Shameless Biden Allegedly Cried During American Sniper

Vice President Joe “Foghorn Leghorn” Biden remains a very dark horse candidate for the 2016 Democratic party presidential nod and being a canny career politician with no shame he is prone to histrionics. Whether it be emotional outbursts or the proclivity for putting his foot in his mouth old Joe can always be counted on to grab attention. In the unlikely event that Hillary Clinton’s inevitable coronation is derailed – perhaps by another Bubba sex scandal – Biden will be the only viable replacement. Liberal hero Elizabeth Warren? Forget it, she is just the newer version of the phony “hope and change” peddled by Advertising Age’s "2008 Marketer of the Year" Barack Obama. Bernie Sanders? The man is an admitted socialist and a borderline cadaver. Biden will be the only option if Queen Hillary for some reason decides not to run.

So it is incumbent upon blabbering Joe to grab some positive media attention while branding himself as an all-American guy. As a part of this imaging strategy the story has come out that he wept at the end of Clint Eastwood’s new movie American Sniper. According to The Daily Beast in a piece entitled “Oscar-Nominated ‘American Sniper’ Made Joe Biden Cry”:

While attending the Washington, DC, premiere of American Sniper held at the Burke Theatre at the U.S. Navy Memorial on Tuesday night, the Vice President of the United States offered his three-word review of the film. “It’s intense, man,” Joe Biden said, before adding that veterans still need our help and deserve our deepest respect.

In fact, the vice president enjoyed the film enough that, according to three separate people seated near him, Biden was moved to tears during the film's final sequence. Biden's is one of many positive reviews that American Sniper has earned.

Biden is just the type of cheesy bastard who would intentionally turn on the waterworks if he knew it would grab him some positive media coverage. Launching into phony crying jags is pretty simple if you stand to gain politically from it – look at how often that Speaker of the House John Boehner engages in displays of choking and sobbing. With the 2016 election meme well on the way towards becoming an orgy of flag-draped, apple pie authoritarianism and American exceptionalism (there is nothing exceptional about mass surveillance and a domestic police state) American Sniper is an early litmus test. The focus groups will be carefully watching the reaction to the movie which is already steeped in controversy over being too pro-war and drawing scorn from liberals.

Clint Eastwood has redeemed himself with many conservatives after his infamous appearance at the 2012 Republican National Convention by making this movie. Eastwood horrified Mitt Romney staffers with his bizarre, rambling conversation with an empty chair that stole the nominee’s thunder and sucked up media attention. The film is a dramatization of the life of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper who racked up over 150 kills while serving in Iraq. Kyle was decorated for his service and became a national hero but met an unexpected and tragic end when he was shot and killed by a PTSD afflicted Marine Corps veteran at a Texas shooting range.

I have always been a fan of Eastwood, ever since the early days when the epic western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly headed up a four-movie spaghetti western marathon at the local drive-in theatre. The first two Dirty Harry movies are classics and my other favorites during my formative years were Kelly’s Heroes and Where Eagles Dare. Later in his career Eastwood – who has identified his politics as being libertarian – became more settled in as an acclaimed director and less of an actor. American Sniper is not the first movie to be politicized nor will it be the last and Eastwood has seen his work glommed onto by politicians in the past. Don’t forget that Super Bowl Chrysler commercial “Halftime in America” that was immediately turned into a political football.

Such is the case with American Sniper with the reaction being typically divisive in a rapidly fracturing America (the establishment likes it that way) with the exchanges already pretty heated. With his films as a director often being more steeped in ambiguity and shades of gray – Letters from Iwo Jima, Gran Torino, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby to name a few – it is probably a lot more difficult to pigeon-hole American Sniper as an ideological statement. Eastwood has made statements that he opposed going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq so the film may be far more nuanced than the professional yappers in the media are portraying it.

That will not stop the political travelers from trying though, especially a guy like Joe Biden who brings to mind the H.L. Mencken quote "Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not".

While I have not seen the movie myself - and don't plan to given my loathing for anything that even remotely promotes the endless neocon wars of aggression - the politics of it all make me want to vomit. There will never be an end to war in The Homeland as long as there are people who insist on worshipping the professional killers of Empire like Chris Kyle. When he came back from the war and then became a celebrity he pretty much abandoned the pretense of a professional soldier for that of just another mercenary. 

Preaching From the Propaganda Pulpit on Easter Sunday

Pope Francis made a plea for peace in Syria and Ukraine on Easter Sunday while the warmongers here in The Homeland took to the airwaves to sell the exactly the opposite message. You would think that the corrupt state-corporate media, the neocons and the American political class would at least honor those who wish to celebrate the Easter holiday in peace with their friends and family. In actuality, it is a great time to go on the air with dishonest interviews of characters of ill repute, peddle outrageous lies and reach the maximum desired audience so as to bring their horseshit to family dinners. Easter Sunday was no exception and the usual array of scum was present on the telescreens to preach their message of fear, loathing and vengeance. Shameful but that’s just the way that we roll in the smoking crater of what is left of America these days.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press with the always slimy David Gregory was none other than the US installed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the occupying coup government in Kiev. The neocon puppet “Yats” hit all of the talking points in a command performance on what is supposedly a holy day including the obviously faked leaflets distributed in Eastern Ukraine to force Jews to register.  This is a massive whopper that stinks of black propaganda and has already been discredited - outside of the pocket media that is. "Yats" also read all of his lines and delivered them with gusto when announcing the demonized and reviled Russian president Vladimir Putin's alleged moves to reconstruct the Soviet empire, it is the latest version of that restoration of the Islamic Caliphate what was used for so long to great effect to carry out the war on Muslims. 

