Last year we had some storm doors put up at the front and side doors. Long ago there were probably screen doors, but they were taken down whenever and were never replaced. We wanted to do the back french doors too, but because of the non-standard size of the opening (it was a window that was enlarged to accommodate french doors to the backyard when we had the house renovated a decade ago) it would have cost thousands to have storm doors custom made. So. We passed on that for the time being.
I decided that screen doors would be adequate -- especially in the summer, keep the bugs out -- but finding the right size proved a challenge. 30" screen doors are not commonly stocked in the big box stores it would seem. Nor are they easily available anywhere else. I went through something like this with the side door as well. Just lucky, I guess, to find one 30" storm door in stock. I wanted to replace the interior door too, but couldn't find what I wanted -- one with and operable window -- and wound up purchasing an antique door in California and hauling it out to New Mexico on one of my many California to New Mexico junkets before we moved here permanently.
Eventually I found two 30" screen doors in stock at Home Depot in Albuquerque at an astonishingly low price, and I figured I could put them up without too much trouble. Sure enough. Given my inability to do much of anything over the last many months -- besides growing tomatoes -- I was pretty jazzed that I was able to do it. Then I built four cat houses for the ferals that would no longer be able to use the french door step for a shelter. Whoa. Actually, they were pre-cut cat houses, so it wasn't too much of a challenge to put them together, but still. I couldn't have done it at all a few months ago.
And the swallows are back -- again. There was a clutch earlier this year nesting in the eaves of the front porch. That nest has been there for years. There used to be two nests, but one day when we weren't here a bad boy who lived across the street came over and smashed one of them. We told him that if he tried that again on the other nest we'd be sure he went to jail as swallows are a protected species, and interference with their nests is a criminal offense. He never came back, and eventually his household moved away. Yay.
So. This is the second clutch of swallows this year. Four chicks each time. Whether they have the same parental units, I don't know.
Swallows are messy. When they nest under the eaves at businesses and public buildings, there's often an outcry to get rid of them. Bird doo-doo piles up under the nests as the parents dispose of their little ones' excrement.
Requires constant attention and clean up.
But the birds are pleasant to have around just the same, and it's a joy to watch the chicks grow and eventually fly away. They'll be back next year once the weather is warm enough.
Late summer pleasures. Simple things.
On the Labor Day weekend we're headed out to Acoma Pueblo -- I think I mentioned before. I really hesitated about going because I wasn't sure I could handle the exercise. But we'll give it a try. Why not?
And then, if I haven't already, I'll have to describe what happened there when Onate came to call in 1598.
Showing posts with label end of summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label end of summer. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Sunday, August 27, 2017
The Late Summer Battle Over White Supremacy
Labor Day is nearly upon us, and once we're past that milestone, I expect this battle will fade away, much like summer stories of sharks and missing white women.
The Hurricane Season will be upon us. A new Imperial war will break out somewhere. The economy will tailspin once more. The poor will rise up and be put down with ferocity and brutality.
Himself will keep the pot stirred and bubbling. Media will be transfixed by it all.
And the questions of Confederate Statues and White Supremacy and Nazis with torches will vanish as if they were never asked.
The white supremacist right has already gone into nearly total retreat. Their efforts to "engage" as it were turned into a nightmare in Charlottesville, and a farce in Boston. The idea that they would show strength by marching and rallying in San Francisco (hahhahhah) went bust when Antaifa said they'd cover Crissy Field, the rally site, with dog doo doo. Dear me. So impolite.
Dozens and dozens of white rightist rallies have been canceled, it seems, while the white supremacists have been banished from the internet and must find what comfort they can with the pedophiles and freaks of the so-called "darknet."
While the Overclass can't seem to do anything worthwhile about Trump and his gang of thieves and mountebanks, they seemingly can -- and have -- put the kabosh on any more of this Nazi unpleasantness (too bad that girl had to die, they say, but her sacrifice was not in vain.)
Unlike a lot of white kids, I was not exposed to the active white supremacist community until I was old enough to make a judgment of its value. I lived my first ten years in mixed company so to speak, integrated communities and schools where the concepts of white supremacy and separation of the races didn't exist.
Well, except that white supremacy was taken for granted. The default as it were.
We may have lived in an integrated environment, but all civic and higher authority was held by whites, and nobody questioned it. At least not until the mid-fifties and later when Civil Rights became a Thing.
White people were not only in charge, they set all the cultural, educational, governmental, and scientific standards.
For all intents and purposes, it's still that way. And it's not likely to change anytime soon.
There are plenty of chinks in the armor to be sure, and white supremacists including the tiny Nazi contingent whine and complain incessantly about the suppression of Wypipo by those ever-present hordes of Others -- Brown and Black and Not Quite White Enough -- who always want to rape their women and steal their stuff. Yes, yes, we know.
But the Overclass is not having it. Not this time. No way.
Interesting.
So, they'll go away after Labor Day; Antifa will too. It will all be like a dream as Shit Gets Real once again, and who knows what fresh hell we'll be presented with? Who knows?
The Hurricane Season will be upon us. A new Imperial war will break out somewhere. The economy will tailspin once more. The poor will rise up and be put down with ferocity and brutality.
Himself will keep the pot stirred and bubbling. Media will be transfixed by it all.
