The New Black...

...or Not The Last Post?

"Not blogging is the new black."

Sometimes I feel I should be out there, tracking PorridgeBoy with the Colonel and the ghost of old Fang at my side. PorridgeBoy? We go back a ways. He's one of a kind. I know he's out there somewhere.

Other times, I feel the need to take my wife and kids and get the hell out of here. The city is murder. We could go back to another world I remember well. In the shadow of the hill forming the last resting place of a couple of Livingstone's support troops, it's a small tourist-cum-fishing village called Chembe on the shores of Lake Malawi. Looking out over the lake, one realises that not much has changed since the First Day.

You could always find a crate of Carlsbergs in Chembe. Not that I need a crate of Carlsbergs right now. But, hey, even if we can't go back there, there's always another town, another time, another place... right?

Well, I ain't got my childhood | Or friends I once did know. | No, I ain't got my childhood | Or friends I once did know. | But I still got my voice left, | I can take it anywhere I go. | Hey, hey, so I guess I'm doin' fine.


Gone fishin’…

"My work is done here." Indeed? Nah... I don't buy it either. At least... Ah, what the hell. Go well, Gary. And remember... wherever you go, you're supposed to put salt on it.

Well, my road might be rocky, | The stones might cut my face. | My road it might be rocky, | The stones might cut my face. | But as some folks ain't got no road at all, | They gotta stand in the same old place. | Hey, hey, so I guess I'm doin' fine.

Bob Dylan | Guess I'm Doin' Fine

Thinking On Lesotho

Blogging the Present to the Past...

...and Finding the Past Present


From The Fiery Mountain Kingdom...

Rethabile Masilo's posts are evocative. Given my predilection for putting my foot squarely into my mouth, I'll leave it at that. Quite what his narrative voice evokes as it marries the solitude of the mountain kingdom of Lesotho to a world largely ignorant of its existence is up to his reader to decide.

I don't know Lesotho, having traveled around it before overnighting at Ladybrand overlooking the Maseru bridge on the Caledon River, so I'm loath to wax lyrical about a mythic place in which the average life expectancy tops out at between 32 and 38 years. But, in many ways, the legacy of Moshoeshoe and the dignity of one proud country surrounded by another rise way above the dark days of South Africa's apartheid, Lesotho's Leabua Jonathan and Malawi's Kamuzu Banda, who was said to 'disappear' some of his opponents by feeding them to the crocodiles and hippopotami on the banks of the Shire River. These things, i.e. history and identity, may not do much to alleviate the destitution of millions of ordinary people but, hell, they're a damned side better than nothing.

Given our current geopolitical situation, they have to be.

Elsewhere, LangageHat and Rethabile discuss Malawian poet, linguist, academic and former political prisoner Jack Mapanje. I believe I drove past Mikuyu Maximum, a face-brick monument to the overbearing silence of official brutality, on the road outside of Zomba several years before Mapanje's incarceration. One of Banda's palaces was visible from the same road, an edifice reminding me of the fortress architecture dominant in South Africa at the time. In those days, a sense of dread lurked beneath Malawi's reputation as 'the warm heart of Africa'. Nobody spoke openly of politics and, as far as expatriates were concerned, every other person with a job might have been one of Banda's secret police.

Yep, I missed much as a twenty-something and forgot the rest as the road unreeled from the Elephant Marshes in the south, snaked through the surreal mangrove forests along the shores of Lake Chilwa, ran up to Mangoche and rolled on to the quietude of Lake Malawi. Heh... Anybody who has traveled that route would know that it demands a lot of a 4x4 to negotiate even the mildest of 'potholes'. They're mountain passes in their own right. Mm... Somehow, in speaking of Lesotho (almost three thousand miles removed from Malawi) and his youth, Rethabile reminds me that I live in another country, one that knows no borders and is contained only by a spirit unquestionably its own.


...to The Warm Heart of Africa's Great Rift Valley

GNALAFOSTOHK
for my brother

The mother begot the child and stood near
Death for it — a boy she at once made man
Before he had known how to conquer fear
By himself, warrior of a lonely clan.

He followed certain roads the long way here,
Living among castes where the African
Spirit endures, the rush of angry tear
Turning mere soldier into veteran.

And as he went forth in dreams of his own,
Learning how to cope in quest of good
For together with life he was alone,

What prospects he received, at heaven's whim,
Became his with no hopes misunderstood,
All of the rhythm having entered him.

© Rethabile Masilo

Without Sanctuary

'...an African American male' circa 1900, location unknown [Without Sanctuary]

The mob numbered into the thousands that wrenched five black men from the civil authorities of Salisbury, North Carolina on the night of August 3, 1906. They accused the men of murdering members of a local family, named Lyerly. The New York Times reported that the victims were tortured with knives before being hanged and then riddled with bullets. The authorities in North Carolina, alarmed at what was one of the largest multiple lynchings of the 20th century, took unusual steps to punish the leaders of the mob.

After the Governor ordered the National Guard to restore order, local officials arrested more than two-dozen suspected leaders. One of the killers, George Hall, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years at a hard labor in the state penitentiary. The New York Times predicted that, by taking these measures, North Carolina's Governor Glenn was not improving his political prospects. more...

Deliverance Comes to Iraq

Ms. England’s own least appealing traits appear to have thrived with stunning perversity on the lingering energies of Abu Ghraib prison, such that she and her friends succeeded in bringing American pornography’s abiding concern with a visual record of degradation, to a role reversal of what George W. Bush claims went on in Saddam Hussein’s prison "rape rooms." But in giving an American female face to the legacy of Saddam’s male torturers, she and her friends seem to have brought some "backwoods world" twists that would have done the mountain men in Deliverance proud.

According to the Telegraph’s Sharon Churcher, "the poor, barely-educated and almost all-white population" of Fort Ashby "talk openly about an active Ku Klux Klan presence." And indeed the iconography of the hooded prisoners recalls precisely — but again indulges through projection in reversal — the spooky anonymous hoods of the Klan. What’s more, though, another local woman, Colleen Kesner, explained to Churcher why Lynndie England is locally seen as a hero: "A lot of people here think they ought to just blow up the whole of Iraq. To the country boys here, if you're a different nationality, a different race, you're sub-human. That's the way girls like Lynndie are raised. Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey. Every season here you're hunting something. Over there, they're hunting Iraqis." more...

(See also Doug Ord's Comment for May and Seven Days in May [title page])

Note In What Have We Done?, published today, Susan Sontag examines the pornography of lynch-mob imagery (and the printed version of the site referenced above, Without Sanctuary), before ripping the hood from the face of George W. Bush's so-called War on Terror. The Guardian asks, "The horrific images from Abu Ghraib have come to define the ill-starred occupation of Iraq, but what do they really tell us about America? Are they simply the work of a few rogue soldiers, or the result of the new foreign and domestic policies of the Bush administration, which find ready approval in an increasingly brutalised society?" Like Doug Ord, Susan Sontag delivers.

"Bad people have parties too."

U.S. Reacts to Mogr al-Deeb Wedding Party Video

Kimmitt Rises to New Lows as Bush Plumbs the Depths


'Bad people have parties too.' Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt

I can see how dozens of women, children and celebrating men would be a 'threat' though. Yes, it makes perfect sense.

River

"Contrary to media reports, there was no wedding tent and no nuptial tent in the area," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Multinational Force Iraq said during a Baghdad news conference.

"To the allegation that there was a wedding going on, there was no evidence of a wedding," Kimmitt reiterated. "There were no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration and no gifts.

"The men were almost all military-aged, no family elders that one would expect to see at an event of this type," he said.

[...]

Kimmitt said there may have been some kind of celebration going on at the said (sic), but not a wedding. "Bad people have celebrations too," he noted. "Bad people have parties too. It may have been that what was seen as some sort of celebration may have just been a meeting in the middle of the desert by some people that were conducting either criminal or terrorist activities. That's the conclusion we're continuing to draw the more we look at the material, intelligence, post-strike, and follow-up intelligence."

Kimmitt said the coalition believes "a handful of women" could have been present. "We believe six were killed, and we acknowledge that in all of our reports," he said. "But there are still not reports of any children being killed."

Kimmitt said a videotape distributed to the media showing at least a dozen bodies, including small children, wrapped in blankets for burial, being unloaded from a truck doesn't look like the video taken at the site of the attack.

"None of the geography in those videos match the geography of this open area," he noted. "But there are still some inconsistencies. We still remain opened-minded about this. We'll continue to look into everything that's provided to us in the way of evidence." more...


Spc. Sabrina Harman and murder victim Manadil al-Jamadi show us a really good time.

Celebrating women and children are not civilians. 'Contractors' traveling with the American army to torture and kill Iraqis ARE civilians. CIA personnel are 'civilians' and the people who planned and executed the war are all civilians. We're not civilians - we are insurgents, criminals and potential collateral damage.

River

Note EastSouthWestNorth gives comprehensive coverage to articles and footage covering the massacre. I've no doubt, as Reuters reports George W. Bush's popularity dipping to a point beneath which no recent U.S. presidential candidate has won a November election, Brigadier General Kimmitt will soon be showing us his video.

