White Supremacy and the Second Amendment

The Intercept's, Jeremy Schahill lays out white supremacy's hypocrisy on guns:

 

Fourth of July: “Put Away the Flags” Remembering Howard Zinn on July 4th

From Global Research on July 4, 2019:

This article was first published by The Progressive and Global Research in July 2010

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking — cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on — have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours — huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction — what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession.”

Iraq, An Appeal to the American People

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: “It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day.”

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our “Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence.” After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: “We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country.”

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, “to civilize and Christianize” the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: “The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness.”

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government’s lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for “liberty,” for “democracy”?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, was the author of the best-selling “A People’s History of the United States” (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project in 2006.

Howard Zinn died on January 7 2010. Please read Matthew Rothschild’s “Thank you, Howard Zinn,” for more about his legacy.

The original source of this article is The Progressive

Copyright © Howard Zinn, The Progressive, 2019

Related:
- 'Sick Of Using Us As Props': Veteran Calls Trump's July 4 Military-Style Celebration 'Insanely Inappropriate'

Preserving cultural identity in the face of institutionalized white supremacy: Another Home-going -- Pt. 1b -- The "taking" rolls on with nary a peep from the MSM

Veronica Brown, 3, sees father off to mandatory National Guard training from Tulsa 
International Airport on July 22, 2013.  (Courtesy Cherokee Nation)

"We must remember that the purpose of an adop­tion is to provide a home for a child, not a child for a home."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

This case has been going on now for a little over four years with little to no coverage from the mainstream media (though local South Carolina media has wasted no time in fashioning their own "single stories").  But, since they play such an important role in oiling the wheels of institutionalized white supremacy by, more often than not, only telling the stories of the "hunters" -- I'm not surprised.

As I look at that photo, I can't help but get a creepy, "Groundhog Day" feeling (but with the child-trafficking, Capobiancos and birth mother needing to learn Phil's lessons).  Because yes, it was Dusten Brown's last deployment (to Iraq that time) -- in service to a country which continues to fail him miserably -- that set this spiteful, baby-selling case into motion.  Here, in his own words, he explains himself most eloquently:

"In December 2008, I got down on one knee and proposed to the love of my life. She accepted with joy. It seemed like one week we were planning a big, outside wedding and celebrating ecstatically the news of our pregnancy, and the next I was receiving a phone call from Christy saying she didn't know how she was going to pay her bills and she was stressed. I told her I had money saved and not to worry and asked her what she needed. I remember specifically that it shocked me when she told me no, that she had "a plan." Still, I knew that my military benefits would provide the medical and financial support she needed, so I did everything I could to push the wedding date up.

Always in the back of my mind I was concerned about going to Iraq. I knew there was a possibility that I might not come home. I pushed for marriage because I needed to know they would be OK if something happened to me. She said no. She told me to stop calling her and stop texting her.

But I called. I texted. I begged. I pleaded. I drove four hours and knocked at my ex-fiancée's door, praying she would answer. I had offered financial support, military benefits, everything I had. When I was told no, I foolishly tried to go along with whatever she asked me to, hoping she would see how willing I was to do whatever it took.

When I did finally hear from her, she started texting me, asking me to sign my parental rights over to her. Every day for a month and a half I got a text asking me that same question. It was a horrible feeling, watching myself being shut off from the woman and daughter I loved so much. I knew I didn't have a chance to fight her for custody because I was about to leave for Iraq for a year. So after weeks of texts, I said I would sign my rights over, thinking I was agreeing for her to have full custody and she would let me see my daughter." (all emphasis mine)

And as he reported for his annual training this July, preparations were already in motion to rip his, biological daughter out of his arms and his life, in order to give her -- not to her birth mother, but to a society identified, white South Carolina couple who, for all intents and purposes, have paid somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 for her.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse for this man and his child, I read this and knew I was wrong:

Reinforcing the court's order last week for Charleston County Family Court to expedite the adoption of Veronica, the justices, split 3-2 as they were last week, praised James Island adoptive parents Matt and Melanie Capobianco for their "commendable" consideration of the child's best interests over the course of the case.

Sombody please tell me, how this same S.C. Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Toal, writing for the majority said...