The "exclusive" Gregory-Yats interview was more of the same crap that has been peddled to Boobus Americanus over the US instigated situation in Ukraine. I excerpt the following from the transcript (the entire thing is here):

DAVID GREGORY: The West including Ukraine, the United States, and Russia struck a deal to calm the violence in eastern Ukraine. What's it going to take for this deal to hold?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: Well, much depends on the Russian Federation. As Russia triggered this violence and Russia supported these terrorists, and Russia was obliged to engineer a meeting to condemn terrorists and to condemn those so-called peaceful protesters with AK-74 in their hands, shooting into civilians and shooting into Ukrainian riot police. And if Russia pulls back its security forces and former K.G.B. agents, this would definitely calm down the situation and stabilize the situation in southern and eastern Ukraine.

DAVID GREGORY: When you hear President Vladimir Putin talk about Novorossiya, “New Russia,” where he talks about Ukraine being part of Russia, does that tell you that Putin will not stop until Ukraine is part of Russia?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: President Putin has a dream to restore the Soviet Union. And every day, he goes further and further. And God knows where is the final destination. And he was very clear, saying this stuff in his state of the union two years ago. And I believe that you do remember his famous Munich speech saying that the biggest disaster of the former century is the collapse of the Soviet Union. I consider that the biggest disaster of this century would be the restoring of the Soviet Union under the auspices of President Putin.

DAVID GREGORY:Vice President Biden will be in Ukraine this coming week. My question to you, Prime Minister: Is Ukraine strong enough militarily to stop Russia in the east? If not, what specifically will you ask the Obama administration for? Do you need modern weaponry? Do you need advanced lethal weaponry to stop the Russians?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: We need a strong and solid state. We need financial and economic support. We need to overhaul the Ukrainian military. We need to modernize our security and military forces. We need the real support. You know, it's easy to answer the question you just asked me. How can you stop the nuclear-powered state which is Russian Federation that spent billions of dollars to modernize their military instead of Ukraine? In the last four years, the former president, together with the Russian supporters, what they did, they just dismantled Ukrainian military and Ukrainian security forces. So we need to be in very good shape in order to stop Russia. And for this shape, we need to have and to get the real support from our Western partners.

DAVID GREGORY: So you need weapons?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: We need financial, economic support. We need to modernize Ukrainian military and to overhaul all structures of Ukrainian defense system.

DAVID GREGORY: Final question. There have been ghastly reports coming out of eastern Ukraine this week about some kind of forces forcing Jews in the eastern part of the country to register with local authorities. What do you make of this? Are these accurate? Are Jews particularly at risk?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: We got information that these so-called peaceful protesters with light ammunition in their hands, that they sent a number of bulletins saying that everyone who is a Jew to be indicated as a Jew. And today in the morning, I made a clear statement urged Ukrainian military and security forces and Ukrainian Department of Homeland Security urgently to find these bastards and to bring them to justice.

It’s even money that the “bastards” will be some patsies who get killed in a shootout with military or security forces with incriminating ‘ties’ to Putin and Russia. The reference to the “Ukranian Department of Homeland Security” may as well be to the Ukranian Gestapo – the term “Homeland” or “Heimat” is in its true European element rather than a disease that has taken root in America. 

The whole thing adds up to Americans being on the hook to engage in still more costly and dangerous foreign misadventures. With millions of our own citizens out of work, underemployed, homeless, all of the hungry children right here in the US, a financial system that is gamed to the hilt and markets that cannot function without the government propping them up, an outdated and decaying infrastructure and yet it is acceptable to send billions to an illegally installed government in Ukraine? David Gregory is set for life as are the political class and their media court jesters but it sends a very clear message to the rest of the population and that message is “Fuck You”.  Let them eat war and beg for seconds.

Nice country, cutting food stamps and unemployment benefits for those impoverished by a system hijacked by looters that have government protection while arming neo-Nazi militias. The Jew registration hoax has real legs and one could suspect that the timing of it was purposely planned to occur during the week of Easter and Passover.  Call it “Operation Easter Outrage” and that there is no caution other than the usual rush to judgment it is because it is known exactly where the leaflets came from and that it is a psychological operation that is targeting the American sheeple. The shameless opportunist Glenn Beck’s website “The Blaze” is hammering it as well in a shining example of how low that the credibility of the flagship of the NBC ‘news’ armada has fallen. For the more upwardly mobile the cherished World War II references (with the exception of the critical fact that Russia was a US ally) appear in a piece featured in Forbes Magazine targeted towards the high finance parasite demographic that is entitled - and I shit you not - “Is Vladimir Putin Another Adolf Hitler?” from which I excerpt:

As Mein Kampf makes clear, Hitler sought to unite all the people of German speech and culture into one state, or Reich, preferably by peaceful negotiation, otherwise by war and conquest.

 To do this Hitler needed to void the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, which Germany had signed after its defeat in the Great War of 1914-18. First he marched into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized under the treaty, stationing regular army divisions and tanks there. The Allies–Britain and France–did nothing.

 Next Hitler marched into German-speaking Austria–an annexation known as the Anschluss. Having been stripped of their empire and reduced to an insignificant small state, the Austrians were glad to become part of almighty Reich. Again, the Allies did nothing.

 Hitler’s next claim was the Sudetenland. This was a territory on the border of Czechoslovakia inhabited by a German-speaking people who were absorbed into the new state against their will. The Allies allowed this landgrab to stand in an agreement reached at a Munich summit meeting in September 1938. This was regarded as a surrender to Hitler, but British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who negotiated the agreement, argued that Hitler was merely asserting the rights of the Sudeten Germans, who wanted to belong to his Reich.

