The Bear is Loose: Obama Now on Full Cruise Control

Conjuring up the inevitable references to Nero fiddling while Rome burned, President Barack Obama took a bit of time out of his daily duties to goof off, eat pizza, suck down some suds and play billiards in Denver. Tough gig presiding over the most vicious and hellbent at global domination empire of the past seventy or so years so the big man - or "the bear" as he now apparently now refers to himself. Hell, it's not like there is really anything going on in the world like an out of control surveillance machine spying on millions of American citizens, nor his neo-Nazi packed death squads engaging in ethnic cleansing in east Ukraine, nor indispensable ally Israel bombing civilians in Gaza, nor relations with critical EU  ally Germany collapsing due to the discovery of two US spies within the government, a humanitarian crisis on the US southern border with hordes of Latin American children coming to America or a bizarre situation involving the bogeyman ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The bear is loose!

It is looking pretty obvious that Obama is going to just milk the gig and run out the clock on his dismal second term in office - has there ever been a lamer duck? In all fairness George W. Bush dicked around on taxpayer money a lot too, mostly retreating to his phony western movie set Chickenhawk Ranch in Crawford, TX to hack away at brush and ride his dirt bike so it's now like Obama is breaking new ground here but it is arguable that Bush never really did much to begin with, leaving all of the heavy lifting to Dick Cheney and later Condi Rice but Obama was supposed to be the man of hope and change. Now that it has all turned into false hope and chump change, never quite able to recover from that initial self inflicted wound of the "Team of Rivals", the underestimating of how the overreaction to a black man as president would fuel a tsunami of ginned up racism that swept the Democrats from control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-terms and the daily pitched battle against both his own incompetent administration as well as the scorched earth obstructionist Republicans. The man was always out of his league to begin with and it's obvious that he is now going to just coast through until January 2017.

The problem, other than the public relations aspect itself is that while Barry is out living it up he is leaving the work of actually running the country to guys like Secretary of State John Kerry, an abject moron albeit one with (like Bush) a Skull and Bones pedigree and Vice President Joe Biden. Other than the obvious set of gonads the one thing that both men have is an uncanny ability to say the dumbest goddamned things at the worst times and in the case of Kerry, chronic diarrhea of the mouth. While Obama yucks it up with the locals on his western foray Kerry has been in China where he like the walking embodiment of American hypocrisy that he has become wags his finger at the Chinese for spying. The latest breach being that Chinese technical wizards allegedly hacked into the database of the USG Office of Personnel Management. According to a story in The Guardian entitled "Kerry hits out at Chinese cyber-spying":

US secretary of state John Kerry condemned Chinese cyber-espionage in unusually strong terms while wrapping up a series of high-level meetings in Beijing on Thursday, as reports surfaced that Chinese hackers breached the US office of personnel management (OPM) earlier this year.

"Instances of cyber theft have harmed our business and threatened our nation's competitiveness," Kerry said at a joint closing session of the sixth annual strategic and economic dialogue, as it wrapped up its second day. "The loss of intellectual property through cyber [spying] has a chilling effect on innovation and investment."

AND

China foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei brushed off the allegation at a regular press briefing on Thursday. "Some US media and US cyber security [firms] always smear China and create the theory that China is a cyber threat, but they can't provide sufficient evidence of that," he said. "We feel strongly that these kinds of reports and comments are irresponsible and not worth a comment or refuting."

How John Forbes Kerry and by extension ANY representative of the USA! USA! USA!  actually elieve that they can possibly be taken serious anymore on anything outside of our cloistered borders is astonishing, the very epitome of the arrogance of American exceptionalism. Perhaps the greatest service provided by former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has performed is in outing the spying programs of the US government is that he exposed the entire rancid assembly of clowns as the phonies and hypocrites that they are. That Kerry lectured the Chinese at the same time that German Chancellor Angela Merkel ousted the CIA Station Chief from Germany over the discovery of the two moles shows the completely surreal alternate universe in which the Obama regime operates. It would by piss in your pants funny were it not so dangerous. It all brings to mind that great old Chinese of "may you live in interesting times".

Obama should have picked up a good supply of pot in Denver now that it's legal, since he already has spent years stumbling around is if in a drug induced fog what would the difference be if he just kicked back and pounded the bong for the next thirty months.

Return of the Day of the Flag Suckers

“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”

-H.L. Mencken

There is perhaps no national holiday that has been more debauched and bastardized in the era of the flag-sucker that began on September 12, 2001 than The Fourth of July. Independence Day used to be a celebration of rebellion from tyranny when the Declaration of Independence was rolled out back in 1776 telling King George and the British to shove jolly old England straight up their asses, a declaration of war against the mighty Empire by those who desired to be free rather than subjects. Even prior to The Day When Everything Changed , The Fourth of July had already been bled of most of its true meaning into a crass celebration of the worship of the American state along with retail sales, baseball games, barbecues, concerts and parties and above all the ultimate symbol of all - the US flag.