And the questions of Confederate Statues and White Supremacy and Nazis with torches will vanish as if they were never asked.
The white supremacist right has already gone into nearly total retreat. Their efforts to "engage" as it were turned into a nightmare in Charlottesville, and a farce in Boston. The idea that they would show strength by marching and rallying in San Francisco (hahhahhah) went bust when Antaifa said they'd cover Crissy Field, the rally site, with dog doo doo. Dear me. So impolite.
Dozens and dozens of white rightist rallies have been canceled, it seems, while the white supremacists have been banished from the internet and must find what comfort they can with the pedophiles and freaks of the so-called "darknet."
While the Overclass can't seem to do anything worthwhile about Trump and his gang of thieves and mountebanks, they seemingly can -- and have -- put the kabosh on any more of this Nazi unpleasantness (too bad that girl had to die, they say, but her sacrifice was not in vain.)
Unlike a lot of white kids, I was not exposed to the active white supremacist community until I was old enough to make a judgment of its value. I lived my first ten years in mixed company so to speak, integrated communities and schools where the concepts of white supremacy and separation of the races didn't exist.
Well, except that white supremacy was taken for granted. The default as it were.
We may have lived in an integrated environment, but all civic and higher authority was held by whites, and nobody questioned it. At least not until the mid-fifties and later when Civil Rights became a Thing.
White people were not only in charge, they set all the cultural, educational, governmental, and scientific standards.
For all intents and purposes, it's still that way. And it's not likely to change anytime soon.
There are plenty of chinks in the armor to be sure, and white supremacists including the tiny Nazi contingent whine and complain incessantly about the suppression of Wypipo by those ever-present hordes of Others -- Brown and Black and Not Quite White Enough -- who always want to rape their women and steal their stuff. Yes, yes, we know.
But the Overclass is not having it. Not this time. No way.
Interesting.
So, they'll go away after Labor Day; Antifa will too. It will all be like a dream as Shit Gets Real once again, and who knows what fresh hell we'll be presented with? Who knows?
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Junta Time?
The events in Charlottesville continue to reverberate. While Nazi torchlight parades and chants of "Blood and Soil!" are a disgusting display and street brawls are little more than theater -- usually -- the upshot in Charlottesville was the terror-by-vehicle tactic deployed against the so-called counterprotesters (watch how that term is twisted and turned this way and that to normalize the Nazis as the genuine "protesters.")
One was killed and dozens were injured on the ground. Two state police officers observing from above were killed when their helicopter crashed.
It was a debacle for all kinds of reasons.As we inch closer to Labor Day, we need to keep that in mind.
The day did not go well for anyone.
It seems to me this was the tipping point we wondered if it would ever come.
Trump demonstrated clear unfitness for office and inability to lead with his pathetic and contradictory responses to the events in Charlottesville. He was so far out of touch with the zeitgeist he seemed like some alien entity plopped down in front of a teleprompter to say just the wrong things and repeat them, at a time of public mourning and national moral crisis. He failed every test of leadership.
In normal times, that would mean he's done. In these times, it's hard to say.
But note well that he's effectively installed a military junta to run the country should his regime collapse -- as it appears to be doing.
Mattis at Defense, McMaster at DHS (the key domestic agency -- thanks Cheney!) National Security Advisor and Kelly (ex-DHS) in the White House as chief of staff. There seems to be bipartisan support for these fine fellows, each of whom is practically worshiped by both parties and many in the Overclass. In other words, if the Trump regime goes down, these three can instantly elide from their current positions to ones of executive control, without objection from the People Who Matter.
The US experiment with constitutional self-government will reach its final end.
Though I'm sure the junta, like Octavian in Rome, would say they are protecting and restoring the Republic. Bless their hearts
Events of this magnitude take place after Labor Day, so we have a few days to psych ourselves up.
Ms Ché and I are scheduled to visit Acoma Pueblo on Labor Day. There is a whole story to tell about what happened there when the Spanish came a-calling in 1598. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.
Acomans survived it in sufficient numbers that they are still around; the mesa-top village was rebuilt along with the huge San Esteban mission church, one of the largest in New Mexico, and today, the Acoma pueblo and surrounding territory are major tourist destinations. Despite survival, Acoma today is a very different place than it was before the Spanish conquest.
My bet is that the US will become a very different place after Labor Day this year, but I wonder how many people will notice.
There has long been a significant sector of the US population that would prefer military rule to the messy "democracy" that's been teetering on the verge of collapse for a generation.
One was killed and dozens were injured on the ground. Two state police officers observing from above were killed when their helicopter crashed.
It was a debacle for all kinds of reasons.As we inch closer to Labor Day, we need to keep that in mind.
The day did not go well for anyone.
It seems to me this was the tipping point we wondered if it would ever come.
Trump demonstrated clear unfitness for office and inability to lead with his pathetic and contradictory responses to the events in Charlottesville. He was so far out of touch with the zeitgeist he seemed like some alien entity plopped down in front of a teleprompter to say just the wrong things and repeat them, at a time of public mourning and national moral crisis. He failed every test of leadership.
In normal times, that would mean he's done. In these times, it's hard to say.
But note well that he's effectively installed a military junta to run the country should his regime collapse -- as it appears to be doing.
Mattis at Defense, McMaster
The US experiment with constitutional self-government will reach its final end.