 The falsity of Chamberlain’s position and Hitler’s deceit were proved within months. The Sudetenland’s annexation had made the Czech frontier indefensible, and in March 1939 Hitler invaded. The Czechs put up no resistance, and the rest of the country fell into Hitler’s hands without a shot being fired.

I have lived a good while now and I have to admit that I have never seen anything like the blanket propaganda that has been shoveled like so much manure into the public domain since Putin’s timely intervention to stop the Obama regime from attacking Syria based on false pretenses over a sarin gas attack that reeks of a false flag operation. One analogy that the neocons fail to mention is that Hitler could never have pulled it off without the German people falling into line and in many cases becoming his accomplices – it was accomplished largely through lies and a propaganda machine that had no equal. I would figure that the readers of Forbes would be more sophisticated than Glenn Beck worshippers but then again the entire country is now populated largely by idiots who have been fed a constant diet of lies across the entire demographic range so as to be effectively lobotomized perhaps I give the formally educated too much credit. 

And what would the Sunday morning gabfest be without Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul who just had to cynically milk the Boston Marathon bombing anniversary one more time with his dire warning that another bomb may blow up in Beantown on Monday on ABC's this Week to the delight of the grinning little shitbag William Kristol, the Joseph Goebbels of the modern era who is now a co-host.

Jesus Wept

Oscar Puked: American Mesmerized by Celebrity as Collapse Looms

On Monday the putrid excuse for the media in this country temporarily cut away from the incessant smearing and bashing of Russian leader Vladimir Putin to report on the gravely important news that the latest celebrity on trial Oscar Pistorius vomited. The paraplegic sprinter, creatively nicknamed “Blade Runner” became just another piece of carrion to be feasted upon by the media vultures after he blew away his South African model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year.  Too bad that he didn’t live in Florida, the diseased penis of America where he could have invoked his “stand your ground” defense as did the self-anoited neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, loud music murderer Michael Dunn or Curtis Reeves who gunned down a man in cold blood in a movie theater as though a box of popcorn thrown at him was a threat to his life. That is the way that we roll down here in the Sunshine State and to a larger degree in all of America, a brainwashed, dumbed-down, electronically lobotomized lemming colony that has been indoctrinated to revere violence for it is that which is crucial to the ongoing series of what John Kerry refers to as incredible acts of aggression  to make the world safe for corporate exploitation.

Not that the amazing barfing Oscar really did very much to break up the logjam of anti-Russian propaganda, the presstitutes were still in full onslaught mode and the proxy war between Obama and Putin over the global finance mafia orchestrated putsch in Ukraine was only one prong of the trident wielded by the war machine on Monday. There is the matter of that Malaysian jetliner that went missing over the weekend and a desperate attempt by the American national security establishment to conjure up a link to some sort of terrorist action – particularly one with an Iranian angle to it. You can rest assured that the neocons and their Likudnik accomplices are scrambling to piece together this narrative which meshes very nicely with the public relations blitz unleashed by loose cannon Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister, fresh off of his embarrassing performance at the AIPAC conference in Washington returned home to show off what was said to be a shipment of intercepted munitions sent to Gaza by Iran. Bibi ranted that Iran was “fooling the world” in his latest tirade directed at undermining the P5+1 nuclear talks so that America can get about the business of feeding their youth into a multi-trillion dollar meat grinder to fight the war that he doesn’t have the balls to wage himself.

The always imminent attack on Iran, especially given the now spinning out of control escalation in hostilities over Ukraine will for all intents and purposes ignite the global conflagration that the neocons and most of all the brainless Christian Zionist shock troops in The Homeland so desire. For the neocons it is the continuation of the PNAC doctrine, for Bibi it is lebensraum and for the Rapturheads it is the longed for moment when they all fly up into the sky dirty nasty naked to sit at the foot of God’s throne while the rest of us are left to suffer excruciating fates for their entertainment and amusement. The whole fucking world is certifiably insane or at least it is when viewed through the jaundiced eye of what now passes for America post September 11, 2001.

Few in the US establishment are more desperate to find any sort of nugget of information on Flight MH370 that could be trumpeted as a ‘evidence’ of a terrorist plot and then parlayed into the false pretense for even more of that apple pie authoritarianism than the pride of Michigan who is Congressman Mike Rogers gets a chubby over. The porcine boss of the House Intelligence Committee has been squealing like a stuck pig on whatever corrupt ‘news’ program that will have him as a guest over any efforts to reign in the surveillance-warfare state. The fanatic Rogers has a proclivity for just pulling flat-out nonsense out of his ass such as Edward Snowden being a Russian spy, working all the angles to have journalist Glenn Greenwald targeted by the US rogue regime, of course bashing Putin and Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” speculating that the disappearance of that doomed Malaysian flight was the result of terrorism.

Mr. Rogers is notorious for hurling around baseless bullshit without any semblance of proof which is exactly why he is a such a Sunday morning frontman for the police state. Sure there could have been a terrorist angle but it also could have been a mechanical failure (something that is very likely given the need to squeeze every last fractional cent of profit out of everything on the face of the earth these days), a lightning strike or even an abduction by space aliens which all have just as much actual evidence backing them as the Iranian terror insinuation. Today despite the frantic work to pin the devil horns on the ayatollahs the stolen passport red herring was being debunked by no less an authority than Interpol. Do not however expect that to in any way stop the ass clown Rogers, whose uncontrollable mania borders on that of a pederast and who will continue to lie with impunity as long as he is never called on it.

