybe should he get the nomination, young Rubio non-chalantly will go on the Ellen DeGeneres show and say, “Sure, I was gay or bisexual as a young man. Yes, maybe I was being hypocritical for being against gay marriage. What the hey!! Be free, do your thing!” But I’m not holding my breath...
As a bisexual I'm tired of (past or
current) bisexuals like G.W. Bush, Obama, Hillary and Rubio being
promoted by the establishment to high office because they are so
blackmailable. Meanwhile the gay establishment uses these individuals' closetedness
to advance LGBT causes.
The rest of the citzenry is clueless about
what's going on, of course. And the journalists who know what's really going on pretend they don't, so they don't lose their establishment jobs. They act stupid about "why is s/he doing this????" (I saw a perfect example in some coverage the other night on a cable news station but can't remember the details.) I'll provide some links on the first three later. (Plus links to past blogs where I mentioned this phenomena.) But the newest favorite establishment closet bisexual is:MARCO RUBIO
The Washington Post in January danced around the issue in a story about Rubio's 1990 arrest for sitting in a car at a park known for gay prostitution. He was with his friend Angel Barrios, a future housemate who later owned a property making gay pornography. The Post only mentions that Barrios now owns "coin-operated laundries." (Gee, and just last week Rubio was talking about an American dream where people could have their own businesses - like a string of laundries, or was it car washes?) Here's a Wayne Madsen expose video on PrisonPlanet.
So now we know why Rubio is SUCH a Toady to special interests. He - like Ted Cruz - wants to be the first Latino president. Rubio is willing to sell out his soul to blackmailing special interests to do it. Cruz is a tiny tad more independent, which is why he can't win...
Anyone who has visited here before (including my low consciousness stalkers) will notice a wonderfully revamped format. YAY! (Below, the old one... boring and structurally messy.)
That's because I gave up trying to figure out Wordpress on my own domain host or how to use my new HTML web site creation program, the latter for now anyway. The revolution has been held back at least eight months because of my frustration, in which I turned to massive amounts of de-cluttering and housework. (Needed doing anyway.)
Update: Scratch this paragraph, assuming you can understand the webhost I only inferred what I was moving to. Going to have learn Wordpress after all, for bunch of reasons. But now I've freed myself. Minor compromises are sometimes necessary for the revolution!
Plus, Google isn't going to kick me off right away for trying to organize the
nonviolent dissolution of the United States government - and all big, violent, patriarchal governments worldwide. And by the time
they realize what I'm up too, and the Feds start feeding them excuses,
I'll have enough support that I can hire real live webmasters on a truly
libertarian hosting site. YAY!!!
The last four presidential elections, members of losing liberal or conservative states were talking secession. So we'll probably see it again, starting the day after the next presidential election. Will Carol be ready this time? Sure, if she ever finishes her housework.
In the interim some images that say it all about the last few months... And our futures??
SPEAKING OF CONSCIOUSNESS, better late than never...
This being merely .001% of my thoughts, mostly communicated through other peoples' thoughts.
Yup, Trump IS proving to be not just a demagogue but a fascist...
Our NATO "allies" like Turkey are shooting down Russian planes that briefly strayed over Turkey while bombing Northern Syria. Can anyone spell...accidental nuke war right around the corner??
Plus other trenchant commentary expressed in other peoples' memes...
Just to give you some reading material until the next time I feel like linking all the issues more directly to higher consciousness, feminism and radical decentralism...
Fire-roasted Dresden-ites 1945.
Two near-nuclear war articles, one about Russian paranoia over US aggression during the Reagan era (when there was at least one false Russian alert incident that could have lead to war). Another about an incident in Okinawa when a US error during the Cuban Missile Crisis almost lead to an accidental first strike attack by the US. In both incidents only the sanity of the rank and file button pushers save most of our lives... And former Reagan-era Asst. Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts' frightening ruminations over Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter? where he writes: "The neoconservatives should be quickly rounded up, arrested, tried, convicted, and executed for their massive crimes before they destroy the world. Life hangs in the balance. It is the neocons or us."