"This case involves a contest over the private adoption of a child born in Oklahoma to unwed parents, one of whom is a member of the Cherokee Nation. After a four day hearing in September 2011, the family court issued a final order on November 25, 2011, denying the adoption and requiring the adoptive parents to transfer the child to her biological father. The transfer of custody took place in Charleston, South Carolina, on December 31, 2011, and the child now resides with her biological father and his parents in Oklahoma. We affirm the decision of the family court denying the adoption and awarding custody to the biological father. (emphasis mine)

...could turn right around and now say this:

As determined by the USSC, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) has no applications to Birth Father. Our erroneous decision was premised on the applicability of ICWA to the Birth Father. As a result, the Birth Father’s right, if any, are determine by the law of the state of South Carolina. While this Court was in error concerning the applicability of the ICWA, we have consistently held that under state law, the Birth Father’s parental rights (because of his irrefutable lack of support, interest and involvement in the life of Baby Girl) would be terminated."

That unsubstantiated statement in the parenthesis at the end, flies in the face of the facts -- not only did Mr. Brown try to marry this woman and was deploying to Iraq, he began fighting for his daughter four months after she was born.  I think they think it justifies their having been bullied into reversing their original ruling.  There was a time when white folk at least tried to disguise their hypocrisy.  They just don't even care to anymore. {smdh}

After having followed this case and reading whatever I could about it (to include the many twisted comments from white folk who feel entitled to other people's children for money), a chilling realization washed over me -- while Dusten Brown is the very public target of these baby-selling machinations in general, the specific target is the Indian Child Welfare Act. 

At what other conclusion can a sane, critically thinking person arrive?  Tell me, how does Ms. Maldonado go from the afore-mentioned litany of, "I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills" -- to this?! -- Baby Veronica's Birth Mother Files Suit, Claims ICWA Unconstitutional:

On Thursday, the day after the South Carolina Supreme Court denied an appeal filed by Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation to consider a “best interest determination” hearing, Veronica's birth mother filed yet another suit in South Carolina federal court claiming that placement preferences for Indian families violates equal protection provisions because the law uses “race” as a factor in custodial placement. (all emphasis mine)

What?!  Here's a brief snapshot of who Ms. Madonado and her attorney are.  When you're done reading, tell me who you think is really behind this frivolous lawsuit.

Before the top of my head blows off -- here's an interview with  Bill Means, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM).  Maybe it'll again make clear, why this lawsuit from Ms. Maldonado and her "attorney" is seven ways from stupid (do read this insightful piece in its entirety):

This has been a long struggle since the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed back, I believe, in 1978. And since that time it has … the original intent was that, before an Indian child could be adopted to non-Indian community, that the relatives, on or off the reservation, would be contacted in order to give a priority of raising the child, and keeping the child in the culture of his origin, in the culture of his family, of his people. The reason they passed this was that we had a tremendous trafficking of Indian children, which, in a way, still goes on today. It’s … very much needed to expose that the Christian Church is probably most responsible for adoption of Indian children off the reservation. And this [law] set up a process where the tribe had to be involved...

...But, to give you an example, back in the early history of A.I.M. in the Seventies, the Christian churches, here in the state of Minnesota and South Dakota, were averaging 30 Indian children a month being adopted out to non-Indian families. And after a lot of research was done in a book called My Brother’s Keeper: The Indian in White America … a lot of studies that were done by other Indian organizations throughout the country showed these horrendous statistics that brought about the Indian Child Welfare Act where churches were engaged almost every single day in adopting Indian children because there was a very, shall we say, stereotypical image that Indian children were neither black nor white, therefore, they were most desirable. As well as getting the Indian child off the reservation, as if that automatically meant that they would have a better life. And so it took years of protests, of statistics, of studies to get the Indian Child Welfare Act passed in 1978. So this is a very, very, shall I say, heavy set back. (emphasis mine)

As I said earlier, Mr. Means -- the ICWA, not Dusten Brown was always the target.  In this case, as in the recent Voting Rights Act Case -- the "Supremes" have spoken saying -- "Times have changed."  I say, tell that foolishness to all the folk who will be on the short end of these rulings.

Why do I care so much about this case?  I mean it's not like the Cherokee Nation "had nothin' but love" for us Black folk.  Do I know that they had Black slaves?  Yes.  Do I realize that only two years ago, they expelled the descendants of those same Black slaves from The Nation, despite the fact that Article 9, of the Treaty of 1866 with the Cherokee Nation bestowed upon them the rights of native Cherokees.  That would be another Yes.  And we can talk about that anytime you wish.