The eruption of raw nationalism and supplication of oneself to the all-powerful authoritarian machine that while well known outside of US borders - particularly to the victims of the despotic regimes funded by big moneyed corporate and financial interests in too many countries to easily list - had yet to be unleashed domestically and when it was then any remaining vestiges of a free republic and a functional democracy perished. A new and dangerous era of the perversion of all that this country once stood for was forged in the furnace of the inferno of the collapsing World Trade Center towers and unleashed upon the planet like a malevolent army of darkness. The true darkness, the pitch black void that replaced the American soul took this country by the throat and bludgeoned the population into meek submission to a rising domestic tyranny through fear, demagoguery and most importantly of all - the thirst for blood vengeance to be exacted for the taking down of the towers. From that day on, we became a nation of sheep, arisen from the ashes and united under fascism.

It is a difficult slog to get through this national holiday anymore given the hypocrisy, phoniness, ignorance and acceptance of that big slice of apple pie authoritarianism that has been shoved down our throats here in the USA!, USA! USA! and the bacchanal of bullshit wrapped in the flag and served up warm by the media and political figures with the occasional celebrity mixed in. This is not the day to watch televised sporting or other events as the already intolerable level of faux patriotic hogwash that rises to overkill gets turned up several notches. Just like the NFL games the Sunday before veterans day and all of the militarist masturbation that saturates them, or near the annual anniversary of 9/11 which through some collective display of national mental sickness has been inventively tabbed as Patriot Day. The worst will be tonight as the fireworks displays are set off after a good amount of drinking and feasting on pink slime burgers and industrial sewage stuffed hot dogs has taken place. The strains of Lee Greenwald's "God Bless the USA" will resonate across the fruited plain just as our alternate national anthem "God Bless America" will and there will be nary a dry eye in the land as we celebrate our glorious uniformed heroes.

But really, what does this country - now repackaged as The Homeland - truly stand for in the middle of the second decade of the new American century? Here are but a few of those things that result in convulsions of national pride and the waving of cheaply made flags to the strains of drunkenly warbled paeans to patriotism:

It is NSA surveillance - without warrants or probable cause - of millions of law-abiding American citizens, the latest in an ongoing series of ghastly revelations is that even the mere researching of internet privacy tools makes one subject to scrutiny and branded as an "extremist" and a "terrorist".

It is using the NSA surveillance to target groups based upon their religion and ethnicity - particularly Muslims who have been selected as that most necessary of things to a totalitarian state - a national scapegoat. Hitler had the Jews and our God-kissed, exceptional Christian nation has the Muslims. Not that most Americans give a tin shit and I suspect that many will be roasting copies of the Koran at their Fourth of July BBQ's today.

It is a Supreme Court packed with Catholic corporate fascists who only days ago ruled that employees can be subject to the religious ideologies of their corporate employers. It is the ultimate legal seal of approval on the persecution of non-Christians by narrow-minded, judgmental, superstitious bigots as well as the triumph of the willfully ignorant. But institutionalized discrimination is as much an American tradition as mom and apple pie and foreign wars.

It is an army of enraged armchair patriots, waving their made in China miniature versions of Old Glory and screaming indignities at refugee children in California – what they don’t bother to tell them on FOX News is that if their skin isn’t red ,then their own foreign born descendants once sought refuge in this country as well. The most disgusting aspect of this is that they were targeting children for Christ's sake.  

It is an economy that enriches the few and the connected with government subsidized gambling money, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shattered the 17,000 mark yesterday to the gleeful squealing of the pigs who profit off of such exploitation at the expense of others. There was jubilation from the propagandizing media shills over the creation of a whopping 288,000 McJobs and those Fourth of July parties in Martha's Vineyard, The Hampton's and other enclaves of the looter class will be particularly lavish today as the majority of Americans are suffering from a crushing rise in food and energy prices.

It is a 19 month old child maimed when a military flash grenade was thrown into his crib in Georgia during one of those increasingly commonplace no-knock home invasions by our national paramilitary police goon squads who are glorified in movies and on television despite the obvious tracking towards the militarizing of law enforcement. The ACLU just released a report entitled "The War Comes Home" on this black-suited menace to any concept of a free society.

It is a newly invigorated wave of fear-mongering thanks to the deteriorating situation in the Middle East where US meddling and destabilization has set Iraq ablaze and Obama is sending American servicemen and women back into the Mesopotamian meat-grinder for the the third time since 1991. The rise of ISIS and the new caliphate is like a gift from the Gods to the surveillance and security state and the billions upon billions of dollars of taxpayer money that is funneled into tighter airport security and spying. The airport security is especially convenient in that it serves to condition the population to be obedient to the state and accept humiliations inflicted upon it. Oh lord how the money is going to roll in and it is pretty damned good politics heading in to the latest leg of our perpetual election cycle in Der Heimat.

It is an American prisoner of war, Bowe Bergdahl being crucified by warmongers upon a red, white and blue cross of hatred as a symbol of their failed wars. 

It is the funding of neo-Nazi death squads operating along with the illegitimate, US backed coup government of Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine as ethnic cleansing is conducted in the eastern part of that misery ridden country and covered up by the sycophantic, state-controlled mainstream US corporate media.

It is the relentless crusade by extremist politicians - particularly neocons and Republicans to keep the offshore torture facility and concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay open for business and the flag flying high over all of the heinous and barbaric acts that have been inflicted upon those imprisoned there. But more importantly, to keep it open until the political climate is just right to start sending American citizens and political dissidents there - which will be soon.

It is a country as steeped in backwards ass religious fundamentalism that rejects science, free thinking and basic human dignity just like their mortal enemies who practice fundamentalist Islam. There is really very little real difference between the two and our American "Christians" will delight in engaging in their own waves of cruelty and atrocities when the time comes.