Fahrenheit 9/11 Takes Palme d'Or

Moore Burns Bush at Cannes

Neocons start feeling the global heat


Michael Moore sticks it and the Palme d'Or up Bush's ass at the Cannes Film Festival...

For anybody who's been around a while, it came as no surprise. Given a 20-minute standing ovation on its first showing, Michael Moore's slap-on-the-wrist Bush mockumentary Fahrenheit 9/11 carried the day and the prestigious Palme d'Or at the close of the Cannes Film Festival.

Featuring select absurdities marking the neocons global reign of terror since September 2001, the U.S. movie-maker and self-styled publicist's take-down of the Bush regime has found a receptive European audience to which he will be able to distribute his latest Weapon of Mass Distraction.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I may be no fan of Michael Moore, but if his work contributes to bringing down the trans-continental gang of money-laundering, drug-running, oil-swilling neo-Nazi thugs and war criminals now slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents across the world, I'm all for it. Every little bit helps as they say. And given Disney's refusal to allow U.S. distribution through Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Miramax, an audience is what's needed.

Besides, Moore is, by all accounts, a nice guy. He dedicates the award to his "...daughter, to the children of Americans and to Iraq and to all those in the world who suffer from our actions." I do not decry his motives or, not having seen the movie, his reportage.

So, why the sour tone? Well, Moore is a lightweight (relatively speaking) and the people he takes to the cleaners and the local movie house are dressed too lightly for scum every bit as loathsome as Stalinist stooges on a bad-hair day at the OGPU. Yes, he details the theft of the U.S. presidency, makes the connection between the Bushes and Bin Ladens, and takes film crews into Iraq to document scenes of carnage, torture and despair.

My problem is Moore's apparent focus on and treatment of Bush as an idiot, a stupid, short-sighted and greedy man who makes a fool of himself while making a mockery of international law and fundamental human rights. To quote the Washington Post, Moore, who "slices and dices President Bush's presidency into a thousand satirical pieces", ... "frequently uses the president as his own tragicomic scourge - in other words, hanging him with his own words and facial expressions."

This creative use of Bush the Buffoon serves only to lessen the severity of atrocities for which he, his administration and his collaborators (most notably, Ariel Sharon and Tony Blair) should be hauled before an international war crimes tribunal. These people and their foot soldiers, reaching deep into the most trusted public and private instruments of civil society, are knowingly plotting their way to a repressive global hegemony. For this, they should be held responsible.

What's more, Moore may be delivering fresh footage, but is he telling us anything new? The neocon shredding of the U.S. constitution and its rape of the world's peoples and resources are documented in far greater detail on the Web than is possible in any 110-minute movie. While the sundering of the globe may not be the average U.S. voter's primary concern, the copious (almost overwhelming) online evidence of complicity in looting the U.S. and other economies for personal financial gain reaches deep into the pockets, stomach and heart of every man, woman and child on the planet.

Fahrenheit 9/11 may give many cause to feel justified in sending George W. Bush to the retirement home for former dictators, genocidal maniacs and syphilitic kings come November. However, by omitting to infuse his film and those watching it with a chill sense of the Bush Gang's fundamental evil, Moore belittles his audience and does them (and the countless thousands that have died to enrich the few) an injustice.

"C'mon, lighten up. It's just a movie..."?

Right.

Hey, as I said at the outset, "...if his work contributes to bringing down the trans-continental gang of money-laundering, drug-running, oil-swilling neo-Nazi thugs and war criminals now slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents across the world, I'm all for it."

For that alone, well done Michael Moore.

"Marshall McLuhan, meet Kevin Carter."

Down at The All-night Kombinat! Diner and Grill

Brother Marek sets the record straight


Between the medium and the message

Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame, | Preacherman seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain. | Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks, | Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain, | False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin, | Only a matter of time 'til night comes steppin' in.

It was in search of an answer to the question posed below, i.e. "Who are we to assume that it is we who face the bayonet?" that I visited Brother Marek Jastrzebski, the laughing, mad-song poet of the wine-lit night down at The All-night Kombinat! Diner and Grill (Eggs Sunny Side Up and Twice Over Easy). He was seated at a grimy table, reading a comic book by Breughel (the elder). He was also being industrious, squeezing potatoes into a toothbrush glass.

"How now, Brother Marek?" I greeted him.

"Brother Mike!" Marek leapt to his feet and gave me a warm Polish bearhug. He wiped his hands off on his cassock and I wondered whether the dry cleaners would ever get the potato starch out of my jacket. "How now? Good, my friend, very good. And you?"

"It does for now, Brother M." I murmured quietly, not wishing to interrupt his potato-squeezing.

"Have a glass, Brother Mike..." I could not resist a tumbler so joyously thrust at me. Emptying it of its content, my eyes watered, my nose ran, and my head nearly exploded from my shoulders.

"By the Grace of God and our Beloved Father Christopher, Brother Marek, this is a mighty fine brew," I sputtered. "Surely, you must share it far and wide."

"Indeed I shall, Brother Mike," reported my comrade happily. "For all men shall partake of the harvest; and BlogBabes too if they are good. Thus spake old Father Christopher when he gave me the last of his Ukrainian potato crop. How is he, by the way?"

"I bring you glad tidings, Brother M., but that is not why I'm here. On his long march through this vale of tears, our spiritual guide and mentor has reached his twentieth year to heaven. It is indeed an occasion to which we should drink, but I have weightier matters on my mind."

Brother Marek grew quiet. "We shall not be playing Peekaboo with Sweet Melinda, Saint Annie and Angel then? Angel's just got back from the coast and..."

"Yes, I can imagine..." I did just that and faltered. She'd spent a week on a photo shoot along the Gold Coast for the swimsuit issue. I could see the water glistening on her tan skin, forming mercurial rivers of dancing sunlight flowing along the smooth contours of her exquisite body as her long, tawny hair... I brought myself up short. "Brother Marek, I must ask you this."

I looked at my old friend closely. Brother Marek, who has been an EGR Irregular far longer than anybody else (the years cast long shadows in the laugh lines around his dancing Polack eyes), grew somber. He knocked back a stiff one.

"I'm ready," he said, sitting down.

I phrased the question delicately. "I was reading some shit on McLuhan. It seems he has The Truth Shall Make You Free engraved on his tombstone. Is this indeed so?"

Few have seen Brother Marek lose his temper. Of course, there was the time he beat Mel Gibson to hell and gone. A self-made Australian and the millionaire ghost writer of a revisionist history on the life of Father Christopher, Gibson had crucified himself on the electrified perimeter fence surrounding the Jesus Bunker. His effrontery sent Brother Marek off the deep end. Needless to say, the Boulder Weekly mounted a scurrilous campaign against my friend and, for several weeks, ran graphic pictures of him beating the dumb sheep shanker to a bloody pulp.

Father Christopher came to Marek's rescue. He had Brother Eric Norlin, a former Special Forces operative turned philanthropist, take the rap. He found Brother Eric carousing with former friends at a cheap Boulder ale house, deep in his cups, a couple of girls and fond reminiscences of the days 'when men were men', and asked the hapless former bouncer turned businessman to do him a favor.

Brother Eric obliged. Father Christopher thereafter sent RageBoy into Boulder on a suicide-bombing mission. It put an end to the stories (and the Boulder Weekly) and Brother Eric spent a year in jail mocking the local sheriff for lousing up on the Littleton case. The forces of all things considered good, just and noble by civilized society have, since then, singled out the Jesus Bunker for what they euphimistically call 'softening up'.


The Battle Between Carnival and Lent [Pieter Bruegel]

It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray, | A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet. | He'll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat, | Take the motherless children off the street | And place them at the feet of a harlot | Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants, | Oh, Jokerman, you don't show any response.

But that is another story. For now, the engraving on McLuhan's tombstone sent Brother Marek ballistic. His face contorted and he screamed (as if in anguish, of course). "The dumb fucks! What are they trying to do to me? I told them..."

I gave him a short, brutal smack. It rang like a pistol shot. I liked it, so I gave him another. Same effect. Crack. "I could get used to this," I thought to myself. "Listen, you lame-brained, potato-drinking, recidivist priest," I bawled, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Get a grip on yourself. It's a simple question. I don't want or need another of your drug-crazed Polack outbursts."

It was a case of too little too late. Pulling himself free, Brother Marek bolted for the door of the diner and the parking lot. Seeing him leave, the short-order cook grabbed the pump-action shotgun from beneath the counter and let him have both barrels. He missed Marek but nailed a couple of patrons on the other side of the room. Both were badly wounded. One diner's right arm was ripped from his body, flew across the bar and landed with its fingers in the till. Both patrons fell to the floor, writhing in agony.

All I had wanted was an answer to my question. I am, after all, a blogger and a professional to boot. I am also a gentle person. We gentle souls verify our sources and make sure of our facts. Who was McLuhan and what did he want from us? Would the Jesus Bunker survive or would the supply of BlogBabes eventually dry up? These things troubled me and I wanted answers. However, if I'd known my meeting with Brother Marek was going to get out of hand so quickly, I'd not have bothered asking him.

