Clearly the objective perception of everything American after this Bush Jr regime has dismantled all accountability is abysmal.

How dare a nation that is:

1) fiscally bankrupt, but demanding more respect from its creditors;

2) religiously fanatical yet morally bankrupt in the White House;

3) historically, by far, the most flagrant violator of international/UN agreements;

4) a war-mongering nation that cannot, and will not allow others to, live in peace if it dare infringe on its hegemonic interests;

5) historically the primary supporter of more terrorists factions than all other countries combined; and

6) the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on people — not once but twice as the second bombing of Japan was completely uncalled for — yet hypocritically perpetuates the rhetoric about being on the eve of the first nuclear war;

again, with what gall does the USA come to the table with such blood-soaked hands and threaten the world while at the same time it is consumed in currently the world’s largest war, a war founded on complete fabrications and misrepresentations to the world and to its own people, a war it started and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, seeking to line its own pockets, and ask the world (or another nation) for anything except forgiveness??

The American people MUST reel in its regime and regain control of a once admirable nation.

Thanks for the link.

The way the speech reads, he regards the government of Israel as the puppet of American Empire. I do not read an anti-semetic word in this speech. I do read concern at an Anglo-American hegemony.

Obviously, this is not the kind of thing they wanted to hear him say at Columbia: a reasonable dispassionate analysis of the situation from the Iranian point of view would have been very embarrassing.

So they baited him, which only partially succeeded.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

This is the UN speech.

Different people have their anti-Semitismdar calibrated differently, but in his comments to the Washington Press Corps, he said “We do not recognize that [Israeli] regime because it is based on discrimination,” and he continued to toy with Holocaust denial. I watched the video on msnbc.com but can’t find the link now.

It might have been interesting if Columbia U. Professor Bollinger had debated him — he had quite a laundry list of accusations against Iran, which would have been instructive to have been answered or dodged. But to do a fifteen-minute tirade — which included words like “evil” — against a guest speaker was, to the best of my knowledge, an unprecedented breach of any imaginable protocol and can only serve to raise Ahmadinejad’s reputation here and abroad.

exactly. Ahmadinejad is a clown, a demagogue and politician with little actual power, and he annoys me to no end with his theatrics. a good message doesn’t need to be fluffed up on all that, but of course our clowns are in no position to complain. what happened at columbia was just another example of how we’re not a “civilized” nation anymore.

xeno, laugh with me that at least white people can say bushies insult them too, as i remember chimpy man-handling merkel. goddess i was just as embarrassed then too. as atrios says, “we are ruled by fools and children.”

I expected more in the way of accuracy.

Just off the top of my head, if Iran is, as he declared, a dictatorship, then so too, by the same metric, is the USofA.

I mean, I know Bollinger had to play to his funders: Columbia’s a private school. But, really…

The last time A’jad made a speech in the US, it was in the main intelligent and logical enough to embarrass the regime/scum commentators who tried to dismiss it.

A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

i cant get into the dashboard, but i think i’ve got a firewall issue…
anybody else?

A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

Maybe that’s preventing page builds?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

I have a question for anyone out there.

We always hear the Riech Wing noise machine tell us Adamindijan (you know who I mean) wants to wipe Isreal off the face of the earth.

I seem to recall this being debunked. Anyone know the quote, or the site I could find it.

I saw Ahmadidijahn on Charlie Rose. And he seemed to just want Palatine to have their own choice.

I have nothing, and I mean nothing against Isreal.

But I think they as big a trouble makers in that region as anyone.

