Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

All this talk about military robots, and Homeland Security drones sounds like a bunch of science fiction. Even as I write about it, I think to myself, “This sounds like some kind of weird conspiracy theory involving tinfoil hats.”

For that reason, to accompany our articles about the threat of military drones, I think it’s important to offer our readers some simple photographic evidence of what’s going on. Here’s one pixel from that larger picture:

This photograph comes from the White House archives, and it shows President George W. Bush and his Secretary of Homeland Security standing right in front of a robotic airplane. The official seal of the Department of Homeland Security is shown on the robot.

Our Irregular writer Jim is in the middle of writing a series on the problematic development of robots that can fight our wars for us, slaughtering human enemies so that our soldiers don’t have to see the blood firsthand. It will be like they’re just playing a video game, shooting people from a remote location.

This isn’t some kind of Isaac Asimov science fiction ethical thought experiment. It’s a present reality. We have robotic airplanes in the skies, and now, there are robot dogs on the ground, capable of taking a solid blow and keeping on going. There would be little problem equipping these military drone dogs with guns – they could take the recoil with barely slowing down.

The following are some videos of some prototypes of these military robots, walking across any terrain, running, even jumping, with the relentless ability to just keep on coming toward their target with no fear, and no mercy.

It’s disturbing to me to see that there are still a huge number of people who believe that the only way they can feel secure is to have their government aim thousands of nuclear missiles, ready to strike at a moment’s notice, at foreign cities filled with millions of civilian human beings. Still others say that the only way that we can reduce America’s nuclear weapons arsenal is to make a new generation of nuclear weapons that are even deadlier than before.

It’s time for us to end this insanity. With Barack Obama in the White House, we finally have the chance for an American President to end the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, and clear our nation’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

We can have a world free of nuclear weapons, but we have to be willing to speak out for what we believe in. Do you part, spreading the message of an end to nuclear weapons wherever you go, wearing this tshirt: Nuclear weapons? This is not security!

Ride a bicycle, and you’re reducing the demand for oil. Demand for oil is one of the biggest motivators for war these days. So, ride a bicycle, and you’re riding for peace.

Economic efficiency, clean environment, and physical health are benefits too, but when I’m on a bicycle, I’m mostly thinking about the peace.

Wear this tshirt to spread the word of bicyclists for peace.

Recently, I was asked: What can I do today, to start to make a difference? What can the average American do to have their voice heard? I have given these questions a lot of thought, because they are questions I ask myself.  My conclusion: There are more average Americans than any other kind of American and as the dominate culture you would think we’d have some say in how our country is governed. 

 I am told: There has always been war, oppression, exploitation and there will always be.

 I have been told this behavior is human nature and we are incapable of escaping it.

 My friends, there are more than six billion people on this planet and I guarantee you more than six billion people have no desire to wage war, murder, rape, maim, oppress, or cause suffering to their fellow human beings.  Most of us want to lead lives of love and spiritual fulfillment and to watch our children grow up healthy and happy. 

 So what can the average American do?

 First, we must find our collective voice through an ongoing dialogue with each other.  We must use our eyes, ears, and minds to draw our own conclusions from the facts and not adopt the perceptions of the popular media or the political and religious pundits.  Our political views and religious beliefs should guide us from within, not be defined by others whose agendas can never truly be known.  Once we have found our voice we must make it heard.  We must continue our dialogue with ever growing numbers of people.  To make the dialogue meaningful, we must take the risk of moving beyond our comfortable social groups and find out what we have in common with others

 Second, we must plan to act within our sphere of influence.  This means not focusing our frustration and collective energies on other nations’ governments.  We need to start pressuring our own.  Our Government would like us to focus on situations such as the Congo (a very important issue) and to leave them alone to pretend to nobility by issuing a few lines of disgust at the situation—disseminated by the official propaganda machine of the US Government known as the Fourth Estate or the so-called “free press” owned by the very corporations that not only support the atrocities that are inflicted on our brothers and sisters outside our borders, but profit from them.

 Let us take a brief look at our current “elected” officials.  They are liars and traitors.  This might sound like the rank and file liberal politician-bashing, but I ask you to stop and think. 

 Our “representatives” speak with soaring rhetoric promising the next “Great Society.” They speak of American values, “enlightened self interests, and our moral ascendency in the world. 