Though I'm sure the junta, like Octavian in Rome, would say they are protecting and restoring the Republic. Bless their hearts
Events of this magnitude take place after Labor Day, so we have a few days to psych ourselves up.
Ms Ché and I are scheduled to visit Acoma Pueblo on Labor Day. There is a whole story to tell about what happened there when the Spanish came a-calling in 1598. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.
Acomans survived it in sufficient numbers that they are still around; the mesa-top village was rebuilt along with the huge San Esteban mission church, one of the largest in New Mexico, and today, the Acoma pueblo and surrounding territory are major tourist destinations. Despite survival, Acoma today is a very different place than it was before the Spanish conquest.
My bet is that the US will become a very different place after Labor Day this year, but I wonder how many people will notice.
There has long been a significant sector of the US population that would prefer military rule to the messy "democracy" that's been teetering on the verge of collapse for a generation.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Repost: September 11 and The Narrative
As the war drums beat ever louder once again, I've decided to repost my 10th Anniversary of 9/11 opus, as so little seems to have changed except... it's worse.
September 11 and The Narrative
(originally posted September 11, 2011):
-------------------------------------------------------
Within days, of course, what would be known as "Occupy Wall Street" and then just "Occupy!" swept out from lower Manhattan (Zuccotti Park is only a block or two from the World Trade Center site) and spread around the world. That spirit is still active. Yes, coups are easy. Revolution is hard.
I'm in a motel room in Kingman, AZ. That morning 10 years ago, I was in a hotel room in Seattle, WA. Travel has been a consistent part of my life for most of my life, so it doesn't seem strange at all that I would be away from home when Something Happens.
What's strange, as I watch the coverage of the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on MSNBC, is the persistence of The Narrative. Narrative is not just Myth, it is the Whole Story now. There is nothing but The Narrative. And even more than The Narrative is the insistence that "everything changed" that day ten years ago, while everything is being done today to demonstrate continuity. Bush and Obama and Clinton have all been out and about, and the commentary is as if Bush is still in office, the pivot around which all else revolves.
"Everything changed" on that day ten years ago. They talk about "resets" -- that the events of September 11, 2001, "reset" America's relations with itself, and "reset" the American relations with the rest of the world. That's true enough. For a brief moment, the trivialities and obsessions of the past -- particularly the media's summer obsessions with sharks and missing white women -- were set aside while the shock of the attacks was endlessly chewed over...
Of course we know that sharks and missing white women would return to the summer schedule soon enough. The shame of the Chandra Levy/Gary Condit media obsession -- and the eventual denouement that hardly anyone remembers -- should have put the likes of Nancy Grace out of business forever, but if anything, the events following that summer of 2001 have only reinforced the warped and twisted freakishness of Grace and her fantasies of persecution and prosecution. The major mass media has gotten far worse, in other words, and worse in ways that make it less and less likely that the public will ever again be an active participant in government.
That's the worst part of the change that has taken place since the attacks of 9/11/2001. Our Government -- well, what used to be Our Government -- has retreated behind ever more secure barricades. In many cases, it is no longer accessible or even knowable to the American People. The participation of the American People in their government is now distinctly unwelcome -- except in the form of pre-packaged/pre-processed "movements" like the TeaBaggers, who simply scream or threaten mindlessly whatever they are told to.
You would think that the correct approach to attacks like these would be to make public participation in governance even more of necessity, but it has become a near impossibility at the Federal level, and it is becoming progressively more difficult at every other level of government.
Nothing seems to penetrate the barricades any more. It's as if nothing will be allowed to ever again.
It's as if the government used the attacks as an excuse to finalize its divorce from The People -- a divorce tendered with the lawless intervention of the Supreme Court into the election of 2000.
Even the most autocratic and totalitarian governments of the Bad Old Days were seemingly more accessible, in many cases more directly accessible (as in the case of Versailles under the Ancien Regime), than Our Government today. So something fundamental about the relationship between government and the people has changed.
Not "everything" has changed, but that has changed.
Another change related to the barricading of government away from the People is the capture of government by the financial sector. Many of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks were of course financiers; that's a big part of what went on in the World Trade Center, and what those people in those towers did for a living was a big part of what spurred the attacks. We can't pretend that's not so. We can't pretend they all were "innocent." They weren't.
They were exploiters and destroyers by trade. And the transfer of the Treasury to them began almost immediately after the attacks, such that now, nothing can be done without their approval and consent, and more and ever more of the wealth of nations -- all nations -- must be relentlessly poured into their maw. Is it atonement? I don't know. But we -- the People -- have no say in what more they will demand and extract from us and our progeny. Masters of the Universe, indeed.
I've had some conflicted feelings about the Memorial waterfalls at the WTC site.
Intellectually, it makes perfect sense. Emotionally, it's... tough. The memorial represents constant falling. Never-ending. Every minute of every day. "Never forget". What will it mean to those who didn't witness the events being memorialized?
Will they remember: Coups are easy. Revolution is hard.
-------------------------------------------------------
Within days, of course, what would be known as "Occupy Wall Street" and then just "Occupy!" swept out from lower Manhattan (Zuccotti Park is only a block or two from the World Trade Center site) and spread around the world. That spirit is still active. Yes, coups are easy. Revolution is hard.