It is Dick Cheney having rough anal sex with an inflatable statue of liberty doll, after he tortures it of course.

And most of all it is ignorance and hypocrisy but such inconvenient things are easily washed away by the holy water of American exceptionalism and the adherents to this dogma frolic naked in those waters as though they were lepers splashing away in the fountains at Lourdes.

And it is all horseshit, patriotic upchucking and a dishonor to all of those who died in wars for "those freedoms" that are so exalted - at least the wars prior to when the USA!, USA!, USA! went totally rogue shortly after World War II and eventually cut a bloody swath through Vietnam before ending up in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.  So happy fucking Fourth of July! Have a beer and just try not to think about reality.

Those who are nauseated to the spectacle of the cheap veneration of the flag as somehow being the symbol for this country rather than the ideals upon which it was founded can take some solace that the US soccer team was knocked out of the World Cup on Tuesday for the vomit-inducing hero worship would be intolerable were there to be a match today. Hell, it used to be that American's didn't give a rat's ass about soccer - it was for sissies, real men after all play football. But the outpouring of nationalism at huge World Cup viewing parties this year is really more than just being about soccer - it is about opening that can of American whup-ass and pouring it out all over any other country that lies outside the borders and that is what our recent explosion of soccer mania really is when you strip away the star spangled facade. The losers did get a glorious consolation prize when they were honored by the Pope of American exceptionalism - President Barack Obama who scored in the public relations game by calling selected members of the losing team to congratulate them after the game.

So it could be worse.. but it is a damned good day to drink heavily, especially since this year it fell on a Friday and tomorrow isn't a workday.

And all of that stuff about the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence, when you take a good look around none of it really matters much anymore does it?

The NSA War on Privacy Rages On as Tor Project Users Targeted

With Glenn Greenwald's spectacular fireworks show having been quashed by the US government mere hours prior to publication on the increasingly suspect website The Intercept, we have been deprived - at least for now - of really big and shocking revelations but that doesn't mean that stories of the rampage of the NSA aren't getting out through other forums. In the most recent non-shocking disclosure of the war on privacy by the American Stasi anyone who attempts to use encryption and privacy tools in order to circumvent their prying eyes is on the ever-growing list of suspects. In a story from the German websites Das Erste and Tagesschau (you will need Google Translate) that is cited in stories on the blog Boing Boing and on libertarian financial website Zero Hedge the criteria that is used by the hive of scum and villainy at Fort Meade to cull the herd for those meriting the most attention via the XKeyscore program that was exposed by Greenwald based on documents provided to him by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden last year.

According to the German stories, in which the deep packet inspection rules as revealed by authors Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz specifically target internet users who search for and utilize privacy tools such as the Tor Project browser and the Tails operating system. According to the story on Boing Boing, entitled "If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance":

Since the start of the Snowden story in 2013, the NSA has stressed that while it may intercept nearly every Internet user's communications, it only "targets" a small fraction of those, whose traffic patterns reveal some basis for suspicion. Targets of NSA surveillance don't have their data flushed from the NSA's databases on a rolling 48-hour or 30-day basis, but are instead retained indefinitely.

The authors of the Tagesschau story have seen the "deep packet inspection" rules used to determine who is considered to be a legitimate target for deep surveillance, and the results are bizarre.

According to the story, the NSA targets anyone who searches for online articles about Tails -- like this one that we published in April, or this article for teens that I wrote in May -- or Tor (The Onion Router, which we've been posted about since 2004). Anyone who is determined to be using Tor is also targeted for long-term surveillance and retention.

AND

One expert suggested that the NSA's intention here was to separate the sheep from the goats -- to split the entire population of the Internet into "people who have the technical know-how to be private" and "people who don't" and then capture all the communications from the first group.

Goats and sheep - how apropos, considering the overwhelming number of the latter the NSA's job will be much easier, these are the sort of low-information, self-centered, living in denial ignoramuses whose standard reply to the unprecedented scale of domestic surveillance is usually "I don't care if they are spying on me because I am doing nothing wrong" who can be pretty much eliminated in that they gobble up the state supplied bullshit biscuits and therefore are low maintenance. Goats on the other hand - and I include myself as well as all of you readers in that particular group - are very dangerous in that they are able to understand the grave violations of the Constitution and extrapolate into the future of star-spangled totalitarianism that is coming soon.

Let's face it, the Goats have the ability to make life difficult for the criminal classes and their fascist protectors in agencies like the NSA and therefore they need to be identified and tracked very closely to prevent them from organizing, gaining popularity or penetrating the propaganda system and gaining the crossover appeal that could rapidly trigger the tipping point. The Goats have very sensitive bullshit detectors and fully understand that the apple pie authoritarianism won't resemble the classical fascist and totalitarians of the past. 

I have always agreed with the comments of former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (he was played by Kevin Costner in the Oliver Stone movie JFK) from a 1967 Playboy Magazine interview from which I excerpt:

Over the years, I guess I've developed a somewhat conservative attitude --- in the traditional libertarian sense of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism of the paramilitary right --- particularly in regard to the importance of the individual as opposed to the state and the individual's own responsibilities to humanity. I don't think I've ever tried to formulate this into a coherent political philosophy, but at the root of my concern is the conviction that a human being is not a digit; he's not a digit in regard to the state and he's not a digit in the sense that he can ignore his fellow men and his obligations to society.

