This is the ultimate irony in American political life right now, the conservatives who swear on a stack of Bibles that they worship Jesus Christ when they really bow down to the philosophy of Ayn Rand and the golden idol of the free market to be placed at the center of all other things. They preach of an American exceptionalism blessed by a Christian God, and call for America to be a shining city on a hill which can be an example to the entire world.
Yet their exceptionalism isn't based on our country being moral the way Jesus would have understood it, but moral the way Rand and the Social Darwinists of the 1880s and '90s would have understood it: whoever gets rich deserves to be, and whoever is poor is a leech on society. Their vision of America is shining because of the gold the wealthy among us possess, not because our society as a whole is built on morality.Quote from: Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ? Conservatives Can't Have It Both Ways by Mike Lux at Huffington Post via Alternet.org ,May 1,2012
This politics and pedagogy of death begins in the celebration of war and ends in the unleashing of violence on all those considered disposable on the domestic front. A survival-of-the-fittest ethic and the utter annihilation of the other have now become normalized, saturating everything from state policy to institutional practices to the mainstream media. How else to explain the growing taste for violence in, for example, the world of professional sports, extending from professional hockey to extreme martial arts events? The debased nature of violence and punishment seeping into the American cultural landscape becomes clear in the recent revelation that the New Orleans Saints professional football team was "running a 'bounty program' which rewarded players for inflicting injuries on opposing players."
Above quote from: "Henry A. Giroux | Violence, USA: The Warfare State and the Brutalizing of Everyday Life " By Henry A Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed, may 2, 2012
(Note footnotes marked thusly *)
Henry A. Giroux* in this recent article at Truthout.org argues America and its people and institutions and laws are being negatively impacted by the on-going brutal wars which treat Combatants and non-combatants in a brutal fashion. Since 9/11 the US has operated under the assumption that they are permitted to use whatever methods, tactics, armaments they want to get revenge for the 9/11 attacks and of course they extend this retaliation and revenge to the wounding or death of any US troops or mercenaries or other personnel.** (60 min torture) Even with the former peacenik Obama in power this attitude of treating the world as America's own little theater of mass destruction and death. The US attitude is basically a continuation from its historical legacy of a brutal form of slavery and the the attempt to utterly eliminate Amerindians Native Americans in the country's genocidal madness.
Of course Americans argued then as now that God was on their side and that Black people and Native Americans were brute savages who were either standing in the path of America's Manifest Destiny or were needed to serve their superior White Christian Masters. Though Conservatives in the last twenty years claim that the slave trade and the killing of Indians were not that bad and besides the White Europeans brought these people the Bible and Christianity. These conservatives believe that it is left leaning antiAmerican Marxist who have rewritten history to make America look bad. In other words the Conservatives twisted view of historical reality must be accepted by one and all.
Since 9/11 American culture can be characterized as being more accepting of violence and brutality of winners versus losers which is helping to undermine American culture and civil society. We can no longer expect civility , sympathy or empathy for others or by others if our culture takes on this harsher view of society of all against all. There are therefore winners and losers and acceptance of "Might is Right". Even most Christians in America these days sound more like the atheist and materialistic writer and psuedo-philosopher Ayn Rand *** (Rand Versus Jesus) or Machiavelli or Leo Strauss . Machiavelli and Ayn Rand see the purpose of so called society as being at the service of an elite class of pragmatists and visionaries which includes technocrats, architects, engineers, entrepreneurs and so forth.The role of government if it has any is to promote the well being and productivity of this elite. Everybody else is a mere worker or soldier who gives aid and comfort and protection of the wealth and property of this elite. Those unable to contribute to society must be weeded out -sounds like the GOP philosophy held by Santorum, Gingrich, Mitt Romney and others who want to return to the culture of the 19th century where the lower classes "new their place" that is their "Station in Life" and child labor and debtor prisons and workhouses were the norm .In America these greatly perverse yet powerful and rich individuals believe that only the rich and successful should have absolute freedom in order to create the only thing that matters that is "Wealth". But they forget that even the great Prophet believed in the notion of social responsibility and accountability on the part of entrepreneurs and government to create a better and more prosperous society for all citizens not merely the elite. Just maybe Adam Smith had that which these Greedy self-serving politicians do not have and that is a " Conscience " steeped in Christian values.