Then there is the man who is a national hero and should be welcomed home with a ticker tape parade and one of those Medal of Freedom thingies that Obama is always giving to Oprah. Former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden who appeared via video feed at the SXSW (South by Southwest) festival in Austin, Texas before one of those giant constitutions similar to the one that adorned attorney Saul Goodman’s office in the hit television series Breaking Bad. Snowden, a man who Mike from Michigan would like to see slowly skinned alive with a dull knife and then boiled in oil continued to spread awareness on the flagrantly illegal activities of the secret government as it exists buried within the "Deep State". No matter what the rogue US government and its criminal operatives do to discredit and demonize Snowden the more that his message continues to resonate and if one Glenn Greenwald can be bothered to get off of his ass and stop resting on his laurels then we can finally get to the real stuff that the NSA has been engaged in. Spying on American phone calls, perusing online porno habits and playing peekaboo with their buddies across the pond at GCHQ through Yahoo webcam videos  is only the tip of the iceberg.

The more that the establishment does to smear and marginalize Snowden the longer that he is allowed to endure as a symbol and that is what truly scares the living shit out of the thugs who are running the system. So as the televisions play on, mesmerizing the masses of asses with spectacle, celebrity, sexual deviance and most of all pimping fear it is all the more imperative for those who have managed to escape - as in the allegory of Plato's Cave - continue to work as hard as possible to expose the lies, hypocrisy and murderous intent of the American war machine and the global finance mafia that have their boot on our throats.

Hard to fault Oscar for vomiting, any sane American likely feels the same way these days.

Forked-Tongue McCain Calls for Congressional Investigation of NSA

Surfacing again on the Sunday morning state propaganda circuit, blood-thirsty Arizona Senator John McCain, the politician best loved by the corrupt media made an appearance where he routinely calls for U.S. military action. On CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley 'flipper' shockingly commented that there has been "overreach" by the NSA and suggested that a select committee be formed for Congress to investigate the agency. It was a rare moment of rationality for "bomb, bomb Iran" McCain and should be taken with the necessary grain of salt. Firstly, any sort of select committee culled from the ranks of this corrupt and lamentable legislative body would be inexorably tainted and more likely than not to provide a nice coat of whitewash on the unconstitutional surveillance programs. Let's face it, we aren't exactly talking about the second coming of the Church Committee here, especially given the ongoing defense of the programs by the likes of Mike Rogers, Di Fi, Dutch Reppersberger and McCain's little buddy Lindsay Graham. Even Obama's vaunted, insider packed panel of which El Presidente is to speak on Friday as to recommendations for reform was filled with half-measures that fail to do what truly is necessary which is to dismantle the NSA and put those responsible for its actions, such as former General Michael Hayden on trial and send them to prison. McCain will probably change his mind again by lunchtime today like when he suggested that NSA boss General Keith Alexander should resign in an interview with Der Spiegel and then rapidly denied it.

Were McCain serious which is doubtful then it would at least show some sort of pushback from a Congress that is being spied on by the NSA and seeks to reestablish some oversight but it is such a collection of liars, charlatans and self-serving asses it is only window dressing. As anyone who watches the ongoing train wreck of American democracy can clearly see the Congress only functions in a unified bipartisan manner when it comes to matters of war, threats of war, undermining diplomacy in the interests of more war and mass police state spying to compile a massive database containing the names and information of all who would dare to oppose war. There will be absolutely nothing done to restrain the NSA Stasi with the exception of cosmetic changes that will appease the public and you can rest assured that the agency is going to be very damned careful in limiting access to information after it was burned by former government contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden. McCain also made a remark during his appearance that  "when one guy who works for a contractor is able to reveal all this information -- and supposedly there's much more that he hasn't -- then there's something wrong with the system right there." He is absolutely correct on that one but there is not one damned thing to be done about it because the millions of "contractors" that have been hired by the government at extravagant rates being bilked out of the American taxpayer should not exist, these should be government jobs if they are deemed necessary so that there can be some control implemented over the massive costs associated. However, guys like John McCain are so dependent on the campaign financing provided by the military-security industrial complex that they are not about to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

While the investigate the NSA comments got the headlines the rest of the interview was vintage Sunday morning McCain as he once again used the forum to present himself as a foremost expert on U.S. foreign policy and take pot shots at Obama (the man still can't get over losing to the black guy in 2008) as well as engage in his standard pandering. Doing his part to advance the ball with the "stabbed in the back" narrative of Fallujah falling to al Qaeda (an overhyped term for all Islamic militants rather than a unified force) and doubled-down on the vaunted General Petraeus led "Surge":

The president of the United States said the surge wouldn't succeed, and it did. And he wanted out of Iraq. We're out. And now you've seen increasing Iranian influence. You're seeing Maliki being very -- persecuting the Sunni minority. The Iraq/Syrian border is now becoming a haven for al Qaeda. And now, of course Fallujah.

You know, the battle of Fallujah -- the second battle of Fallujah, Candy, we lost 95 American soldiers and Marines, and 600 wounded, the bloodiest battle of the war. Now we see Fallujah, vehicles driving down the main street with al Qaeda flags.

It's very distressing to those veterans who fought so hard.

And this president wanted out. We got out. They would never say the number of troops that they wanted to have there, so Maliki decided to go his own way. And we are now seeing dramatically increased Iranian influence there in Iraq.

You would think that he was talking about the battle of Iwo Jima rather than a savage Lidice style revenge attack to avenge the gruesome murders of four Blackwater mercenaries where the U.S. used chemical weapons on civilians. John McCain is a career flip-flopper who is utterly devoid of scruples, loyalty and the basic level of morality that should keep politicians from sending off American servicemen and women off to die and be maimed in unnecessary battles that take place in illegal wars in lands where the only national interest is the plunder of resources for corporations. The whole of America should shun this man like he were a leper - the Maricopa County Republican party just censured the bastard and this country would be a far better place were others to do likewise. 

