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('OBomba' by Anthony Freda, via wendydavis @flickr.com)
Has the power-point presentation in the White House situation room concluded, or is it still in progress as you read? Will you picture which two dozen representatives of the military, CIA, NSA, or FU-A are present as the mug shot slides hit the big screen?
Are they drinking coffee, smoking cigars as they read aloud the damning information against each ‘terrorist’ on the President’s Kill List? Or do they engage in some pantomime of civility, sitting at attention, with expressions of concern and gravitas on their lying sociopathic faces? Donilon, Brennan…oh, never mind. You may not want to have them in your heads; I can’t blame you a bit.
Has the list grown by now, so that the meetings take longer? Of course it has. Are the two teenagers still on it, especially the seventeen-year-old girl who’s said to look even younger? Do OBomba’s advisors individually make pitches for their Targets of Choice?
The May puff piece the Times did on the Terror Tuesday program said it really tested the President’s principles. Oh: and the writers did mention it tested his will, too, in that he was resolved to kill anyone who might execute a terrorist plot that would delay his Presidency…
So, damn; Our President has manned up, and chosen the tough role of choosing whether or not to put the drone-finger on some person deemed to be dangerous, but especially the ones who are not alone, and might be attending funerals, rescuing other dead killed by his drones. That must mean they are sometimes also watching real-time satellite images of their potential targets.
Apparently the President chooses about a third of the targets, the CIA the rest, including the suspected ‘terrorists’, ‘militants’ engaged in activities covered by ‘signature strike’ protocols, in which some group of people in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, etc. just look like they’re up to no good., whether walking in a suspicious fashion, doing jumping jacks in a line, carrying rifles, things like that. Brennan defends the accidental deaths in ‘signature strikes’ by saying that it discourages people from assembling in groups, thereby limiting their potential to do harm. Sounds like DHS’s rationalization for shutting down Occupys all over the nation, doesn’t it? ‘Preventive Assembling’.
The writers at the Times actually call it ‘a moral calculation’ Obama chooses for himself; oh, the poor man. Just think: on Tuesday nights he has to go into his daughters’ rooms to read them bedtime stories, say goodnight, or share their day’s happenings at dinner with all that blood on his hands. Personally. Say a prayer for him and his immortal soul, if you will, the authors might have written: his burdens are great, and they are difficult.
Remember, too; Our President has told us that any male of military age in those nations are terrorists…unless they can prove once they’re dead…that they were…innocent before killed. Whoosh.
Women, children, innocents; so many…so many… Maybe even some folks who harbor dark designs on us; God knows I would, were I they. And they even know it’s the greatest militant recruiting tool in their arsenals. It makes you wonder what it’s all about.
So goodbye, next victims, and Godspeed. We are so sorry we haven’t stopped these incalculably twisted murders, nor the torture renditions that haven’t really stopped, but have just been re-defined by Our Beleaguered and Brave President. Even the New York Times tells us so. ‘All the news that’s fit to print’…if you can stomach reading it.
To your families, friends, playmates…there simply are no words that might bring you comfort, so for now, we’ll hold you in our hearts, and speed you on your way to the Light and Love. Allah be with you. ربنا معك
* Prayer does not, imo, require belief in a deity.
43 Comments
An excellent piece of writing,WD. More importantly this serves as brilliant reminder that there are fascist sociopaths controlling the government and they conspire to murder those that oppose them. It does not matter if innocent men, women, or children are blown up, economic expansion and American hegemony is paramount. The vast majority of Americans will not understand this until drones are flying in every American city.
Very good post. People have to be reminded that a vote for Obama or Romney is a vote for mass murder.
Recommended.
Naw, a sitcom. Harry Shearer did a Father Knows Best episode on his radio show that starts with Kitten/Sasha breaking in on father Obama and John Brennan going over the kill list: http://harryshearer.com/news/le_show/player/?id=873&start=48:23. With laugh track.
Thank you, Ironcomments, but I wrote it in haste once I grasped that today was…Tuesday. Hit me like a ton of bricks. Once again, I over-researched, and used almost none of it. It seemed to need simplicity.
That we are potential targets, and can be held indefinitely without trial, that we can’t even assemble on The Commons…are suspect unless proven..innocent? Total Information Awareness is almost a fait accomplis, with no oversight or Constitutional authority?
VOTE OBAMA: HE’LL KILL YOU MORE SOFTLY THAN THE OTHER GUY…MAYBE!
Thanks for reading, IC. And Occupy and Organize!
Ta, Bill Perdue. Why are Americans so captured by the easy lie? (Rhetorical question) Answer is: It’s far easier than the truth, which requires a moral/ethical decision and action against prevailing opinion and institutions.