’OUTRAGE’ OVER AHMADINEJAD
It is an outrage. He had admitted he wants to destroy other nations. He supports and finances terrorism. He threatens the US. Subsidizes the killing of American soldiers and citizens. Any body else trying to enter the USA with his credentials would be refused.
Under the UN umbrella, we must allow him access to the UN and that is it and no where else. When and where do we draw the line?
Are we as a nation that foolish?
His movements should be restricted only to the UN.
Anything else is Treason. Thirty years ago people would have been tried for treason. Those who permit these actions are just as responsible as the traitors who were prosecuted. I was even told that he participated in the American Embassy hostage taking in Iran during the Carter years.
Would you let a murderer into your own house - he threatens to kill you your family your friends and relatives.
Why are we allowing this HITLER to cruise around our country?
As a president of a nation, he should be expected to abide by a higher standard than an average citizen, but he is worse.
This type of rullers cause American intervention which helps preserves our freedom and the freedom of the world.
The world today has shrunk - actions in other parts of the world affect us and others and can not be ignored.

I’d seen that debate about his famous quote, too, but his answers to the Washington Press Corps this week indicated that he continues to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel, if not in quite the same vivid language.

because, as you say, I do want to work this out, not just with you but with all of the people who are as angry, or more so, than I am over the way the America of my childhood has been destroyed.
You say:
Why are “you people” so angry? Some will think that I mean Black people, I do. I also mean the poor, the disenfranchised, the queer, the marginalized – the majority of Americans. I wasn’t going to pay much attention to the Iranian president until I saw how rudely he was treated at Columbia. I was so deeply embarrassed. I apologize for the sheer lack of manners they displayed. It simply wasn’t worthy of a “civilized” institution. As a Black man I know that whenever they try that hard to keep you out you must be saying something right.

I say, I know why I’m angry.
I’m angry because the war on drugs not only failed but backfired.
I’m angry because Reagan declared a war on mental health care in this country and set literally thousands of people who could not cope with the demands of life lacking wealth to afford caretakers into the streets.
I’m angry because farm lands have been taken out of the hands of families (who were insulted, by the way, as “poor managers” into the bargain) to further enrich agricultural corporations and absentee shareholders.
I’m angry because taking those lands out of the hands of families living and working there destroyed small towns and corrupted a way of life that brought us good and decent citizens, at least one of whom became a caring and competent President.

As a side benefit, it cut the connection between farmers, ranchers, and the environment, pulverizing concern for our air, water, wildlife, and land into “tree-huggers,” “ecoterrorists,” and “profitmakers” or “employers,” another needless, senseless, built-on-lies war.

I’m angry because the war on farmers gave us genetically modified crops, patented fucking seed that can’t be collected and replanted next year, dying honeybees, monoculture, and idiotic ideas like taking land adjacent the Chihuahan and Coahuilan fucking DESERTS out of the Conservation Reserve Program to raise water-hogging CORN on for “ethanol,” like the fucking oil-based government would ever really support the (few remaining family) farmers expending their last best effort to save the country by honoring their “commitment” to such a program.

I’m angry because the VA not only isn’t taking the care they deserve of the Iraq war vets, but its budget has been cut so drastically Desert Storm, Viet Nam, and the surviving Korean and WW2 veterans are being disserved.
I’m angry because letters and emails and telephone calls to local representatives and Congressional representatives are a waste of time, now; I get form letters back, and there’s no real service because I’m identified as a Democrat.
I’m angry because corporate ownership and “privatization” has, for the last 27 1/2 years, been the “mantra” of the “tax cut” government, and the Democrats have been demonized for “liberal” positions derided as “tax and spend” or “soft on terror” or both, when in truth what they used to be — and since the 2006 midterms and the subsequent failures not only to lead but to even stand up and speak despite the probability of getting outvoted — was “for the little guy.”

*that*, in a nutshell, is what I’m pissed off about, Xenophon. Nobody cares about “the little guy” anymore.