 We believe them. 

 They say they will not be controlled by the tax-dodging, multi-national corporations and special interest groups. 

 We believe them. 

 They tell us to vote for responsible change. 

 We do.

 And then. . . they get elected.

 And we hear words like “pragmatism.”  We are told of the culture of Washington, D.C. and how they must compromise to get things done. We are asked to trust them. We are told they are trying hard to do their best. Think on this – every last one of them claims victimization to this circumstance.  If they all agree—and I mean all of them—it is the culture of D.C. that will not allow change without pandering to the corporate interests, I ask: “What is the source of this culture?”  If it is not them, from where does it issue?  Having said that, it stands to reason our government is not in the hands of our elected officials, and it has been clear for some time we are not running it, then, I ask you: “WHO IS?”

 Perhaps it is the free market ideology. We are told that market forces are the purveyor of democracy.  We are told our choices are what determine and drive the market. We are led to believe every time we make a choice it is a vote for the continuation of the free market.  The free market corporations have stolen our democracy, for it is they who determine which choices are available.  If my choices are limited to Exxon or Chevron, Coke or Pepsi, McDonald’s or Burger King, Wal-Mart or Albertson’s, Democrat or Republican, Heads or Tails (it is all the same bloody coin), what choices do I really have? It is the media working hand-in-hand with corporations and marketing firms to present us with the choice of candidates for the government of the United States and the choice of perceptions and frames of reference we may consider when expressing support or dissention.   (Read more: The FCC’s Christmas Gift to Big Media)

 This is Democracy?

 There are circumstances where we are given impossible choices or no choice at all.  For example, with insufficient or non-existent alternative transportations, for the purpose of getting to work, seeking healthcare (for those who can afford it), or even gathering our food and clothing, many of us are forced to purchase and maintain cars.  Thus, we are forced to support the most sinister corporations on the planet.  Since I own a car, is it    my desire the rivers and lakes be polluted, human beings be exploited, displaced, poisoned, and sometimes even murdered?   Does this mean I willingly support criminal wars?

 No.

 However, I, not having fought to change the structure of my society and because my continuing lifestyle aids and abets these corporate monsters, I share a measure of the guilt, as do my American brothers and sisters, which, if there be a final judgment, no measure of charity and repentance can wash clean the stain of innocent blood from our clothes, our hands, our souls, unless we stand together now to end this madness and put people before profit and our own material comforts.

 The United States is, at present, involved in two wars, one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq.  It is threatening a third with Pakistan, has made recent aggressive overtures toward Iran and Yemen.  Our closest ally, Israel, with our financial and military support is engaged in a slow genocide of the Palestinian people. I am amazed the most passionate American national dialogue other than Dancing with the Stars and the latest fad diet is whether or not popular television personality Ellen DeGeneres should be allowed to be married to Portia De Rossi.

 If we fail to reclaim our republic, we will lose it.  Each day it slips a little further away. 

 There is hope.

 If 300,000,000+ Americans demand change, it will happen. 

 However, if we are waiting for those in power to bestow benevolent change upon us, we will wait forever.  What will compel them to change?  Are we to assume they are truly the wisest among us?  Do we mistake them for the enlightened?  These are people who actually debate the value of assuring children a lunch at school. Do you believe that? I don’t even have to go into where they think that money is worth spending.  Have you heard of Depleted Uranium Devices? Cluster Bombs? Nuclear Missiles? Wall Street Bail Out?

 Look issues up on the internet, read opinions, sort through the garbage, do your homework, find the facts and draw your own conclusions.  NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS are all owned by the very corporations that benefit from providing good people with bad information to increase corporate profits exponentially into perpetuity.  We must no longer allow the corporations and businesses to present our representatives to us, to limit us to Coke or Pepsi.  We must find our representatives from amongst ourselves and assure they are beholden to none other than their constituents.

 We must avoid and end term limits.  Why should an excellent public servant not be allowed to devote his or her life to making America a better country?  Term limits can only serve big business.  Think about it.  Good public servants are ousted arbitrarily and people who are elected are concerned about their careers afterward.  Does this not open the door to “networking” prior to leaving office? With term limits, does it not benefit the politician to consider the needs of a large company or industry that will see to his or her future livelihood?  Someone doing the people’s work for life would be less inclined to seek out such a patron.