Friday, September 5, 2014
War and Destruction and Depopulation -- Never Let a Good Crisis Go To Waste
So if I'm reading the beads right, there is war crisis brewing on several fronts simultaneously, driven by a whole passel of "enemies" -- both real and manufactured -- of the GreatandGlorious Western Peoples and Way of Life, ie: The Empire of Chaos and Gloom.
Mkay.
Here we go again.
I said I dreaded what was to come Post-Labor Day and this is why, and this is largely what. Allowing and then tamping down the rage and outrage in Ferguson now seems to be part of the Plan all along. No wonder Darren Wilson was whisked into seclusion where he remains to this day. Protected, he is. By... whom? Ferguson PD or City Admin? No, not likely. More likely, some Greater Entity.
I'm even wondering if Brave Officer Wilson actually was a hit man. On a mission to find and kill him a Black Man, to trigger a "riot" that wasn't, and to keep the focus of media and public attention on the events in Ferguson, and on the topic of militarized domestic policing -- with much, much display of hardware and manpower to cow the rabble, much display of authority (in the sense of 'authoritay'), much chaos, but actually very little to show for any of it.
Was Ferguson an end-of-summer distraction? A Shark-nado for the masses? I commenced to wonder when Tim Pool was sent out to the hustings by VICE and almost immediately got himself into hot water with the Authoritays, almost (but not quite) getting arrested, then pinned down (oh yes!) by flying bullets ("shots fired! Shots fired!" he was chanting this almost like a mantra during much of his time on the mean-streets of Ferguson), then hit by a rubber bullet ("I'm hit! I'm HIT!!! I'm OK!") as he makes his way through the flying gas and smoke and Negroes of Ferguson. Oh, it was so dramatic. Breathtaking. And in the morning it seemed so false.
Was it a show or was it real?
Soon enough, the New Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam and the local clergy become recruits by and for the police to tamp down and control and channel the protests, and Captain ("Magic") Johnson, the Black Face of August Authoritay, praises their efforts to bring calm and control to the Negroes of Ferguson, to mollify them, to keep them within carefully set boundaries and to find and eject the agitators and revolutionary communists in their midst. Wait. The Fuck? Communists??? But yes, they were there, almost from the beginning, Bob Avakian's RCP, right out front carrying their banners and shouting their slogans for Revolution! Now! and what a wonder it was to see. I saw them on the Livestream, I think it was the Fox2 Livestream, and their lead agitator, IIRC, was even given a live interview early on in the protests, though he wasn't identified as RCP at that time. Not that I recall. The banner they carried and led parades with was noted but not particularly worried over. It was just part of the scene.
The only problem with the RCP is that it is largely white, and very -- VERY -- small in numbers. Their "agitation" amounted to talking smack about the police and the authoritays. Who wasn't doing that, fergawssake? But once the Men (and Women) of the Cloth were recruited to curb and channel the crowd's enthusiasm for making mischief and defying commands of constituted Authoritay, the communinists and agitators were summarily ejected from the festivities in the streets, never to be seen again.
If they were real agitators, this couldn't and wouldn't have happened. Making them out to be communists was a stroke of brilliance I haven't seen for a good long time, and it worked like a charm. To be blunt, the actual agitators within the crowds were suspected to be police plants from the outset. They were the ones "throwing things" at the police, thus triggering the gassing and grenading of the people time after time after time. Even the few looters were alleged to be plants, recruits in other words, set to their task by the police themselves, police who looked on as the looters did their business, police who looked on and refused to intervene. This was noted by the crowd and it was recognized for what it was: additional provocation enabled and quite likely directed by the police themselves. There were so many signs of this kind of thing throughout the period of protest in Ferguson.
The people seemed to understand at least some of what was going on. And their frustration was palpable. But when the high profile celebrities showed up, most of the fire went out of the protests.
The Reverends Al and Jesse led the parade of high-status Negroes who descended on Ferguson, culminating with the Highest of the Mighty, the AG Himself, Eric Holder who spoke with delegated representatives of the People, in quiet rooms off the main protest routes and listened to their concerns with gravity and skill. He listened and listened and promised swift action on the matter of the dead boy, what was his name, oh yes Michael, Michael Brown. That was it. He flew back to DC, a job well done.
And then just yesterday he announced that the whole matter of the Ferguson PD will be investigated. Thoroughly. This led to intense cheering in the usual places. Finally! Something would be done! Well, except that DoJ investigations of such things tend to take forever, and a report is delayed and delayed and delayed unless there is some kind of agitation and uproar among the People (often enough driven by another police killing) at which time the Report will be released, but then many (many!) more months pass while an "agreement" is hammered out with the affected Authoritay, only to see, years and years down the road that little or nothing has actually changed, except that the repression of particular segments of the population has been professionalized. Oh, I've seen it happen. Again and again. And if the local Authoritays wish to, they will monkeywrench the whole thing. Even professionalizing the repression can get their goats. See Oakland and Seattle among a number of examples.
So. All this was going on at the end of summer and it was quite a show, but it's over now, and we've moved on to the war drums that were beating all along, with many, many fronts opening up, a battle space that is, for all practical purposes, all of Africa, all of Asia, and all of Europe. The Entire Old World. How interesting. India was just added yesterday, as the more or less eclipsed 'al Qaeda' announced it was opening a branch operation in Mumbai or someplace to stir the pot as it were.