The Kombinat! Diner, Bar and Grill (Girls 24/7) disintegrated into chaos. Customers screamed, dived under tables or sought any cover they could find. "Absolute bedlam," commented the customer sitting alongside me at the bar. He was completely unphased. I glared at him. He was strangely familiar. Neat in an FBI way, he was eating a slice of blueberry pie. He yawned and began to clean his fingernails. I reached for my Glock. Its magazine was full and it packed a deadly wallop.

I popped him.

Turning back to the parking lot, I could see Brother Marek reach his Cadillac. He dived into the cockpit and, almost instantly, the barrels of the 30mm cannon mounted on the hood swung crazily in the direction of the diner windows. "Jesus Fucking Christ," I bawled. Nobody paid any attention and Brother Marek opened fire.

If you've read this far, you've probably been here before, so I won't go into detail. It was the usual, horrible stuff. Marek razed the place. I've since put in an order for a similar cannon. He'd welded an aditional pannier holding an unquantifiable amount of ammunition to the underside of the Caddy's hood and blazed away for what seemed like hours. At the end of it, I was the only person left standing. Once the paramedics, firefighters and other emergency personnel were able to fight their way through the rubble, fire, dust and water to extract the dead, I put an arm around Marek's shoulders and steered him through the car park. The sound of jackhammers, the occasional explosion, the wail of sirens, and the clatter of helicopters receded.

"It's rough, I know." I spoke softly but with some urgency. Norlin was going to take a beating for this one. I couldn't see Father Christopher letting him off easily. Marek was far too valuable. "But McLuhan's an icon and I need to confirm this. There's a lot riding on it."

Marek took a while to calm down. His mad Polish eyes danced stardust in the rain. Gripping an imaginary machine gun, he asked excitedly, "Did ya see the way the ceiling came down? Did ya see the peek-a-boo go pop 'n goo?"

"Yeah, yeah." I needed him to focus so I zapped him with the taser. It's a new 44001 Advanced Taser M18-L with an integrated laser sight and four air cartridges. He howled and fell to the ground. I hauled him up and dusted him down. "You okay?" I asked.

He nodded but I could see his eyes were still emitting sparks. I zapped him again and he quieted down. "Okay, okay, we'll take the girls next weekend. I'll bring plenty of potato juice and we'll give Father Christopher a celebration he'll never forget. D'ya remember the love clinics we used to do at the Y?"

I needed no reminder. They were and remain to me the most memorable of times. Barging into boardrooms around the globe, Father Christopher's band of EGR Irregulars would mount impromptu love fests and individuation clinics for the tired of heart, the spiritually numb and the comfortably dumb.

We frequently travelled to the dark heart of the grim corporate soul in those days, but Oprah fucked it all up. She had us on her show and Father Christopher took an instant dislike to Dr. Phil. The rape case which followed was a travesty. If anything, it enhanced Father Christopher's reputation.

"Jeez, those were the days." I felt myself slipping into reverie. Giving Marek a crack across the cranium, I steadied myself. "McLuhan, Marek? I need to know."

"Yeah, Brother Mike, I know and I'm willing to discuss it now. Y'know, they say that phrase was blogged by John at 8:32. 'Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set ye free'. It's bullshit."

This was what I wanted to hear, but it made Brother Marek emotional to speak of it. I fed him a potato and he calmed down. He sighed. "You know, I blogged that a good few years ago and registered it at Gary Turner's Unfamous Quotations. But, you know, it's kind of like Napster...and the Jesus Freaks always climb in first. I reckon it happened because of its connection to the Jesus Bunker Swimsuit Edition. That's where it first appeared. Anyway, before I knew it, it was plagiarized by every Tom, Dick and Harry Met Sally."

"McLuhan was a traitor?"

He nodded. "But he was good man. He gave voice to my words."

We sat down at the curbside. Marek began to sob. A chill wind came up and a scarlet mist began to fall. Across the road, the barman cranked up the radio and the familiar strains of Lord Randall floated across the darkening sky. Its soothing lyrics calmed my beloved friend and I as well pleased. Seeming to draw strength from it, he gathered himself to himself. Standing up, tall and proud as any EGR Irregular I have known, he roared into the fast-falling gloom. "You lowdown, scum-sucking, bottom-feeding fuckers. You got it all wrong. It wasn't meant to be that way at all."

I realized that my suspicions had been correct. I remember Brother Marek at his prime, the scourge of the Jesus Bunker and Father Christopher's Propagandist in Chief. Marek would prowl the dungeon in which Father Christopher kept Chris Locke, his scribe, rent boy and sometime minor author, chained to a small desk. To ensure correct interpretation, Marek had the unfortunate Locke run his teachings through the Google translation engine. It was replicated in every language imaginable, including Klingon, Bork Bork Bork, and Afrikaans.

"You simplistic, arrogant yahoos. You miserable, low-rent barf bags..." I sensed my brother in all that is truly just, right and noble was running out of words. "...it was The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Piss You Off."

The immortal words hung on the air before dissolving into what was fast becoming a rain of blood. The barman across the road called time, hustled his patrons inside, rolled a drunk in the gutter and, after hawking on the unfortunate he'd just robbed, closed the doors of his hostelry.

"That Lord Randall..." I mused.

"That McLuhan..." echoed Brother Marek.

"That Goya..." I intoned, getting into the mood.

"That Carter..." sighed Brother Marek.

"Yeah," we agreed together, falling silent.

Brother Marek shook himself. "So what happened to the little girl in the picture?" he asked.

I reached for my Glock. Its magazine was full and it packed a deadly wallop.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune, | Bird fly high by the light of the moon, | Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Bob Dylan | Jokerman

Notes

1. As part of his ongoing world tour to revive the flagging spirit of the carnival, Brother Marek now appears nightly on Kombinat! Radio to speak truth, play Peekaboo with the girls and rake in the shekels for The Father Christopher Fund for the Soulless Fuckers of Boulder. Do not pass this one up and remember, all donations, sexual favors and lewd phone calls are gratefully accepted. They will be forwarded to Father Christopher on receipt.

2. The All-night Kombinat! Diner and Grill (Eggs Sunny Side Up and Twice Over Easy), also known as The Kombinat! Diner, Bar and Grill (Girls 24/7) was not harmed during the filming of this blog entry.

3. Nobody, bar those who knew him, will get to know Kevin Carter. All that remains is a photograph he made of a vulture stalking a little girl in Sudan. Nothing more, nothing less. May he rest in peace.

What Intrigues Me...

...is The Way the Bayonets...

...shown in this picture...


"What does it (the medium or technology) extend?"

...come to dominate...

"What does it make obsolete?"

...the people...

"What is retrieved?"

...and their 'protectors'.

"What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?"

I ask you. Who are we to assume that it is we who face the bayonet?

Laduma!

FIFA World Cup 2010 to South Africa

"...ready to welcome the world."


A clear winner. Halala South Africa.

Few South Africans would have got a good night's sleep last night: those who weren't partying into the small hours would have been kept awake by the cars roaring up and down blaring their hooters and waving South African flags from windows. The whole country had been partying since a few minutes after noon local time. That was when Fifa announced South Africa had won the bid to host the 2010 World Cup. ... For former President Nelson Mandela the result was a triumph for his personal crusade to bring the tournament to South Africa. Many are calling it the ageing icon's great swansong. 'I feel like a young man of 50,' grinned the 85-year-old who recently announced he would be bowing out of the public spotlight. more...

Who Was Asad Abdul Kareem Abdul Jaleel?

Asad Abdul Kareem Abdul Jaleel died in US detention on January 9th of this year. However, there are grave doubts about the version that claims his death to have been from natural causes. An Iraqi forensic pathologist who took the body over from the US armed forces confirmed to Spiegel TV in Baghdad that he diagnosed definite torture marks on the body of the deceased. In addition, photos of the deceased confirm that contrary to the US documentation, an autopsy had been performed on the man. The scars on the torso indicate that Western doctors did the autopsy.

[...]

If the suspicious facts against the US troops turn out to be true, the US torture scandal would take a dramatic turn. If the charges hitherto were about violent abuses of prisoners and humiliating methods of interrogation, the investigation would now have to include failure to give assistance, manslaughter, or even murder. The participating soldiers and their commanding officers could be harshly punished, and the US army in Iraq would be exposed to even more hate and desire for revenge than they already are. Although there are already a number of investigations being carried out about unclarified deaths in Iraq, and also in Afghanistan, the army insists that in none of the cases can the guilt of the soldiers be proven. more...