Nevertheless, the US wants NATO to send more troops to the Russian border! The tens of thousands firebombed and suffocated or roasted in one night of allied bombing of the all-civilian city of Dresden is just a mini-example of what's to come and is what motivates Roberts' rage.
Carol commented on a couple of articles, one knocking and one defending Germaine Greer's comments that men with penises will never be real women: here and here. See also a pretty good one defending feminist free speech rights here. In this country transgenders are trying to silence the criticisms of peacenik Cindy Sheehan of the sexism of dominant males in Veterans for Peace.
Israel's leader Netanyahu really went too far implying that it was the Palestinians, not Hitler and the Nazis, who set out to kill all those Jews, rather than sending them to Israel. Of course, he doesn't mention the 1933 Nazi-Zionist "Transfer Agreement" where greedy Zionists conspired with Nazi persecutors in order to grab as many Jews as possible for their imperialist Zionist dream.
The Atlantic article: How Wikipedia Is Hostile to Women by Emma Paling. It's just rife with Carol's comments on that topic, having endured sexism-motivated attacks and double standards 8 years as an editor. I finally was kicked off by a sexist cabal (led by some Brit wankers), in league with the Zionists and anti-libertarians who had tried but failed to get me kicked off in previous years. FREE AT LAST!! See Daniel Citron's speech on harassment of women on Wikipedia.
Hillary and Benghazi attacks on Americans. Isn't it obvious the CIA was running guns to Syrian Islamist rebels and didn't want the military coming in to protect the Ambassador and getting in the middle of it? Read here and here and links in previous posts. According to Judge Napolitano she knew and denies she knew. Same with those Republicans who, like John McCain, were all for that. So they pretend they do NOT know why Hillary didn't get the military in there quickly enough to save those guys. What fracking hypocrites they all are!!
Some articles that make similar points here (CNN 2013!) and here (Antiwar.com 2015). And then there's the whole issue of why US went in there in the first place without congressional approval, who pushed hardest for it and why, which may or may not be related to the above... Discussed here and here and here. And to add insult to injury, Hillary claims US lack of sufficient military intervention lead to the Benghazi attacks!
More mentions of US continuing aid to these Islamic terrorist bums (mislabeled "moderates" of course) here and here and here. Even as Russia is bombing the heck out of them with permission in Syria and has permission to do it in Iraq. The US says, we don't need no freaking permission to bomb or put boots on ground in Syria or Iraq and they aren't too anxious to give it! See here and here and here.
Libertarians support individual liberty against the state. We believe in the right of the people to alter and abolish government, per the Declaration of Independence. We believe in the freedom for individuals in their own communities and cities and countries to secede from larger political entities and form networks and confederations to deal with common issues. In 35 years I’ve never heard a libertarian say they would use police or military force against peaceful secessionists. The people of the world have got to break up their militaristic corporate states that are only oppressing and looting them. Let’s not waste time dancing on the heads of pins discussing how much military intervention is necessary or how many arms McCain and Obama should have sent to Al Queda and Al Nusra in Syria!
And there's some positive news. In Power to the people: a Syrian experiment in democracy Financial Times reports on Kurds who take anarchist green leftie Murray Bookchin's ideas seriously. Now they just have to combine with with the best of Murray Rothbard - or else read Secession.net (after I update it. Sigh.)
And don't get me started on the 30 secession-related google alerts I get every day. Go Catalonia! And all you other secessionists out there. Just make sure your political entities stay small and practice nonviolence and consensus-oriented democracy (i.e., 90% of eligible voters have to ok a law or tax before it's passed!) That's the best way to ward off political centralization, militarism and looting by special interests.
And thus run many of my thoughts of the last month...
Finally got around to reading Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech September 28th speech at the United Nations. His analysis of US imperialism was spot on. That doesn't mean I necessarily support all actions of the Russian government, of course, which is just another state. But the world heard what Putin said - which is why the US is trying to figure out how to retire him next (aka "regime change"). Unfortunately tens of millions of Americans who need to hear it did not... Selected quotes below...