We really forget why there was a *first* American Revolution. We need wholesale shift in the form of a massive societal, moral uprising. It will come, I think.
Oh my; I look forward to watching, Vision. Yes, a play would have worked, but I admit I had a bit of a time imagining the dialogue. I got stuck on the facial and body language when I imagined the evening scenes.
I keep dreaming of babbies and children, over and over, rescuing them, loving them… I think the reason is that so many of them are dying at the hands of our ‘foreign misadventures’ and domestically from our failure of our ‘leaders’ to give a good goddam what happens to all of us who are now…disposable people. People of color have always felt the sting of their cavalier treatment.
Unless we begin to care about the best for *all of us*, any movement is doomed to failure, and should fail, imo. It’s part of the reason I can’t get all ginned up about social security arguments; it’s one small piece of what we all require to live in health and dignity. The planet, as well.
It’s radio, you just listen, about five minutes, at the podcast link above. And the kill list part is just the opening and closing bookends. But I know what you mean, I feel like I watched it. Harry Shearer is so good at his Father Knows Best episodes, I wish he’d do one every week.
And for the rest of what you wrote, yes. And yes. Your “disposable people” sounds like Noam Chomsky’s “unpeople.” http://www.salon.com/2012/06/17/when_chomsky_wept/
Which I think we’re seeing turn into all of us un-corporate-persons. We the Unpeople. We’re getting there.
This is OT but does anyone know why the Diary about boycotting the election from last night was disappeared this morning?
Mahalo, wendy…! When I read your title it also hit me like a ton of bricks…! 8-(
Wendy. Thanks for a truly sobering post. I had this peculiar insight when I read your linked to New York Times article: the writer seemed to sound so articulate and smart, able to sum up the situation and arrange the appropriate different quotes from different folks, representing different sides to the issues.. of detention, of black sites and of the assassinations. It all seemed so ‘smooth’. That troubled me. That smoothness is ‘facile’ for smart people. They miss the inhumanity in what they are attempting to describe. Meanwhile we are no closer to addressing the basis of peoples’ hatred of our country which might be as simple as our murderous drone attacks and their victims. But throughout the process of the NYT article, any dialogue with attributed ‘enemies’ does not come through. Meanwhile, if I was to propose just stopping all of the attacks and pulling back all of the troops and closing all of the bases, how do you think those who are invested in war would respond?
Drones don’t kill people, presidents kill people.
The wonderful Harry Shearer reads here and sometimes posts a comment.
I asked Kit at his watercooler, no answer so far. I’d written a longish piece with some further thoughts. Wish now I’d emailed him, wayoutwest.
I can’t think why it might have been taken down by management, but I suppose it could have been the author. That doesn’t make much sense, either.
Oh, sweet jayzus, vision; I can’t read it now. Laos, the Plains of Jars…napalm, shredded bodies. Not today, not today. Tomorrow, perhaps. Than you.
Mahalo, Tuttle.
Some days it’s hard to compartmentalize the many hideous, soul-stealing events, trends, *facts* that are on the march, most of them human-caused without reason or moral justification.
Keep Occupying Hilo, dear; we’ll get to the Promised Land one day.
hi wendy. excellent piece as usual. Odd how apt Romney’s characterization of Obama as “Dr. Strangelove” was.
Also, reading the Times piece, I thought of sinister religious conspiracy theories, and then comes Brennan’s priest ministering to the tormented C-in-C who, unique among military commanders (I think), personally chooses those he is about to kill.
It is hubris taken to its logical conclusion.
Two writers contributed to the Times piece, but yes: it reads like a paen to OBomba, rather than an expose. The tone, as as you say, the smoothness, made my skin crawl, and stuck in my craw all this time. The section about (paraphrased with ultimate cynicism) ‘putting his brilliant Constitutional acumen to bear on how to keep his promise to end torture, but still engage in rendition to dark sites with a new loophole of temporary, not permanent…’ was truly fucked up.
What would they say were you to call for that? I guess what any purveyors of Empire might say.
But:
“Every single empire, in its official discourse, has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.”
~ Edward Said
Fractured NRA point taken, dear friend; I amended the post a li’l bit to reflect your thought.
Oh, dear; I’m sorry I owe you an email…I just get so caught up, and tend to put off ones that need much time to respond fully.
Brennan ‘ministering’ to O makes a perfect picture, though. The picture just shifted for me when I saw him on bended knee, offering a sick fealty cum absolution. It’s truly horrid to think of the cloistered atmospherics that would find so much agreement on the *need*, since they KNOW what it really causes. For instance, the Afghan police inviting ASAF forces to dinner…and killing them.