I care about this case, this child, because what's happening here is sick, and patently wrong.  For me, it's not an either I stand up for my people, or I stand up for this child -- it's a stand up for both, and recognize that, from the founding of this country up until today, the boot on both our necks, has been and continues to be worn, by those of a decidedly alabaster hue.

White folk's constructed idea of race and its accordant hierarchy of human life, made both the Voting Rights Act and the Indian Child Welfare Act necessary in the first damned place.  And let's be clear, the decisions this year, gutting important provisions of both, represent a concerted, institutionalized assault by the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy on "Others" in this country to whom they have been most inhumane.

And their inhumanity will continue unabated for two reasons -- because they think they still have a right to use said inhumanity as they see fit and, because we, "Others" won't band together in any way to stop them.  I bet if we'd all change our stance to Malcolm's, "By Any Means Necessary," the politricksters would be out all over the country urging for calm and, despite the fact that the mainstream media all but turned a blind eye to the "taking" going on in South Carolina -- they'd be scrambling to report what we "savages" were up to.

Continued: Preserving cultural identity in the face of institutionalized white supremacy: Another Home-going -- Pt. 1c -- A jackbooted, "Mission Accomplished"

Related:
- Atty: Girl will be devastated if taken from Okla. biological father, adopted by SC couple
- Did the S.C. Supreme Court get it right on Baby Veronica?
- Veronica, Lowcountry child

This, my fellow Americans, is what terrorism looks like -- recognize it? You should, since it continues in our names

Thank you so much Dr. Kohls.

~#~#~#~

The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Un-Censored Version
By Dr. Gary G. Kohls

68 years ago, at 11:02 am on August 9th, 1945, an all-Christian bomber crew dropped a plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki, Japan. That bomb was the second and last atomic weapon that had as its target a civilian city. Somewhat ironically, as will be elaborated upon later in this essay, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan and ground zero was the largest cathedral in the Orient.

These baptized and confirmed airmen did their job efficiently, and they accomplished the mission with military pride. There was no way that the crew could not have known that what they were participating in met the definition of an international war crime (according to the Nuremberg Principles that were very soon to be used to justify the execution of many German Nazis).

It had been only 3 days since the August 6th bomb, a uranium bomb, had decimated Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb was dropped amidst considerable chaos and confusion in Tokyo, where the fascist military government had been searching for months for a way to honorably end the war. The only obstacle to surrender had been the Roosevelt/Truman administration’s insistence on unconditional surrender, which meant that the Emperor Hirohito, whom the Japanese regarded as a deity, would be removed from his figurehead position in Japan – an intolerable demand for the Japanese that prolonged the war and kept Japan from surrendering months earlier.

The Russian army had declared war against Japan on August 8, hoping to regain territories lost to Japan in the disastrous Russo-Japanese war 40 years earlier, and Stalin’s army was advancing across Manchuria. Russia’s entry into the war represented a powerful incentive for Japan to end the war quickly and they much preferred surrendering to the US rather than to Russia. A quick end to the war was important to the US as well. It did not want to divide any of the spoils of war with Russia.

The Target Committee in Washington, D.C. had made a list of relatively un-damaged Japanese cities that were to be excluded from the conventional fire-bombing (using napalm) campaigns that had burned to the ground 60+ major Japanese cities during the first half of 1945. That list of protected cities included, at one time or another Hiroshima, Niigata, Kokura, Kyoto and Nagasaki. These relatively undamaged cities were off-limits from incendiary terror bombings but were to be preserved as possible targets for the new “gimmick” weapons of mass destruction.

Scientific curiosity was a motivation in choosing the targeted cities. The military and the scientists needed to know what would happen to intact buildings – and their living inhabitants – when atomic weapons were exploded overhead. Ironically, prior to August 6 and 9, the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki considered themselves lucky for not having been bombed as much as other cities. Little did they know.

Early in the morning of August 9, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress that had been christened Bock’s Car, took off from Tinian Island in the South Pacific, with the prayers and blessings of its Lutheran and Catholic chaplains, and headed for Kokura, the primary target. Bock’s Car’s plutonium bomb was in the bomb bay, code-named “Fat Man,” after Winston Churchill.

The only field test (blasphemously code-named “Trinity”) of a nuclear weapon had occurred just three weeks earlier (July 16, 1945) at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The molten lava rock that resulted from the heat of that blast (twice the temperature of the sun) can still found at the site today. It is called trinitite.