...When the U.N. was established, its founders did not in the least think that there would always be unanimity. The mission of the organization is to seek and reach compromises, and its strength comes from taking different views and opinions into consideration. Decisions debated within the U.N. are either taken as resolutions or not. As diplomats say, they either pass or do not pass.
Whatever actions any state might take bypassing this procedure are illegitimate. They run counter to the charter and defy international law. We all know that after the end of the Cold War — everyone is aware of that — a single center of domination emerged in the world, and then those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that if they were strong and exceptional, they knew better and they did not have to reckon with the U.N., which, instead of [acting to] automatically authorize and legitimize the necessary decisions, often creates obstacles or, in other words, stands in the way...
... They could lead to a collapse of the entire architecture of international organizations, and then indeed there would be no other rules left but the rule of force.
We would get a world dominated by selfishness rather than collective work, a world increasingly characterized by dictate rather than equality. There would be less of a chain of democracy and freedom, and that would be a world where true independent states would be replaced by an ever-growing number of de facto protectorates and externally controlled territories.
What is the state sovereignty, after all, that has been mentioned by our colleagues here? It is basically about freedom and the right to choose freely one's own future for every person, nation and state. By the way, dear colleagues, the same holds true of the question of the so-called legitimacy of state authority. One should not play with or manipulate words.
Every term in international law and international affairs should be clear, transparent and have uniformly understood criteria. We are all different, and we should respect that. No one has to conform to a single development model that someone has once and for all recognized as the only right one. We should all remember what our past has taught us.
We also remember certain episodes from the history of the Soviet Union. Social experiments for export, attempts to push for changes within other countries based on ideological preferences, often led to tragic consequences and to degradation rather than progress.
It seemed, however, that far from learning from others' mistakes, everyone just keeps repeating them, and so the export of revolutions, this time of so-called democratic ones, continues. It would suffice to look at the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, as has been mentioned by previous speakers. Certainly political and social problems in this region have been piling up for a long time, and people there wish for changes naturally.
But how did it actually turn out? Rather than bringing about reforms, an aggressive foreign interference has resulted in a brazen destruction of national institutions and the lifestyle itself. Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster. Nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life.
I cannot help asking those who have caused the situation, do you realize now what you've done? But I am afraid no one is going to answer that. Indeed, policies based on self-conceit and belief in one's exceptionality and impunity have never been abandoned.
It is now obvious that the power vacuum created in some countries of the Middle East and North Africa through the emergence of anarchy areas, which immediately started to be filled with extremists and terrorists.
Tens of thousands of militants are fighting under the banners of the so-called Islamic State. Its ranks include former Iraqi servicemen who were thrown out into the street after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many recruits also come from Libya, a country whose statehood was destroyed as a result of a gross violation of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. And now, the ranks of radicals are being joined by the members of the so-called moderate Syrian opposition supported by the Western countries.
First, they are armed and trained and then they defect to the so-called Islamic State. Besides, the Islamic State itself did not just come from nowhere. It was also initially forged as a tool against undesirable secular regimes.
Having established a foothold in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has begun actively expanding to other regions. It is seeking dominance in the Islamic world. And not only there, and its plans go further than that. The situation is more than dangerous.
In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make loud declarations about the threat of international terrorism while turning a blind eye to the channels of financing and supporting terrorists, including the process of trafficking and illicit trade in oil and arms. It would be equally irresponsible to try to manipulate extremist groups and place them at one's service in order to achieve one's own political goals in the hope of later dealing with them or, in other words, liquidating them.
To those who do so, I would like to say — dear sirs, no doubt you are dealing with rough and cruel people, but they're in no way primitive or silly. They are just as clever as you are, and you never know who is manipulating whom. And the recent data on arms transferred to this most moderate opposition is the best proof of it.
We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone to arm them, are not just short-sighted, but fire hazardous (ph). This may result in the global terrorist threat increasing dramatically and engulfing new regions, especially given that Islamic State camps train militants from many countries, including the European countries....
I