How willfully ignorant of Pashtun history can they be in the name of Wars of Choice?
I dunno, D; one diarist here swears we won’t stop this: our ‘enemies’ will. Hope we can beat them to it, but have you ever seen the polls on drone killings? We are the only nation to approve of them, and by a very wide majority.
Clean, surgical, no deaths for our troops. I even have a link about a man who has become the self-proclaimed ‘moral philosopher approving of drone assassinations’. Hard to read; I think he’s in the UK. If I have time, I’ll look for it. Think I emailed it to myself. What would I have put as the subject; hate to think…
Two weeks ago I got a call from a sweet young thing imploring me to cast my vote for o.
I asked her if she had any idea what o was doing that Tuesday afternoon, choosing military or commercial targets for extermination? She had no idea and I told her both bush and o were war criminals and should be treated as such.
Needless to say she didn’t score a donation.
Tactic for today (well, already been applying it), contact your local Democratic Party officials and discover the next OFA training session being led by that newly minted college grad taking any work available to pay off school debt. They each have personalized business cards and an OFA email address. While not blaming them for anything they are doing, send them a link such as your story or like Hedges and company suing over NDAA that appeared yesterday, politely (maybe) opening their eyes to who and what they are supporting. Thinking in terms of actions whose benefits may outlive us or help preserve all of us in our old age.
tjbs,
You were reading my mind or vice-versa. Regional field organizers. Last one I met, (of DLC and OFA and state D organizers) having gone to the non-member part of the Dem meeting, saw the field organizer had set up for a video presentation. At the start I asked about the length of the show and was told 1.5 hours. Grabbed my note-book and walked out. Emailed later to explain and linked to Obomber explanation pieces.
Hope you are well.
Thank you, wendydavis. I am going to forcefeed this to everyone who wants to say a single word to me about Obomba and lesser evilism. At the beginning of Obomba’s reign, I used to sort of swoon, just a tiny little bit, over Michelle and those beautiful girls. Just the way we are all supposed to, we good serfs. Now the sight of any one of them makes me ill. Ill especially for those girls who will probably get funneled right into “public service” and follow in Chelsea’s footsteps, Chelsea and her investment banker husband. But I can’t waste sympathy on them; that goes to the Tuesday Terror victims.
The comments about Harry Shearer’s show put me in mind of Tony Kushner’s play, Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy. The play opens with Laura Bush reading The Brothers Karamazov to dead Iraqi children. Here is a little clip of Marcia Gay Harden as Laura.
Nice post WD, no surprise that the Drones continue to haunt, your hearts really too soft for this stuff. We love ya for it tho. We need the core anchor.
Drones are probably the worst example of death by human disassociation; no interaction, no chance to turn yourself in. Special delivery postcards of death, $40K a pop. We could at least offer unlimited accommodations at Guantanimo Bay, you’d think.
We should at least post a wanted poster somewhere. Seems unfair this decree of national morality suspension in a coldly calculated timeline some Tuesday afternoon. How did this happen? This isn’t really war.
Talk about dead man walking. Too close to thinking we’re God like,… life/death must be pushed into the inconsequential,…. just too wrong,… war itself pushes my logic into inadequacy anymore.
Soldiers are judge, jury and executioners too; but they’re taught to ignore, service targets now, PTSD later.
I suppose Presidents feel somehow compelled to become something less than men. The nuclear ‘football’ in constant proximity, being the ultimate box of mechanical insanity, serves as reminder that we folks expect that he acquire the rational insanity from some where. Seems strange to expect much from a man to whom death must be a number.
My old soldier self just wants another beer. I didn’t paint this world we live in.
ah, wendy, I’ll spare you the odium of searching for the ‘moral’ philosopher in love with drones; here he is.
yet another priest of ‘civilized’ murder.
Except for wringing of hands and rending of garments what can be done to withdraw our consent for our Regime’s crimes. Even when we march off to the voting booth we are aiding the Empire by validating their legitmacy to make decisions for us.
I long ago realized that whatever bad happens to the Amerikan people is deserved since a majority seem to support our blood lust around the world.
Is it possible that the 30-40% that don’t vote are the real leaders since they refuse to give their consent to be governed by these madmen.
She did, however, score a shock to her ignorance; thank you for teaching her, tjbs. I said something similar to a Romney ‘volunteer’ last week. I’m an Indy now, after decades of running campaigns for Dems….). My volunteer didn’t seem to even register what I’d said.
Comfortable illusions are hard to give up. ;o)
It’s a lovely thought, but perhaps a mite Quixotic at this point? Still, every little gesture we make is important. We sleep better at night, for one thing, and are better equipped to Fight the Machine the next day.