The school teacher, the automobile factory worker, the truck driver, the mechanic, the miner, the HVAC installer, the crossing guard, the cashier, the radio engineer, the stagehand, the freighter pilot, the merchant seaman, the individual airman or coast guard or Marine or sailor or soldier, the family trying to make a living on a farm, the shoeshine boy at the airport, the five-and-dime store operator, the non-franchised drive-in cook, the cafeteria lady, the obituary editor, the hearse driver, the ambulance driver, the firefighter, the police officer, the state agency receptionist, the game warden — NOT a ONE of us has the ear of anybody in government, even when we work beside Congressmen and Senators and ombudsmen and journalists every stinking day. None of us. Never mind the folks the United States Supreme Court has declared persona non grata in the United States — students in public schools in grades K-college, for example; prisoners; mental health patients (especially when they’re not really crazy, just people too upset to maintain their self-control in high-stress environments!); janitors; Taco Bell employees; farm kids; and serving members of the military on active duty: all of these people have something in common.

The United States couldn’t get by without their service, their labor, their blood and sweat and tears; but the US government wants nothing more than to have them die quietly, out of sight, out of mind.

It’s not an issue of color, although prisoners tend to be disproportionately Black or Hispanic.

It’s not an issue of ignorance.
It’s not an issue of lack of education.

It’s a culture issue.
The Bush class (and in it I include all incumbents of all legislative bodies above the level of county commissioner) simply doesn’t believe we’re human.
They can’t imagine listening to us.
They regard us as zoo exhibits.

How is it different, then, for me as a woman and a veteran, than it is for you as a man and a dissenter? Is the last remaining obstacle to our agreement really an issue of pigmentation?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

Back in the day, Eisenhower invited Kruschev to the United States, showed him around, and the conservatives of the day didn’t stamp their feet and shake their tiny fists and yammer and wet themselves.

Now, of course, things are very different.

So much more easy to get your war on when you turn citizens into frightened children ruled by hate and fear.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

He called it Regime Change and sold it like so much snake-oil for a year and six months, and we’re still reaping the aftermath of his deal-closing ’talent’ in Iraq today.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

Us oldsters might. I remember when it might have been possible to maintain that illusion, anyway.
Nobody under the age of 30 could/does…
They may have seen images, read books, etc.
But The USofA ceased being a ’great’ nation when it installed Raygun in the presidency, 27 years ago…

A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

but backjfired.”

like iraq, that’s a ’war’ they shouldnta ever started. I object to it not because if failed or that it ’backfired”. (I don’t even know what you mean, it ’backfired.” It seems to have done precisely what it was designed to do: lock up black and other marginal males.) I object because it STARTED! ou don’t just declare war on your citizenry, no matter their collective state of intoxication.
If it hadn’t ’failed,’ as regards yrs truly, i might be in the joint, not rolling one. Surely you don’t wanna see yer ol’ pal Woody doing time do ya? or anybody else, just for a little reefer?
you know, there were almost NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND fucking pot busts last year?

A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

twins with different parents, are we?

“Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth.”
“Or by misleading the innocent.”
- Spock and McCoy, “And The Children Shall Lead”, stardate 5029.5.

…when you turn citizens into frightened children ruled by hate and fear.”

this does not speak well for the possibility of an anti-war candidate’s election, imho.

Ghouliani or Mitt: who ever rides the terror horse best, that’s who we’re gonna get, i fear…

is backfiring, Woody.
Gave its authors the notion that the Constitutional Rights of all US Citizens are not, in fact, equal or worthy of honor.
Led to RICO.
Led to crap like Tom Coleman in Tulia.
Hasn’t been effectively stopped yet.
Contributed to turning cop shops in small towns into SWAT units. Body armor, no-knock raids, the whole Gestapo-wannabe shtick, Woody.
’Cause, you know, if the cops find weeds and seeds in the carpet of the ’Vette, it’s now the cops’ ’Vette for undercover drug busts.

Theft.
That became policy.
That mutated into another revenue stream for governments.
It’s the shit-fired-est “policy” ever to come out of a warped mindset.

