Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. Available in weekly or daily dosage. |
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A gigantic protection racket by Herb Ruhs, MD Monday, August 18, 2008 PERMANENT LINK An interesting article posted on COMMON DREAMS from the Canadian paper NATIONAL POST entitled "US town turned into an open-air prison" examines the plight of undocumented workers rounded up Gestapo style at a Kosher meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. But, as all mass media must do, it glosses over the underlying reality that it is describing and produces an enigmatic picture that undermines understanding. It does this by subscribing to a number of
At the root of our confusion is a failure to recognize that there is a broad spectrum of warfare, one end of which is Total War. The distinction between economic warfare and shooting warfare is a false one. History says that wars start when the shooting starts, but that is a lie. Wars start with economic competition and the attempted economic subjugation of populations and the stealing of resources. By the time the shooting starts the process of warfare has been underway for a long time and the destruction has become inevitable. When the US subverts Mexican sovereignty (with the cooperation of a traitorous Mexican elite) and proceeds to wreck its economy with the dumping of subsidized agricultural commodities and then exploits the displaced workers here and in Mexico, these are acts of war. War, whether in its economic phase or its shooting phase, produces the most suffering for the weakest. But it is an understandable error to focus one's attention solely on those who suffer the most, who die terrible deaths in the deserts of the southwest, of the children driven from their homes and living in terror. Better to consider these who suffer the most to be the canaries in the mine which we all inhabit. We are all collateral damage in a world engaged in economic warfare as everyone's legitimate aspirations for peace, security and sufficiency are heaped on the bonfire of greed. In a world of radical economic inequality everyone is a loser. We are well into World War Three, my friends, and unless we figure out how to pull the plug on gangster capitalism the ultimate cataclysm of total war and total destruction awaits us just around the corner. Whether that destruction comes from the use of weapons of mass destruction or from climatic catastrophe or some other, perhaps unanticipated, consequence of war, is a minor consideration. We must come to understand that if we are to have a world at all it will necessarily need to be a world free of war of any kind, a world based on cooperation fed by an enlightened self-interest that understands that stealing from one's neighbor is not a wise approach to living. Agreed. Another criminal exonerated on a technicality. I love "Little Boxes." One of my fond entertainment indulgences is to watch the HBO series WEEDS (I use Netflix but it is available to stream from Showtime) where each show is introduced by yet another cover of this little tune. Even if you don't like the show I suspect that you will like the musical intro. ... *genuine* non-fake national security (troop movements during wartime, missile launch codes, etc.) ...Even, and especially, "military secrecy" is a Potemkin Village, a facade that serves to delude, where the only folks left entirely in the dark, or more accurately blinded by misinformation, are the general public on every side of any potential military conflict. The various militaries make it their prime directive to know as much about each other as possible while the publics which they serve are excluded from access to any accurate information about their own or any other military's activities. Seen properly, military life across the globe is a gigantic protection racket perpetrated by the professional militaries, arms suppliers, bankers, and their political enablers all acting in concert against the interests of those they purportedly serve to protect and whose money they covet. Launch codes, for instance, are something that we are induced to believe that the country needs in order to secure nuclear weapons, the use of which will, in Kruchev's immortal words, make the survivors of their use envy the dead. This is especially ironic in the light of a renewed arms race between the US, Russia and China. Like its post World War Two older sibling, this current arms race will enhance the security of no-one while serving to enrich a very few and condemn the mass of people to poverty, misery and unrelenting fear. Privacy is not the same as secrecy. The details of our private lives, the contents of our income tax forms (income tax being an invasion of privacy in itself), our medical records, and every other conceivable aspect of our lives that can be recorded and digitized are already fully open to those who would use this information against us to further enslave and regiment us. So here is another aspect of our totally upside down world, that which is private and should be under our control and remain secret as we wish is actually publicly traded, that which should be open and transparent, how our government spends our taxes and what military contingencies are being planned for in our names, is totally secret. Herb Ruhs, MD I gots nothing to add and certainly nothing to dispute. Helen & Harry This is the curse of the gods on my head. I invite dispute and receive only agreement. What could I have done to deserve this fate? Intellectual hubris? Herb Ruhs, MD Who really gets the fate they deserve? Nobody I've known. It's forbidden by interstellar law, I assume. Helen & Harry No doubt that the Universe has a quirky sense of humor. At least my Cassandra curse is being less and less of a challenge as things fall progressively apart. The piquant paradox here is that masses of people are rushing past me into expectations of the future that far outdistance my predictions as a Cassandra. Very disorienting for me. The fervor about the rapture is even part of this. If my wife would let me I would put my daughters favorite bumper sticker on my vehicle, "After the rapture can I have your car?" Herb Ruhs, MD If we had a car and I was willing to carry a gun with me everywhere I went, my preferred sticker would be "Keep your God to yourself." I would also want to have an American flag perpetually in (mock) flames flying from the antenna. Helen & Harry My wife also won't let me fly the US flag upside down outside our house. So unreasonable. Herb Ruhs, MD |
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