Source Der Spiegel TV / Informationclearinghouse

al-Zarqawi's Symbolic Message

The Legacy of George W. Bush

How much do I know | To talk out of turn | You might say that I'm young | You might say I'm unlearned | But there's one thing I know | Though I'm younger than you | Even Jesus would never | Forgive what you do

George W. Bush wouldn't recognise a symbolic message if it was tacked to his brain. Displaying the bald-faced ignorance of an inbred trailer-trash Christian fundamentalist and unable to read anything more complex than a road sign, his inability to formulate articulate sentences would be poignant if it did not have such far-reaching and tragic consequences. Today, when he most needs to communicate meaningfully with the world, he immerses us in the asinine obscenity of his frat-boy "nukular" war. By invading Iraq for revenge, personal gain and vested interests, he has effectively unleashed the horsemen of his apocalypse. He has contrived a clash of cultures, invested jihad and Crusade with new meaning, damned capitalism, and turned his country into a mirror image of Nazi Germany. In short, the man who stole the presidency has lost the world.

With high-maintenance party animals and corporate goons steering America's fortunes, al-Qa'ida (whatever that is), is on a roll and the U.S. is on to a hiding to nothing. Jordanian-born Muntada al-Ansar leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi must be smiling. Eighteen months ago, under Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden's most trusted and functional operational commander would have found the Iraqi market closed to him. Today, having walked into a country ripped apart by American arrogance, he openly runs a Baghdad snuff movie and messaging franchise. He has punched a hole through the world’s most technologically powerful military machine and operates with impunity under its bewildered eyes. In effect, his immediate message is one of withering disparagement and naked loathing: "Your military might means nothing to us. You are weaklings. Dare to stop us."

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shares much with President George W. Bush. An irredeemable psychopath, he is incapable of finer feeling and delights in the death of others. Much like the former governor and chief executioner of Texas, he is a merciless, remorseless killing machine. And in much the same way as the Crawford Crackhead fucks with Jesus, al-Zarqawi misuses and abuses one of the world's great religions, Islam. For the Arab world, he is no angel of mercy and, going by the headlines, few see him as such. He is George Bush's mirror, an eyesore, an embarrassment and a dangerous waste of space who relinquished his right to freedom a long time ago. Whether or not he and Bush are in cahoots, remains to be seen.

What Abu Musab al-Zarqawi does have going for him is intelligence, something the Dry Drunk of the Western World sorely needs. In a world increasingly accepting of murderous sociopaths with bizarre tastes and foul habits, intelligence is socially acceptable and beats unthinking malice hands down. In a one-on-one shoot out for invitations to a high-profile dinner party, al-Zarqawi would walk to the head of the table and Bush to the lowliest job in the kitchen. Intelligence takes many forms, none of which are evident in the Beltway Buffoon. The driving force behind the little-known, possibly fabricated Muntada al-Ansar group is very different. Like his alleged commander, Osama Bin Laden, al-Zarqawi is patient, ruthless, and enormously appreciative of symbolism. Yet, despite his intelligence, al-Zarqawi remains another gore-flick disposable bad guy, a momentary diversion in an increasingly cinematographic war, a sordid bit-player in George W. Bush's horror epic.

Two-and-a-half years after 9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, with the U.S. bogged down among the torn bodies of tens of thousands of needless martyrs in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Muntada al-Ansar franchise has, through the callous and brutal beheading of Nick Berg, delivered a succinct, cogent and extraordinarily pithy message to the U.S. and the world. Whether he and his fledgling "fifteen-minute and two suicide bombs" organisation survive another day is irrelevant. His message is not. Sawing away at Nick Berg's neck, al-Zarqawi cuts to the racist core of every Western stereotype of the sabre-wielding, blood-toothed "A-rab". As psychotically confident of his eventual success as the Texas Train Smash, the Masked Messenger from the Other Side of Islam seeks to divide so that he may rule.


U.S. Torture at Abu Ghraib Prison...

Let me ask you one question | Is your money that good | Will it buy you forgiveness | Do you think that it could | I think you will find | When your death takes its toll | All the money you made | Will never buy back your soul.

Nick Berg's murder was no ordinary execution. Identified, through his father Michael as an enemy of the occupation by a right-wing Website (scroll halfway down the list), Berg was a peaceable guy. An entrepreneur, he sought to participate--presumably for fun and profit--in Bush's much-touted reconstruction of Iraq. Ostensibly innocent of any wrongdoing, but potentially guilty of war profiteering at the expense of a defenseless people attacked for no good reason, he would have appeared more a vulture than a building block of peace and democracy to Iraqis. To serve the murky interests and motives of others, Nick Berg became al-Zarqawi’s perfect offering.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's use of the Western media machine to spread his videotaped message to wired media consumers eager to consume it was both cynical and brilliant. In every way, the barbaric content it conveys usurps Westerners' ideas of their superior technology and throws it back at them. In the scenes before Berg's execution, a droning voice recites a lengthy invocation of the wrath of Allah. On each side of the narrator, two black-clad combatants, their faces swathed, stand mute. Occasionally, they impatiently shift their weight, as if in anticipation of their gruesome task. Before them, the uncomprehending prisoner sits manacled to his fate. The images pander to every Hollywood stereotype of the jihadist or Islamic militant. The assembled functionaries present a faceless, emotionless execution squad extolling the virtues of their Creator and the evils of the occupier.

To Westerners zealous of their assumed cultural identity, these caricatures of the freedom fighter are dead men walking. They belong to another world, a world that we deny. They are every fundamentalist Christian's worst waking dream. While fundamentalists cling to their religion to salve their fear of death, Muslims know that, all too often, hell is to be found here on earth. That these men have no fear of death rails against the thick-waisted, fat-brained, burger-and-Coke religion of the Bible Belt. Most of those who have had the effrontery and bad taste to watch this taped obscenity probably adhere to various forms of their Bible-thumping, fast-food hypocrisy.

Well, here's the kicker. al-Zarqawi's genius is not so much the recording of Nick Berg's execution. It is that he gives every viewer a fundamental choice. He asks each of us (knowing that we know what is to come) whether we are prepared to take up our position behind the camera.

It is not al-Zarqawi but we who repeatedly film Nick Berg's execution. Those who, from their position behind the camera, watch this video with an awareness of their predicament elect to participate in the unfortunate hostage's murder. al-Zarqawi smiles. We're all in this together, aren't we?

Symbolism and ritual, to varying degrees, are subject to rules beyond my knowledge. As far as I know, symbols carry only the meaning I invest in them. However, if that is the case, al-Zarqawi successfully achieves what he sets out to do. That Berg was Jewish and that he was dressed to resemble a Guantanamo prisoner was probably intentional. Moreover, for Muslims and Westerners, his decapitation, redolent of the death of John the Baptist, represents the emotionless beheading of the Western viper.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein warned George H. W. Bush that, in preventing Hussein retaking Kuwait, Bush was committing the U.S. to a prominent role in the eternal Mother of All Battles. Fourteen years later, Saddam Hussein (protected by the United States and having erected his Mother of All Battles Mosque) lives a life of relative peace in the country of his birth. The United States? It's on its knees. Following the bizarre, year-long spectacle of a U.S. occupying force bringing horror beyond Saddam and the imagination to Iraq, it seems the Americans are impaling themselves on the sword of Hussein's words. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, as if facilitating the suicidal march of folly embarked on by the U.S. following its first interventions in foreign countries, smile. As far as they are concerned, and as the U.S. desecrates the ancient and hallowed graveyard of Najaf, al-Zarqawi has gone a long way to settling a score with the Great Satan.

Powerless, the son of George H. Bush sits in the Oval Office watching reruns of a videotaped memo delivered by a shadowy al-Qa'ida business unit, Muntada al-Ansar. Over and over again, he participates in the murder of Nick Berg, a single reminder of countless thousands deaths. Whether George W. Bush likes it or not, this mocking documentary is his movie. His presidency is effectively over and future U.S. presidents will preside over a country weakened by his venality. A year after proclaiming his private venture in Iraq complete (to avoid prosecution for war crimes), Bush leads a nation pervaded by a terror of its own making.

"As for you Bush ... expect severe days. You and your troops will regret the day you stepped into the land of Iraq."

George W. Bush is confused. He does not understand that of which the hooded man is speaking. He wanders into Dick Cheney's office. "Why are they doing this to me?" he asks.

And I hope that you die | And your death'll come soon | I will follow your casket | In the pale afternoon | And I'll watch while you're lowered | Down to your deathbed | And I'll stand o'er your grave | 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

Bob Dylan | Masters of War

Note Doubts cast on the authenticity of the video purportedly showing the slaying of U.S. citizen Nick Berg lend a terrible tone to his father's allegation, "My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this." War is undoubtedly barbaric, but it can be exceedingly dirty as well.

Addendum Hector Carreon reports on a comprehensive analysis of the Berg Decapitation video in Berg Decapitation Video was filmed inside the Abu Ghraib Prison. Mounting proof (rather than allegations) of the beheading being U.S. security apparatus disinformation (the CIA and FBI as opposed to the misinformation so wide disseminated by the media) designed to deflect criticism of the U.S. torture gulag does not surprise me in the least. Nor, bar the now inappropriate casting of Bush in his buffoon rather than his Stalin role, does it do much to detract from that which I have said above and below.

Instead, Michael Berg's allegations against the state (link above) are made that much more serious. Who did kill Nicholas Berg, why did they kill him, and who produced and directed this allegedly made-for-the-Web video production?