The reality of what had happened at Hiroshima was only slowly becoming apparent to the fascist military leaders in Tokyo. It took 2 – 3 days after Hiroshima was incinerated before Japan’s Supreme War Council was able to even partially comprehend what had happened there, to make rational decisions and to discuss again the possibility of surrender.

But it was already too late, because by the time the War Council was meeting that morning in Tokyo, Bock’s Car and the rest of the armada of B-29s was already approaching Japan – under radio silence. The dropping of the second bomb had initially been planned for August 11, but bad weather had been forecast, and the mission was moved up to August 9.

With instructions to drop the bomb only on visual sighting, Bock’s Car arrived at the primary target, but Kokura was clouded over. So after futilely circling over the city three times, there was no break in the clouds, and, running seriously low on fuel in the process, the plane headed for its secondary target, Nagasaki.

The history of Nagasaki Christianity

Nagasaki is famous in the history of Japanese Christianity. Not only was it the site of the largest catholic church in the Orient, St. Mary’s Cathedral (completed in 1917), but it also had the largest concentration of baptized Christians in all of Japan. It was the megachurch of its time, with 12,000 baptized members.

Nagasaki was the location where the legendary Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, established a mission church in 1549. The Christian community survived and prospered for several generations. However, soon after Xavier’s planting of the church in Japan, it became obvious to the Japanese rulers that Portuguese and Spanish commercial interests were exploiting Japan, and it didn’t take too long for all Europeans to be expelled from the country – as well as their foreign religion. All aspects of Christianity, including the new Japanese converts, became the target of brutal persecutions.

By 1600, being a Christian was a capital crime in Japan. The Japanese Christians who refused to recant of their new religion suffered torture and even crucifixions similar to the Roman persecutions in the first three centuries of Christianity. After the reign of terror was over, it appeared to all observers that Japanese Christianity was extinct.

However, 250 years later, in the 1850s, after the coercive gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry forced open an offshore island for American trade purposes, it was discovered that there were thousands of baptized Christians in Nagasaki, living their faith in a catacomb existence, completely unknown to the government – which immediately started another purge. But because of international pressure, the persecutions were soon stopped, and Nagasaki Christianity came up from the underground. And by 1917, with no help from the government, the growing Japanese Christian community had built the massive Urakami Cathedral, in the Urakami River district of Nagasaki.

Now it turned out, in the mystery of good and evil, that the massive Cathedral was one of two Nagasaki landmarks that the Bock’s Car bombardier had been briefed on, and looking through his bomb site 31,000 feet overhead, he identified the cathedral through a break in the clouds and ordered the drop.

At 11:02 am, during morning mass, Nagasaki Christianity was boiled, evaporated and carbonized in a scorching radioactive fireball that exploded 500 meters above the cathedral. Ground Zero was the persecuted, vibrant, surviving center of Japanese Christianity.

The Nagasaki Christian death count

Since the Cathedral was the epicenter of the blast, most Nagasaki Christians did not survive. 6000 of them died instantly, including all who were at confession that morning. Of the 12,000 church members, 8,500 died as a direct result of the bomb. Three orders of nuns and a Christian girl’s school disappeared into black smoke or chunks of charred remains Tens of thousands of innocent Shinto and Buddhist Japanese also died instantly and hundreds of thousands were mortally wounded, some of whose progeny are still in the process of slowly dying from the trans-generational malignancies and immune deficiencies caused by the deadly plutonium.

What the Japanese Imperial government could not do in over 200 years of persecution, destroy Japanese Christianity, American Christians did in 9 seconds. Even today those who are members of Christian churches in Japan represent a fraction of 1% of the population, and the average attendance at Christian worship services is 30. Surely the decimation of Nagasaki at the end of the war crippled what at one time was a thriving church.

More crocodile tears and and a huge dose of hypocrisy...

I've been sitting on my feelings about the Changeling's second statement on the Trayvon Martin case for a minute.  But after reading and listening to all the ooey-gooey, "My Black president really cares" madness in the media and on the web,  I thought I'd chime in with Maxine, expressing my deepest, most innermost thoughts on his words (just so my head won't explode over his manipulative propaganda masquerading as empathetic concern):

As I read piece, after piece about his "iconic"blather, I could feel the bile slowly rising in my throat. Why in the world would anybody get all dewy-eyed, believing his alleged, "impromptu" comments about Trayvon (and yes, I believe it was as "impromptu" as him breathing), when only a few days before the verdict, he endorses the king of racial profiling for head of Homeland Security??!!  In The Atlantic's, Prominent Democrats Are Now Comfortable With Racial and Ethnic Profiling he states:

On Wednesday, President Obama assured a Univision reporter that Ray Kelly, New York City's police commissioner, would make a fine leader for the Department of Homeland Security.