Meanwhile, the people who need HELP — the disturbed, the hopeless, the mentally ill and the communities deprived of real treatment options to help them — get the shaft.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!— Xan

of baleful accident.
I think it was the plan all along.
Especially the para-militarization of the local cops.

…and here I’m talking about equipment upgrades, training money, and opportunities to practice before it all falls in the commode … maybe it wouldn’t be such a total waste. But, no … that doesn’t get anybody important “juiced up”, y’know?
An SO, a PD, hell, a municipal constabulary, sure — $$$ out the wazoo for body armor, bigger guns, firing ranges, bomb detectors (but nothing to really protect the public, and no money for the bomb squad widows/orphans, let alone the regular cops’ widows/orphans. Plus, the dogs are sacrificed!) and a boatload of “surveillance gear” that can hear a whisper 1,000 yards away.
For firefighters, not so much.
Defense ain’t real unless it’s flashy, eh, boys?

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

How is it different, then, for me as a woman and a veteran, than it is for you as a man and a dissenter? Is the last remaining obstacle to our agreement really an issue of pigmentation?

All these things are true. All these things we share in common. But, there is another dimension of the problem. America is not only a class system but a caste system. Caste is still a part of our culture and has a disproportionate effect on pepole because of their pigmentation. It is a system that is not reducble to the “general” class conflict. Remeber the America of your Childhood with all the “good old american values” was also the America of apartheid. Apartheid, Jim Crow, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Truth in sentencing, Mandatory minimums, the war on drugs, the war on terror are all names for the same thing - American racism. It is what it means to be an american - Separate and Unequal.

Being the subject of a different system of justice, governance, policing and coercion, I tend to “que” to different patterns of behavior. What they did to Ahmadinejad was a classic tactic; an ambush in order to invalidate any legitimate point of criticism that he may have made. It’s like the people in Jena saying we don’t have a race problem or the nooses were “just a prank.” It’s the same manuvre, same glitch in the matrix. It’s a signal to go get the rope.

Yes it is culture but it is a distinct culture based on a systematic pattern of discrimination and action signaled by skin pigmentation.

That’s all.

at any of the schools I attended, although I did make reasonably good grades. “Class” there was what, I think, you’re calling “caste” — and I had a nasty little run-in with caste at my last job, because my team lead was a new immigrant from India. There are all sorts of divisions and artificial barriers to just being friends and neighbors; religion is a big one, and so is the notion that money makes you better than people around you, or worse, just because all the people in the room don’t have the same amount.

I get slaughtered on this time after time, but this is an article of my faith: “Profits make lousy prophets.”

Ahmadinejad may have said some things with which I might even agree; but seriously, the reason there are no (live) homosexuals (out) in Iran isn’t that they don’t exist. It’s that when the imams and ayatollahs want to set examples, that’s where they start. They can move up after that to women with improper veils and political dissenters, and somehow, the visceral need in the crowd to know that they’re safe ’cause they’re not like the “criminals” being executed is satisfied.

So from where I stand, it’s not just about OUR system.
It’s about something — jealousy? fear? superstition? — that makes us fear what we don’t understand and seek to destroy what frightens us, throughout all humanity. I have a very powerful memory from the second grade that suggests to me that it’s learned behavior, not inborn; but what do I know?
I’m just a dumb broke old broad.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

I’m not at all eager to move to Iran. I have this thing about choice … I like having one. I have deep love of freedom, but the idea that Europeans, Americans as well, have treated the rest of the world as the “Vanquished” struck a chord. American arrogance will be our down fall.

As for the learned thing. It is. And its sad. If you let a generation grow up without the bullshit, America would be closer to America in a generation. My generation was almost there (Born in the 70’s) and we have had to fight tooth and nail to keep whatever sense of ecuminism we had. The prospect of little brown babies really was too much for a lot of folk to handle … on both sides of the equation.

You ain’t dumb, that’s for sure.

About the Caste/Class thing. “How the Irish Became White” is a great primer.