What frightens me is the speed with which Bush's reign of terror is both unraveling / unfolding. Witness the swift rise to prominence of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, blamed by the U.S. for everything from the Berg decaptitation to the Ezzedine Salim assassination, as well as the 'arrest' of four people in connection with the first crime. Combined with Rumsfeld's visit to Abu Ghraib and the release of a few dozen prisoners, the Bush administration is clearly scurrying for a cover it is manufacturing as fast as it can.

The trouble is, once the state starts losing the disinformation war, it resorts to naked oppression. That oppression is visited most obviously on the citizens of its own country, and not so obviously (as Americans' civil freedoms are eroded) but with increasing brutality, on the citizens of the countries under threat or occupation. Things generally get far worse before they get better and the thugs choreographing this so-called war have thus far only hinted at how far they are prepared to go. In short and as feared in the wake of 9-11, the Bush administration and its collaborators are capable of anything.

Victor Kattan's article, This War is Out Of Control, which does not dispute the veracity of the Berg video (and he did watch it), makes for fascinating reading as so many questions underlie his reaction to it, defining a conclusion that suggests a messy and uncertain future based on lies.

Spiraling into Barbarism

Muntada al-Ansar Beheads U.S. Captive

al-Qa'eda tit-for-tat execution likely to see U.S. retaliation


Warning: The video to which the above graphic links contains horrific content

“My name is Nick Berg, my father’s name is Michael, my mother’s name is Susan,” the man said on the video. “I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah. I live in ... Philadelphia.”

After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck... more...

Please Note First, the nature of the video and graphics linked to above is disturbing. Secondly, I've juxtaposed and mingled David and Frank's debate (pointed to below) with the horrific events and extremist statements surrounding Nick Berg's murder to highlight the value of their conversation. If we are to discuss absolutes and compromise, let's make damned sure we know something of that about which we're speaking. In a sense, the horror of this retaliatory execution of a man denied justice results from a disturbing clash of the two. The need to tread a careful path between both has never been greater.

On Friday, June 4, 2004 at 11:00 am, Frank Paynter and five others practicing civil disobedience in order to "continue public discussion and debate about the war in Iraq" will stand trial in the Madison Municipal Court for a sit-in in front of the Truax Field Gates on March 20, 2004.

Frank, one of the Web's most likeable, passionate and committed bloggers, invites all interested parties to join the group in reading aloud the names of "those who have died in this war" on the front steps of the City County Building at 10:00 on the morning of their trial.

This is the second time Paynter has landed himself in court for upsetting the smooth routine of those unwilling to appreciate the implications of the U.S. government's fast-escalating resource wars. I'd urge the inveterate campaigner for peace to allow nobody to belittle his name, actions or cause.

The brutal murder of Nick Berg, whose 26-year old memory will be defiled within hours by those attempting to justify the indefensible horrors perpetrated throughout the U.S. gulag, should give Frank's protest greater import.

Over the past couple of days, Frank has quietly taken issue with the manner in which David Weinberger has tried to quell dissent among the Bush regime's supporters and detractors. Their conversation, spread across a couple of posts on Frank's blog, conducted without hysteria, illustrates dilemmas facing all those disagreeing on issues relating to the Bush agenda.

The final comments following Frank's original post has David articulating the need to tread a path between absolutism and compromise, and he does it well (before stepping back to catch his breath). Somewhere in there is a meeting of minds and a way forward. In many ways, Frank will give substance to the outcome on the steps of the Madison Municipal Court on June 4.

On his site, David risks much in striving to diminish stridency. But, drawing a range of voices, he accomplishes much. Frank and others engage him in reasoned argument. They tackle the issues rather than adding to the noise. The distributed nature of the blogs ensures that, despite a couple of yahoos muddying the water at Joho, the conversation continues elsewhere before David returns to his blog and shakes the spoilers.

David Neiwert at Orcinus, aware of blogging's potential (and, I'd add, all Web-based publications), throws down the gauntlet to the U.S. and international media. Others (including myriad independent publications, bloggers and writers from all sides of the ideological divide), are doing what they can and publish opinion daily.

But more is needed if the radical fundamentalists on both sides are not to prevail.

Muntada al-Ansar's murder of Nick Berg, a U.S. 'contractor' dressed in Guantanamo Orange, is reprehensible. It illustrates how meeting the indefensible (compromise to the point where principles informing policy become subordinate to an institutional or systemic absolutism driven by the few) with more of the same pushes all of us closer to an abyss in which unbridled retaliatory barbarism reigns supreme.

The cost of being the first to withhold retaliation in kind (treading the middle path) is worth infinitely more than the cost paid by Nick Berg, that of following the thugs of both sides into a Hell from which there is no return.

"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."

Spokesperson for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Informationclearinghouse.info News Site Pulled?

Within twenty-four hours of posting the Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation and several hours after making available video and images showing the ghastly murder of U.S. hostage Nick Berg, the usually reliable news gathering and dissemination Web site Informationclearinghouse (linked to in the post above) has been suspended (see grab below). The increasingly swift disappearance of names, graphics and sites from search engines and the Web is not altogether surprising. What is surprising is that the apparent removal of information of value to a supposedly critical global audience barely rates a mention on the affected medium itself. It's my hope that informationclearinghouse.info is experiencing technical or hosting problems, has not been censored in any way, and will be up and running shortly.

Brenda's Coming Home

Queen of Kwaito to Return to Langa

Last night's newspaper billboards and headlines shouted the homecoming of our Queen of Kwaito, the Madonna of the Townships Brenda Fassie. But The Song of the Decade nominee (for Vulindlela) whose album Memeza broke half-a-million sales, will sing no more. Born in Langa in 1964, Fassie died in Johannesburg Sunday after being in a coma for two weeks following an asthma attack. Many suspect complications through substance abuse.

Visited in hospital by well-wishers President Thabo Mbeki and former president Nelson Mandela, the mercurial diva's family kept vigil at her bedside. Suffering probable brain damage and close to death, Fassie was perhaps kept alive more by her fans desire to see her recover than any physical agency. Facing an encore she couldn't take, Fassie died in the city she made her own after being taken in by music producer Koloi Lebona's family at age 16.

Home is, however, where the heart is and Brenda's weekend burial from her home on Makana Square in Langa has been widely welcomed. Although I did not know Fassie or her music, beyond that which I heard on radio and TV, I welcome it too. One cannot visit Langa without taking note of (or having one's attention drawn to) the original homes of its notorious and famous sons and daughters. History runs deep and counts for much. Just as an old man will spend hours detailing the events surrounding the 1960, Phillip Kgosana-led march to Caledon Square from a decrepit electricity switch box outside the Old Flats ("It was here that soldiers from the first Saracen opened fire"), the Fassie family history is dissected when passing their house.

The community spirit binding Langa residents, unlike that of any other part of Cape Town, fires legends. Nobody escapes it or each other. Brenda Fassie may have lived fast and dangerously. She may have offended many of her elders and contemporaries, and she may have chosen to live elsewhere. But Langa, easily able to distinguish the sin from the sinner, will turn out in full to welcome its Prodigal Daughter. Brenda is coming home to stay.

Congress Questions President Clinton...

...in Abu Ghraib Probe

In a surprise move, before adjourning for the weekend, Congress called President Bill Clinton to testify regarding reports that American soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners at a facility made notorious for torture during the regime of Saddam Hussein.

President Clinton's testimony followed that of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who accepted complete responsibility for the misconduct among the guards at Abu Ghraib prison, and offered his apology. "I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees," Rumsfeld said. "They're human beings."

Rumsfeld quickly amended his comment, adding, "Well, they're like human beings, except that they're actually desert monkeys." more...

Note While you're there, read everything... this girl is irredeemable... thank God.

Blogger.com's Iraq Scoop

USA Today Iraqis enjoy new freedom of expression: "'We suffered for years under Saddam Hussein, not being able to speak out,' says Omar Fadhil, 24, a dentist. 'Now, you can make your voice heard around the world.'" You said it Omar. That's pretty much our whole thing. more...

Hmm... I guess River's a bit much for a family blogging tool and USA Today to swallow.

A Place of Whited Sepulchres

Welcome to Wayne's World

"Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all."

There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern.

U.S. President George W. Bush

I've just been paid a compliment. Well, you know, the sort of compliment I get off on. Wayne Wides, a right-wing fascist, journeyman boxer, former mercenary and notorious wife beater residing in Cape Town, writes up YBLOG ZA thus:

I then pondered adding (a link to) Yblog ZA, but the writings are a bit too radical and, my goodness, I am not reading all of that. My suggestion to the author is if nothing else, to simply cut down on the quantity written.

To which I answer:

Go play with yourself, Wayne. Alternatively, try Laurence.