LOL! Her mum is evidence of the many ways there are to serve
as a director on the Walmart board, and now part of the some of the most neoliberal shock doctrine FP ever produced; it even has Zbig flipped out. Ya can’t make this shit up! Bush Dynasty, Clinton Dynasty…Bill’s a keynote speaker at the Dem Convention, ya know? Another lying sociopath who NEVER fails to please the crowds, while he helps, with Bill Gates ____ (fill in the nation)’s economies.Yikers; I only know Kushner’s Angels; I’ve practically worn out the dvd. Can’t wait to watch.
love ya witless, hotflashcarol.
Please have the beer on me, my friend. Couldn’t say fairer than ya have here, save for the bit that ‘we folks expect that he acquire the rational insanity from some where’. Guess only people who are ruled by fear, and have no clue that this nation is built upon the blood of innocents, believe in Manifest Destiny, forgetting that it’s a stolen land.… and disregarding other evils we’ve committed in the name of American hegemony masquerading as ‘safety’ or ‘democratization’…might.
But the rest? Awesome comment. I used a similar image of the ghosts of the dead we’ve killed over the years, both domestically and through wars of choice, that’s mirrored in this new piece at Adbusters and Culture Jammers. Zucotti Lives! (Been working on a post about upcoming Occupy events.)
Now ya have me wonderin’ if you let yer fingers do the googling, or if once again, we tune in to the same sick characters (like we used to share a fascination with Achmed Chalabi, the ever-resurfacing Bad Penny). ;o)
But yeppers, there he is: Killing By Remote Control: The Ethics of an Unmanned Military. Good God all-Friday, as they say around here. The Harold Koh/John Yoo of moral philosophers. Guess a hell of a lot of OBomba supporters may buy the book; one day it may be an Ayn Randish text that’s examined as…iconic of this era. What will history say of us one day, D?
I dunno, wayoutwest. I have a different take on not voting v. voting. Wish the post would re-appear….it’s worth a discussion, imo. I thought I still had my longish comment on the word.doc for this post; seems I deleted it by mistake.
For me, what’s left besides hand-wringing is a revolution of morality, stopping the Machine and declaring the Emperor Has No Clothes, and massive calls to reinstate democracy and the Rule of Law. I’ll vote, but mainly for down-ticket races and initiatives (marijuana legalization is on the ballot in CO) and to support a third party for the future. But I agree, electoral politics is no longer a consideration for me.
[Edited to say]: I found my response; a hot soak cleared my brain a bit. It was on another document I’d been working on before this one. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll paste it in.
Stolen land and stolen lives
Stolen futures and stolen dreams
Stolen homes and stolen childhoods
Seems to be what “we” are good at .. both at home and abroad.
Thank you for the excellent, though sobering, post.
I had been reading that post this morning – about voting vs. not voting. (Because I have been tussling with this question, myself) I clicked to refresh the page and – just like that – poof – it was gone. It really is a topic worthy of discussion. I, too, hope it reappears.
OH,
and rec’d.
Thanks, bootsie, and for the three lines of loss by theft; speak of sobering.
I was just at Naked Capitalism grabbing some quotes to finish out my diary on SCB, and a commenter said there’s a post at Counterpunch in agreement. Kit hasn’t put up a watercooler, so we can’t ask again, and if he’s busy with protests, it won’t matter if I email. Maybe I’ll just paste in my thoughts below, though it won’t be as good as if others could correct where I’m wrong.
love to you,
wd
Thoughts on the DO NOT VOTE diary that’s disappeared:
I do see the logic of not voting if a huge block of voters chose to boycott a particular election, as in the cases you mentioned (Cuba, Haiti, South Africa…). But those were huge swathes of voters, so some major groundwork publicizing any ‘deligitimize the government by vote refusal’ must have been done ahead of time, no?
In your model, what percentage of ‘likely voters’ (they do keep track of that) would you guess would heed this call now? I’m guessing a pretty insignificant percentage given no groundwork, or probable groundswell is likely this close to election time. (Others can surely challenge that conclusion.)
I’d think a more useful statement against the Kleptocracy would be to get a ballot, turn it in, and be counted as a voter. If when you fill out your ballot, you choose NOT to vote for anyone running for federal office, or even just a Presidential candidate, when they tally the votes, and give the number of votes for each candidate for each office, then add them together and discover, compare them to the number of actual voters…uh, oh…X number of people chose, in effect, None of the Above. That could make some news, generate some great discussion, and change the conversation on voting.
