these episodes of depravity with soldiers & contractors are only possible because of the more genralised depravity of the empire

in a culture that bases its very power on the domination & the demeaning of others - episodes of the kind of cruelty that is becoming commonplace in the armed forces of the empire constitute standard operating procedure

i think the effect on those who oppose the empire - is at once illuminating yet at the same time - it is in its own instance defiling

common humanity as a concept & sometimes a a reality (as that expressed in the documentary on the coup against chavez & the succesful liquidation of that coup) is something to be celebrated but when that common humanity has been manipulated as the good Germans were & as the Americans are - that common humanity becomes something to be feared in every sense of that word

the good German was capable & in full consent & complicity - to live with the death of many millions named & unnamed - whether they were 'mental deficients' in the 30's, whether they were the 'enemy', or they were parts of civil life that needed to be extinguished - Jews & Gypsies, or they were entire countries - like Russia. the consent & complicity afforded collaboration right up until those same Russian armies marched through what became the Prussian wastelands. the elites who were elites stayed the elite under the german economic miracle of the 50's & 60's - this is well documented in the films & books of thomas harlan. they never ever accepted in any way the specidic nature of their crimes nor the details of their complicity & consent

in the united states - & we could begin with that moment when it expressed its utter negation of humanity in the showbombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki (tho here - there is as i have sd a great deal of detail & specificity in the writers of American fiction of the 19th century & in the early 20th century) - you have a deliberate, consistent & evolving of the aggressive & 'genocidal' aspects of the empire & a contingent manipulation of the motherland. from the 501's to the present wars, mostly illegal & covert have been operated against the people of Latin & central America, against the people of south east Asia, of the African continent & always always against the Arab people. these wars can only be waged when there is a 'common consent' of the people. the people have a moral responsibility. the soldiers moral responsibility is even higher

what is absent in the good German & the good American is the complete absence of a higher moral authority - either in the appareils (the institutions) or in the people themselves. that is why in the German case it wat transformed into a crude volkmystik - where earth & blood provided the only purity. the good American has transformed his somewhat dubious & highly speculative puritanism into a morality that can be governed from the pulpit of men who have shown themselves to be depraved in word & deed - whether it is a Dobson, a Jimmy Swaggart, a Pat Robertson - whose concern for anything outside themselves is limited, very limited. their faith is built on sand but a deliberate quicksand for the devotee. doubly, this false faith is enshrined in the Straussian intellectual elites who regard faith as a sort of plaything to be 'donated' to the 'ordinary people', the 'herd' as a kind of bread & circuses. make no mistake about it the Perles & Wolfowitzes of this world hate with unforgettable venom - the people - they mock, those in civil life who seek a common good. a common good is completely apposite to their intentions

what America has created is an abomination but it is an abomination which has its roots in the decay of western civilization

as i sd earlier American independence (without the slaughter of the Indians) could have been one of the beautiful exercises of the enlightenment - it has been nothing of a kind. what has happened in the last ten years tho is almost beyond belief - in both speed & depth of criminality. criminality in & of itself was with the empire from the very beginning - from the genocide of Indians & annexation of other territories, to the contingent use of criminality to repress all elements of civil defense of its workers, a corruption of the workers unparalleled in any other country - even dictatorships & then in the 20th century a swathe of murder of the people of Latin America, Asia, Africa & the middle east -carried under the banner of 'democracy'. a democracy in itself so perverted that there are general & specific doubts about the two last elections & a general disenfranchisement of large sections of the population that also had its roots at the beginning of the last century


some of the answers to the problems of the empire can only be resolved by the citizens of the empire. the unjust wars of the empire will be defeated where they are fought & at home precisely because they are not only unjust but criminal ~R'giap

What does this little rant have to do with the link above? Nothing, and everything.