I do hope Wayne takes my compliment with the lightheartedness with which it is given. I merely suggest (rather than command, order or instruct) that he may find it immensely enjoyable indulging in harmless, playful, simulated sex of the type vicariously indulged in by the forces of all that is right, good, just and blameless on this blighted planet of ours. It might loosen him up a little. It is, of course, his democratic right to ignore my suggestion or return it with interest. He is, after all, a blogger and a professional to boot. Beyond his nuanced appreciation of South African society (commentary.co.za reads like a racial HTML colour chart), Wayne shares insights with his American bretheren (no doubt all of the same lineage and living in the same trailer park).

How's this as a response to the global U.S. torture franchise stretching from New York through Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Camp Cropper, Baghram and beyond:

In case any of our American readers are curious, the Iraqi torture / interrogation / sexual humiliation story is playing out in the local media in a big way. The US government needs to do something about this, and fast. They need to find out exactly who was responsible, and come down on them swiftly and hard. If there's any hint that they're trying to sweep this under the rug, the Americans will do incalculable damage to their reputation abroad, and the war effort in Iraq itself. This war was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of Western values; those on the American side who have betrayed those values, and endangered the war effort, deserve to be punished.

Oh my, my. I can tell, from a million miles away, where this boy's coming from. This ain't no story, Wayne. Try this link. It's real and incalculable damage has already been done. Quite what the U.S. government is going to do (fast) about this barbarism playing out in our local media is beyond me. Try something like the '76 Angolan invasion perhaps? That the responsibility for these crimes against humanity lies with the system perpetrating them appears to be beyond our intrepid local analyst. That cover-ups of, for example, planning, foreknowledge, solicitation, outsourcing, encouragement and gatekeeping are well documented says little for wall-plug blogging and those practising it. But the bit about the superiority of Western values really tickles me. Wayne, Western values are getting their arse kicked from Mosul to Kandahar. Face it, Bubba, these things, i.e. Western values are what we in the real world call oxymorons (we're less polite to those believing in them).

To use language you might understand, your terrorists, i.e. their freedom fighters, have taken the moral high ground. Why? Because it seems that those most inclined to profess an abhorrence of torture are those most willing to excuse it. It might run empires, but hypocrisy certainly doesn't win wars. Consistency, a suspension of standards we'd never use in everyday life, and a willingness to sacrifice, do. And that is why the United States will eventually lose the Middle East. Hypocrisy, double standards, the trashing of internationally accepted rules of war and an unwillingness to sacrifice everything to a cause (Crusade, resource war, whatever) not yet honestly explained, puts the U.S. on to a hiding to nothing. Weaponry will and can sustain it for a while but, ultimately, backwards is the way it will continue to go.

Either way though, Wayne, put whoever you like on your blog roll but don't presume to dictate to others how they should structure and populate their blog entries (see long, rambling post below). It can be dangerous and, believe me, it can get ugly. You have, when all is said and done, gone to the blogs. Anyway, now that we've established our credentials and exchanged compliments, I've included Wayne's site, commentary.co.za (for all those who miss the good ol' SABC of the early 80s) on my blog roll. I do so in the hope that Wayne will one day share a whiskey and some of his extensive knowledge of the niceties of sane, sensible, socially responsible, imperiously superior Western blogging with me.

I guess I am too radical. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Wayne. Fucking ragheads... who gives a shit about them and their inferior culture? "Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all."

"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist," Rumsfeld testified before Congress. "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse. That's just a fact." The unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys, according to NBC News. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is "going to get worse" and warned that the most "disturbing" revelations haven't yet been made public.

Boston Herald

Links
M. Shahid Alam Is the Game Over? A Comic Apology
Robert Fiske An Illegal and Immoral War
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba US Army Report on Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners
George W. Bush It Starts at the Top. Hooah.
Donald Rumsfeld Testimony before Senate and House Armed Services Committees

On the upside...
David Weinberger Making America Our Own Again

Bush Campaign Recruits England for 2004

"...ensuring a democratic and secure future..."

Joint statement from U.S. President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair


"Abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases." George W. Bush

"We are grateful to our men and women in uniform, as well as to the brave troops of Australia and Poland, and to forces contributed by other members of the coalition. They have demonstrated enormous bravery and professionalism in the face of great danger."


"The president and Mrs Bush and the entire Bush family are deeply saddened by the passing of Spot." Presidential Press Report

"Coalition military operations are progressing and will succeed. We will eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, deliver humanitarian aid, and secure the freedom of the Iraqi people. We will create an environment where Iraqis can determine their own fate democratically and peacefully."


"George's Secret"

"We support the aspirations of all of Iraq's people for a united, representative government that upholds human rights and the rule of law as cornerstones of democracy."

Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears, | Bury the rag deep in your face | For now's the time for your tears.

Bob Dylan | The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

A Wave..

...that could drown...

...the whole world



Come baby, rock me, come baby, lock me into the shadows of your heart. | Come baby, teach me, come baby, reach me, let the music start. | I could be dreaming but I keep believing you're the one I'm livin' for. | And I will always be emotionally yours.

It's like my whole life never happened, | When I see you, it's as if I never had a thought. | I know this dream, it might be crazy, | But it's the only one I've got.

Come baby, shake me, come baby, take me, I would be satisfied. | Come baby, hold me, come baby, help me, my arms are open wide. | I could be unraveling wherever I'm traveling, even to foreign shores. | But I will always be emotionally yours.

Bob Dylan | Emotionally Yours

Cockaigne Adieu?

'Cockaigne' Vincent Desiderio

The title is a reference to Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "Land of Cockaigne" (1559), a moral allegory set in a land of plenty where the houses are tiled with cakes, the fences are made of sausages and the fowl fly roasted and ready to eat. The targets in Bruegel's painting were gluttony and sloth; Mr. Desiderio's version is a critique of what he calls "cultural bulimia" — our compulsive consumption of images that only leaves us hungry for more. It is also a comment on the predicament of painting in the 21st century: faced with such a plethora of styles and formal idioms, how is it possible to create something new, something distinctively relevant to our own time?

We live in a political world, | Love don't have any place. | We're living in times where men commit crimes | And crime don't have a face.

Shelley

Anger and sex. Anger, sex, and absolutes. Just listen to the opinions, right and left. If we lined up all the online pundits, end to end, their perceived influence would stand ten times as tall as the actuality. Not only that, but their crap would provide enough ethanol to light the planet.

It’s not that people have opinions about the US President or the election or the war in Iraq–it’s just that they’re so damn sure they’re right. We’ve been talking about how polarized the upcoming election in the States is but on a good day nowadays, I’ll take polarized over what we’ve got. Everyone is so damn angry.

Look. It made me angry.

If we could have just one day per week when we all talked softly and quietly; when we listened to others views, and actually listened, not filtered; where we didn’t shoot from the hip, bringing out the verbal axes at first word; maybe where we even acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers–I can’t help thinking that we’d all be richer for the experience. more...

There are not a lot of countries who are very happy with the United States now, but much of the anger has been directed at the President and his staff. After all, Bush did not win the popular vote, so we can’t necessarily be held accountable for his actions. But what happens if Bush gets re-elected? At that time Bush’s actions will be seen as following the mandate of the people of this country, and how is that going to alter other country’s views of each of us?

If Bush is re-elected, can we still be friends?

Even when I share much of the same views as those who would condemn our actions, I have found myself experiencing tension, more than once, with someone I consider friend, primarily because of condemnation of our actions has been balanced, precariously, against condemnation of the nation as a whole. And good or bad, I am part of this nation. more...

Yule

What will continue unabated, whether it’s Kerry or Bush next year, is the reduction of everyone in America (in the industrialised world) to a mass bereft of the dignity of differentiation. The pace might change – under Bush, it’s been breathtakingly brisk; perhaps a Kerry administration will allow shades of difference or make for some slow-downs – but continue it will. “My country, right or wrong,” beliefs largely homogenised (and marketed!), and Individuality a Brand available at Walmart. That too is a sure sign of any kind of totalitarianism, soft or hard, governmental or corporate: it reduces the citizenry to an undifferentiated mass, even if we’re all yelling our heads of in support of this or that ideology. In that sense, if we want to prevent atrocities and stop wars, we have to fight to protect civil rights and freedoms, oppose Patriot Acts and infringements of civil liberties, insist on and defend the separation of Church and State, fight for freedom of the press, insist on pointing out conflicts of interest in government and business, protect whistle-blowers: those rights are fighting tools, which is probably why crooks of any stripe are so interested in taking them away.

Your friends abroad can prove their friendship by resisting that reduction to sameness, by insisting on seeing the differences, and making the arguments within their countries that there have always been and always will be different Americans, and that it’s a trick of criminal leadership to make all citizens appear the same and therefore equally responsible for what the criminals in power do. Today, criminals the world over are scheming to consolidate their power so that all over the world, everyone will soon look guilty: they want us all to be the same, tearing each other apart so that we don’t line them up against the wall. They do it through government power, they do it through corporate power, they do it through military power. And if the occasional leader does get lined up against the wall, it’s considered a small sacrifice that keeps the whole scheme going. But they can’t smooth over the pointy wedge of steady, resolute insistence on the dignity of difference.

[...]