Sunday Morning McCain: Poke the Bear Edition

It was to be expected that the nation’s preeminent warmonger Senator John McCain would turn up on the Sunday morning propaganda circuit this week. With the ugly outbreak of unrest in Kiev over the Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych’s shunning of the European Union in favor of a rapprochement with Russia it was prime territory for a career vulture like McCain to dip his beak into. During his appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" with the blathering sow Candy Crowley, yet another piss poor excuse for a journalist in the state-corporate media the bloodthirsty, corrupt old bastard used the forum to deliver a provocative shot at Russian President Vladimir Putin. The neocons of which McCain happens to be one have one flaming desire that is more deeply entrenched in their world conquering brains that even trumps turning the Middle East into a blazing inferno on behalf of the right-wing Israeli regime and that is a festering hatred for anything Russian. 

The warmongers have been furious ever since this summer when Putin punked Barry and the boys by providing temporary asylum to former government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton employee Edward Snowden after he absconded with the evidence that the NSA is far worse than either the East German Stasi or Stalin's dreaded NKVD. Not only the neocons but the entire Obama administration has been apoplectic over that one with El Presidente himself embarrassing the nation by acting as a petulant child in boycotting a meeting with the Russian president during the G20 gathering and threatening to boycott the upcoming winter Olympics. But then Putin upped the ante by forcing Obama and his regime, the rancid and traitor infested congress and even John Wayne's blessed America.

In what was the ultimate indignity on the most hallowed of days  that is September 11th, the anniversary of "the day that everything changed"  Putin served up a triple-decker borscht and shit sandwich with a vodka chaser by contributing an op ed piece to the New York Times. It was here where he dared to blaspheme the concept of American Exceptionalism from which I excerpt the part that embedded a bug up the puckering assholes of the neocons and the masses of asses whose reflexive flag-waving provides cover for the endless wars that have us on the brink of collapse:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” 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.

The Putin column also came at the critical time when Obama, Kerry and the rest of those who always are willing to send some poor unfortunate serviceman or servicewoman off to die in idiotic wars of their own creation based on lies (see Seymour Hersh's London Review of Books piece "Whose Sarin") when the pope of hope was making the case for yet another war. The wound was still raw when Putin broke out the rock salt and started rubbing it in by taking advantage of a gaffe of exactly the type that a man with chronic diarrhea of the mouth like Secretary of Skull and Bones John Kerry is bound to make. When Kerry slipped up and inadvertently offered Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad could avoid the looming U.S. attack by voluntarily giving up his chemical weapons stockpiles Putin brilliantly came to the rescue and prevented what could have been a historical catastrophe that would ignite World War III. That never sat well with the neocons nor their caterwauling benefactors in Riyadh and Tel Aviv, it especially pissed off McCain and his toady Senator Lindsey Graham but it stopped a war.

Now McCain and the war freaks see an opportunity to get another bite at the apple by intervening in the Ukraine in the same meddlesome way that the U.S. war machine always has done since the end of the second world war. It truly speaks volumes (or maybe not) as to the sheer depth of the thorough corruption of the media when someone as unstable as the self-proclaimed "maverick" is allowed to appear on national television and declare that the U.S. could take "concrete action" if the Ukranian regime threw in with Russia rather than the E.U. I mean this guy lost the freaking election when he ran in 2008 but regularly makes deranged and bellicose statements on national policy in matters where he has zero business speaking for anyone let alone a bankrupt country that is so fragile at this time that just about anything of major consequence could trigger the collapse that has been so far been avoided only by smoke and mirrors and the ongoing government support of the rigged six ways from Sunday financial markets.

I have long admired the work of former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts who did the right thing morally and broke with his party during the worst years of the Bush-Cheney regime. A straight shooter who calls it like it is Mr. Roberts latest column entitled "Washington Drives the World Toward War" warns of the dangers of lunatics like McCain and his ilk pushing for a conflict that would eventually draw in Russia and China and I excerpt the following:

As costly and destructive as these wars have been, they are far below the level of a world war, much less a world war against nuclear armed opponents.

The fatal war for humanity is the war with Russia and China toward which Washington is driving the US and Washington’s NATO and Asian puppet states. There are a number of factors contributing to Washington’s drive toward the final war, but the overarching one is the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

According to this self-righteous doctrine, America is the indispensable country. What this means is that the US has been chosen by history to establish the hegemony of secular “democratic capitalism” over the world. The primacy of this goal places the US government above traditional morality and above all law, both its own and international.

Thus, no one in the US government has been held accountable for unprovoked aggression against other countries and for attacking civilian populations, unambiguous war crimes under international law and the Nuremberg standard. Neither has anyone in the US government been held accountable for torture, a prohibited crime under US law and the Geneva Conventions. Neither has anyone been held accountable for numerous violations of constitutional rights–spying without warrants, warrantless searches, violations of habeas corpus, murder of citizens without due process, denial of legal representation, conviction on secret evidence. The list is long.

A person might wonder what is exceptional and indispensable about a government that is a reincarnation of Nazi Germany in every respect. People propagandized into the belief that they are the world’s special people inevitably lose their humanity. Thus, as the US military video released by Bradley Manning reveals, US troops get their jollies by mowing down innocent people as they walk along a city street.

With the exception of the ACLU, constitutional rights groups and independent Internet voices, the American people including the Christian churches have accepted their government’s criminality and immorality with scant protest.

The absence of moral denunciation emboldens Washington which is now pushing hard against Russia and China, the current governments of which stand in the way of Washington’s world hegemony.