The Middle Kingdom, China, has been on the periphery of the Battle Space, and wisely chooses not to get involved in the squabbles of the Outer Barbarians, but does one really think that China isn't the ultimate prize coveted by the Western Powers That Be, just as it was in the 19th Century? Jebus, it's so obvious.
Our Rulers have reverted in the West to the expansionist/imperialist era of times gone by, and they can't seem to help themselves.
The Freaks and Crazies running things in Europe are absolutely bonkers as they passionately foment War Against Stalin, er Hitler, er Putin the Devil, laying waste to Ukraine in the process. The death and destruction and dislocation brought on the east and south of Ukraine has left many towns and villages totally destroyed and the main cities suffering from want and disease and scattered destruction from (highly illegal) indiscriminate shelling by untrained and antagonistic Ukrainian "troops," some of which are apparently nothing more than rampaging death squads, and most of which seem eager to desert before they are wiped out by a motivated by ill-equipped resistance.
What fresh hell is this?
The sabers are constantly rattled at Putin the Devil, but then when he rattled his own sabers the other day, the Freaks and Crazies running the goon show in Europe ratcheted back their belligerence just a hair and started talking cease-fire, blah blah blah. What cowards they are. The Kiev junta have few troops and apparently fewer supplies with which to continue their course of death and destruction in the Donbass, and a million or more refugees have already fled, and much destruction has been accomplished, along with some thousands of dead "on both sides" -- although there have been statements that up to ten thousand "Ukie" soldiers have perished in their futile attempt to dislodge and destroy the Donbass resistance, and there's general mutiny now among the remnants. Well, could be, I don't know. The news from there is heavily shaped by propaganda. What's really going on is a mystery -- except for the fact that it is obviously ugly.
Of course this could all be Phony War and Phony Pause before the all-out Nuclear Holocaust we've been waiting for... If the freaks and crazies want it so, so it will be, and there is next to nothing we can do about it apart from finding some remote corner of creation to hunker down in. Get out of the way of the inevitable. What will be will be and we don't have a say.
That's something they -- the big bad They -- always want us to believe, but it may be true more than ever this time around.
The destruction of Libya, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and many remote corners of Africa and the bombardment of parts of the periphery of Asia continue apace. Nothing seems to interfere with the destruction and death and dislocation.
Observers question the underlying causes though. They question the legitimacy of the various metastasizing rebel outfits -- suggesting that many if not most of them are creations of the very powers which are so bravely fighting them, much as Hamas came out of the Israeli need for a Palestinian counter to Fatah. They create their own enemies, in other words, for the purpose of having a boogie man to fight.
In other words, if the natives won't rebel properly, the colonial powers will create a rebel force to fight against.
Colonialism and imperialism are the driving principles, plainly enough, but the upshot where all this induced chaos is supposed to lead, is not clear at all.
This is not the march of totalitarianism, after all, no matter how much we're supposed to believe it is. Nor is it the clash of civilizations. The level of agreement among the ostensible combatants is striking. It's not even a system against system conflict. It appears to be nothing more than a contest for dominance between related interests, like a business competition for dominance of a market with similar (worthless) products and (lack of) services by all contenders.
Colonialism and imperialism are the type-models for this global conflict, but that's not the reality of what is currently going on. There will be no colonies or overt empires as of yore, no matter who or what emerges triumphant. Instead, there will be... nothing?
The crippling drought in California seems to have shaken at least some of the Ruling Class enough for them to realize that the Climate Crisis may now be beyond their ability to take advantage of. I don't know. Droughts will come and go after all, and there is no certainty that the water crisis in California will continue indefinitely. But there is near-certainty that there can be no reversing of the Climate Crisis by main force and will alone. All the warned of calamities are inevitable therefore, and there is nothing to be done about it. It is what it is.
Thus Ultimate Chaos?
Seems to be the way they see the future. Rather than delay it, they go with the flow, inducing Chaos where it isn't yet the natural state of things, spreading it by degrees hither and thither before Nature can do it for them prefiguring the inevitable wrack and ruin.
I don't know that that's what they're thinking, but it sure looks like what they are doing.
We aren't even pawns in that game.
We are being ruled by threat and force now, not persuasion. We are being told we do not control anything, nor shall we be allowed to. We have no say in what will be.
That was the late summer lesson of Ferguson.
So it is and will be in distant lands as well. Have the Freaks and Crazies who rule us decided our fate, like herders of yore?
We. Shall. See.
(Pssst: another world is possible...)
Mkay.
Here we go again.
I said I dreaded what was to come Post-Labor Day and this is why, and this is largely what. Allowing and then tamping down the rage and outrage in Ferguson now seems to be part of the Plan all along. No wonder Darren Wilson was whisked into seclusion where he remains to this day. Protected, he is. By... whom? Ferguson PD or City Admin? No, not likely. More likely, some Greater Entity.
I'm even wondering if Brave Officer Wilson actually was a hit man. On a mission to find and kill him a Black Man, to trigger a "riot" that wasn't, and to keep the focus of media and public attention on the events in Ferguson, and on the topic of militarized domestic policing -- with much, much display of hardware and manpower to cow the rabble, much display of authority (in the sense of 'authoritay'), much chaos, but actually very little to show for any of it.