Perhaps there’s more hope in infiltrating the system slowly but surely: get strategically-thinking individuals placed in positions of power in government and industry, people who will show some ability to resist. There’s more potential in that strategy, we need to make it our own again. It’s what our enemies have been using to bring us to where we are now. Key problem is that it’ll take time, which we’re getting panicked over running out of. more...

Joel

I need to speak to this from the place of gentle horror, where we have paved over the sufferings of the Iraqi people like we have paved over and channeled the streams gushing from the canyon mouths. For my antiwar views on this blog, I have suffered, not only from the Right but from members of the Left who one year and one month ago, were telling me that there was nothing to do but go along. A year ago, I spoke to the war. A year ago, I protested loudly against it. I questioned and I questioned the weapons of mass destruction. One year later, everything that I thought would prove true has: we breezed into Baghdad, then entered a long period of occupation where our soldiers were picked off one by one. One year and one month later, we have not found a single weapon of mass destruction. We've caught Hussein and it doesn't matter. We haven't found any links between Hussein and Al Quaeda. The economy totters and we need more money to keep this "operation" going. This butchery that we class as a surgery.

One year later, this critic of the Bush Administration is tired. He's tired not only of Bush, but of the Democrats who have gone along and gone along with the war in Iraq. He's tired that the majority of the population of this nation doesn't see beyond the Walmart greeters and the pretty products lined up on the shelves. He's tired of all the people who have closed their doors on him, whose votes and decisions perpetuate the evil he sees.

The war isn't the only issue we have to face here, Mike... more...

We're All Americans Now

'Land of Cockaigne' Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1559)

We live in a political world | Where peace is not welcome at all, | It's turned away from the door to wander some more | Or put up against the wall.

George W. Bush is an alien. I kid you not. Were I to be interviewed by a lurid U.S. tabloid I'd swear on any holy book that I was abducted by the U.S. president, impregnated with his foul seed and returned to Earth to sow carnage, discord and general mayhem. I would make a packet from my story and live high on the hog for the rest of my days. Sadly, the tabloids have yet to come knocking. But, as they say inside the Beltway, my door is always open.

Ah, yes, the Beltway. I believe the beltway constitutes the roads circling, ringing or locking in the cocooned goons now charting their stocks and our global descent into a madness beyond compare. The tabloids would find much to write about were they to root around the head of the average DC functionary performing lewd acts in the capital of the New World Order. Perhaps the toxicity levels emanating from the cesspit are too high for lowly scandal rags; I don't know. Either way, the skin-sheets persist in searching for people like me, people born of lizards or abducted by strange and twisted life forms up to no good.

According to my friend David Icke (he of the lizard king and the warbloggers' conventions in the secret chamber under the Lincoln Memorial), both the above descriptions apply to George Walker Bush. A friend sent me an e-mail pointing to a Glenn Reynolds' (Instapundit) post. He asked me what I thought of Reynolds. I have no idea to which entry in this blog I should point him. Needless to say, they all involve Mike Sanders, Howard Owens, Nick Denton, secret warblogging conventions in the antechamber of the secret vault under the Lincoln Memorial and, of course, the poor donkey. As a scholar though, David refuses to speak to the tabloids and therefore retains me as his spokesperson.

He's an easy customer compared to some of my other clients. One-time Brigadier General and torturer-in-denial Janis Karpinski is proving a real pain in the butt (the pun is not intended and I apologise to all Iraqi citizens sodomised by instruments of the U.S. global law-and-order machine). Janis is as guilty as all hell. Then again, aren't we all? As George Paine points out, "You knew." Indeed we did and do. There is no way out of this one, Bubba. You know what they say... you can run, but you can't hide. We will hunt you down and beat you like swine before putting the muzzle to your medulla. You too will know fear. I will show it to you in a fingerful of lead.

Way to go... death to the Yankees... Eh, shit, wait, this wasn't supposed to go in this direction... Let me start again. Scrap the dead Yanks bit... Gah! Blogging... Give me a fucking break. It leads me to places I really don't want to go. Which is where I started this; being abducted by George W. Bush. Look, you know what I think. As far as I'm concerned, we are all vile, wicked and depraved. There is no hope of redemption and we are all for the Lake of Fire. It's obvious, innit? I mean, look about you. Look at yourself. You deserve Nirvana? Does anybody else? Why? See my point? Good. Okay, now that there's no hope, we'd better make the best of the time allotted us, i.e. three score years and ten (more if you're a widow living in the States and a hell of a lot less if you're Joe Soap living in Africa, but let's not quibble). Frankly, if I'm to live out my life with some dignity and any measure of peace, I can do without George W. Bush, his buddy General Ariel 'Arik' Sharon, their minions and all those supporting them (Republicans, Democrats and Likkudnics).

Okay... wait. Back up a bit. Why the hell am I writing this incoherent piece of babble? It's all Shelley's fault. She's thinking of breaking up with me. Well, she doesn't put it like that, but I can always tell what Shelley is thinking. I mean, look at the title of her blog entry. Can We Still Be Friends. I kid you not. This is a line I am supposed to use. I'm telling you, never fall for a feminist. They'll make a mess outa you and have you believing that they're somehow justified in terminating what you thought was a deep, meaningful and lifelong friendship. I mean, fuck it, I'm not going anywhere. I've always regarded Shelley as my friend in the same way as I do many others I take for granted around here. I think of Jeneane, Elaine, Tish, my mentor Father Christopher (there's a funny smell coming out of the Jesus Bunker), Tom Shugart... in other words, the multitudes contained within, too numerous to mention.

We Hate America

'The Land of Cockaigne' (after Bruegel) Chris Gollon

We live in a political world, | Wisdom is thrown into jail, | It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell | Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

Take my advice. Never blog about friends and George W. Bush in the same entry. It's a killer. The one cancels out the other. Don't get me wrong; George W. Bush is far easier to write about, but friends are far easier to lose. Shelley's justifiably concerned that much of the acrimony directed by some (ehem) at the United States of America will jeopardize friendships now and in the future. They might... I can see it happening, but I can't see it happening to people who share pretty much the same views on the Boy Wonder's plans to destroy Earth and all who sail in her. The confusion arises because of the propensity of some (ehem... okay, so I'm speaking of Chris Kovacs here) to lump good people like those mentioned above, many others on our blogrolls and perhaps half the population of the United States, with The Other Half. The Other Half, of course, comprises all those representing that which is sick, repulsive and morally reprehensible. In other words, George W. Bush, his crazed administration, and its brain-dead collaborators. These people are evil and deserve to be shot like wild pigs but, in the United States, where Janet Jackson's boob is a big deal and Bill Clinton's blowjob is an impeachable offence, they are treated with kid gloves.

Naturally, because these bozos are blowing up the world and its relatives, many Americans and most foreigners are in what one might politely call a state of high dudgeon. We are seriously pissed off. We are perhaps a bit beyond pissed off and might even be said to be hoping that somebody will shortly land a sizeable aircraft on the White House. It would do wonders for world peace, the interior decorating business and newspaper sales. And, just to appease those who might believe I am advocating terrorism here, I'd like to state that I am merely considering the possible benefits of a Tokyo option. Or Hiroshima. Or Nagasaki. Y'know how it goes. Destroy the White House in order to save the world. Actually, put like that, it makes a lot more sense. Yes, we'll run with that.

Sometimes, especially when a sub-normal, dim-witted, inbred piece of white trash rises to the most powerful office in the world (I've told you how George Jr. was lumped on Bush Sr. after a Houston Convention trailer-park tryst with Sweet Melinda, Sister Annie and Angel, who'd just got back from the coast), there is a need to be blunt. Look, I know many Americans take to the streets to fight for civil liberties, peace, choice and all good things now being savaged by the rabid dogs of Christian Fundamentalism. We see them on the TV. They march sedately in carefully designed protester suits under carefully designed flags of convenience and are tracked by legions of carefully designed Darth Vader police. It all looks kind of unreal. And that's where I have to admit to a lack of understanding. Where're the guns, the riots, the blood, the bodies, the burning buildings? I don't see 'em. Look, even Old Europe has these things. A good protest isn't a good protest without a burning building or two. Y'know? Shit. Sometimes axes are called for. I mean, the post below originated somewhere. It has a basis in reality; a link to something that is happening. If it's not enough to get people to go ballistic, what is?

Yup. I'm in two minds. Somehow, I can't help feeling that if I knew I were doing more than taking time out to contemplate and justify my indifference to an ongoing and savage reality, I'd rest a lot easier. But, as I say, I'm in two minds. It's always a tough one.

The thing is, George W. Bush and his pus-headed followers are doing more than messing with my friendships, sodomizing Muslims or blowing Arabs to bits from here to Kingdom Come. They are messing with my blogging and I don't like it one bit. There was a time, before George put a cork in it and started taking that mad dog Rove and his rabid bitch Rice seriously, when I could blog away about life in general while registering my strong opposition to mindless acts of thuggery supporting commercial greed, e.g. the invasion and obliteration of Afghanistan. No more. Afghanistan showed Bush to be capable only of dancing to Bin Laden's tune. He was sucked in and chewed up. It was only a matter of time before he was spat out. As I have stated before, 9-11 signalled the end rather than the beginning of the war. Osama said, "Welcome to the world. You lost." Now, if George W. Bush had listened to his electorate in much the same way as Jacques Chirac, Gerard Schroder and others listened to theirs... well, we'd be living in a different world today, wouldn't we?