 Open the dialogue where ever you gather with people.  Talk to those at your church, synagogue, mosque, and political gatherings.  Talk about it in the pubs, coffee houses and AA groups, on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. Start journals and newsletters.  The time to act is not far off, but we all must act together.

 We can fight for change or we can remain cowards hiding behind our own rhetoric of fear and powerlessness.  The government must be made to understand that if it continues to twist and ignore the Constitution, if it continues to stomp on the democratic rights of the People, it will be brought down!  It is the fundamental responsibility of all people living in a democracy to dissolve a government when it becomes unresponsive to the will of, or oppressive of, its people. 

 Make no mistake. We are not the government’s people – it is the People’s Government. If the Congress thinks differently, if the White House is offended, if the military, FBI and CIA don’t like it, they must be dismantled and replaced.

hoc opus, hic labor est

Erik. F. Kreis

 © 2009

In his essay, “Neither Victim nor Executioners,” Albert Camus spoke of a “conspiracy of silence” bred of fear. I would put an end to that. Camus states: “The years we have just gone through have killed something in us. And that something is simply the old confidence man had in himself, which led him to believe that he could always elicit human reactions from another man if he spoke to him in the language of a common humanity. We have seen men lie, degrade, kill, deport, torture – and each time it was not possible to persuade them not to do these things because they were sure of themselves and because one cannot appeal to an abstraction, i.e. the representative of an ideology.” I want to appeal to that abstraction, I want to appeal to the representatives of ideologies, I want to reason with those, who in their certainty, cannot be reasoned with, and I want to assure them that if they will not reason, if they will not heed the appeals of common humanity, they will be brought down.

I am not as arrogant as to believe that I can do this single-handedly or with my own tongue, pen, or cursor. I will need help. So I appeal to you, my reader, in the language of common humanity, help me to put an end to the tyranny under which we all live. Let us take the next step in human evolution and kill in ourselves that which drives us to kill the body and/or spirit of others. Let us learn, as a species, to be compassionate toward all life; for only by realizing the value of life in all its manifestations are we able to truly appreciate the beauty in one another.

We are at a cross-road. Never in human history have we faced the challenges we confront today. Our water and air are being poisoned. Our fellow species are becoming extinct. Because of our intellect and adaptability, we may last a little longer, but of this you may be certain, man cannot exist without air and water.

What of the American Dream? Three cars, two mansions, and a partridge in a pear tree. What about me? My TV sets? My endless and excessive consumption that proclaims to all, echoing from the mountain tops, through the concrete valleys of the cities “I HAVE EXCELLENT CREDIT! I AM OF VALUE!”

no.

No.

NO!

I AM NOT A CONSUMER – I AM A HUMAN BEING!!!

Recently, I was invited to a website to sign petitions. I signed over one hundred petitions, took numerous pledges, sent emails to congressmen and women who dutifully had their interns send me form letters thanking me for my concern and assuring me they were working diligently to resolve, rectify, or whatever else they do up on the hill, and that I should feel good about myself for my feeble attempt and fade back into oblivion with my absolved conscience. After which, they most likely enjoyed dinner with the CEO of GM, Wal-Mart or Exxon and planned the next “Great Society.”

There are those who say Humankind is beyond redemption, and therefore justify taking no action. Less than that, they choose not even to think about it. I’ll say that again: “they choose not even to think about it.”

Part of the problem is we are looking for a savior. We leave it to Congress, the President, or some absent deity to solve our problems. “I voted for one of the two candidates I was allowed to vote for. I did my part,” and/or “I pray about it, drop some money in the basket, and. . .”

I know this to be true and, if you look deep within, you must come to the same conclusion: “unless we change what we are doing and how we are doing it, nothing will ever change.” It is a simple business concept we can all learn from: “find what works and repeat it.” Contra wise, “if it doesn’t work, stop doing it.”