The push will continue, the warmongers are relentless, the media is their battlefield and the American mind is one that has been indoctrinated into the glorious national narrative of war. As CNN's hapless Crowley lobbed the obligatory softball to McCain on his tried and true invocation of Der Fuehrer and by proxy the heroic and godlike Sir Winston for comparing Obama to Neville Chamberlain when the U.S. leader shook the hand of Cuba's Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela's funeral this week the vile old man only snickered. It is fitting because the joke is on all of us because  the neocons have flogged the Neville Chamberlain horse to death and it should have been sent to the glue factory long ago along with Senator McCain. 

But as long as Americans view the world through their exceptional blinders where the flag waves eternally over The Homeland and every war is a continuation of "the good war" our tickets with historical infamy will very soon be punched. 

The Coming Militarization of the Arctic

On Friday Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel rolled out the latest expansion of U.S. militarism, this time in the Arctic which is sure to be a 'plum' duty assignment for military personnel whose job is bad enough without having to deal with freezing their asses off. While there may be a good amount of ideological squabbling regarding climate change as it is yet another of the idiotic political footballs that get kicked around in this country it does in fact exist. Because as we now see with this news the energy cartels and the U.S. Military are planning for it and have been for years now, big money does not deny pertinent information when there are profits to be reaped and new territories to be exploited. There are untold billions of dollars of oil wealth in the Arctic as the ice continues to melt facilitating exploration and Uncle Sam fully intends to plant Old Glory in the snow. 

Once again it is perfectly evident where our national priorities lie under the current leadership and the hegemonic era of full spectrum dominance. Our national credit card has been maxed out paying for the expenditures necessary to fund the warfare state that has eviscerated the country. Our streets are filled with the impoverished victims of a system on the verge of collapse, our infrastructure is obsolete and crumbling and our economy is a fraud, only kept afloat by the 85 billion dollar a month heroin fix of free gambling money from the Federal Reserve. There is always money for increased military endeavors, costly and unnecessary weapons systems and the armies of overpaid contractors that feed on it all like blood-sucking vampires.

Such a move was inevitable, not only for the obvious monetary value to big U.S. business but to offset Russia which has already announced the reopening of a military installation in the Arctic with President Vladimir Putin making no secret of the importance to Russian economic interests. So we now once again have another hot area of potential exploitation by a war-crazed establishment and as global geopolitics are currently in an area of flux due to the breakthrough deal with Iran on the sanctions/nuclear program over the weekend and the coming blitzkrieg from the obvious saboteurs whose lives are dedicated to attacking Tehran. Depending on the ability of the warmongers and a large number of treacherous rats of dubious loyalty in congress to sink the deal by pushing for stronger sanctions the region could soon end up being another front of what would be World War III. Oh, and China also has an eye on an increased presence in the region.

While Mr.  Hagel may now be talking about an avoidance of "conflict" as the rush to the riches ensues he also continues to talk the talk of the new American century: "We will remain prepared to detect, deter, prevent and defeat threats to our homeland and we will continue to exercise U.S. sovereignty in and around Alaska". It's always that "Homeland" reference that is so truly offensive and illustrative that what was once theoretically a free country can never be again as long as the invocations of the ever present and always vague "threats" are a part of the establishment lexicon.  The same type of rhetoric was used to justify the expansion of the U.S. military into the country itself despite the Posse Comitatus Act with NORTHCOM a few years ago with the purpose of providing actual military support to paramilitary police and domestic surveillance.

While the Arctic expansion of the military mission should be no surprise to anyone who pays attention it is notable and relevant as the formal pronouncement from the Secretary of Defense on Friday in Nova Scotia is newsworthy although you won't read much about it in the corrupt state-corporate media. The official Arctic strategy paper can be found here in .pdf format.

A Monument to the Exceptional

It is an exceptionally mighty symbol of an exceptional people. Rising up into the skies above lower Manhattan like a gleaming, giant steel and glass phallus, it is official that One World Trade Center is to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Oh what a pure  example of the American whup-ass pride of the twenty first century because ours is now bigger and they whoever dareth to try to knock it down this time shall feel the wrath of God himself sent forth from the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan with nuclear tipped missiles. It is yet another very disturbing illustration of the post September 11, 2001 world of down the rabbit hole, hit the reset button on history parallel reality that the state-corporate media heralded the tallest building in America and in the top three on the entire planet. Thanks to the length of the 400 + foot antenna we are number fucking one and in a land desecrated by economic collapse, moral decay, terminal dumbness and eternal war that means one hell of a lot to many. You can’t exactly eat it nor use it for shelter but boy oh boy, you can sure run that shining symbol of American pride right up the flagpole and salute. God bless America!

I imagine that sounds pretty damned sardonic, let alone downright unpatriotic to some but in the proto-fascist wasteland that is 2013 where all that this country once stood for has been dragged through a trough of shit thanks to legions of corrupt politicians, criminal gamblers, warmongers, stone cold authoritarians and corporate parasites it is at least in my opinion deserving of mockery.  While the wonderful and healing nature of the new 3.9 billion dollar tower is marveled at in state-corporate media pieces that peddle dreck to morons, others such as this one in Bloomberg push “large supply of class A space that will be accumulating in the Trade Center area” and quote the very embodiment of the ugly American that is Donald Trump in how to sell square footage to potential occupants.