I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I've always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I'm concerned about all of this because it isn't German phenomenon; it's a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man.

What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one of the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution.

In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same.

I've learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the state and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism." I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.

Garrison was absolutely right, fascism has come to America in the name of national security and the NSA serves as that all-seeing eye at the top of they pyramid and from it flows all of the information that drives the machinery of the police state. Ironic that today as I write this it is the Fourth of July, the day of an orgy of excess of blindly-obedient flag-sucking and worship of the fascist state. The sheep will gather at their celebrations of the glories of their red, white and blue Leviathan swilling beer, stuffing their faces with hamburgers and hot dogs and flying high off of the jingoism and subservience to a system that they have no inkling of what it really stands for, its true history of murderous wars, suppression and imposition of corporate friendly dictators upon those who were once identified as Goats but had the misfortune of living in a country policed by graduates of the School of Americas.

In a way it is hard to fault them for their "American Insouciance", the indoctrination of the exceptional people has been drilled into their brains since their formative years when they were taught to stand with their hand over their hearts and to pledge allegiance to the flag. Such a thing has no place in a free society but neither does massive warrantless surveillance nor paramilitary police shock troops.  It is just easier not to think and just watch the fireworks displays though rather than tax the brains of lemmings with existential questions that contradict their false belief systems. 

Ugly Americans Not Winning Hearts and Minds

There is no question, nor any wonder that the lofty esteem once enjoyed by this at one time great country in the eyes of the civilized world has evaporated since the commencement of the hegemonic crusade that was foisted off as the global war on terror in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Now midway through the second decade of the twenty first century we are a global pariah, feared and mocked across the face of the globe. The haughty air of superiority and the bullying, both militarily and financially by the arrogant asses who inhabit the political class are but one reason but it also comes down to the citizenry of our great star-spangled lemming colony and the mental disease that is American exceptionalism and the indoctrinated concept that we are number one.

Watching yesterday's World Cup match between the United States and Portugal was as much an exercise in endurance off the field that in the stifling humidity in Manaus, Brazil withe all of the vomit inducing flag-waving courtesy of the television network (ABC/ESPN) and the focus on the Americans in the stadium with their pumping fists, waving of miniature sized versions of old glory and chants of USA! USA! USA!. There was even some moron decked out as Teddy Roosevelt ironic in that this country certainly doesn't "speak softly and carry a big stick" now or ever. The Roosevelt imitator only drove home the historical tone-deafness as well as the worship of imperialism as a national religion. There were also cutaways by the network to hordes of flag-waving, chanting and fist-pumping Americans in New York City as well as at Forward Operating Base Lightning in Afghanistan where our imperial storm-troopers are currently mired in another one of the ongoing campaigns of conquest and oppression by the American war machine.

The red, white and blue, mom, apple pie and storm the beaches aspects of the broadcast truly sullied the viewing experience of what was a great game when a brilliant, late goal off of a head shot by Portugal's Silvestre Varela ended up in the net behind a distraught US goaltender Tim Howard for a 2-2 tie that felt like a crushing loss in that what was in inevitable win was turned into a defeat - just like Iraq if you listen to the neocons - despite a brilliant job by the troops/players. The tie deprived the US team of a spot in the next round - for now anyway as rumors are swirling over a secret deal between the USA!, USA!, USA! and Thursday's opponent Germany to play to a tie allowing both teams to advance. Hell, that is the way that things are done in this country anymore where getting over is the highest national virtue and cheating is an acceptable way of doing things, it works for the corporations, the politicians, the banks and the American capitalist system itself as it has mutated into cronyism and getting the government to provide competitive advantage through NSA spying and economic sanctions. WE CHEAT and it is encouraged to do so. Not that one could expect the rabble to show up in a foreign country and show some humility - at least when not waving guns - but there is an obvious reason for why we are loathed and it is ugly-Americanism.

Other than the World Cup crowds there was another great example of how others truly feel about the US Empire these days when a recording of a dinner conversation surfaced  in which the Polish Foreign Minister claimed that the country's relationship with the US was "worthless" and that they had given the US a "blow job" From a story in The Guardian entitled "Polish foreign minister says country's alliance with US worthless":

A Polish news magazine said on Sunday it had obtained a secret recording of Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in contention for a senior European Union job, saying that Poland's relationship with the United States was worthless.

The Wprost news magazine said the recording was of a private conversation earlier this year between Sikorski and Jacek Rostowski, a member of parliament with the ruling Civic Platform who until last year was finance minister.

The magazine did not say who recorded the conversation, or how it obtained the recording.

Aides to Sikorski and Rostowski said they had no immediate comment. A government spokeswoman said it was hard to form a view based on a few excerpts of a conversation, but there might be a comment later.

According to a transcript of excerpts of the conversation that was published by Wprost on its Internet site, Sikorski told Rostowski: "You know that the Polish-US alliance isn't worth anything."

"It is downright harmful, because it creates a false sense of security ... Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians and we'll think that everything is super, because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers."

According to the transcript, Sikorski described Warsaw's attitude towards the United States using the Polish word "murzynskosc."

That derives from the word "murzyn," which denotes a dark-skinned person and someone who does the work for somebody else, according to the PWN Polish language dictionary.

