Danny's Weblog

2008 Mar 16 [ Sun ]

Mysterious deaths of British police officers

I had started to notice one report after another of dead or missing police officers. I was surprised to see no speculation about possible reasons for this string of deaths. I noticed in the London Times (2008-03-14 p9) the following summary:

Mr Munro's death follows the apparent suicides of Police Sergeant Richard Fuller, 55, in Calne, Wiltshire, and Michael Todd, 50, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester.

plus this interesting statement:

Dewi Pritchard-Jones, the North Wales Coroner, took the unusual step of calling medical evidence at the opening of the inquest [on Chief Constable Michael Todd] in Llangefni, Anglesey, in order to dispel "suspicions and fears" about the "ridiculous" stories circulating in recent days.

If I was circulating any "ridiculous" stories, I think I would start with the interesting way Todd's cellphone signal led searchers to a location miles away from where he was found. Did his killers not realize that cellphone companies can monitor user's locations? Or did they deliberately lead rescuers away from where he was eventually found, rendered unconscious and left in freezing 80 mph winds without a jacket? Perhaps it was just essential to provide a pretext of suicide as fast as possible, so they used his cellphone to send text messages ostensibly from Todd, although the cellphone conveniently doesn't leave any evidence of who actually punched the messages in... while the person who sent the messages was miles away from Todd's dying body.

But what could lead HMG to kill *several* police officers at once? Perhaps it's like Waco, where most of the LEOs found dead had served as Clinton's personal bodyguards. What element of their past links them together?

Hmmm... also, that kind of thing would have been planned and set up in advance. Why were the killers in such a desperate, slipshod hurry?

From a Times Online article:

A Whitehall source said that Mr Todd's death had nothing to do with his work but was related to his personal life.

Well, he would, wouldn't he? The government also seems to be pushing the line that the real reason for Todd's murder is that he had led an investigation into the CIA rendition flights via British territory, but this seems implausible to me: HMG has been caught red-handed on much worse and the running-dog media just keeps shovelling the government's spin. And it doesn't explain the other two deaths.

The meaning of Orwell's 1984

I vaguely remember reading an analysis of 1984 which suggested that Orwell thought that his world in 1948 actually *was* the world of 1984; he only set the novel in the future, with a few irrelevant sf touches like the telescreens and the names of countries, in order to get it published.

Unfortunately I couldn't find that idea in a casual web search. Indeed, one of the first webpages I found was so collossally badly written that I wondered how it could possibly have acquired pagerank: studentweb.tulane.edu [http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~jgray1/]

This is much better, though tendentious: findarticles.com [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_49_17/ai_81790763]

As usual the Wikipedia entry is valuable: en.wikipedia.org [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four] although it does not address my point.

My previous article re Orwell and Big Brother: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Miscellaneous/bigbrother01.html]

I have been thinking about this issue because for several years I have been reconsidering my entire worldview and tearing away successive layers of belief about historical events. Having come to believe that the British and US governments created the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for their own purposes, I found it easy to see what HMG gained from the war in Ulster, and so forth.

In particular, 1984 shows scenes of grinding poverty which are more similar to the grim conditions of Britain in 1948 than the Ipods and holidays in Ibiza which we see around us. But what was Orwell actually saying? The Wikipedia article shows that in the world of the novel, the government ("inner party") deliberately kept the people in poverty:

The point of continuous warfare is to be rid of the surplus of industrial production to prevent the rise of the standard of living and make possible the economic repression of people.

I have been feeling more and more keenly that living standards for most people have hardly risen over my lifetime. It's true we have mobile phones and widescreen tvs, but many more important things – job security, public transport, access to medical care – have become much less satisfactory. And yet technological advances have taken place. Productivity has been steadily rising for fifty years; why are we still working 40-hour weeks? More people own their own homes now, but their homes' rise in value is at the expense of their own children. Do people realize that? That they are taking those holidays in Ibiza by refinancing a debt which is being imposed on their children?

So I believe Orwell's analysis was valid for 1948, and 1984, and 2008.

2007 Oct 14 [ Sun ]

Another data point on the killing curve

Some years ago I wrote an article about the fact that goverments have become more and more skilled at convincing us to kill each other: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Miscellaneous/killing01.html]

It recently occurred to me that there is a data point which is outside the curve I had in mind in that article. And that is: can governments make a man kill himself?

In WW2 governments which demanded such a sacrifice were viewed as totalitarian and despicable. When Allied governments "needed" a "suicide mission", they requested volunteers, and even then the men would not be expected to actually kill themselves.

But now governments have developed and tested the technology to create suicide bombers. Remember, suicide bombers are just as new in Moslem/Arab society as they are to their audience in the West. Everybody has grievances, and now the techniques have been perfected on the Moslems they can be tried out on anyone.

2007 Mar 30 [ Fri ]

Iraq war reason -- I never thought it was oil till now

I said in an earlier post that I thought the Iraq war was so costly that it outweighed any benefit from grabbing Iraq's oil: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Iraq/bush01.html]

I felt confirmed in that belief when no effort was made to get Iraq's oilfields back on line – production is still much lower than before the war.

This link certainly confirms my idea that the war is stupendously expensive – it estimates over *two trillion USD*: www.informationclearinghouse.info [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15499.htm]

But one of the costs mentioned in that page is actually profit for someone – clear profit at zero risk (unlike say the role of Halliburton). That profit is the *increased price of oil* due to tension in the Middle East as well as diminished flow from Iraq. If the Iraq war had not happened, the big oil companies, and the islamic dictatorships in the Middle East, would still have sold the same oil but made much lower profits.

The story in the link eastimates that the US *alone* will pay 300 billion USD extra, assuming that the Iraq war caused just a 10 USD/barrel price rise – although the price of oil has risen since the Iraq war by around 40 USD per barrel. So the oil companies and the oil sheiks might be congratulating themselves on a 1,200 billion USD profit on US sales alone.

Now we're talking the kind of money where people might reasonably decide that the utter destruction of the USA is worth the trouble. Hmmm.

Who knows if Bush's buddies really control the oil sheiks? Or is it the other way round? Suppose the oil sheiks were going to change to dealing in euros because the USD is collapsing, but Bush bought them off with a price rise? Less hysterical version of oil/euro theory here: www.feasta.org [http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm]

Anothe pet conspiray theory of mine finds some justification here: www.newstatesman.com [http://www.newstatesman.com/200703120024]

I've often wondered whether the US dead figures in Iraq were really true – after all, Bush lied about everything else. The above link mentions, without connecting the dots, that the US Govt's official figures show that the ratio between wounded and dead is an astounding 16:1; in the first Gulf war it was 1.2:1. Hmmmm!

2006 Dec 10 [ Sun ]

Opinion of an Iraqi in "Why We Fight"

"Why We Fight" is the title of a recent documentary about the USA's continuing need to maintain a state of war.