The 9/11 attacks were the basis for a radical reconfiguration of our society and would justify every rotten restriction of civil liberties, foreign war and taxpayer dollar what was sucked into the maw of the monstrous security industrial complex that was created. The attacks have allowed for the empire to speak loudly and wave its big stick of military power at the Muslim world. The two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought economic ruination to this once wealthy and powerful country and while yet another one was just avoided in Syria there is much agitating this week for a new one in Iran. We have become a far more warlike nation, not that this country’s history is not saturated with wars but there was at least the pretense of ramping down and ending them. Today, thanks to September 11, 2011 providing the impetus we are as Orwell’s Oceania, and the most harrowing thought of all is that there are now children approaching their early teenage years who have known no world other than that of The Homeland. There is no way out of all of this that is good, in twenty or thirty years - provided that the country still exists which is no given with the constant pushing for Middle Eastern wars with the allies of China and Russia that could trigger nuclear Armageddon – the positions of power will be occupied by the new generation who have known no other world than that of paranoia and fear, retribution and propaganda. For the rest of the world, you are either with us or against us.

Were there any deviation from the course it was eliminated on September 11, 2011 when with the tenth anniversary of the attacks that the new national religion was established. As former Reagan administration official turned establishment critic Paul Craig Roberts so aptly put it at the time: "In the US on September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of 9/11, politicians and their presstitute media presented Americans with "A Day of Remembrance," a propaganda exercise that hardened the 9/11 lies into dogma". The day was on a Sunday and the ultimate corporate propaganda institution that is the National Football League used their games to hammer it home. Ordinarily an NFL game is nauseatingly drenched in jingoist nationalism, the skies are filled with millions of dollars of flying death pre-game as the field length old glory tarps are rolled out and the military marching units provide a pre-coin flip and halftime presence. This past weekend’s Veterans Day games were gut wrenching enough but on 9/11/11 it was total overkill. Yet it provided the historical stamp of approval on the story, there would be no more questioning tolerated of the attacks being the blowback generated by militarist U.S. foreign policies and anything less than total supplication of oneself to the 9/11 born state of post democratic America would result in shunning or worse. The NSA’s Utah facility is going to be filled with the online, purchase and communications data of any and all who have ever dared to blaspheme our glorious ascension as a red, white and blue phoenix from the crater where the original twin towers stood.

9/11 became the basis for the new society of the new American century.  Take for example, radio host Glenn Beck built a lucrative and somewhat influential political organization based on the “9/12” show of national unity in the aftermath of the attacks. It drew heavily from disaffected former members of the Republican base seething with resentment at Obama, Muslims and other ridiculous invocations of the flim-flam man Beck who trafficked in conspiracy mongering and self-enrichment. He is an establishment friendly ripoff of Alex Jones and subsequently parted ways with establishment GOP propaganda organ Fox News.The yearning for national unity is understandable in this fragmented land of woe but it is a very dangerous thing when a demagogue is able to harness it. The real national unity movement should be for a “9/10” reversal of the fascism that erupted when the towers fell, it could start with a renouncement of all foreign wars, especially those in the Middle East in which our “allies” in Tel Aviv and Riyadh continue to push for this very week. The revocation - and that is TOTAL revocation of the PATRIOT Act as well as the defunding of the NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance programs would be required as well. The last thing to really rally round the flag together for is the restoration of the rule of law and every war criminal and exploiter and their media accomplices should be tried as enemies of the state and put into prison where they belong.

But that will not happen in that there are too many vested interests and the disease has become too deeply embedded in the national character. Instead of mustering the courage and strength that could save us while there is still a limited window of opportunity it is easier to go along with the programs, absorb the propaganda as it is delivered to indoctrinate through professional sporting contests and television series such as Homeland and bow before the false idols of an exceptional greatness - like the gleaming imagery of the tallest building in the land, One World Trade Center and the sanctified ground upon which it was erected.

For freedom, for glory, for God – now leasing.

War Pimps Continue to Push for Syria Attack

Sunday morning McCain was among the legion of bloodsucking vampires hitting the propaganda circuit in a desperate effort to resuscitate their blessed Syrian war. On the ridiculous farce that is NBC’s Press the Meat where the reptilian David Gregory holds court it was McCain in his usual crazed manner who denounced Obama for the lamentable fact that half of Damascus isn’t in smoking ruins today. The deranged old bastard also called for support of the Free Syrian Army, apparently he didn’t get the memo that the head of the Syrian rebels, Ayman al-Zawhri as reported by Reuters had just issued what amounted to a fatwa calling for attacks within the United States. McCain, the penultimate media whore was following up his joint press statement made with his little buddy Lindsey by his side  in which the doomsday duo parroted the standard line about Syrian president Assad, downplaying the U.S.-Russia agreement on chemical weapons that temporarily stopped the attack in that he will be able to "go on slaughtering innocent civilians and destabilizing the Middle East.". the truth is that it is thanks to McCain and his ilk that the Middle East has been destabilized due to their illegal wars of aggression and overt lobbying for the munitions industry that results in the lucrative arming of multiple sides of any given conflict. And yet the man never gets called on his bullshit so much has he falsely built his reputation as some kind of war hero whose craving of death and destruction borders on the same type of sick mania that drives a predatory pederast. McCain probably gets an erection when he catches the scent of burning human flesh.

In labeling the deal to avoid a U.S. lone wolf attack "a provocative act of weakness" McCain used his Sunday morning soapbox to engage in his standard demagoguery much to the delight of the host. Gregory, who is nothing other than a proxy for his state paymasters is the same talking head who recently used his forum to issue veiled threats against Glenn Greenwald. The Guardian journalist's implied treachery was of course writing about the revelations of former Booz Allen contractor  Edward Snowden about the crimes of the NSA Stasi . Now MCain may see anything short of global thermonuclear war as an "act of weakness" and thereby presenting the the world the confirmation of the cartoon U.S. warmongering politician but Gregory is an even bigger piece of work and certainly not a  journalist in the literal sense of the term. In fact he brings to mind the classic description of Geraldo Rivera in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as brilliantly written by L.A. Times film critic Tim Rutten: "Seeing him descend bright-eyed and sweaty on wretched New Orleans, as he did in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, was like watching a vulture on crystal meth. The word that came to mind was not 'reporting,' but 'feeding.'" A perfect example of how to describe Gregory’s style of ‘journalism’ which along with its sister tabloid sleaze is what now passes for news in this morally bankrupt , rapidly crumbling empire.