In 1990 in the American Sociological Review, Stewart Tolney and E.M. Beck published what is probably the definitive study of the cotton/lynching connection for the years 1882-1930. Importantly, they controlled for price changes due to inflation (among many other variables). They found that when they examined the price of cotton in constant dollars, falling prices meant more lynchings and rising prices meant fewer. However, when the price of cotton rose as part of general inflation, lynchings increased.

This is a classic study that we learned in college is presented here at Orcinus .

I like the idea that “caste” cannot be reduced to “class” and I’d like to hear more about it. However, the sophistication and power of that idea seems to be at odds with the idea of “the” foundation. Nothing in nature ever has a single cause or source.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Explain.

Back in the day, when the, er, vulgar concept was that cultural and political happenings were epiphenomena of class structures. It turns out this is simple minded; it’s like saying that because tectonic plate theory is true, that next year the soil is going to be different in my garden. In fact, my garden is a (relatively) automous system, in some context and over some time frame. So, your comment on caste, that is it is a “a system that is not reducible to the “general” class conflict” struck a chord with me. Now, I’m identifying the… construct of race as constituting such castes (perhaps wrongly). The construct would have its own autonomy and be a HUGE part of the system. But not “the” foundation. There is no “the”, one foundation (any more than for the continents that float on the tectonic plates).

If that makes any sense. I’m not arguing or, I hope, minimizing. I’m riffing….

For example, suppose a portion of the base is clinically insane. That insanity would operate according to its own laws, its own rules, no matter that racism was part of its core.

Of course, crises have a way of reducing subtle distinctions. I can see that in a crunch, we’d end up with two classes (rich and poor) and two castes (white, and not-white). I think that would be bad; I am not a “worse is better” fantasist.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

I think the elites will go for “reductio ad absurdum”: the ’in crowd’, which arguably will include certain members of many races (Oprah, as one example), and the rest of us.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

Yeah when I say foundational I mean foundational. The idea of “American” or “Citizen of the United States of America” are defined against ideas like “Indians not taxed” and “three fifths of a human being” or as Tanney formulated a “white man” is he who does not have to “respect the rights” of Black folk. The very idea of divine providence on which the constitution is based (The endowment by a creator with inalienable rights) has meaning, particularly at the time of its construction, in reference to the idea that those Africans are not men (human). Race is foundational to the idea of “American” identity. It is the negative against which we affirm our rights. Americans define themselves as free relative to the institution of slavery (still) – deeply racialized concept. American slavery defines the idea of American freedom.

Race is not epiphenomenal in America it is integral. The idea of race is at the heart of the national identity. The negative dialectic with blackness makes being an “American” possible. How else can one be white? It is an identity construct it defines for 1, the root from which all other social functions derive. Besides that it is ingrained in the psyche

That’s spot on…again
heh
A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

My quarrel was not with “foundational” but with “the foundation.” I could be wrong, of course. Quibbles aside:

Race is foundational to the idea of “American” identity. It is the negative against which we affirm our rights. Americans define themselves as free relative to the institution of slavery (still) – deeply racialized concept. American slavery defines the idea of American freedom.

Ineresting. Even at the personal, biographical level, the Founders were intimately familiar with it, being one or two degrees of separation from slaves, where as owners or “free” associates of the owners.

“It” — I would have said the negative is “slavery” not “race”. Then again and not to be binary the two are all mixed in together, historically, personally, politically, economically, sexually.

Ick. If we were going to trade in human flesh, it would have saved a lot of trouble later on to have traded in flesh of different colors. (Though I’m not aware of the history of indentured servitude). The Romans enslaved those defeated in war, yes? Presumably the Roman political establishment didn’t through “race” however defined into the master/slave relationship, as “we” did?

And when (licensed by CD ;-) I/we use the slogan “we’re all niggers now” I’m not certain whether I’m hacking away at that foundation (deracinate the master/slave relation) or reinforcing it. My intention is to hack away.