At around 1 hr 33 mins 43 secs on my copy, an Iraqi is shown complaining about the USA, speaking Arabic. I copied down the subtitles because I find them powerful. Here they are:

Due to their behavior the Americans will fail.

They will fail completely among the countries.

And another country will rise and take the Americans' place.

I am not a political man, but that is my analysis as an ordinary person.

America will lose because her behavior is not the behavior of a great nation.

I am particularly interested because I have come to believe that it was the intention of the Bush administration to destroy the USA all along, although "Why We Fight" pushes the argument that the military-industrial complex just wanted the administration to create another enemy now that the USSR has fallen. I think the military-industrial complex probably still believes that the US administration is working for them, although they have got to be starting to wonder.

2006 Apr 08 [ Sat ]

Large corporations are a branch of the government?

This Slashdot poster makes the excellent point that because many large corporations like ATT are heavily regulated and given monopoly powers by the government, they are effectively a branch oif the government which is not subject to normal constitutional restrictions and monitoring: yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182479&cid=15087190]

It makes me wonder whether governments are *aware* of this point. Certainly governments routinely set up organizations to carry out operations for them with plausible deniability. The most famous is probably the US Federal Reserve, although opinions vary as to whether the US Government set up the Federal Reserve or vice versa.

Likewise I have posted many articles about the chances that rebel and terrorist organizations are actually run by the governments they are supposedly attacking (eg the Brits are now known to have operated terrorist groups during the Malayan insurgency). But it had not occurred to me that this technique might be useful at all points along the spectrum.

2006 Mar 12 [ Sun ]

New theory on Robert Maxwell "suicide"

Many years ago, Robert Maxwell, widely-known ruthless media baron, went missing from his boat and his body was never recovered.

A recent news story says that a police memo has been uncovered which states that at the time of his disappearance he was under investigation for having murdered a German mayor: at the time of the Allied invasion of Germany Maxwell had been an officer in the British Army, and had allegedly been negotiating a peaceful surrender of the mayor's town when a German tank fired on his men, and had shot the mayor in retaliation.

The memo suggests that Maxwell must have been aware of this investigation and theorizes that it could have been a motive for suicide.

This suggests many things to me:

1. How much things have changed since Maxwell's disappearance. These days a British officer could order his dog to gnaw off an Iraqi mayor's testicles and the Sun would fawn over him.

2. Maxwell was a pretty tough character. To me it sounds utterly, insultingly ridiculous that he would have taken his own life over fear of such an investigation. If the police could present this as a motivation for suicide in his case, they could use any motive for anybody.

3. If you think the government might want to get rid of you, get very cautious when they put you under pressure: it may be the prelude to an assassination.

2006 Feb 21 [ Tue ]

Was it even really possible for the towelheads to pilot the jets on 9/11?

Well, 9/11 is a long time ago now, and I guess we're never going to know the truth. I've considered posting links to new speculation probably fifty times, but what's the point? Most people have apparently decided it makes them too uncomfortable to think about the story the Feds put out – kinda like I gave up subscribing to "Reason" magazine because most of the stories made the veins stand out in my forehead.

Anyway. I had often wondered about what was *really* involved in getting three out of four planes to their targets (does anyone believe that the other one was *not* taken down by an inconvenient Air National Guard guy who *believed* the cover story?) – the *coordination* struck me as difficult (have you ever tried to fly someplace to meet someone flying there too?) – but this link has a lot of apparently knowledgeable arguments for why the reported level of flight training of the towelheads was *ludicrously* inadequate for their mission: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/210206impossibility.htm]

This story about general 9/11 issues – why people ignore *basic* problems in the Feds' story – is also great: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/200206questions.htm]

2005 Dec 04 [ Sun ]

Excellent summary for reasons why US Administration would fake 9/11

The article includes a great deal of well-attributed evidence for the argument that the USA was already planning to invade Afghanistan and Iraq long before 9/11, and that Rumsfeld and his buddies – you know, the whole "Project for a New American Century" thing – had specifically talked about a "New Pearl Harbor" as the opportunity to implement those plans.

www.globalresearch.ca [http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=GRI20051202&articleId=1391]

My own take on this is that the real players – the people we never see, unlike Rumsfeld – are playing a multiplex game. In order to attract Rumsfeld and big-money backers, the invasions were depicted as merely a cynical attempt to expand the US military and weaken Arabia. Rumsfeld may even still believe this.

But that's just one skin of the onion. If you had been trying to fight a war effectively, you would have let the experts handle things like low-intensity-conflict planning and the handling of suspects. Instead, I can only conclude that everything possible was done to shove a pointed stick in the eye of the Arab/Moslem public. We always knew that torturing suspects was not just ineffective, but counter-productive; worse (in my view) would be the corruption of the military. Remember, street cops were pulled off drug enforcement because practically all of them were corrupted, so vice departments were created so that only one branch of the police would be utterly corrupt. But the knowledge that one part of the army is torturing suspects destroys the morale of every soldier.

Likewise, the US Army was provisioned and set up in a way which surely was deliberately planned to maximize casualties and ensure that the Iraqi resistance would grow.

Still, the article makes it hard to continue to believe the *outer* skin of the onion.

2005 Nov 29 [ Tue ]

Was the invasion of Iraq stupid, or brilliantly successful?

As I've said before, there are two theories of history, either of which can explain anything: conspiracy, and stupidity.

For a long time, the liberal media have presented the actions of the USA as merely stupid: supporting tyrants, eliminating centrist politicians and movements, etc. I believed that too: at the time of the Vietnam War, I supported what I believed were the intentions of the USA, while opposing most of its actions as extremely unlikely to have the "desired" consequences.

I no longer believe it. I believe that the war in Iraq, and indeed the 9/11 disaster, were specifically planned to have all the results that have taken place: the utter destruction of the US Army, the isolation of the USA from the remaining members of the free world, the appallingly dangerous reliance of the economy on China's forbearance...

Here's someone who agrees with me: www.prisonplanet.com [http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005/291105frogcooked.htm]

The police state in the USA is itself, I believe, just a means to an end: the destruction of the USA's economy and civil structure. Creating a torture-based army and a police state are intended to destroy the army and eliminate popular support for Congress. Hurricane Katrina was just an excuse to have foreign troops pointing guns at US citizens on US soil: it won't be the last time.

The same website as above has an article on the interesting 1980s movie "Red Dawn", in which the Soviets and Cubans (not I think Mexicans as the article suggests) invade part of the USA. The article stresses the analogy between the US resistance in the movie and the Iraqi resistance to the US today. I think the relevance of the movie to current events will soon beccome much more acute. www.prisonplanet.com [http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005/281105reddawn.htm]

But *wny* does the USA's elite *want* to destroy the USA? I see it as another version of the Depression. In the Depression, the Federal Reserve encouraged banks to make unsafe loans, and then abruptly cut off the money supply. The result was that the American middle class, which had been watching its investments grow predictably, was suddenly faced with unemployment, and needed to cash in its investments when eveyrbody else was doing the same thing. The super-rich, easily able to ride out the storm, were able to buy up investments for pennies on the dollar. And the middle class – not to mention the ravaged, starving working class – were chastened by poverty and war, and were easily led away from their real enemy.