Religion is no longer the primary means of controlling the hearts and minds of everyday people in the United States. Every time someone wants a new liberty or doesn’t like the rules of a religion, they start their own. Fear is the new opiate of the masses. Fear of terrorists, fear of death, fear of pain, fear of poverty, fear of looking foolish. Guess what – the lesson of Gitmo’s illegal detentions is not lost upon the American people. Gitmo’s example is not a threat to the terrorists; it is a threat to us, everyday thinking people. If we can be arrested and detained without due process, if the government can torture with impunity under the protection of a declaration of eternal war (War on Terror), and the so-called PATRIOT Act, which citizen, in his or her right mind, will stand up and say something that might get him/her “extraordinarily rendered” (whatever that means – I speculate it is Governmentese for “Kidnapping Innocent Civilians”) to Egypt or Afghanistan to have done to them whatever went on in all those gruesome pictures of Abu Garib, and to never see their loved ones again? Meanwhile, Halliburton and Exxon reap profits the likes of which have never been seen in Human history and complain about paying—or find ways not to pay—taxes.

Corporations must no longer possess the rights and privileges of citizens. A corporation is not a human. Further, when corporations act in a manner that is destructive to the environment, when in their fevered obsession with profits they kill or harm a single human being or destroy a lake or rain forest, the people responsible for the policies that caused such misfortune must be brought to justice in a manner that reflects the gravity of their transgression and must be sentenced accordingly. My guess is we will see a quick end to the death penalty.

THIS MUST END! WE MUST END IT! I do not believe in violence and will never advocate its use. However, that being said, RESOLUTION is a pen stroke away from REVOLUTION and I am putting the government and corporations on notice: We are sick and tired of the world you are creating and we will have a say.

We will have the final say.

We will not ask for it. We will demand it.

hoc opus, hic labor est
Erik F. Kreis
©2009

Sometimes, you can judge a policy by the company it keeps. Who opposes Barack Obama’s expansion of the number of American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan? Progressive organizations like CodePink and United for Peace and Justice.

Who supports Obama’s decision to escalate? Right wingers like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

Don’t let D.C. Democratic leadership snowball you. The Afghanistan war escalation is anything but progressive.

It’s amazing how many people have found ways to apologize for Israel’s white phosphorus attacks against Gaza. White phosphorus is an incendiary weapon, which causes objects it lands upon to catch fire – even burning human flesh.

Now, Israel has been caught in a white phosphorus attack against a United Nations compound. Confronted by the UN after the attack, Israel called it a grave mistake.

A grave mistake? How do you accidentally attack a United Nations compound with an incendiary device?

If this attack truly was a mistake, then it only proves that the Israeli military is completely incompetent, and cannot operate in a manner that is safe to civilians.

Sending such a military to attack a territory thick with civilians, one can expect massive civilian deaths. In such a case, those deaths cannot be called mistakes, because they are sadly predictable.

This is NO COVER to Hamas, which purposefully attacks civilian areas just as Israel does. It’s to point out that neither Hamas nor Israel is in the right.

With all the talk about Sarah Palin and her latest question-evasions, I thought the economy has been getting less than it’s needed share of coverage. After all, just a couple of days ago the stock market was in a crisis, the DOW dropped around 400 points in a day, AIG pretty much went bankrupt, and gold set a record for most gain in a single day by ground from around $740 bucks a troy ounce to $860 a troy ounce.

More Americans are focusing on the economy, a place where John McCain has admitted he sucks at and Sarah Palin has established herself to be incapable of balancing a budget.

So for this crisis, what is Bush’s solution? Set aside 700 billion dollars to buy shit assets without a plan to have that money paid back.

Here, I’ll let you read for yourself.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers 33 minutes ago

The Bush administration asked Congress on Saturday for the power to buy $700 billion in toxic assets clogging the financial system and threatening the economy as negotiations began on the largest bailout since the Great Depression.

The rescue plan would give Washington broad authority to purchase bad mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions for the next two years. It does not specify which institutions qualify or what, if anything, the government would get in return for the unprecedented infusion.

Democrats are pressing to require that the plan help more strapped borrowers stay in their homes and to condition the bailout on new limits on executive compensation.

Congressional aides and administration officials are working through the weekend to fill in the details of the proposal. The White House hoped for a deal with Congress by the time markets opened Monday; top lawmakers say they would push to enact the plan as early as the coming week.

“We’re going to work with Congress to get a bill done quickly,” President Bush said at the White House. Without discussing specifics, he said, “This is a big package because it was a big problem.”