"Well, Ray Kelly has obviously done an extraordinary job in New York and the federal government partners a lot with New York, because obviously our concerns about terrorism oftentimes are focused on big city targets," he said. "And I think Ray Kelly is one of the best there is. So he's been an outstanding leader in New York...But you know, we're going to have a bunch of strong candidates. Mr. Kelly might be very happy where he is. But if he's not I'd want to know about it. 'Cause you know, obviously he'd be very well qualified for the job."

(Do watch the Chris Hayes video further down the piece at the link above -- it is insightful, to say the least.)

During a spirited conversation over on Abagond's, "Obama: “Trayvon Martin could have been me”,  commenter, "GoldFire" posted a link to a clip from, "The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk Policy" below:



"You look suspicious," is what one of the cops said to this young man (among other lewd, crude threats) -- exactly the same thing George Zimmerman said about Trayvon Martin.  The Changeling, however, thinks the man behind the implementation of these tactics, "is one of the best there is."  Tell me how this isn't talking out of both sides of his mouth??!! 

As I said over at Abagond's, "The Changeling is a manipulative hypocrite who says one thing and does exactly the opposite when it comes to us — yet many Black folk support him, talking about he’s some kind of “symbol.”  There’s just something real Stockholm Syndrome-like (or PTSD, Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder-like if you prefer) about that."  There are so many folk just swooning over what he had to say, yet few (including his liberal, Democratic colleagues and talking heads) are challenging him on Ray Kelly's corrupt police department policies which violate the civil rights of an overwhelming number of citizens each and every day with Stop & Frisk.

If you check out the NycResistance channel on YouTube, you'll see a large sampling of what I mean.  According to its owner, he's been documenting Kelly's, NYPD atrocities for years -- the plethora of videos is daunting!  I've got nothing but respect for this brother, who cares enough about Black and Latino youth, to make sure their abuse is a matter of public record -- would that the MSM was similarly inspired.

Salon's, Listen now: Obama ad from 2000 rails against racial profiling -- is illustrative.  In it, there's a radio ad (no doubt crafted by the King-makers for the Black community), in which then, Sen. Barack Obama speaks out forcefully against racial profiling -- what a difference a "selection" makes, right?

"GoldFire" also posted an interview with Cornell West that bears re-posting (I see Asa's posted it as well over at AfroSpear):



As I commented there -- "Bro. West is on-point, but I know the Changeling’s supporters will keep on crowing about him still being mad about not getting tickets to the damned inauguration — as if what he’s saying has no validity at all. {smdh}"

Family, we've got so-o-o-o much work to do -- and none of it has to do with holding up this puppet, who's used Trayvon Martin's death, and worse, his parents, to bolster his "Black bona fides."  Rise up against the Ray Kelly nomination and confirmation.  And if we fail -- learn something.

Related:
- Obama, Race and Class
- Ray Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security?
- Kelly’s creative writing: Stop-and-frisk and Muslim surveillance are wonderful!

The Newtown massacre: crocodile tears, a culture of violence, the hierarchy of human life and -- possible politricks

"People who treat other people as less than human, must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."

James Baldwin

It's amazing how Mr. Baldwin's words, always succinctly capture what I'm thinking.  No matter which meme blanketing the internet into which you buy, the real reasons for the undoubtedly disturbing shootings in Connecticut will, most definitely relate to Baldwin's words.  More disturbing though, were the Changeling's words on Friday (delivered while wiping away tears that I, at least, could not see), along with his follow-up, hypocritical "performance,"  in Newton on Sunday.  And what stellar performances they both were (I won't bother posting the videos.  I'm sure the whole world's seen them both)!

I've been trying to write this post on the shootings since Saturday, but for some reason, I just couldn't get through it (too many glaringly, contrasting thoughts running through my head).  But I was reading about it all, voraciously -- so much so that, rather than y'all listening to my droning, I've been able to knit together an expression of exactly how I feel, through what I've read.  Here's what I came up with:

Lucinda Marshall's,  "A Culture That Condones The Killing Of Children And Teaches Children To Kill:

"The Sandy Hook massacre isn’t just about the need for gun control laws, it is about a culture that condones the killing of children and teaches children that killing is okay."