The remarks were brief excerpts from a longer conversation between the two men, and it was not immediately clear if Sikorski had made comments elsewhere in the conversation that contradicted those excerpts.

Winning hearts and minds in the New American Century - from an early look at comment sections and Twitter in regards to the "blow job" comment there is an onslaught of Pollack jokes from the aggrieved Archie Bunkers of this society whose world view is formed from sitting on their asses in front of their televisions and blindly sucking up all of the lies of the government. Sucks but this is what passes for American pride these days.

Obama Sells the Exceptionalist Snake Oil

President Barack Obama ‘s foreign policy speech to the corporate cannon fodder at West Point last week has been lambasted by the usual neocon warmongers for not being sufficiently bellicose for their world domination tastes. It was however a speech that while missing the bombastic rhetoric that is so beloved by the Dick Cheney-William Kristol rat pack doubled-down on that most obscene and dangerous concept of American exceptionalism. This idea so long that it exists - and particularly when the political class in the - USA! USA! USA! – toss it around so casually without regard to the consequences, and it will be the phrase of the next two and a half years in the never-ending election cycle  - will never allow for the sort of honest introspection that would allow for a change of course. Not that the Empire would want such a thing, that happened after Vietnam and it only took a few years to trot out the pitchman Ronald Reagan to make America feel good about itself again and get back to the business of killing others in foreign lands.

The exceptionalist concept is really very Aryan in nature when you think about it, William Blum pointed out the correlation correctly in observing that some common Nazi phrases apply rather well in The Homeland:

Seig Heil! = Hail Victory!

Arbeit macht frei = Work makes you free

Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland und morgen die ganze Welt = Today Germany, tomorrow the world.

Ich habenur den Befehlen gehortch! = I was only following orders

Deutschland über alles = Germany above all

Each of those are easily adapted to the American experience in the 21st Century along with:

War is Peace

Ignorance is Strength

Freedom is Slavery

2+2=5

And from Barack Obama’s West Point Address:

 I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.”

The speech could have been given by George W. Bush, so full of interventionism, bogus historical references and a call for US world domination – albeit a bit more subtle than the Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen blitzkrieg of shock and awe. Obama in his speech continued to promulgate the falsehood of “democracy” in Ukraine omitting the $5 billion dollars spent by NGO groups to plot the overthrow of the corrupt oligarch Viktor Yanukovych by US sponsored fascist and neo-Nazi thugs only to install another corrupt oligarch in Petro Poroshenko aka “the Chocolate King”. Obama’s stem-winder was a wretched excess of fables, an orgy of lies and a bacchanalia of bullshit.

Former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts, a prolific critic of the rottenness that emanates from Washington really nailed Obama’s peddling of exceptionalism in his most recent piece entitled “What Obama Told Us at West Point”:

At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words:

“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.”

Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.

“American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments:

 “Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.”

Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.

The reference to Soviet tanks rolling into Eastern Europe is a reference to the Hungarian (1956) and Czech (1968) “revolutions” when the Hungarian and Czech communist leaders attempted to assert independence from Moscow. It is doubtful that Washington’s response to countries attempting to exit NATO would be any different. A few months ago Washington responded to political talk in Germany and England about leaving the EU by informing both governments that it was not in Washington’s interest for them to depart from the European Union.

Obama used the image of Soviet tanks in order to color Russia with the Soviet Threat, to mischaracterize Russia’s response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, and to misrepresent Crimea’s vote in favor of reunification with Russia as “Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.” These lies are still a mainstay in the US media and in Washington’s official propaganda.

Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.”

Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders.

By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”

Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.”

In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure.

Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.

The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China.

The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.

HEAR! HEAR!  Now that is something to salute!

The narcotic of exceptionalism is what leads to a population that has been brainwashed by years of propaganda, indoctrinated in the mythology of a national destiny and greatness as surely as Germany was circa 1933 and enamored with war and hegemony in a way that makes acceptable the crucifixion of a soldier who questioned the morality of it all – Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl – to a red, white and blue cross of sick hypocrisy dipped in national glory.

Salute the Flag, Drink the Kool Aid, Drop the Bombs – USA! USA! USA!

American Exceptionalism: The Last Refuge of Scoundrels

During his address before the U.N. General Assembly, the  the air still bearing a slight whiff of the sulfur of the devilish lies of George W. Bush and Colin Powell a decade ago it was Barack Hussein Obama seizing the pulpit from which to deliver a lecture to those less exceptional than Americans. Mr. Obama piled on the standard imperial teleprompter boilerplate to justify the eternal wars of Oceania. He also continued to push for his belated strike on Syria and invoke once again the Ghouta gas attacks which he and the Skull and Bones member who is the  Secretary of State despite their efforts have never proven to be the actions of the Assad regime.  While it wasn’t quite the in your face lies about Saddam’s mobile chemical weapons labs Barry wrapped it all up in lofty language that means only one thing - the business of the United States is war and only war.