The proposal is a mere three pages long, but it gives sweeping powers to the government to dispense gigantic sums of taxpayer dollars in a program that would be sheltered from court review.

“It’s a rather brief bill with a lot of money,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman. “We understand the importance of the anticipation in the markets, but we also know that what we’re doing is going to have consequences for decades to come. There’s not a second act to this — we’ve got to get this right.”

Lawmakers digesting the eye-popping cost and searching for specifics voiced concerns that the proposal offers no help for struggling homeowners or safeguards for taxpayers’ money.

The government must bail out the financial system “because if we don’t, it will have a tremendous impact on American consumers, homeowners, taxpayers and the rest,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in San Francisco.

But, she added, “We cannot deal with this unless this bailout helps families stay in their homes.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. said “we cannot allow ourselves to be in denial about the threat now facing the world economy. From all indications, that threat is real, and the consequences of inaction could be catastrophic. Every single American has a stake in preventing a global financial meltdown.”

The proposal would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the massive rescue.

“The American people are furious that we’re in this situation, and so am I,” the House’s top Republican, Ohio Rep. John A. Boehner, said in a statement. “We need to do everything possible to protect the taxpayers from the consequences of a broken Washington.”

Signaling what could erupt into a brutal fight with Democrats over add-on spending, Boehner said “efforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors, and small businesses deserve.”

Bush said he worried the financial troubles “could ripple throughout” the economy and affect average citizens. “The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package. … Over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

He added, “People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it’s important to have confidence in our financial system.”

Neither presidential candidate took a position on the proposal. GOP nominee John McCain said he was awaiting specifics and any changes by Congress.

Democratic rival Barack Obama used the party’s weekly radio address to call for help for Main Street as well as Wall Street.

Their language reflected a tricky balance that politicians in both parties are trying to strike, just six weeks before Election Day: Back a plan that doles out hundreds of billions to companies that made bad bets and still identify with the plight of middle-class voters.

Besides mortgage help and executive compensation limits, Democrats are considering attaching middle-class assistance to the legislation despite a request from Bush to avoid adding items that could delay action. An expansion of jobless benefits was one possibility.

Bush sidestepped questions about the chances of adding such items, saying that now was not the time for posturing. “I think most leaders would understand we need to get this done quickly, and you know, the cleaner the better,” he said about legislation being drafted.

Treasury officials met congressional staff for about two hours on Capitol Hill on Saturday. Discussions centered on how the plan would work, and Democrats proposed adding the executive compensation limits and new foreclosure-prevention measures. Details of those changes were not available Saturday, as staff aides worked to draft them. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conferred by phone for about 20 minutes in the afternoon, gauging how the negotiations were unfolding.

Among the key issues up for negotiation is which financial institutions would be eligible for the help. The proposed legislation doesn’t make it clear, leaving open the question of whether hedge funds or pension funds could qualify.

The proposal does not require that the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets. But it would allow the Treasury Department to designate financial institutions as “agents of the government,” and mandate that they perform any “reasonable duties” that might entail.

The government could contract with private companies to manage the assets it purchased under the rescue.

Paulson says the government would in essence set up reverse auctions, putting up money for a class of distressed assets — such as loans that are delinquent but not in default — and financial institutions would compete for how little they would accept.

I understand the need for quick action in a case like this, but trying to rush through a bill of 700 BILLION dollars with only two days of debate and thus far no assurances that John Q is gonna be able to keep a roof over his head and little or no stipulations as to getting the money back aside from Bush’s word that “we’ll get a lot of it back over time”? Yeah, considering his track record I’m less than reassured.

Actually, I’m horrified.

Oh, I just loved the part about the national debt. From $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion if the bill passes. Whoopie.

In other news; 40 people in a Pakistan hotel were killed by a suicide bomber.

Spoken by Congressman Charles Rangel of New York on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday:

Alcohol abuse is rising among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, many of them trying to deaden the repercussions of war and disorientation of home. The problem is particularly prevalent among those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Increasingly, these veterans are spilling into the criminal justice system. Their stories are similar: coming back from war with lost jobs, crushing debt and ruptured families.

War is a crime. It leads to more crime.

War is ripping our country apart.

It is time for a new surge in anti-war activism.