I need to think about “what is an American.” If I go for citizenship, what I need to do is take and pass a test on the history of the country and above all on its Constitutional arrangements — since we the people are sovreign. Pass that test, you’re American. Lot’s of slop, there (what about illegal immigrants) but still. I translate “psyche” as lizard backbrain. In a world where we were listening to the better angels of our nature, the opposite of being free wouldn’t be, being black (how orthogonal) but being without the rule of law; being subject to arbitrary, despotic power.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

The citizenship test applies to immigrants, according to the written code.

It should apply to everybody IMNVHO, and there are a goodly proportion of our current masters in the Senate, House, Supreme Court, and state legislatures who could not pass it if their lives depended upon it.

I am not for restricting voting on the basis of race or literacy or fiduciary entitlement.
I do think we’d have a better government if, at some point very early on, potential voters had to demonstrate the ability to pay attention.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

That strikes me just about the perfect description of racism.

Me? A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

Sarah: I’m aware that the citizenship test is for immigrants, non-citizen. But if you ask me, What does it mean to be an American, my first thought wouldn’t be blood, or ancestry, or color, but knowledge of and adherence to a political framework.

Woody: Well, with the exception of leaving race out of it. Or do you think that racists the only despotic powers out there?

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

that it isn’t made to apply to everybody equally.

So it sets up a belief, if you will, that the Constitution doesn’t cover everybody equally, or NEED TO BE SEEN TO.
Similarly, it sets up an infrastructure where justice doesn’t treat everyone, regardless of color or creed or financial standing, equally, and the perception exists that this is OK.
This is NOT OK.
WE are NOT OK.
pop-psych babble to the contrary.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

Woody: Well, with the exception of leaving race out of it. Or do you think that racists the only despotic powers out there?

which did not wield ’racism’ in its quiver of oppressive strategies—500 years being the approximate outside limit when what we (or I, at any rate) would today recognize as “racism,” per se, has existed
Racism, i shall continue to politely point out, precedes ’racists.’ It does not precede bigotry or prejudice. It formalizes and normalizes them as strategies of social control; as a recognized tool of the rulers, it provides legitimacy for the practices—often cruel and violent—at which mere bigotry and prejudice might quail.

Me? A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

The reason we have citizenship by birth is because of the deals cut during reconstruction and the 13th and 14th ammendment.

as for … “it isn’t made to apply to everybody equally”

This too is part of being an American, a certain level of self delusion that we all share about the sacrosanct nature of our founding ideals.

The constitution is designed to be exclusionary and discriminatory. It wasn’t meant to apply to everyone, equally, it was designed to engender a certain inequality, a very particualr inequality that perists to this day. Until you abolish slavery with a constitutional ammendment, this inequality will remain in the source code of our nation and emerge appended to every endeavor, enmeshed in every thought, project, or ideal that springs forth in the name of America. You can’t talk about freedom, equality or justice and hold slavery as aviable institution, in any form.

Until we face the fact that America is the most genocidal nation in modern history and that our prosperity is plunder, we’ll never be anything more than a nation of gangsters and mercenaries. We are not the good guys, and we will be held accountable by the world for what has transpired in the name of “We the People.” If America is a city on a hill, that hill is a mountain of skulls surrounded by oceans of blood.

Last I checked the 3/5 of a man crapola got expunged, and a lot of people lost their lives getting it done.

Anyone who argues that none of this did any good or made any difference or didn’t involve any ideas or practices we can all aspire to—weren’t we just talking about equal justice for all in the Jena 6 context?—is perfectly free to advocate going back to those times.

And yeah, the 3/5 of a man thing is about as ugly and vile an example of sausage making as I can think of. Ditto Indians not taxed. Anyone who wants to make a counterfactual argument that it would have been better not to have the Constitution, or better to remain under King George, or better to split into slaveholding and non-slaveholding United States and Confederate States from the word Go is also perfectly free to do so.