Obama pontificated - transcript courtesy of the New York Times, [bracketed verbiage is the writer’s]:
Assad’s traditional allies [TRANSLATION: RUSSIA] have propped him up, citing principles of sovereignty to shield his regime. And on August 21st, the regime used chemical weapons in an attack that killed more than 1,000 people including hundreds of children. [As is always left out is what makes hundreds of children gassed by a still unknown culprit different from the thousands of dead children who fall victim to U.S. iron fragmentation bombs, white phosphorous, napalm and errant drone strikes]

The crisis in Syria, and the destabilization of the region, goes to the heart of broader challenges that the international community must now confront. How should we respond to conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa - conflicts between countries but also conflicts within them [Africa here we come]? How do we address the choice of standing callously by while children [whom slimy politicians like Barry never hesitate to use as human shields for their lies be they dead from the bullets of a lunatic in a grade school classroom or gassed by an undetermined party on the outskirts of Damascus] are subjected to nervr gas, or embroiling ourselves in someone else’s civil war? What is the role of the United Nations, and international law [which Barry and the boys wouldn’t know if it sneaked up behind them and bit them in the ass], in meeting cries for justice?

Today, I want to outline where the United States of America stands on these issues. With respect to Syria, we believe that as a starting point [the bombers are being scrambled soon], the international community must enforce the ban on chemical weapons [excepting those that are in the arsenals of the U.S. and Israel]. When I stated my willingness to order a limited strike against the Assad regime in response to the brazen use of chemical weapons, I did not do so lightly. I did so because it is in the security interest of the United States [Hogwash] and the world to enforce a prohibition whose origins are older than the U.N. itself [again U.S. chemical weapons stocks are excluded]. The ban against the use of chemical weapons [Agent Orange?], even in war, has been agreed to by 98 percent of humanity. It is strengthened by the searing memories of soldiers suffocated in the trenches; Jews slaughtered in gas chambers [obligatory mention of the poor Holocaust victims to sell more murder and curry favor with AIPAC]; and Iranians poisoned in the many tens of thousands [see recent report on CIA knowledge of Saddam’s chemical weapons program].

I could go on but why bother? Obama is a pathological liar, a war criminal and when it really gets right down it a terrorist for his administration's killing of civilians, those are the unspoken qualifications to get the POTUS gig and he has adapted well. The man composes kill lists over this Cheerios and orange juice and is second to none when it comes to racking up the body count of innocent civilians killed by drone strikes. He is also itching for a proxy war with Vlad Putin who served him up a triple-decker shit sandwich with a vodka chaser, first over the granting of asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and then for pouncing on the buffoonish John Kerry’s gaffe by getting Assad to offer up a listing of his chemical weapons to prevent an imminent attack. Yet Barry just keeps repackaging the same crap and selling it to the masses and the primary reason that he is able to get away with any of these horrendous falsehoods is thanks to that wonderful little thing that is  American exceptionalism.

American exceptionalism is the one unassailable remaining powerful talisman that protects the agenda of the elite and Barry just played that card at the U.N. with all the deftness of a seasoned riverboat card cheat. "Some may disagree, but I believe that America is exceptional,...In part because we have shown a willingness, through the sacrifice of blood and treasure, to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interests of all" dear leader explained.  The wound to national pride has been laid open over the Russian slights and Obama and his ilk have hastily poured on the salt after Putin had the audacity to have a column published in the New York Times calling out the warmongering cowboy state and its self-proclaimed, some may perceive even god-kissed greatness:

“it is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

Putin was of course roundly denounced by the American political classes and masses of asses alike, if as the saying goes that “God created all men equal” then it is what it is and there are really no exclusions or caveats that we here on the star spangled lemming farm are any goddamned better than anyone else. Putin was of course pilloried for it by the pocket press, our rancid politicians and now Barry himself but he is correct, at least when referencing the U.S. Declaration of Independence that – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” You would figure that a former community organizer and constitutional law professor would get this but in 2013 George Orwell is much more accurate source on all things American than George Washington. In Orwell's novel  Animal Farm it is laid out in more realistic language befitting the country that we currently live in -   "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

As if an invocation of John Wayne’s America given by Barry at the U.N. actually means anything. That is other than yet another example to the civilized world that America stands for one thing and one thing only – the ability to kick the hell out of anyone who disagrees with this silly, childish fantasy of national greatness. American exceptionalism is like the belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or some other fictional entity.  We are exceptional in the manner to which so much of the population continues to be hoodwinked by that biggest lie of all – that we are better than everyone on the planet because we will eagerly feed our young military men and women into the meat grinder of wars, invasions and occupations as a blood sacrifice to the defense industry and the big banks to hoard more treasure. Obama has made some unbelievably stupid statements during his tenure in office (red line anyone?) but this immediately rockets to the top of the list.

The TRUE version of our exceptionalism is embodied in this snippet from the late Hunter S. Thompson –

The New Hammerhead was a perfect cowboy. He was vicious & stupid & ignorant of everything except his own fears and appetites. He beat the mortal shit out of anything that made him uneasy, for any reason at all. The Hammerhead was a perfect warrior. He defended the flag. Any flag. He learned to understand words like “orders” and “patriotism”, but the secret of his success was an animal taste for blood. He thrived on motion. But he was brainless; he had to be aimed.