But no, George wanted revenge, Dick wanted oil, and St. John of Ashcroft wanted the Rapture produced and directed by Donny Rumsfeld and his neo-con goon squad.

Rather than answer that nagging little question, "So, what do you think they have against us?", George and his idiot friends set about bombing the world in accordance with plans sketched decades ago by deviants and perverts employed by the Pentagram to dream up enriching things for presidents to do. The Constitution of the United States? George was not told to read it before being assigned his position, but nobody minded. It was when George slipped effortlessly from his newfound belligerence to a state of pure hate and started tearing up the constitution of the globe that I got seriously pissed off. That was the moment evil clouded the air. Everybody was afraid. 9-11 hadn't changed the world, but George sure as hell was going to. Whereas the invasion of Afghanistan represented naked imperial aggression against a defenseless state, the invasion and occupation of Iraq was (and has repeatedly proven to be) a crime against humanity. We screamed about it. We ranted, raged and vented against it. We spent an awful amount of time arguing with the shit-for-brains mob sailing under the warbloggers' flag. Well, that sure as hell was about as counter-productive as one could possibly be (I'll never speak to those bastards again) and George launched his illegal and morally repugnant campaign.

Bang went my blogging.

But I digress. We were speaking of the Wonderchicken. Now, we all know how testy, bad-mannered and socially ill-equipped Chris Kovacs is. I'd ask that you overlook his grievous shortcomings for just a short while and try to understand this ghastly Canadian expatriate who proudly professes his hatred of America. Read the essay to which he alludes in a comment he appends to Shell's post, Anti-America. He says he's proud of his article. I'm sure he is, but I wonder who he got to write it. Not that Kovacs is incapable of cobbling together an occasional piece of lucid prose, you understand, but this piece is just... well... so... moi. There, I said it. I didn't write it, but I might have. So now you'll never know who did write it, will you? Mind you, I don't know The Clash's music that well... heh... or do I? Okay, let's give this one (just to speed things up) to Stavros. He is, after all, the only wonderchicken I'll ever allow inside my house. If waeguk's not a soup, I want to know what the hell it is. After a long-winded explication of his childhood as an anti-American Eskimo punk, Kovacs gets down to brass tacks. Here they are, for lazy sods:

I love Americans, many of them. I hate America because through those who lead that powerful nation, it seems to be hellbent on making a world that is worse in every way that's important for most of the people in it. And I feel this way not because I am Canadian, or 'lefty', or religious, or anything else other than who I am. I hate America because I want so desperately to love it.

But, bar constituting an important statement, that's not the half of it, so if you're sick enough to want to crawl into this self-admitted kindergarten sociopath's mind, you'd best read the whole thing.

Against the Wall?

'Land of Cockaign' Johannes Phokela

We live in a political world | Where mercy walks the plank, | Life is in mirrors, death disappears | Up the steps into the nearest bank.

Joel is a sucker for punishment. He lists many of the things that irk him about our Western or, to relocate to my neck of the woods, Western-ized approach to regulating life. In other words, and like Yule, he fights the inexorable march to sameness and is therefore fiercely protective of the individual. Hey, I agree with all Joel's stated views. More, I believe that if you protect the individual, you protect the people. Frankly, it's self-fucking-evident, but try telling it to the freaks promoting insidiously divisive concepts like multi-culturalism. Hell, a small example. I remember watching 'multi-racial' soccer during the late 70s in South Africa. Blacks playing whites (or vice versa). What a sick joke. It was labelling, stereotyping, and story telling at its worst. It was divisive and extremely dangerous. To us, as South Africans, the lie was obvious and we set out to expose it.

Today, we see the same corrosive logic employed by the social engineers of yesteryear dividing the States. I remember watching a film called Hardball. Starring Keanu Reeves, it told the story of a bum coaching a Little League Baseball Team. A predictable enough story line, eh? But this was different. First, Reeve was believable. A gambler, he owed big and he played his role believably. You could see the greasy sweat on his forehead and feel the pit in his stomach. Secondly, Cabrini Green and the ABLA housing projects reminded me of Cape Town's Lavender Hill. "So this is the democracy being exported to the world," I thought. Segregation, whether one calls it multiculturalism or multiracialism is racism by another name.

It's not that we took to the soccer pitches in protest. We continued fighting (more through talk than action) that which was at fault. As is the case in the post-constitutional United States today, South Africa's system of governance was corrupt. Anything coming out of it reflected that corruption. And here we find the reason why Americans today have so many causes for which they see a need to fight. They should not lose themselves inside the causes. They merely represent a system incapable of producing anything but that which is rotten to the core. Look, systems are pretty neutral. It's we who corrupt them. When we reach a stage where both are bent beyond recognition, there's a need to bring about change in both. Besides fighting the small battles (institutionalised barbarism in the U.S. armed forces, for example), we need to tackle the system making these potentially devastating injustices inevitable.

George W. Bush and his minions are not my primary concern. They are pimples on the skin of America, easily cleansed by time. It's the system that endures and, through it, global suffering. George W. Bush and his goons, as the leaders of the most powerful nation (guns and money) on Earth, currently represent a system in dire need of a drastic overhaul. George W. Bush is odious, sure. But, to me, he is also a person. I like some people. Others, I do not. I do not like George W. Bush. Nor do I like his puppeteers or those who vote for him. Besides representing a corrupt system, they seek to profit from it. But I'm okay separating them out from the system they represent. That system, rooted deeply in the American psyche, generates the problems of which Joel speaks. It does this as a natural consequence of itself, the way it works. Sexism, racism, religious intolerance, materialism, ignorance, prejudice and their children, e.g. the wars we fight, are natural consequences of an organising principle determining how we live our lives or look at the world.

The list of possible battles is endless, but the source remains the same. To tell you the truth, Joel, I'm tired too. The enemy is never without; always within.

Note Again redefining "prolific", the indefatigable scribe at Pax Nortona takes issue with the nut of most of that which corrupts; our much-favoured "isms". Read Post-Modernism vs. Democracy and take it from there...

Eating Dirt — Affirming Friendships

'Land of Cockaigne' Pieter van der Heyden (1570)

We live in a political world | Where courage is a thing of the past | Houses are haunted, children are unwanted | The next day could be your last.

We blog on many levels. Nothing illustrates this better than the many blogs listed on my blogroll. They range from the intensely personal to the stridently political. Some, and I hope I can include myself here, try to straddle the divide, blogging the best and worst of both worlds. Not getting much time at my machine and being living proof of Father Christopher's famous blog maxim "Where we write at night when we should be sleeping", I've not maintained a steady flow of entries for the past eighteen months. I've also tended to focus on that which preoccupies most of us, U.S. imperialism. I don't believe myself to be anti-American. Like Stavros, "I hate America because I want so desperately to love it." He certainly has a way with words, that boy. I've asked my mother about him. She says she had a miscarriage when first she fell pregnant, but I don't know...

Shelley's post made me think. Why the hell should bloggers focus their energies on the Iraqi Occupation? What are blogs for? Are there other ways to voice dissent? How many blondes does it take to change a light bulb? I'm buggered if I know the answer to the last question, but I realize how foolish I've been in ignoring the answers to the first three. If truth be told, they leave me feeling more than a little abashed and acutely embarrassed. If anything, they tell me this. I value George Walker Bush and Ariel Sharon, whose obdurate intransigence I admit to occasionally adopting, far less than I do any single online friendship.

I do not believe my being 'for' or 'against' the United States or its citizens as a whole is at issue here. Shelley puts it bluntly. Friendships are at stake. I've been mulling this over. She's right. They are. Why? I believe it's all about the tone we adopt on our blogs and the respect we show for others' views and realities. Anger affects the first and does away with much of the latter. So, what is my tone? Born of anger, it's self-righteous, prescriptive, arrogant, and cocksure. With just a couple of words, I transform a justifiable anger into a demand that others adopt my thinking, change their lives and man the barricades. Doing that reduces even anger to little more than a vituperative and impotent frustration. Hell, even I can't accept that. Motivated by anger (but fuelled by frustration), I become dogmatic. I assume the right to tell others how and what to blog. In other words, I become prepared to ride roughshod over others' views and realities. In short (and in tone), I become Bush. It's my right to want to do that but what conceit would make me want to exercise such a right? No sensible conceit that I can think of. Anger, poorly expressed, can do great harm.

Others have similar rights to me. They can tell me to go screw myself. I'm surprised none did. Fight fire with fire? Sometimes it's necessary.

Not that it'll stop me speaking exactly what's on my mind, of course...

We live in a political world. | The one we can see and can feel | But there's no one to check, it's all a stacked deck, | We all know for sure that it's real.

Bob Dylan | Political World