The same thing is going to happen, but it may well be that the super-rich have simply made some sort of deal with the Red Chinese (not so damned red any more), and there will just be a net transfer of all of the USA's wealth to Peking. (Then Thaksin's strategy of turning Thailand into a vacation resort area of China may pay off too.)

2005 Sep 18 [ Sun ]

Perhaps each political movement *must* have an esoteric core

In a long article on the successes of the neocon movement in implementing the war in Iraq: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/Pages/Sept05/170905Imperial.htm] there was an idea which I found particularly interesting.

The writer, Justin Raimondo, refers to Ayn Rand's Objectivist movement, and makes the point (not for the first time) that the way the inner circle of Objectivism operated – Rand herself, Nathaniel Branden etc – was *antithetical* to the principles which objectivists claimed to passionately uphold.

He quotes from Murray N. Rothbard in his survey of The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult:

Every religious cult has two sets of differing and distinctive creeds: the exoteric and the esoteric. The exoteric creed is the official, public doctrine, the creed which attracts the acolyte in the first place and brings him into the movement as a rank-and-file member. The quite different creed is the unknown, hidden agenda, a creed which is only known to its full extent by the top leadership, the 'high priests' of the cult. The latter are the keepers of the Mysteries of the cult.

While he does not *prove* his point (how could he – so I guess it's not scientific), the litany of examples is very persuasive. Objectivists, Marxists, Scientologists, neocons – the list goes on. (He leaves out Nazism. Certainly Nazi leaders had some room for rootless cosmpolitanism in their own lives... but perhaps Hitler's hold on the party was so strong that he could eliminate cabalistic tendencies.)

It makes me think that the process of joining such a cult must involve some sort of screening process in which the new entrant is allocated either to the outer group or the cabal (since potential cabal members would inevitably decide to exit the movement if they were left to be indoctrinated in the nonsensical external tenets).

2005 Sep 10 [ Sat ]

George Bush *wants* to be the Antichrist

I suppose most people, like me, believe that G W Bush's born-again Christianity was a transparent ploy to evade responsibility for the "youthful" excesses which his family has largely managed to cover up.

But an interesting possibility just struck me. Suppose he *actually believes* that claptrap. In that case, *what role* does he think he's playing?

Remember, the born-agains think the End Days are *already evident*. And here he is, the most powerful person in the world. Perhaps every night, as he kneels by the bed, he asks God "Why have you chosen me for this, O Lord? Yet I shall follow your wishes as mine own."

And every day he *implements* the End Days.

I haven't found a good authoritative description of the End Days, but I thought this site was interesting: www.enddays.ws [http://www.enddays.ws/jleary01.html]

Christian Zionism (why Christian fundamentalists give unflinching support to Israel): whtt.org [http://whtt.org/whtt.shtml?rpr/MarchingtoZion.htm]

2005 Sep 03 [ Sat ]

The difference between 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina

The difference between 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina is that I'm almost sure that President Bush can't order the CIA to cause a hurricane.

2005 Aug 14 [ Sun ]

What do conspirators tell their children?

As anybody who reads my political postings will know (does anybody?) I have a paranoid view of world events. I see Al Qaeda as the latest in a long line of ridiculous conspiracy theories forced on the public by our governments for their own ends.

Whether you agree with me on that or not, I think it's interesting to consider a corollary that just occurred to me. If you're actually executing a real, Bush-style conspiracy, what do you want your children to be taught? Are we to assume that there are private classes at Princeton and Yale that only plutocrats' children are ever invited to, and when these gilded youths appear to be slacking from their regular classes they are in fact beavering away on the real causes of the Napoleonic Wars through the War on Terror?

What would one *want* as such a parent? Children – even, or especially, plutocrats' children – can be idealistic and untrustworthy. If your child blabbed he would have to be eliminated. Hmm. Better wait a few more years...

Still, how would you feel as a parent if your child actually believed in what you knew to be a pack of lies?

Of course, if you knew for a fact that the entire world had been fed *one particular* pack of lies, what would you believe in yourself? What *could* you believe in without feeling like a patsy? Perhaps the rich are amoral because they have even less faith in any form of morality than I do – with even better reason.

2005 Jul 25 [ Mon ]

The great advantage of suicide bombers

I have seen many press accounts which make the point that suicide bombing is a tactic which the security forces have as yet found no effective response to: since the attacker does not survive, they do not need getaway plans, hideouts, or any other form of support which can be tracked down.

It has occurred to me however that the *real* advantage of suicide bomberslies in carrying out false flag operations. Previously, it was necessary to bump off the operatives yourself after a false-flag operation, and that raised suspicions (eg in Italy). Now they blow up along with the victims, and nobody asks any inconvenient questions.

Except around the London bombings. Some inconvenient questions are being asked finally. I think I saw a story that some of the bombers went on a *whitewater rafting trip to Wales* shortly before the attacks. Hmmm.

There are the reports that the fourth bomber, the one on the bus whose bomb exploded later than the tube bombs, was looking frightened and started frantically doing something in his rucksack shortly before the bomb went off. If he was determined to kill himself, would he look frightened? Or had he suddenly started wondering what exactly that nice man had put in their rucksacks?

And recently a suspected bomber was shot dead with five rounds while he cowered on the ground. He happened to be completely innocent and his suspicious behavior was running away from men in plain clothes waving firearms. I would certainly do the same in Phnom Penh, or the country he came from. Perhaps there is a standing order to shoot any suspected terrorist dead on sight. Wouldn't that be convenient for a false-flag operation?

After the Kennedy assassination hundreds of witnesses and investigators lost their lives in car crashes, hit-and-runs, suicides, falls from high buildings, etc. That was difficult to do, especially because even people who had *misleading* evidence had to be rubbed out, so that no conclusions could be drawn.

But there's a clean break with a phantom menace like Al Qaeda, and suicide bombers. All the evidence disappears and all we know is fed to us by "counterterrorism experts".

2005 Jul 22 [ Fri ]

Simple way to reduce the size of government

I was just daydreaming about what in heck I could do to actually improve things even if I had a Thaksin-like grip on the US. It occurred to me that one could pass a congressional amendment such that the *maximum* taxation in total would be say 10% of GNP in peacetime and say 25% in wartime.

Having patted myself on the back for a few seconds it then occurred to me that experience teaches us that the result of such an amendment, even if by some miracle it actually became effective, would be that the US would involve itself in endless wars.

Then I started thinking about the US's endless wars.

At the time, I supported the US involvement in Vietnam. I bought the domino theory and I hated socialist totalitarianism. Indeed, sometimes I still find myself arguing on the basis of my worldview at that time.