The role of religion must be confined to keeping the unwashed masses in line and to be used to galvanize their support for war .
One cannot expect these favored elites to risk their more superiour lives in warfare. Though with the new technologies which are still growing even elites can take part in the new computer generated virtual warfare in which a bureaucrat in Kansas can operate a drone over countries thousands of miles away such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan and target a village or an apartment building a terrorist camp or single moving car or truck suspected of being operated by the so called enemy.
American know how and ingenuity combined with massive amounts of money can claim as its legacy more and better ways to kill other human beings to keep the Military Intelligence and Security industries awash in cash thanks to their clueless citizens.
If there is no enemy wait a bit and Big Brother will create one.
(an aside: what if other nations were to do the same to America or other Western Nations dropping bombs by way of drones or high altitude bombers etc. Of course Americans view the world through a glass darkly and cannot imagine that other nations or groups might see America as their enemy rightly or wrongly. This is not just a lack of imagination but also a matter of arrogance, self-righteousness, hubris and the inability to view other peoples as being similar to themselves.)
Obama has bailed out his friends on Wall Street and the bankers and other hoodlums while allowing home owners to be literally tossed out of their homes in the middle of the night.****
Banksters and police learn the wrong lessons fro Occupy movement and the Great Depression. The police as in this case decided to attack the home they were foreclosing on in the middle of the night without warning to ensure no Occupy protesters or others or the media might show up and document the bullying tactics of the powers that be..
The only silver lining is that the Occupy Movement is having an impact across the USA.
When the banks and investment companies had screwed up and were on the verge of bankruptzy or receivership the Bush and Obama regime tossed them a trillion or more dollars and then defended these corrupt low lifers who still believe they are smarter than everyone else. It appears they are in fact right nobody was able to judge how poor some these corporations actually were or able to understand that they no longer had cash or assets to cover their asses. But the government helped them to fleece even more money out of the American people.
Meanwhile these Wall Street crooks and their friends put pressure on local and state and federal governments for creating what they refer to as Moral Hazard by helping out the poor, the unemployed , the homeless, the disabled and so on.
But the real Moral Hazard created by the government is that these Banks and Wall Street gamblers know they are too big to fail so they know the government will do all it can to bail them out with glorified welfare from the government.
(see for instance Freefall America,Free Markets, and the Sinking of the modern economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2010.)
What is troubling is how supposedly Christian believers and even some who call themselves liberals are influence knowingly or not by the crazy fascism of the like of elitists such as Ayn Rand.
As time goes by Americanized Christianity of the rugged individualism and belief in the Gospel of Prosperiety looks more and more like 19th century Laissez Faire monopolistic Capitalism mixed with a bit of Machiavelli and Ayn Rand 's philosophy or pathology of selfishness and Greed.
* "Henry A. Giroux | Violence, USA: The Warfare State and the Brutalizing of Everyday Life " By Henry A Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed, may 2, 2012
Within the contemporary neoliberal theater of cruelty, war has expanded its poisonous reach and moves effortlessly within and across America's national boundaries. As Chris Hedges has pointed out brilliantly and passionately, war "allows us to make sense of mayhem and death" as something not to be condemned, but to be celebrated as a matter of national honor, virtue and heroism.(11) War takes as its aim the killing of others and legitimates violence through an amorally bankrupt mindset in which just and unjust notions of violence collapse into each other. Consequently, it has become increasingly difficult to determine justifiable violence and humanitarian intervention from unjustifiable violence involving torture, massacres and atrocities, which now operate in the liminal space and moral vacuum of legal illegalities.
Even when such acts are recognized as war crimes, they are often dismissed as simply an inevitable consequence of war itself. This view was recently echoed by Leon Panetta who, responding to the alleged killing of civilians by US Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, observed, "War is hell. These kinds of events and incidents are going to take place, they've taken place in any war, they're terrible events and this is not the first of those events and probably will not be the last." He then made clear the central contradiction that haunts the use of machineries of war in stating, "But we cannot allow these events to undermine our strategy."(13) Panetta's qualification is a testament to barbarism because it means being committed to a war machine that trades in indiscriminate violence, death and torture, while ignoring the pull of conscience or ethical considerations. Hedges is right when he argues that defending such violence in the name of war is a rationale for "usually nothing more than gross human cruelty, brutality and stupidity."