In addition to the postponement of their lovely war the interjection of Vladimir Putin into the situation has driven the neocons completely insane. If there is one thing that these degenerate death mongers hate more than Muslims it is Russia.  The original foreign devil that served as the glue that held the crazies together was their bitter Cold War era hatred for the bear that still endures over two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Their philosophy had roots in the theories of a man named Leo Strauss, a German born Chicago academic who believed in the manipulative use of religion and nationalism in order to deceive the masses into unquestionably accepting a state of constant war under the pretense of the "noble lie".  A valuable source of information on Strauss and the long term effects of his theories is Adam Curtis's three part BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares. Among the most influential disciples of Strauss was a certain Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Bush-Cheney Iraq war and a member of the Ford administration's Team B that was commissioned to study the extent of the Soviet threat  to the United States. The study of course was used by Ford regime officials such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to push for more aggressive policies to confront the Manichean devil of Russian Communism and to ensure that the defense industry would be able to continue to create bogeymen to justify the transference of taxpayer wealth to the war machine. Cheney and Rummy seem to turn up repeatedly in some of this country's most disastrous foreign policy blunders all predicated on the perpetual wars based on the work of Strauss and later in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). While it is an extremely complex topic any understanding of why men like John McCain are consistently able to ensnare this country in ruinous foreign conflicts that have zero benefits for the average American and only serve to make money for the weapons industry it is essential to become familiar with this history.

With the temporary respite thanks to the deal with the Russians on Assad's chemical weapons reigning in the dogs of war for the time being it will be critical for the warmongers to propagandize at every turn to sabotage the current agreement. Then Obama, having saved face over his idiotic "red line" ultimatum will be able to rock and roll, this time without having to deal with the dog and pony show of having to get Congress to sign off on the attacks. Democratic House whip Steny Hoyer has already given Obama the green light to circumvent the Constitution and there will inevitably be others as the lobbying by interests seeking to benefit from the carnage will be fast and furious.  Until then McCain, Graham and the rest of the jackals can stew in their own juices, bitching and whining over their postponed jolly good show. In a very amusing piece written by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern over at Consortium News he describes the atmosphere at state propaganda organ CNN after the Russian's took advantage of John Kerry's gaffe.

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Morose at CNN

 As the march toward war began meandering off in unexpected directions, I was lucky enough to observe, up-close and personal, the angry reaction of some of Israel’s top American supporters on Monday evening. That was after Russia drew Obama a new map for how to reach the desired destination of removing chemical weapons from Assad’s arsenal without going to war.

After doing an interview on CNN International, I opened the studio door and almost knocked over a small fellow named Paul Wolfowitz, President George W. Bush’s former under-secretary of defense who in 2002-2003 had helped craft the fraudulent case for invading Iraq. And there standing next to him was former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the neocon from Connecticut who was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and pretty much every other potential war in the Middle East.

 Finding myself in the same room with two gentlemen responsible for so much misery in the world, I fell back on my recent training in non-violence, as we watched Piers Morgan try earnestly to spin the day’s astounding events. On the tube earlier, Anderson Cooper sought counsel from Ari Fleischer, former spokesman for George W. Bush, and David Gergen, long-time White House PR guru.

 Fleischer and Gergen were alternately downright furious over the Russian initiative to give peace a chance and disconsolate at seeing the prospect for U.S. military involvement in Syria disappear when we were oh so close. After some caustic and condescending outbursts, an almost surreally disconsolate mood set in. It looked like these fellas were not going to get their war.

 Later remarks by Lieberman and Wolfowitz reflected a distinctly funereal atmosphere. I felt I had come to a wake with somberly dressed folks (no pastel ties this time) grieving for a recently, dearly-departed war.

Among Lieberman’s vapid comments was the hope-against-hope assertion that President Obama, of course, could still commit troops to war without congressional authorization. I thought to myself, wow, here’s a fellow who was a senator for 24 years and almost our vice president, and he does not remember that the Founders gave Congress the sole power to declare war in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

So I dug into my back pocket, pulled out my little copy of the Constitution, and carefully tore out Article 1. Then I lurked in the ornate elevator waiting area for Joe and Paul to come out. After the usual pleasantries (all politicians feel compelled to “remember” you once you say your name as though they should), I said, “Joe, I couldn’t believe what you said about the President not being required to get the approval of Congress before attacking a country like Syria. So, here; I tore out Article 1 of the Constitution for you; I have another copy, so you can keep it. Go home, read it, and see if what you just said is correct.”

It was a bad evening for war and for those pundits who like to joke about “giving war a chance.” For those of us who think war is not such a good idea – and truly should only be considered as an absolutely last resort – it was an uncommon day for rejoicing at the failure of the warmongers to again send young men and women to kill folks who pose no threat to us.

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Priceless. The part about tearing the page out of the pocket Constitution and giving it to that vicious troll Joseph Lieberman, the retired third stooge is absolutely classic especially when considering that the entire pack of swine have about as much respect for the document they do as a piece of toilet paper. So now we wait as the war machine plots their next move, one that will not only trigger the coming collapse but perhaps Armageddon itself.