But now when I think about Vietnam I think about the endless succession of stupid, brutal "foreign entanglements" ever since the 19th century, and anyone can see the pattern.

Maybe my amendment would need to set the limits the other way: 25% in peacetime and 10% in wartime. Hmmm.

2005 Jul 08 [ Fri ]

The bombing attacks in London today

It reminds me of 9/11: once again, *someone* pulls off a propaganda coup, but somehow disdains to brag about it – there is a claim that it was carried out by a previously-unknown branch of Al Qaeda (and what is *that* really, anyway? More than a thoughtform?) but no evidence at all.

This guy is sure that Blair did it himself: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2005/070705terrorcard.htm]

Both Tony Blair and George Bush in their speeches have tried to paint the attacks as an assault on globalization and the G8 itself. That means that if you're against the G8 and globalization, then you're with the terrorists! It's a tried and tested method that they've used time and time before.

2005 May 29 [ Sun ]

Koran not flushed down toilet? OK then.

Many news stories are reporting that the US have announced that the Newsweek story about US interrogators flushing the Koran down a toilet were false.

But this is what the US forces'investigating officer said:

Hood announced that there is "no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Qur'an down the toilet."

So, logically, the following can be true:

1. There is evidence which he "does not find credible" (which does not mean that he does not believe it himself)

2. A US operative who was *not* a member of the Joint Task Force (eg one of those civilian contractors we've heard so much about) did it

3. They did it everywhere except Guantanamo Bay

4. They didn't *flush* it down the toilet – they forced it round the bend using the detainee's head

5. It wasn't the Qu'ran, it was the Q'ahuahoaharan (joke for linguists)

6. It wasn't down the toilet, it was into a vast pool of sewage in which the detainees had been chained

Later in the same para, it says:

Earlier, an FBI document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union had alleged such an incident in August 2002. On Thursday, the detainee who had made that allegation recanted his statement.

Hmm. Recanted? While sitting in his mom's house at a press conference with his lawyers?

Another interesting take on the Bush administration: www.justicefornone.com [http://www.justicefornone.com/handbills/leaving1.htm]

Another good reference to Bush as Lord Vader

This one makes the point that Bush, since 9/11, has succeeded in turning the USA into a *typical* fascist state. slashdot.org [http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151013&cid=12665255]

My previous article: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Miscellaneous/starwars02.html]

2005 May 28 [ Sat ]

New diversion on OKC bomb: FBI tortured suspect to death

I think that most of the new leads that appear on major propaganda episodes like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 are deliberate disinformation, created in order to cause further confusion.

My own guess on OKC varies but I wouldn't be surprised if the feds provided the explosive and the target. I think different groups in the feds knew different parts of what was really happening: I think some feds had planted informants in an operation which other feds had set up!

Many witnesses told the feds about "John Doe #2", but they were relentlessly ignored: www.worldnetdaily.com [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29606]

A new story says the Feds were actually holding some poor guy *believing him to be Richard Lee Guthrie*, a coconspirator. Anyhow, he died in their custody and there was (of course) a coverup: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/may2005/270505tortureandmurder.htm]

I'm guessing this story has been planted at this time to provide support for cover story #2: the FBI did indeed know about the planned OKC attack, but fouled up so badly that they had to cover up their involvement totally.

We will never be told the truth. Fox Mulder had a poster saying "the truth is out there"; regrettably it is entirely surrounded by a phalanx of lies.

2005 May 25 [ Wed ]

My wacky idea about Star Wars seems to be true

Way back in 2004 November: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Miscellaneous/starwars01.html] I had the idea that Lucas was representing the current political situation in his movies. Now everyone sees it: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/may2005/240505sithlord.htm]

Actually, in interviews Lucas says that he formed his story based on the *Vietnam* war – for instance, the infamous "Gulf of Tonkin" incident in which President Johnson manufactured a reason to send the USA to war: www.fair.org [http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261]

Hmmm. At the time I supported the USA in Vietnam. I don't know how much of my support was because of outright lies. Who knows how many lies have still not been brought to light?

The saddest thing is that it is *currently* perfectly obvious that Bush lied repeatedly about Iraq, but nobody but a bunch of old curmudgeons like me seems to pay attention. Hmm again. Maybe I thought, at the time of the Vietnam War, that only a bunch of old curmudgeons were complaining about Vietnam.

2005 May 10 [ Tue ]

Excellent Slashdot posting on capital punishment

I like it, I have to say, because he's making just the same points that I have: it.slashdot.org [http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=148869&cid=12481646]

A representative quote, re checking DNA evidence *after* conviction:

A couple of years back, there was an interesting situation in Texas. After several such DNA exonerations, the state went through their frozen evidence from previous convictions, and destroyed them.

2005 May 07 [ Sat ]

Insightful article on the real significance of self-service systems

The following link may stop working; if necessary search for the author "Nicols Fox" and the string "Great Labor Transfer". www.iht.com [http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/05/05/opinion/edfox.php]

I'm going to include the following snippet to give you an idea of the article.

Cleverly, the restaurants made this choice not only easy but gratifying. Customers were given the sense of being good citizens or helping out the teenage minimum-wage workers who wiped off the tables. I was never fooled. I knew what was going on. We were doing the restaurant's work, and if we didn't we felt guilty. My children would shrink into their coats while people stared disapprovingly if I tried to abandon a cluttered table. In fact, it was a manifestation of the Great Labor Transfer. Companies that had already applied every possible efficiency to their businesses were looking for other ways to cut costs and saw an entirely new pool of workers who didn't have to be paid. Call them consumers.

My own little contribution to this idea is that it's part of the "de-skilling" drive in companies. I had assumed that the reason was to eliminate the power of the employee to negotiate with the employer by making sure that he has no portable skills (ie, nothing his employer or any other employer really needs), but I now see that de-skilling also allows the employer/mfr to transfer tasks to the customer/consumer.

2005 Apr 05 [ Tue ]

Was evidence to support FedGov's 9/11 theory manufactured?

My own theory is that the majority of conspiracy theories are created by FedGov in order to confuse and discredit.

Still, I've seen a lot of pages which make me wonder whether anyone has really verified even the most basic elements of the FedGov story. For instance, this page says that one engine stated in a Popular Mechanics article as having been found at the NYC crash site has never been fitted in the planes which "were involved": www.rense.com [http://www.rense.com/general63/wtcc.htm]

Of course, FedGov could make such conspiracy theories much more difficult to promote if it didn't have a habit of seizing all the evidence (along with cameras and cameramen) first, and finally admitting months later that the evidence has been lost or crushed or burned (eg Waco).

"You know, Mrs Maloney, you're the only person who says that there were two men renting that truck. The only person. We'd have to wonder why a person would say a thing like that, wouldn't we? We'd have to ask ourselves, is there anything strange about Mrs Maloney? Or someone in her family? Let's just correct that statement, before we all have to divert the course of the investigation for no reason."