Was Ferguson an end-of-summer distraction? A Shark-nado for the masses? I commenced to wonder when Tim Pool was sent out to the hustings by VICE and almost immediately got himself into hot water with the Authoritays, almost (but not quite) getting arrested, then pinned down (oh yes!) by flying bullets ("shots fired! Shots fired!" he was chanting this almost like a mantra during much of his time on the mean-streets of Ferguson), then hit by a rubber bullet ("I'm hit! I'm HIT!!! I'm OK!") as he makes his way through the flying gas and smoke and Negroes of Ferguson. Oh, it was so dramatic. Breathtaking. And in the morning it seemed so false.
Was it a show or was it real?
Soon enough, the New Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam and the local clergy become recruits by and for the police to tamp down and control and channel the protests, and Captain ("Magic") Johnson, the Black Face of August Authoritay, praises their efforts to bring calm and control to the Negroes of Ferguson, to mollify them, to keep them within carefully set boundaries and to find and eject the agitators and revolutionary communists in their midst. Wait. The Fuck? Communists??? But yes, they were there, almost from the beginning, Bob Avakian's RCP, right out front carrying their banners and shouting their slogans for Revolution! Now! and what a wonder it was to see. I saw them on the Livestream, I think it was the Fox2 Livestream, and their lead agitator, IIRC, was even given a live interview early on in the protests, though he wasn't identified as RCP at that time. Not that I recall. The banner they carried and led parades with was noted but not particularly worried over. It was just part of the scene.
The only problem with the RCP is that it is largely white, and very -- VERY -- small in numbers. Their "agitation" amounted to talking smack about the police and the authoritays. Who wasn't doing that, fergawssake? But once the Men (and Women) of the Cloth were recruited to curb and channel the crowd's enthusiasm for making mischief and defying commands of constituted Authoritay, the communinists and agitators were summarily ejected from the festivities in the streets, never to be seen again.
If they were real agitators, this couldn't and wouldn't have happened. Making them out to be communists was a stroke of brilliance I haven't seen for a good long time, and it worked like a charm. To be blunt, the actual agitators within the crowds were suspected to be police plants from the outset. They were the ones "throwing things" at the police, thus triggering the gassing and grenading of the people time after time after time. Even the few looters were alleged to be plants, recruits in other words, set to their task by the police themselves, police who looked on as the looters did their business, police who looked on and refused to intervene. This was noted by the crowd and it was recognized for what it was: additional provocation enabled and quite likely directed by the police themselves. There were so many signs of this kind of thing throughout the period of protest in Ferguson.
The people seemed to understand at least some of what was going on. And their frustration was palpable. But when the high profile celebrities showed up, most of the fire went out of the protests.
The Reverends Al and Jesse led the parade of high-status Negroes who descended on Ferguson, culminating with the Highest of the Mighty, the AG Himself, Eric Holder who spoke with delegated representatives of the People, in quiet rooms off the main protest routes and listened to their concerns with gravity and skill. He listened and listened and promised swift action on the matter of the dead boy, what was his name, oh yes Michael, Michael Brown. That was it. He flew back to DC, a job well done.
And then just yesterday he announced that the whole matter of the Ferguson PD will be investigated. Thoroughly. This led to intense cheering in the usual places. Finally! Something would be done! Well, except that DoJ investigations of such things tend to take forever, and a report is delayed and delayed and delayed unless there is some kind of agitation and uproar among the People (often enough driven by another police killing) at which time the Report will be released, but then many (many!) more months pass while an "agreement" is hammered out with the affected Authoritay, only to see, years and years down the road that little or nothing has actually changed, except that the repression of particular segments of the population has been professionalized. Oh, I've seen it happen. Again and again. And if the local Authoritays wish to, they will monkeywrench the whole thing. Even professionalizing the repression can get their goats. See Oakland and Seattle among a number of examples.
So. All this was going on at the end of summer and it was quite a show, but it's over now, and we've moved on to the war drums that were beating all along, with many, many fronts opening up, a battle space that is, for all practical purposes, all of Africa, all of Asia, and all of Europe. The Entire Old World. How interesting. India was just added yesterday, as the more or less eclipsed 'al Qaeda' announced it was opening a branch operation in Mumbai or someplace to stir the pot as it were.
The Middle Kingdom, China, has been on the periphery of the Battle Space, and wisely chooses not to get involved in the squabbles of the Outer Barbarians, but does one really think that China isn't the ultimate prize coveted by the Western Powers That Be, just as it was in the 19th Century? Jebus, it's so obvious.
Our Rulers have reverted in the West to the expansionist/imperialist era of times gone by, and they can't seem to help themselves.
The Freaks and Crazies running things in Europe are absolutely bonkers as they passionately foment War Against Stalin, er Hitler, er Putin the Devil, laying waste to Ukraine in the process. The death and destruction and dislocation brought on the east and south of Ukraine has left many towns and villages totally destroyed and the main cities suffering from want and disease and scattered destruction from (highly illegal) indiscriminate shelling by untrained and antagonistic Ukrainian "troops," some of which are apparently nothing more than rampaging death squads, and most of which seem eager to desert before they are wiped out by a motivated by ill-equipped resistance.
What fresh hell is this?