The leadership of this country long ago ceded the moral high ground to the gods of war and high finance and in sacrificing their very people as nothing more than grist for the military-banking money mills the state is all too happy to grind their bones to make their bread and to keep them placated with the lie of American exceptionalism. I suppose that it is all that is left to offer now since the mythical American dream was already debunked by our brand of flag-draped vulture capitalism and just doesn’t resonate in tent cities, soup lines, sacrifice zones and ghettos.  Millions are deprived of their ability to earn a decent living because millions of good jobs were offshored to third world countries, their homes foreclosed upon by racketeer big banks in bed with big government and the star-bellied Sneetches living large in The Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard and other posh enclaves of the filthy rich who want it all.  So let them eat war and take pride in just how exceptionally we can drop billions of dollars of weaponry on their counterparts in countries deemed to be enemies of this one.

A bit of recommended reading for those who understand the horrors of the unleashed, crony capitalist, government backed corporate state is the book by former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges and artist Joe Sacco entitled Days Of Destruction, Days of Revolt. A damning look at how the machine chews up the lives those who find themselves defenseless and in it's path. I excerpt the following statistical references from the prelude that are testament to our exceptionalism. Note that the book was published in 2012 so these may not still be accurate – they could be even worse:

AMONG INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS, THE UNITED STATES HAS THE

Highest poverty rate, both generally and for children
Greatest inequality of incomes
Lowest average number of days for paid holiday, annual leaves, and maternity leaves
Lowest social mobility
Highest infant mortality rate
Highest prevalence of mental-health problems
Highest obesity rate
Highest consumption of antidepressants per capita
Highest military spending as a percentage of GDP
Largest international arms sales
Highest homicide Rate
Largest prison population per capita.

To add to the list let us not forget a  government that is both morally and fiscally bankrupt thanks to the folks that George Washington once referred to as “squadrons of corrupt paper dealers”.
A legacy of shame that gestated in the torture chambers of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison as well as a network of black sites.

A good chunk of a national population that is comprised with electronically lobotomized, willfully ignorant television addicted zombies.

A nation of functional illiterates who if they even bother to read at all only bother with the comics and sports sections and bizarre interpretations of the bible as revised by Elmer Gantry style tent preachers, false prophets and televangelist phonies.

A political system that is a mockery of any serious concept of democracy so thoroughly corrupted it has become by big money.

A for-profit prison gulag system that blows away anything that Stalin could have imagined.

And Christ knows how many more lamentable illustrations at just how rotten that this place has become thanks to decades of corrupt ‘leadership’ as we move rapidly into full collapse.

RUN THAT UP THE EXCEPTIONAL FLAGPOLE AND SALUTE IT!!!

Putin Punks Barry and the Boys

While he is far from the perfect messenger Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered the perfect message with his virulently denounced New York Times Op Ed. Putin, right on the heels of Obama’s vomit inducing nationally broadcast teleprompter recital on Tuesday night proceeded to literally disembowel dear leader, mocking the in over his head amateur who serves as our reality TV president. In the column the Russian leader dared to invoke the forbidden history that during World War II that his country was an ally of the U.S. and Britain and helped to defeat the Nazis. It is arguable that Russian fighting against the Germans at Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of mankind turned the tide and allowed for the allies to win the war. The Russians chewed up the Nazis in that brutal winter mosh pit of misery that caused the lunatic Adolf Hitler to arrogantly lose a good chunk of his military power while delivering a crushing blow to German resolve. The extreme violence and devastation on the Eastern front were critical in allowing the Americans to successfully invade Europe and then roll over the Nazis as they roared towards Berlin. The Russians don’t get enough credit here while Sir Winston gets too much of it but such is standard western hypocrisy that we are constantly fed. Especially though when one of those hypocrisies was throwing in with the despotic Joseph Stalin who was right up there with Hitler when it comes to crimes against humanity but he was our kind of bastard at just the right time. The leadership of this country has quite an impressive  track record when it comes to supporting ruthless scum who torture and murder their own people so that western business interests can open new markets and plunder resources.

But I digress…

The reminder that Russia and Uncle Sam were on the same side in the “good war” upon which such a hallowed status has been bestowed so as to justify all other wars may have been a nicely delivered and well-deserved body blow but what came next sent the swine into orbit. Putin delivered a nice running dropkick in the nuts to Obama and his warmongering cohorts in correctly pointing out that “millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under “your’re either with us or against us.”  Vladimir had that just a tad wrong though because there are millions right here in Der Homeland who feel exactly the same way. With the stumblebum Obama then on the ropes Putin delivered the knockout punch in calling out Barry’s appeals to that most destructive of concepts that is American exceptionalism:

“it is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

Then the bell rang as Obama hit the canvas and the pigs started crying foul.

The corporate-state media was unanimous in the condemnation of Putin. Liberal hacks were busily exploiting gay people as political footballs in decrying Putin’s persecution of homosexuals. Right wingers were in a fury because their mythical belief in an almighty and just America had been challenged, it was as though Putin had spat upon Marion Morrison’s (aka John Wayne) grave.  Bombs Away McCain who is a textbook example of the “ugly American” wants to personally throw down with Putin by writing his own column for Pravda. Is this a sick country or what? The near sexual allure of attacking Syria is so intense that even the notorious anti-Muslim bigot and IRA terrorist supporter Peter King is saying that he is thinking about running for president.

Meanwhile the war machine continues to churn out the propaganda, notably a piece in the Wall Street Journal titled Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile by a trio of establishment hacks. The piece goes on to chronicle the exploits of a “secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program” that has been “moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track”. The piece has more holes than Swiss cheese, first and foremost being that if the unit was so “secret” how is it that the standard unnamed “American and Middle East officials” know about it and second just why in the hell should anyone believe a damned thing that is published in the Wall Street Journal?