2005 Apr 03 [ Sun ]

All new tires sold in USA for several years contain RFID transponder

So claims Slashdot poster below: yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=144771&cid=12123337]

You know where you have to give them your shoes at the airport, and they disappear with your shoes for a couple of minutes? What do they *do* with your shoes?

2005 Mar 29 [ Tue ]

How governments really work

This Slashdot poster thinks like me:

The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Insightful) by ites (600337) on Monday March 28, @09:52AM (#12065730) yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=143985&cid=12065730]

One of the major instruments of the ruling political class is to divide and distract public opinion with intense moral-laden debate about subjects that in most other countries are treated as private matters.

Morality-driven debate is such a powerful tool because you can, by fine-tuning the argument, get a balanced 50-50 split on just about any subject.

And so, we get the endless debates about gay weddings, about living wills, about abortion, about the "theory" of evolution, about the role of religion in public structures, and so on.

Meanwhile debate about subjects that in any open democracy would make the front pages, would bring millions onto the streets, and would topple presidents... almost totally absent.

The general public does not debate the role of the state, the yawning chasms in the democratic process, the boom in military spending, gerrymandering, government-sponsored TV "news", political prisoners, torture, the corruption of every agency meant to protect the public, the environment, the economy into an agency designed to exploit and abuse...

Give the plebians bread, and circuses, and you can pretty much do what you like.

There are some good responses to him in the main article (about how the TSA lied about protecting the personal data it was collecting on individuals): yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/03/28/1344214.shtml]

Here's another posting in the thread. I guess it's not as important as US citizens being arrested and tortured in secret, but what happened to the poster is just a great example of what happens when our rights are taken away:

I've got things stolen by TSA, that's why I care. (Score:4, Interesting) by pikine (771084) on Monday March 28, @11:32AM (#12066508) yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=143985&cid=12066508]

I have an obviously foreign name, and my luggage was searched two in a row for the last two times that I travelled. They put in a "notice of baggage inspection" slip in my bag. Now, the fact that they were searched wasn't a problem. The problem is that last August, they (1) delayed one luggage for a more thorough search, and (2) when I finally got my luggage, my $300 minidisc player/recorder was missing. The minidisc player was kept in a soft pouch; the pouch was stored inside a hand bag, which sit inside the luggage. They apparently opened the hand bag, pulled out the contents, found the minidisc player/recorder and found it convenient to transfer it to the inspector's own pocket.

Now, I tried to contact TSA and it wasn't helpful. The phone number they provided, (866) 289-9673, always responded with a busy tone. I e-mailed the airline, United Airlines, and they never got back to me. Maybe I was too cynical. I told them I don't think an innocuous little device like my minidisc player is a threat to airline safety.

But it is funny if you think about it. TSA steals my stuff and put a slip saying "we did it." Then the fact that there is no where to complain is like them saying to me, "nanner nanner nanner ..."

2005 Mar 15 [ Tue ]

Who actually benefits from terrorism? -- Scott Ritter answers

Most people will remember Scott Ritter as the man who was pilloried before the Iraq invasion for asserting that he had found no WMDs in Iraq.

Despite apparently working now for a fire department in New York state, his distaste for the Bush administration has deepened considerably, and in this interview his beliefs seem close to my own of a few years ago: www.propagandamatrix.com [http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2005/140305terrortactics.htm]

Let's talk about the disintegration of the CIA as an organization capable of operating with any form of integrity.

Personally I think it's been doing what it's told... and it always has.

And here's a judge – one who has (hard to believe) often appeared on Fox News – with a very clear explanation of why the Patriot Act breaches the US Constitution: www.reason.com [http://www.reason.com/0503/fe.ng.the.shtml]

Naively, he says (about police): "they took an oath to uphold the Constitution". Hah. So did President Bush.

2005 Mar 14 [ Mon ]

Who actually benefits... part 2

Should one accept the conspiracy theory of history, or the cock-up theory?

A poster on Slashdot can see the trees but not the wood:

Re:this might not be popular here, but.... (Score:5, Interesting) by crush (19364) on Sunday March 13, @03:05PM (#11927447) yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=142322&cid=11927447]

> We have the CIA and the NSA because we do have enemies abroad. Look at Iran.

And Iran is our enemy because we supported an anti-democratic fascistic dictator (the Shah) instead of allowing the people there to get on with their own lives and evolve towards democracy. At around the same time we supported other anti-democratic fascists in the Ba'ath party and look where that got us. The CIA supported that Ba'ath Party coup in Iraq.

Then later on the CIA fucked around supporting directly the Mujaheddin while they were busy dealing drugs, raping little boys and women and being allround asshats. Look where that got us.

The CIA are crap at preventing problems from external enemies: they seem to create all the external enemies. For a good read (after you've come down from your "external enemy" hysteria high, you could have a read of Chalmers Johnston's "Blowback" or Alexander Cockburn's "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press".

If you still believe that the CIA are more effective at preventing terror than creating it by their cack-handed and immoral interventions abroad then I'll eat your hat.

He sees the CIA consistently creating enemies of the American people over decades and thinks that it's some sort of mistake. I don't.

My previous posting on this subject: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Miscellaneous/paranoia05.html]

2005 Mar 13 [ Sun ]

Who actually benefits from terrorism?

In the course of a recent interview: www.reason.com [http://www.reason.com/0502/fe.mg.neal.shtml] Neal Stephenson, an sf writer, says this:

Speaking as an observer who has many friends with libertarian instincts, I would point out that terrorism is a much more formidable opponent of political liberty than government. Government acts almost as a recruiting station for libertarians. Anyone who pays taxes or has to fill out government paperwork develops libertarian impulses almost as a knee-jerk reaction. But terrorism acts as a recruiting station for statists.

Many, many people have pointed out that terrorism seems to bring no benefits to those groups who have espoused it: Northern Ireland's Catholics, the Basques, the Chechnyans, the Palestinians, etc etc. But for some reason they don't *draw any conclusions* from that – they don't decide that there might be something wrong with this picture.

As I've said before, there are two basic ways to analyze events, referred to in English as "the conspiracy theory" and "the cockup theory". The cockup theory requires you to believe that the US, for example, is run by complete idiots who make the same mistakes again and again.

The advantage of the conspiracy theory is that it allows you to make predictions which can be tested. You can say "What has the US actually done? What were the actual results? What can we deduce from that about what the US wants to do? What can we deduce from that about what will happen?"

When the Chechnyan leader Aslan Maskhadov was recently killed by Putin, what did that demonstrate? www.startribune.com [http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5287724.html]

Maskhadov was repeatedly named by Putin as the architect of the Beslan massacre, but it turns out that he consistently denied supporting it and similar attacks. (At the time of Beslan, I tried to find that statement on the web and could not, although there were thousands of articles which parroted the Putin line uncritically.) www.taipeitimes.com [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/03/13/2003246067]

If you bump off an opponent who is willing to negotiate, what does that say about your *strategy*? And what does that suggest about *who really gave the order for Beslan*?