The sabers are constantly rattled at Putin the Devil, but then when he rattled his own sabers the other day, the Freaks and Crazies running the goon show in Europe ratcheted back their belligerence just a hair and started talking cease-fire, blah blah blah. What cowards they are. The Kiev junta have few troops and apparently fewer supplies with which to continue their course of death and destruction in the Donbass, and a million or more refugees have already fled, and much destruction has been accomplished, along with some thousands of dead "on both sides" -- although there have been statements that up to ten thousand "Ukie" soldiers have perished in their futile attempt to dislodge and destroy the Donbass resistance, and there's general mutiny now among the remnants. Well, could be, I don't know. The news from there is heavily shaped by propaganda. What's really going on is a mystery -- except for the fact that it is obviously ugly.
Of course this could all be Phony War and Phony Pause before the all-out Nuclear Holocaust we've been waiting for... If the freaks and crazies want it so, so it will be, and there is next to nothing we can do about it apart from finding some remote corner of creation to hunker down in. Get out of the way of the inevitable. What will be will be and we don't have a say.
That's something they -- the big bad They -- always want us to believe, but it may be true more than ever this time around.
The destruction of Libya, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and many remote corners of Africa and the bombardment of parts of the periphery of Asia continue apace. Nothing seems to interfere with the destruction and death and dislocation.
Observers question the underlying causes though. They question the legitimacy of the various metastasizing rebel outfits -- suggesting that many if not most of them are creations of the very powers which are so bravely fighting them, much as Hamas came out of the Israeli need for a Palestinian counter to Fatah. They create their own enemies, in other words, for the purpose of having a boogie man to fight.
In other words, if the natives won't rebel properly, the colonial powers will create a rebel force to fight against.
Colonialism and imperialism are the driving principles, plainly enough, but the upshot where all this induced chaos is supposed to lead, is not clear at all.
This is not the march of totalitarianism, after all, no matter how much we're supposed to believe it is. Nor is it the clash of civilizations. The level of agreement among the ostensible combatants is striking. It's not even a system against system conflict. It appears to be nothing more than a contest for dominance between related interests, like a business competition for dominance of a market with similar (worthless) products and (lack of) services by all contenders.
Colonialism and imperialism are the type-models for this global conflict, but that's not the reality of what is currently going on. There will be no colonies or overt empires as of yore, no matter who or what emerges triumphant. Instead, there will be... nothing?
The crippling drought in California seems to have shaken at least some of the Ruling Class enough for them to realize that the Climate Crisis may now be beyond their ability to take advantage of. I don't know. Droughts will come and go after all, and there is no certainty that the water crisis in California will continue indefinitely. But there is near-certainty that there can be no reversing of the Climate Crisis by main force and will alone. All the warned of calamities are inevitable therefore, and there is nothing to be done about it. It is what it is.
Thus Ultimate Chaos?
Seems to be the way they see the future. Rather than delay it, they go with the flow, inducing Chaos where it isn't yet the natural state of things, spreading it by degrees hither and thither before Nature can do it for them prefiguring the inevitable wrack and ruin.
I don't know that that's what they're thinking, but it sure looks like what they are doing.
We aren't even pawns in that game.
We are being ruled by threat and force now, not persuasion. We are being told we do not control anything, nor shall we be allowed to. We have no say in what will be.
That was the late summer lesson of Ferguson.
So it is and will be in distant lands as well. Have the Freaks and Crazies who rule us decided our fate, like herders of yore?
We. Shall. See.
(Pssst: another world is possible...)
Sunday, August 31, 2014
The Freaks Who Rule Us
It's not just the constant pounding on the War Drums and the persistent low-level clashes around the world, it's the constant victim-blaming and the reversal of responsibility, the ridiculous levels of evidence-free accusations, the myriad lies, the falseness of the overall narrative of rule.
The protection of force means that any lie or action is acceptable as long as those in power are protected from the wrath of the People -- or from attacks by enemies. More and more, of course, the People themselves are perceived as the Enemy.
The corollary here is that when a powerful interest crosses another greater power, all holy hell can -- and will -- be unleashed on the lesser power, no matter the consequences. This is the rule of warlords. This is the rule of chaos and misery.
There seems to be no way to prevent this descent into madness, no way to avoid the calamity that is sure to ensue. We are witness to the disintegration of sane governance and its replacement by ruin and rapine.
And somehow, we -- the victims -- are to blame ourselves for not doing something we should have when we might have, and for doing -- affirmatively -- that which we shouldn't have and wouldn't have if we had known what our actions then would lead to now.
Only thing is, I think that's wrong. The victims are not culpable for what the perpetrators do. Often enough, the victims have no idea what the perpetrators are doing until it is too late, and even then, the knowledge necessary for an intervention is often lacking clarity, and what to do in an intervention is ever a mystery.
For the past few weeks, we've been watching events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, for example, that seem to make no sense, though they are all too familiar.
A young black man is shot down in the streets by police so often it's routine, and yet this incident was different. The callousness of the killing and its aftermath, the immediate sequestration of the killer (no one knows or is saying where he is), the barking dogs and assault rifles brought out within minutes to "control the crowds," the weeks of protest, the strange events surrounding the looting and burning of several businesses in Ferguson, the violent, uncoordinated reaction of the armored police, the media frenzy, the Celebrity Negroes hustled in to calm the situation, though Jesse Jackson was booed lustily when he tried to raise money off the crowd, all of that and more was more and more bizarre as it unfolded.