War and the organized production of violence has also become a form of governance increasingly visible in the ongoing militarization of police departments throughout the United States. According to the Homeland Security Research Corp, "The homeland security market for state and local agencies is projected to reach $19.2 billion by 2014, up from $15.8 billion in fiscal 2009."(15) The structure of violence is also evident in the rise of the punishing and surveillance state, with its legions of electronic spies and ballooning prison population - now more than 2.3 million. Evidence of state-sponsored warring violence can also be found in the domestic war against "terrorists" (code for young protesters), which provides new opportunities for major defense contractors and corporations to become "more a part of our domestic lives."
Young people, particularly poor minorities of color, have already become the targets of what David Theo Goldberg calls "extraordinary power in the name of securitization ... [they are viewed as] unruly populations ... [who] are to be subjected to necropolitical discipline through the threat of imprisonment or death, physical or social." The rhetoric of war is now used by politicians not only to appeal to a solitary warrior mentality in which responsibility is individualized, but also to attack women's reproductive rights, limit the voting rights of minorities and justify the most ruthless cutting of social protections and benefits for public servants and the poor, unemployed and sick.
This politics and pedagogy of death begins in the celebration of war and ends in the unleashing of violence on all those considered disposable on the domestic front. A survival-of-the-fittest ethic and the utter annihilation of the other have now become normalized, saturating everything from state policy to institutional practices to the mainstream media. How else to explain the growing taste for violence in, for example, the world of professional sports, extending from professional hockey to extreme martial arts events? The debased nature of violence and punishment seeping into the American cultural landscape becomes clear in the recent revelation that the New Orleans Saints professional football team was "running a 'bounty program' which rewarded players for inflicting injuries on opposing players."
In what amounts to a regime of terror pandering to the thrill of the crowd and a take-no-prisoners approach to winning, a coach offered players a cash bonus for "laying hits that resulted in other athletes being carted off the field or landing on the injured player list."
The CIA Obama and America have no shame-
** 60 Minutes Producer: "The Nazis Did A Lot Of This" by Andrew Sullivan at The Dish via The Daily Beast April 30, 2012
here are a couple of things worth knowing about Jose Rodriguez: that he is a war criminal and that he destroyed the evidence that would prove it without a doubt. The third thing you need to know is that he has no shame about any of this, and intends to make money off it.--------------
This man personally oversaw the use of torture techniques known for centuries, universally regarded as torture under domestic and international law, and describes his destruction of critical evidence that would have been invaluable in prosecuting such war crimes as "just getting rid of some ugly visuals." Another term for it is "obstruction of justice," which is not a crime in America if you head the CIA. But the "ugly visuals" were destroyed not for aesthetic reasons:
It was later revealed that the deputy to Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, then Executive Director of the CIA, wrote in an e-mail that Rodriguez thought "the heat from destroying is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain – he said that out of context they would make us look terrible; it would be 'devastating' to us."
"Out of context?" You mean "out of the context that all this had been approved by the president"? One president who broke the law and tried to destroy evidence was impeached and resigned. Then there's the small question of the Big Lie, created by the Cheney faction, that outrageously claims that Rodriguez's war crimes helped catch Osama bin Laden many years and one administration later. The Senate investigation into the CIA Torture program - as exhaustive as one can get - comes to the opposite conclusion
*** Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ? Conservatives Can't Have It Both Ways by Mike Lux at Huffington Post via Alternet.org ,May 1,2012
Many conservatives swear on a stack of Bibles that they worship Jesus Christ when they really bow down to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.May 1, 2012 |
Last week Paul Ryan said that his fondness for the philosophy of Ayn Rand is an "urban legend.” You have to give these wild and crazy Republicans credit for at least one thing: they have cojones the size of the elephants which are the mascots for the party.