Sweet Jesus.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Personally I think we would have been better under the Iroquois confederation. I don’t view America from the perspective of an immigrant. I have alternate cultures and civilizations as my referents. The civilizations that existed here prior to European incursion were just fine. Technically advanced, well planned, relatively harmonious compared to what came later. My personal historical orientation is not centered on the experience of immigration. Abduction and invasion are my governing paradigms. For me being slave in the south is no more promising than being a factory wage slave in the industrial north; Union or Confederacy, same shit from my perspective. Next, the civil war was not fought to free the slaves or end the institution of slavery (especially since it still exits, legally sanctioned in the constitution), it was fought to establish the bounds of federal power and determine the future character of “the union.” As for the 3/5ths thing, check this out and let me know HERE. Sounds awful similar.

I’m not saying we haven’t developed ideals that are worth striving for. I am saying that if you are going to struggle for them we should have an accurate accounting of them so that we know if progress is being made or not. Our founding fathers were not egalitarian humanist. The were oligarchic anarchist, they were the mortal enemies of my ancestors. They were shady, duplicitous, murderers. Now, with that said, I still think the Mexican stand off we call the constitution is still the best document governing power relations I’ve seen in the last ten thousand years. Which is why I say lets make sure we are all on the same page about “what the definition of is is.

That’s because there are things that the governance of the Iroquois had not yet imagined, of course.

Just as the Founding Fathers had, more than likely, never imagined the rise of televangelists and the complete failure of a free press to behave responsibly.

The shackles and chains are no less shackles and chains because they are made of a prohibition against chestnut-wood fires and wearing antlers one has not earned.

Christians are urged to be in the world without being of the world; to turn that on its head and demand the world honor a certain cult above all others is much like what you advocate here; and while I understand that you seek a remedy for alienation, I don’t believe the one that suits you is the only suitable one.

Everybody has to be under the roof, or it doesn’t protect anybody — because the person who is left in the weather will always be an object of emotional reaction.

Maybe pity.
Maybe scorn.
Maybe derision.
Maybe charity.
Maybe hatred.
Maybe dismissal.

Never understanding.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

The Constiution is about power relations (and I see that here Xenophon and I have ended up in vehement agreement).

And although power relations between people do change, they change much more slowly than things. For example, does anyone have any doubt that the Founders, if magically revived today, would immediately recognize that email comes under the heading of “personal papers and effects? Of course they would. That’s because the relations that give rise to the need (and desire (and lust)) to surveill haven’t changed that much, even though the technology has.

For the televangelists, I bet they would have (see the establishment clause). I bet the same God botherers were yammering in the most up-to-date communications medium of the day.

For the press failing, maybe no. I lay that to the power relation that did change, the rise of the corporation and its subsequent personhood. It never occurred to them that the press would be so concentrated in its power.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

For we don’t have time to go on mourning what never was, if we hope to see Constitutional government restored to the merely less perfect level at which it existed seven years ago.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

Assert the constitutional right of the people to be sovereign of their government. I keep saying abolish slavery. People laugh and say we’ve already done that. That is wehn you know they don’t read or read carefully. Abolish slavery and you take the wind out of the sails. If not slavery, pass the anti-lynching legislation which was started back at the end of WW I
and has never been passed. Why because it would outlaw torture. Stop pretending that we as a country are right just and good. We are not. We have done more to destroy lives and civilizations than Ghengis Kahn or Hitler. Stop the use of DU shells in Iraq. End the use of High Fructose Corn syrup in food. Shit Impeach Bush. Secure the vote, repeal the PATRIOT ACT. For me Abolish slavery seems the easy one and would put an end to much of the abuses that are in the Patriot act, it would de-incentivize the Prison Industrial Complex, and ease the pressure on society created by the war on drugs. But, of course, who wants to end slavery.