Something very odd was happening. It's still happening, though the events in Ferguson are dying down, the embers banked for the next time.
But we still don't know quite what it is, what is really going on.
We need to figure it out somehow.
What happened to get us to this point. What can we do to change things?
Or is it too late? Will the freaks who rule us simply run wild?
Often throughout the summer it's looked like there could and would be no end to the bloodshed, and then something happens to pull back from the brink.
This seems to happen over and over again in connection with the Ukraine. Episodes of mass death and destruction seem to be leading directly the nuclear apocalypse we've dreaded for decades, and then it doesn't happen. The bloody conquest of the Donbass falters and halts for a moment, and the freaks who rule us yell at Russia, then scratch their heads and try to find another way to achieve their objectives of surrounding, destabilizing, and eventually picking apart the remnants of Mother Russia. The death tolls continue to mount in the cities and countryside of eastern and southern Ukraine, but despite all the horrors unleashed, the toll is modest compared to what it could be. A few thousand dead, it would seem, out of the many millions who could have been exterminated.
"It would seem," I say, because reports out of the region are sketchy at best. And they are often wrong or deliberate fabrications. We don't really know what's going on, except for the fact that it must be nasty, brutal, and cruel.
You would think the freaks who rule us have an accurate assessment, but given history, more likely they don't. They have their driven points of view, their creation of enemies, their fears and loathings, and that's about it. They see what they want to see. Nothing more or less.
We may have a better view than they do.
Meanwhile, in the other abattoirs mostly of their own making, they seem to think there is nothing to be done but ratchet up the bloodletting. That always calms the situation, no?
Monstrous.
This summer has been a grotesque gore-fest, and the future looks grimmer than ever. Without a positive sign of any kind, the freaks who rule us seem intent on precipitating catastrophe.
Oh don't ask why...
The protection of force means that any lie or action is acceptable as long as those in power are protected from the wrath of the People -- or from attacks by enemies. More and more, of course, the People themselves are perceived as the Enemy.
The corollary here is that when a powerful interest crosses another greater power, all holy hell can -- and will -- be unleashed on the lesser power, no matter the consequences. This is the rule of warlords. This is the rule of chaos and misery.
There seems to be no way to prevent this descent into madness, no way to avoid the calamity that is sure to ensue. We are witness to the disintegration of sane governance and its replacement by ruin and rapine.
And somehow, we -- the victims -- are to blame ourselves for not doing something we should have when we might have, and for doing -- affirmatively -- that which we shouldn't have and wouldn't have if we had known what our actions then would lead to now.
Only thing is, I think that's wrong. The victims are not culpable for what the perpetrators do. Often enough, the victims have no idea what the perpetrators are doing until it is too late, and even then, the knowledge necessary for an intervention is often lacking clarity, and what to do in an intervention is ever a mystery.
For the past few weeks, we've been watching events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, for example, that seem to make no sense, though they are all too familiar.
A young black man is shot down in the streets by police so often it's routine, and yet this incident was different. The callousness of the killing and its aftermath, the immediate sequestration of the killer (no one knows or is saying where he is), the barking dogs and assault rifles brought out within minutes to "control the crowds," the weeks of protest, the strange events surrounding the looting and burning of several businesses in Ferguson, the violent, uncoordinated reaction of the armored police, the media frenzy, the Celebrity Negroes hustled in to calm the situation, though Jesse Jackson was booed lustily when he tried to raise money off the crowd, all of that and more was more and more bizarre as it unfolded.
Something very odd was happening. It's still happening, though the events in Ferguson are dying down, the embers banked for the next time.
But we still don't know quite what it is, what is really going on.
We need to figure it out somehow.
What happened to get us to this point. What can we do to change things?
Or is it too late? Will the freaks who rule us simply run wild?
Often throughout the summer it's looked like there could and would be no end to the bloodshed, and then something happens to pull back from the brink.
This seems to happen over and over again in connection with the Ukraine. Episodes of mass death and destruction seem to be leading directly the nuclear apocalypse we've dreaded for decades, and then it doesn't happen. The bloody conquest of the Donbass falters and halts for a moment, and the freaks who rule us yell at Russia, then scratch their heads and try to find another way to achieve their objectives of surrounding, destabilizing, and eventually picking apart the remnants of Mother Russia. The death tolls continue to mount in the cities and countryside of eastern and southern Ukraine, but despite all the horrors unleashed, the toll is modest compared to what it could be. A few thousand dead, it would seem, out of the many millions who could have been exterminated.
"It would seem," I say, because reports out of the region are sketchy at best. And they are often wrong or deliberate fabrications. We don't really know what's going on, except for the fact that it must be nasty, brutal, and cruel.
You would think the freaks who rule us have an accurate assessment, but given history, more likely they don't. They have their driven points of view, their creation of enemies, their fears and loathings, and that's about it. They see what they want to see. Nothing more or less.
We may have a better view than they do.
Meanwhile, in the other abattoirs mostly of their own making, they seem to think there is nothing to be done but ratchet up the bloodletting. That always calms the situation, no?
Monstrous.
This summer has been a grotesque gore-fest, and the future looks grimmer than ever. Without a positive sign of any kind, the freaks who rule us seem intent on precipitating catastrophe.
Oh don't ask why...
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