The urban myth quote came after a career of Ayn Rand idolatry special even for right-wing Republicans: giving the book to his interns, speaking at Ayn Rand tributes, doing videos about her, saying her philosophy inspired him to get involved in politics. This was no youthful fling, but a lifelong love affair -- until last week , apparently. I've always wondered what politicians are thinking when they say something like this that is so obviously easy to check and refute. Do they really think people are that stupid? Maybe they just think that with the kind of money they can raise, and the Fox News-style, right-wing media to help support them, they can just obliterate the truth with bluster and deafening bombast.
So why is (Paul) Ryan, who is on the short list for Romney’s VP candidate, so eager to erase his (very recent) past obsession with Ayn Rand, whom so many other right wingers adore as well? Because her writing really is so blatantly offensive to anyone not besotted with her. She preached not only the virtue of selfishness, but that any compassion and generosity was a moral wrong because it helped those who were weakening society. She despised not only the poor but even people with disabilities as leeches draining strength from society. She actually hated the Christianity Ryan and every other Republican is obligated by their base to claim they believe in because Jesus taught that the poor were to be cared for, making her views dangerous for Republican politicians to adhere to as much as they love all that pro-selfishness talk.
**** Dozens of Police Evict Georgia Family at Gunpoint at 3am by Steven Rosenfeld Alternet.org, May 5, 2012
The eviction might have been another anonymous descent into poverty were it not for Occupy Atlanta activists who tried to help the family stay.
Four generations of a Georgia family were evicted at gunpoint by dozens of sheriffs and deputies at 3am last week in an Atlanta suburb. The eyebrow-raising eviction, a foreclosure action, might have been another anonymous descent into poverty were it not for Occupy Atlanta activists who tried to help the family stay in Christine Frazer’s home of 18 years.
The eviction came as Frazer, 63, who lost her husband and then job in 2009, had been challenging the foreclosure in county and federal courts by seeking to restructure the terms of a delinquent mortgage. However, the latest holder of her loan, Investors One Corporation—the fourth company that bought her mortgage in an eight-month period—allowed the eviction to proceed even thought it was "negotiating" new loan terms with her attorney one day before the police raid.
DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown told an Atlanta talk radio show a day after the raid that a dozen squad cars and dozens of deputies were needed for the dead-of-night raid because Occupy Atlanta had set up tents on Frazer's property, and his perception of the Occupy activists in other cities led him to believe they could be armed. He also said he timed the eviction to avoid media coverage.
“I made the decision that we were going to do this at 3am for a couple of reasons,” he told WAOK’s Derrick Boazman. “Number one, I have seen the various Occupy groups in various cities operate before. It was an ugly scene in Oakland. I have seen them firsthand in Washington. I’ve seen them on Wall Street. I’ve seen them in Atlanta.”
“I will not participate in a mass demonstration arrest with television cameras when I am not sure I can trust the people who say they will offer passive resistance,” Brown said. “Our intelligence told us that there were at least 10 Occupy Atlanta folks there on the property; that turned out not to be the case. Our intelligence told us that the family had vacated the house; that turned out not to be the case… We made the decision to have enough resources there to make sure it would not get out of hand.”
“They came to my home like I was a drug dealer,” she said. “At 3am in the morning, they knocked on my door. The Dekalb Sheriff’s Department knocked on my door. They opened my door. I knew my rights that I didn’t have to open the door. They came with a locksmith, drilled off the locks, came into my house, with a flashlight in one hand and pistol in the other, [shouting] ‘Who’s in the house? Who’s in the house?’”
Frazer said the sheriff’s department knew exactly who was there—three generations of women in one family and a toddler grandson.
“Who do you think was in the house?” she asked. “My picture and my story have been in the local DeKalb paper. They knew exactly who. Yes, they knew Occupy was there. But Occupy is a nonviolent movement. Nonviolent. These people came at me like I’m a drug dealer and I am doing something wrong. I am just a homeowner.”
Frazer said she was ordered by sheriffs to dress and then vacate the building.
“They told me to pack up as if I just had a fire at my home and take my immediate possessions. And I had to leave immediately. I said, ‘Can I take a shower?’ ‘No, just throw on some clothes.’ It took them seven hours to get that stuff out of my house. They were going to be there anyway. Why couldn’t I take a shower?”
ALTERNET – How the Fundamentalist Mind Compels Conservative Christians to Force Their Beliefs on You at Military Religious Freedom.org, MARCH 19, 2012
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