I’m not convinced about this you say: “When you vote, you are granting your consent of the governed. That’s what voting’s all about…etc.’, but again, I’d listen to further argument.
But all of your arguments, if I’m reading correctly, are aimed toward the Presidency, but some of us may really want to cast a vote for down ticket candidates or initiatives. Marijuana legalization, for instance, will be on my CO ballot, and boy, howdy, do I want to vote for it. And even a potentially good DA.
As Mehmed II, moved to tears by the cruelty and brutality of Vlad the Impaler, is said to have wondered aloud: “What can we do with a man like this?”
Suppose the likely-voter electorate had survey polling info which showed that either a third of likely voters won’t vote in this election, or a third of them will vote for a (so-called) third-party candidate. Info like that might be inspirational as mob psychology goes. But of course no such info will ever reach the likely voter mob. Keep in mind that most US households own flat screen HDTV’s.
I got a survey call last month, here in NC, pre-recorded questions, punching phone digits as responses. The woman caller identified the survey source by name (never heard of it, don’t recall it, maybe it’s still in the caller ID bank, but who cares since it was a subcontracted cut-out servicer). First question: In the upcoming presidential election, are you likely to vote for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or someone else? Press one if you intend to vote for Barack Obama, press two if you intend to vote for Mitt Romney, or press three if you intend to vote for someone else. I pressed the ‘three’ key. Then she asked: Are you very likely to vote for Barack Obama, somewhat likely, or not likely to vote for Barack Obama, and she repeated that with the respective number key choices. I pressed the 3. Then she asked the identical question about Mitt Romney. A few more questions followed. I’ve paraphrased her text, but it’s a very fair paraphrase. Obviously it wasn’t a very fair survey.
On the other hand, in case some people wonder about Gallup, for example: In early 2008, I picked up when I saw Gallup on the caller ID. What followed was a live Q & A that lasted some 45 minutes, permitting me to ask for clarification and even some debate. Evidently the long interview gave Gallup a database individual from a specific demographic. Most of the questions were about political issues and some economic issues. Whether my data was sold to marketers or other political pollsters, I have no idea. I haven’t been called again by Gallup.
I also participated in a TV survey two years ago (for the second time, the first was for Nielsen in the 1980′s), was paid $5.00 for my time, and given a diary log to complete, along with a questionnaire, to send back. According to my log, 1,000 people watched zero TV that week. The questionnaire was very very bizarre (I’ll email a copy of it 2u, wd if you request it). That marketing firm followed up with a paper survey about my sources of info and shopping prefs, and gave me a dollar bill for my time.
To the point: I assume my vote(s) will be counted on the electronic machine, and I assume they will be flipped and flopped unless I vote for whoever is already selected. They don’t need the algorithms the Wall Street hotdogs use, something far less sophisticated is plenty to follow the real-time tallies and flip them on the fly.
Morning Wendy,
Missed the tail-end here and am just sticking in my two cents. When I vote, I have a preferred candidate, the one I think will represent the entire district, state or national interests the best. Should my preferred candidate fall short on the number of votes, in no way have I given the winner blanket consent to shirk the responsibility of fairly representing everyone in the district, state or nation. That would be like giving the winner of the election permission to ignore the needs or interests of citizens physically unable to vote or too young to vote. Failing that, the winner of an election is failing their legal and moral duty to their constituents, the whole population period.
Thank you, nonquixote. I’m glad to have your take on such a perplexing contention the author made. That contention knitted my brows more than any other in the post. ‘Representing fairly’ all constituents might be impossible, but it’s a laudable goal.
Haven’t looked back at Tambershall’s post to see how it’s going. But I did find something at BAR that’s on topic. The Black Is Back Coalition is having a conference on the 18th, I think, hoping to take a look at voting as efficacious given how blacks are suffering even more injustices in many areas now that OBomba’s the prez, as is their desire to promote peace.
The core sentence in the article on the conference is:
“With the theme of “Obama, the election and the struggle for peace, prosperity and black power,” this year’s Coalition Conference will be one of the defining events for African people this year.
This important conference will address the question of whether historically it was the vote that brought us change or whether it was change created by masses of organized African people in motion that brought us the vote.”
I do see why people are starting to consider more heterodox strategies.
I did once of those Gallup thingies once, too, lol. (Sucker.)
But is your final point that our votes are so rigged that no message would come out of my math?
Certainly hackable Diebolds are one of the big reasons against caring too much about elections, depending how your state tabulates. (CO has been in flux, lol.)
Hi Wendy. Thanks. Brilliant.
Welcome, wigwam. Hard to understand this level of evil, no?
It’s appalling. If anyone had predicted this four years ago, I’d have called them “crazy.”