When Donald Rumsfeld sets up the Iraq operation with insufficient troops even to keep arms dumps secure, and then demands a legal opinion which will lead the US Army to torture prisoners, he is doing what sensible person would do to set up a forever war which leave the Middle East in turmoil for decades and eventually destroy the US. (Considering that "al-Qaeda" terrorism is supposed to be fomented by fundamentalist Islam, isn't it strange that the US actually goes after Iraq, and now Syria, which were/are opposed to fundamentalist Islam? And lets Saudi Arabia remain a close ally?)

The interesting thing is what his *end goal* is. Why would anyone want to destroy the USA?

The Depression at least had a point. The middle classes were encouraged to put all their money in stocks, and then the Federal Reserve only had to squeeze liquidity to burst the bubble. The rich had a decade to pick up property and factories at pennies on the dollar, and wages and benefits were ratcheted back. For some reason, Roosevelt was then determined to take the USA to war at any cost. Hmmm.

But the Depression benefited *somebody*. Who will benefit when UN troops occupy DC?

2005 Mar 02 [ Wed ]

How many US troops have *really* died in Iraq?

Do you remember that there was a big fuss about some photographer who published pictures of the coffins of US servicemen being returned to the US? The Feds huffed and puffed about publishing such pictures being disrespectful to the families, and I didn't see any old-media columnist saying "waitaminute, that's a bunch of malarkey".

Since when is it disrespectful?

I couldn't figure out what was really going on, though. The only obvious reason the government would have for discouraging an objective record of incoming casualties would be if they were attempting to fake the casualty count. I thought that would be too difficult: they would be bound to be caught out.

Here's a link which discusses various reports that the Feds have been doing *exactly* that in many ways: eg by using many non-US citizens in the US Army, who enlisted to get a green card (this has been an option for a long time): www.rense.com [http://www.rense.com/general63/peen.htm]

On the other hand, I *still* don't think that's the real truth. I don't think the Feds really want to win the war in Iraq. What they want to do is destroy the US, so they are systematically destroying the integrity of every institution in it, such as the US Army: now it tortures captives and lies about its casualties.

It used to be that an institution would survive a scandal among its top people, because there was a reservoir of integrity among its workers. In today's culture of fear and isolation in one's job in America, the worker feels no loyalty to his employer because none is shown to him. Of course, he knows that if he tries to resist an improper or illegal order he will find no support from his coworkers or the media. So now the Feds have only to issue a single legal opinion, and the US Army obediently tortures thousands of captives looking for WMDs which the Feds knew would never be found. When the US Army no longer deserves respect, the individual soldiers will no longer care.

When I feel angry about what the US is doing, I try to remind myself that this is what the Feds *want* me to feel: for some reason, they want to pit the US against the rest of the world, so that the US can lose.

I just don't know *why*.

2005 Jan 29 [ Sat ]

Someone agrees with me about the Star Wars/ Bush regime analogy

Some time ago I suggested that Lucas's strange preoccupation with murky conspiracy theories in his movies was an attempt to put his theories about the collapse of the US on the screen.

Someone agrees with me that the analogy is clear:

Since Palpatine is the Emperor, how can he be on both sides?

Palpatine is creating a war situation to allow him to seize tighter control and disband the senate. This is a fairly unoriginal trick amongst politicians (see Margret Thatcher in the UK and George W. Bush in the US for real life examples - although they were both a bit less blatant about it). Palpatine's minions are running the separatist movement, under his orders.

slashdot.org [http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137581&cid=11504479]

Another voice:

When I was growing up 20 years ago, the U. S. was the ultimate "good guy" nation. Now, none of us (outside the U. S.) know who the good guys really are anymore. Many of us expect the U. S. to turn on the rest of us merely out of its own self interest, even if it's against its own self-proclaimed principles to do so. Within the U. S., it seems like many people also worry about whether their own government will turn on them some day.

Movies tend to mirror the ideas and fears of the time when they are made. These movies are no exception.

slashdot.org [http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137581&cid=11504676]

2005 Jan 23 [ Sun ]

H. G. Wells and the invasion of Iraq part deux

I previously posted an article which made the point that the current debacle in Iraq was well understood so long ago that it must have been deliberate: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Attack911/thewarintheair01.html]

Since then I have realized that I should have made a few more points.

1. Wells, of course, was a genius. When he wrote "The War in the Air", probably nobody but him had ever wondered whether the blind force of technology would utterly change the dynamics of interstate conflicts, which previously had been largely self-limiting. When I make the point that the Bush administration *must* have *planned* for the current situation, I do not mean to suggest that they must therefore have read "The War in the Air". It simply happens to be (as far as I know) the first verifiable statement of the effect. There have been *many*, even more convincing, corollaries since.

2. Wells tended to believe that many bad things happen because of men's stupidity. The 20th century however warns us that there are plenty of people who are so evil that they will knowingly create a situation in which millions die a miserable death merely in order to create a temporary advantage for themselves. I included the lengthy musings about the German's girlfriend and his shattered hopes for the future not because I agree with Wells that the Bush administration is stupid, but because it depicts the supine acceptance of modern society that incredibly bad things happen but somehow nobody is responsible.

3. From that point of view, the following excerpt, which I quote again, is thus a warning:

"And it's always been so . it's the way of life. People are torn away from the people they care for; homes are smashed, creatures full of life, and memories, and little peculiar gifts are scalded and smashed, and torn to pieces, and starved, and spoilt. London! Berlin! San Francisco! Think of all the human histories we ended in New York!. And the others go on again as though such things weren't possible. As I went on! Like animals! Just like animals."

Like animals, we are supposed to fight and die for people and causes that we care nothing about: like an Apache's horse, we are expected to charge into a Gatling gun. And it seems, we continue to do so.

2005 Jan 19 [ Wed ]

H. G. Wells and the invasion of Iraq

One of Wells' most prophetic books was "The War in the Air". Published in 1907, it describes a world a few decades in the future, in which advances in aircraft technology combine with the nature of modern technology and societies to create a global war which shatters all civilization.

Some excerpts:

Chapter 6

The difficulty of the Germans in both these cases came from the impossibility of landing any efficient force or, indeed, any force at all from the air-fleet. The airships were quite unequal to the transport of any adequate landing parties; their complement of men was just sufficient to manoeuvre and fight them in the air. From above they could inflict immense damage; they could reduce any organised Government to a capitulation in the briefest space, but they could not disarm, much less could they occupy, the surrendered areas below. They had to trust to the pressure upon the authorities below of a threat to renew the bombardment. It was their sole resource. No doubt, with a highly organised and undamaged Government and a homogeneous and well-disciplined people that would have sufficed to keep the peace. But this was not the American case. Not only was the New York Government a weak one and insufficiently provided with police, but the destruction of the City Hall – and Post-Offide and other central ganglia had hopelessly disorganised the co-operation of part with part. The street cars and railways had ceased; the telephone service was out of gear and only worked intermittently. The Germans had struck at the head, and the head was conquered and stunned – only to release the body from its rule. New York had become a headless monster, no longer capable of collective submission. Everywhere it lifted itself rebelliously; everywhere authorities and officials left to their own imitative were joining in the arming and flag-hoisting and excitement of that afternoon.