This is the same paper that was just embarrassed for prominently featuring a pro-Syrian war columnist named Elizabeth O’Bagy who was exposed as a fraud. Ms. O’Bagy whose columns were cited as justification for war by both Secretary of Skull and Bones John Kerry and the increasingly unstable war freak John McCain was no objective source of information. She was actually a plant at the WSJ who worked for one of those ubiquitous neocon think tanks as well as a paid shill for the Syrian rebels. Her work included debunking the ugly truths that the same rebels that are being armed by the U.S. are chock-a-block with fanatical Islamists including members of Al Qaeda. When it was found that she had lied about her academic credentials the think tank which goes by the name The Institute for the Study of War  flew into damage controle mode and fired O'Bagy. This not only speaks volumes of a lack of journalistic integerity at the Rupert Murdoch owned WSJ. a rag that routinely pimps neocon propaganda but also to the disturbing degree of influence that the neocons still exercise over U.S. foreign policy following their role in the Iraq fiasco. I am sure that O’Bagy will soon get another gig at another neocon think tank, they will just know better than to trot her out as a PhD because when it comes right down to it even a monkey can wave a bloody flag.

The second big propaganda story is that the mysterious Al Qaeda “leader” Ayman al-Zawahri a man who has become the Emmanuel Goldstein of the times surfaced to call for “small-scale attacks inside the United States to bleed America economically”. Hell, when it comes to bleeding the country economically the Obama administration and our treacherous congress are already doing exactly that right now. Consider also that with the looming appointment of the insipid, bursting at the seams burlap bagful of pigshit Larry Summers, a key contributor to the current economic disaster as Federal Reserve Chairman Barry has already beaten al-Zawahri/Goldstein to the punch. As for the “small scale” attacks that is all just more of the same state hogwash to justify ever more invasive NSA Stasi surveillance and police state tactics to be directed towards anti-war activists, anti-tax groups and anyone who dares to complain about the jackboot that has been applied to the nation’s trachea ever since those towers fell.  Barry and the boys were already steaming over their entire botched Syrian attack and now having to endure the added indignity of Putin appearing in the nation’s largest newspaper just to apply a nice twist to Obama’s balls they are spoiling for blood vengeance. Too bad that it is only going to be the innocent who will end up paying the price but that is what bullies are all about.

While the establishment pigs bleated in a cacophony of phony outrage over the Putin column and always dutiful on the payroll media propagandists carried their water in smearing Putin there were alternative media writers who as usual were spot on with their analysis. Former Reagan administration figure Paul Craig Roberts, a prolific and vocal critic of the transformation of what was once a free country into the doomed empire of greed, war and stupidity that it has become in the new American century wrote in his column Putin Steps Into World Leadership Role:

If Putin had wanted to give obama the full rebuke that obama deserves, Putin could have said: “obama is correct that the policy of the US government is what makes the US exceptional. The US is the only country in the world that has attacked 8 countries in 12 years, murdering and dispossessing millions of Muslims all on the basis of lies. This is not an exceptionalism of which to be proud."

Another uncompromising critic of our hypocritical and deadly foreign policy, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com in his column Putin the Peacemaker nailed it:

The mystic doctrine of "American exceptionalism" has long dominated the foreign policy consensus in Washington. It has both "right" and "left" versions, but in both cases the idea is essentially the same: John F. Kennedy gave voice to it in his 1961 Inaugural Address, when he declared the US must "pay any price, bear any burden" in the international struggle to contain the Communist Menace in Latin America and elsewhere. It was the rhetorical prelude to the Bay of Pigs disaster and our increasing military presence in Vietnam.

Although Communism was the bogeyman of the moment, the "pay any price bear any burden" mentality survived the cold war: Indeed, the demise of the old Soviet Union emboldened America’s political class to update and upgrade this exceptionalism, which supposedly gives us a divine mandate to police the post-cold war world order in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan – and now Syria. If any other nation arrogated this task to itself, it would be called by its right name: imperialism. Yet that’s what "American exceptionalism" is all about: we’re supposedly the exception to this rule.

Except we’re not, as Putin points out – and the American people agree. The US public is often characterized as being "war weary," as if they are slouches, selfish monsters who have put down this noble burden at the very moment it must be taken up with fresh vigor. Yet what they are weary of is the arrogance that engenders our foreign policy of perpetual war: the self-satisfied smugness with which our elites weave narratives that turn out to be a passel of lies. Americans are empire-weary because they see the corroding effects of imperialism on their own society – the decline in living standards coupled with the deterioration of civil liberties and the ongoing corruption of the political class.

But the state sponsored stooges in the corporate media and the Pentagon pimps sent forth from their well-funded neocon propaganda mills will have none of it. How dare a man like Vladimir Putin have the unmitigated audacity to call out the most special of all lands in all of human history and to of all things blaspheme the religion of the exceptional people of that land. The news just broke that the U.S. and Russia have reached a deal on Syria's chemical weapons. President Assad has one week to produce a comprehensive list of his chemical weapons arsenal and the clock is ticking. It is both mission impossible and mission accomplished at the same time, given the aforementioned Wall Street Journal piece on the secretive Assad unit that is squirreling away the stockpile it won't be long until Barry calls in the airstrikes.