Chapter 7

"And it's always been so – it's the way of life. People are torn away from the people they care for; homes are smashed, creatures full of life, and memories, and little peculiar gifts are scalded and smashed, and torn to pieces, and starved, and spoilt. London! Berlin! San Francisco! Think of all the human histories we ended in New York!... And the others go on again as though such things weren't possible. As I went on! Like animals! Just like animals."

...

"She was beautiful and daring and shy, Mein Gott! I can hardly hold myself for the desire to see her and hear her voice again before I die. Where is she?... Look here, Smallways, I shall write a sort of letter – And there's her portrait." He touched his breast pocket.

"You'll see 'er again all right," said Bert.

"No'! I shall never see her again.... I don't understand why people should meet just to be torn apart. But I know she and I will never meet again. That I know as surely as that the sun will rise, and that cascade come shining over the rocks after I am dead and done.... Oh! It's all foolishness and haste and violence and cruel folly, stupidity and blundering hate and selfish ambition – all the things that men have done – all the things they will ever do. Gott! Smallways, what a muddle and confusion life has always been – the battles and massacres and disasters, the hates and harsh acts, the murders and sweatings, the lynchings and cheatings. This morning I am tired of it all, as though I'd just found it out for the first time. I HAVE found it out. When a man is tired of life, I suppose it is time for him to die. I've lost heart, and death is over me. Death is close to me, and I know I have got to end. But think of all the hopes I had only a little time ago, the sense of fine beginnings!... It was all a sham. There were no beginnings.... We're just ants in ant-hill cities, in a world that doesn't matter; that goes on and rambles into nothingness. New York – New York doesn't even strike me as horrible. New York was nothing but an ant-hill kicked to pieces by a fool!"

...

The special peculiarities of aerial warfare were of such a nature as to trend, once it had begun, almost inevitably towards social disorganisation. The first of these peculiarities was brought home to the Germans in their attack upon New York; the immense power of destruction an airship has over the thing below, and its relative inability to occupy or police or guard or garrison a surrendered position. Necessarily, in the face of urban populations in a state of economic disorganisation and infuriated and starving, this led to violent and destructive collisions, and even where the air-fleet floated inactive above, there would be civil conflict and passionate disorder below. Nothing comparable to this state of affairs had been known in the previous history of warfare, unless we take such a case as that of a nineteenth century warship attacking some large savage or barbaric settlement, or one of those naval bombardments that disfigure the history of Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. Then, indeed, there had been cruelties and destruction that faintly foreshadowed the horrors of the aerial war. Moreover, before the twentieth century the world had had but one experience, and that a comparatively light one, in the Communist insurrection of Paris, 1871, of the possibilities of a modern urban population under warlike stresses.

My point here is that the current guerilla war in Iraq is nothing strange. It was foreseen by Wells in every detail, although amusingly the outraged invasion victims in his version are New Yorkers. In other words the people who set up the Iraq invasion plan would not have been just stupid to plan for anything different they would have had to be *imbecilic*.

In other words the Bush administration *wanted* what they now have – a forever war which they can use to destroy the United States.

2005 Jan 13 [ Thu ]

Did the Supreme Court really fight back against the Bush administration?

In a previous posting I expressed some relief at recent decisions by the Supreme Court (etc) re the Bush administration's Soviet-style tactics: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Opinions/Politics/Attack911/guantanamo03.html]

I have now found the following article on Reason's website which takes the view that the Supreme Court exaggerated the effect of its rulings, and in fact provided a blank check to Bush's goons: www.reason.com [http://www.reason.com/0501/fe.hs.civil.shtml]

2004 Dec 29 [ Wed ]

"War is a racket" by Maj-Gen Smedley Butler

I saw this link somewhere on Slashdot: www.ratical.org [http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html]

The author died in 1940 – hence the "Rufus T. Firefly"-esque name. So he's writing about what happened in WW1, and arguing against US involvement in WW2. So people today may be put off by the antique examples he uses. I think most of his arguments apply very well to today however. Here's one passage that could certainly apply to "Begun the Clone Wars have" Iraq:

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factor ies and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were m ade over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the d ay. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were e ntirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think no thing at all of killing or of being killed.

Actually I've read studies which suggest that *comparatively few* "doughboys" were made into killing machines by the unsophisticated techniques of the day. Apparently most infantrymen refused to fire their rifle at an identifiable target. But after the war in the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam, more and more Americans are willing to kill people that the Feds want them to kill. Hmmm.

2004 Nov 23 [ Tue ]

A little less hope for the USA

Apparently the US has secretly embedded functions in laser printers for 20 years to ensure that documents can be tracked back to the printer: yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/11/22/2327254.shtml]

After much discussion of the similarity to the situation in the Soviet Union, where typewriters had to be registered so that samizdat could be tracked, I liked the following:

Re:In the old Soviet Union (Score:5, Insightful) by mdielmann (514750) on Monday November 22, @07:33PM (#10893766) (slashdot.org [http://slashdot.org/)] yro.slashdot.org [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130542&cid=10893766]

No.

The USSR was doing this 30+ years ago. They collapsed 13 years ago (1991). Total span of 17+ years.

The U. S started doing this 20 years ago. We only found out now. So, by the USSR model, it should be collapsing anytime now. Now take a look around and ask yourself, "Is this the America I grew up reading about?"

In some ways, the US has already collapsed. Only Fedgov remains.

A little hope for the USA

One of the most horrible things about what has happened in the USA since 9/11 is the utterly supine response of the media and other branches of the government to the ghastly Stalinist abuses by the Bush administration. It reminds me of the old joke: "If I say a sheep has wings, and you see a sheep with no wings, what would it be? ...It would still be a goddam sheep because I just said a goddam stupid thing". Why does the magic phrase "enemy combatants" suddenly mean the US can ignore the Geneva convention, not to mention its own traditions of fairness and humanity?

So I was very relieved to hear that a federal judge had decided to halt the trial of a Guantanomo Bay prisoner because he had been denied a fair hearing: washingtontimes.com [http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20041121-105704-1644r.htm]

I actually delayed posting this for several days (the decision was on 2004-11-08) because I was afraid that the Bush administration would wave a magic wand (Shazam! Patriot! Terrorists! Gah! Boo!) and the Supreme Court would roll over. Well, it hasn't happened yet.

Incidentally, my link is to the Washington Times, generally a very right-wing paper. Left-wing opponents to the Bush administration should understand that there are plenty of *right*-wingers who don't want a police state, either. (You remember how right-wing nuts used to say the US was going to be occupied by the UN? I thought that could never happen, but that was before the US became a rogue state.)

2004 Nov 18 [ Thu ]

Fedgov now sending scary email to "bad guys"

In the middle of a Slashdot discussion about a recently revealed US operation prior to the invasion of Iraq, in which email was sent to many Iraqi officers telling them resistance was futile, a poster pointed out that Fedgov can use the same technique against internal wreckers:

I received a similar message last month... (Score:4, Funny) by mogrify (828588) on Wednesday November 17, @07:06PM (#10848244) (gambone.homelinux.org [http://gambone.homelinux.org/)] politics.slashdot.org [http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130073&cid=10848244]

Attention leftist activists and intelligentsia! The solidification of our power is imminent. Although you could stay and fight, it would really be much better if you just left. Please accept these Novia Scotia brochures and a complimentary copy of Hockey for Dummies! Remember, if it's not Right, it's Wrong!

2004 Nov 17 [ Wed ]

The strange relationship between Star Wars movies and the War on Terror

As I have remarked before, Orwell's "1984" was referred to inaccurately so many times in the sixties and seventies that it became practically a marker of a wacky leftist argument, with no informational content whatever. A movie was released to more or less coincide with the year 1984, but it was earnest, turgid and unwatchable.

However, when "Brazil" came out, I was immediately struck by the resemblance to the plot of "1984" (the novel). I don't remember the critics referring to this at the time, but it seemed so obvious to me: the position of the hero, the 1940s styling, the torture sequence, the love affair.

"Brazil" seemed to me to be a clever and very pointed *update* of 1984, made to be accessible, and made to refer more or less explicitly to *current* concerns. In particular, it was the first thing which really made me question the London government's "war on terror" – the struggle against the IRA. Somehow, seeing the mysterious, pointless bombings in "Brazil" made me wonder about what was *actually* going on – "who whom", as Stalin said.

Like almost every other fan on the planet, I hated the last two Star Wars movies. Not only was the young Darth Vader offensively cute, not only was Jar Jar Binks a horrible miscalculation, but also the basic plot was deathly uncinematic. What on earth made Lucas choose to base the last two instalments of a thrilling adventure story for kids on a huge, slow-moving conspiracy basically aimed at overthrowing a peaceful and prosperous society?

The last time I saw one of these movies on cable it hit me: maybe Lucas decided to encode his view of the *current* political situation into his movies. I have written before about the way homosexual novels were routinely "translated" into heterosexual movies, merely for commercial reasons: at the time, this could be commented on by critics. Today, the Feds have successfully demonized all opponents to the "war on terror", and for Lucas to outright say that the Feds are trying to overthrow the US constitution would lead to nothing more than mocking references on Leno's monologue.

Just think about all those lines in the movies which were given unusual stress: at the moment of victory, Yoda scowls and says "Begun the Clone Wars have". Yoda has insight: we see Count Dookoo reporting to his mysterious overlord after what appeared to be a humiliating defeat, and he is *congratulated*. In other words, Yoda's insight is correct: the true aim of the plotters is to destabilize the government itself, and a central goal is to cause the assembly to give up its own powers and offer them to a single leader. The clone army is *per se* evil: because every clone is happy to follow orders, the clone army will be far easier for the eventual regime to control.

I think when Lucas thinks about the invasion of Iraq, he is like me: he thinks not "Bush is a complete idiot who has embroiled this country in a worse military disaster than Vietnam", but "hmmm. Why would anyone *decide* to do this?"

Of course, the "Phantom Menace" came out before the Iraq war. Still, I think Lucas could see the loss of civil liberties, and the reliance on militarism, and where they were heading. (Incidentally, isn't "Phantom Menace" a terrible name for a movie? And isn't it a great description of the War on Terror?)

In the 2004 election, a born-again prowar christian with a rich family beat a prowar jew with a rich family. In Iraq, the US Army becomes used to bombing and machinegunning and torturing inconvenient civilians in an endless war against a concept. "Begun the Clone Wars have."

Kerry's Jewish roots: www.jewishsf.com [http://www.jewishsf.com/bk030207/us02.shtml]

2004 Oct 11 [ Mon ]

What is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) *really* for?

Since 1980 we've seen various stories about the plans the British government made in case of nuclear war. They were surprisingly far-reaching, and the amount of physical preparation that was actually done – underground shelters, communication systems, storage facilities etc – was mind-boggling. And the whole programme was maintained in total secrecy.

FEMA is a similar program. Official statements have always downplayed it, but people have noticed that the legal setup for FEMA allows it to grab total control, with priority over all other agencies.

And what is its real purpose? Well, they seem to have a whole bunch of shiny new secret prison camps: www.thetruthseeker.co.uk [http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2344]

2004 Sep 29 [ Wed ]

Possible excuse for Rather's forged Bush memo

I was amazed when I started reading stories about the forged memo for two reasons.

One is that it is hard for me to imagine that *anybody* using a computer is so out of touch with the past that they could possibly mistake such a document, with proportional fonts and the superscript "th" etc, as being typewritten around 1970. By "anybody" I mean Rather himself and anybody else on his CBS team. I mean, don't they have some sort of fact-checking person who routinely examines documents for *far* more subtle issues than this? Apparently not, which is interesting by itelf.

The second point is actually a possible excuse for him. When somebody leaks a document, he typically doesn't want to be identified, and any photographic copy of a document has many clues not only to the original source, but also to intermediate stages. For instance, any copier has slight smudges that are characteristic to it and can be used to identify any copy it makes. So if it's not too much trouble, he might well rekey the document using an absolutely generic Word install. So the people on Rather's team that *were* aware of font issues etc may have assumed that Rather was *aware* that it must have been rekeyed (assuming the leaked document was genuine at all).

Sometimes people whose brains are the size of a planet have to make sure everybody else is with the program. I remember one occasion when I was at work and my boss said "We got a call from this journalist called Duncan Campbell. I wonder what it's about?" Now my boss had chewed me out for telling him something he already knew shortly before, so I assumed he knew of Campbell's muckraking reputation and held my tongue.

Various front-page stories ensued.

2004 Sep 28 [ Tue ]

Harper's has an optimistic view of Iraq

The following link is to an article which to me is unwarrantedly optimistic: it assumes that George Bush thought the war would benefit big business in Iraq: www.harpers.org [http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html]

I quote:

Jay Hallen, a twenty-four-year-old who had applied for a job at the White House, was put in charge of launching Baghdad's new stock exchange.

This reminds me of a movie that has been running on cable recently, about a team of Allied spies who are required to dress up as women in order to inflitrate a Nazi center and grab an Enigma cipher machine. At the end of the movie it turns out the entire team had been selected in order to fail: the Brits had *already* broken Enigma and just wanted to encourage the Nazis to keep using it.

Not that I think Hallen is *necessarily* a complete idiot. I also have no evidence that he's a cross-dresser.

2004 Sep 26 [ Sun ]

The hostage murders in Iraq, and the Star Wars Deathstar