Ye-e-e-p, she's right on the money there.  I stumbled upon a six-part series on You Tube awhile ago entitled, "Violence:  An American Tradition."  It shows, quite uncompromisingly, how this country's culture of violence -- since its founding -- absolutely confirms Ms. Marshall's statement.  I'm only posting Part 1 - but as the disclaimer says on each part, "Caution:  Contains scenes that may be disturbing to young or sensitive viewers" -- because it, and the other four parts linked here -- are not for the faint of heart!:



Arthur Silber's, God Damn You, America, and Your White, Privileged Grief is one of the closest renditions of my thought, ever.  While there's one section of his post, with which I totally disagree, I can't, not post this:

We've had Cool Obama, and No Drama Obama. Now we have Weeping Obama. Does Weeping Obama "meet privately" with the families of those he has ordered murdered in Pakistan, or Somalia, or Yemen? Does he even acknowledge those murders -- murders that he himself ordered? Does the "nation reel" in response to these regular, systematic murders of innocent human beings -- many of them children? Does the "nation reel" in response to the Obama administration's repeated public announcements of its Kill List and its Murder Program, a program which intentionally, repeatedly murders innocent people? Does America react with horror to the fact that Obama and his administration claim the "right" to murder anyone they want, anywhere in the world, for any reason they choose or invent out of nothing? (emphasis mine)

I'll save my one point of disagreement with Arthur for a later post, because for me -- it requires a "writing about," all its own (and I won't even tell you what part it is right now).  That said, he knocks it out of the damned park on everything else IMO.

This, "Child Casualties as a Result of U.S. Drone Attacks" video, embedded in Glenn Greenwald's, Newtown kids v Yemenis and Pakistanis: what explains the disparate reactions? -- is a stark reminder of the "hierachy of human life" being practiced by many, if not most, of my countrymen:

There's just no denying that many of the same people understandably expressing such grief and horror over the children who were killed in Newtown steadfastly overlook, if not outright support, the equally violent killing of Yemeni and Pakistani children. Consider this irony: Monday was the three-year anniversary of President Obama's cruise missile and cluster-bomb attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen that ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children: one more child than was killed by the Newtown gunman. In the US, that mass slaughter received not even a small fraction of the attention commanded by Newtown, and prompted almost no objections (in predominantly Muslim nations, by contrast, it received ample attention and anger).

It is well worth asking what accounts for this radically different reaction to the killing of children and other innocents. Relatedly, why is the US media so devoted to covering in depth every last detail of the children killed in the Newtown attack, but so indifferent to the children killed by its own government? (emphasis mine)

If these strikes are as precise, as surgical, as targeted, as the voices of both Panetta and the Changeling adamantly proclaim in the background, what does that say about them, seeing there's more than ample evidence to the contrary?  I don't know about you, but I say they're both -- bald-faced liars.

Next, Khadija Patel of South Africa's, Daily Maverick gave me one helluva V-8 moment about "hierarchy of human life" here, in her, From Gaza to the Congo: Whose blood is more worthy of attention? (do click on her name and read her mini-bio -- gotta love it!):

Three years on, I no longer lay claim to sanity – I sleep too little to qualify – but these same niggling questions about a jaundiced media focus are spilling out in heated verbiage across the world. And it says something about our collective failure as a world that three years on we’re once more talking about Gaza and Goma. These things really do go on and on and on.

On Sunday, British columnist Ian Birrell noted that coverage of the recent conflict in Gaza had eclipsed another deadly conflict happening simultaneously in the eastern Congo.

Birrell described the Democratic Republic of Congo as a “scene of massacres, of mass rape, of children forced to fight, of families fleeing in fear again and again, so many sordid events that rarely make the headlines.”

“It can seem a conflict of crushing complexity rooted in thorny issues of identity and race, involving murderous militias with an alphabet of acronyms and savagely exploited by grasping outsiders. But consider one simple fact: right now, there is the risk of another round breaking out in the deadliest conflict since the Second World War,” he wrote.

Birrell is not alone in his sombre assessment. Others describe the situation in eastern Congo as “the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today.” The charge of a lack of media attention is also not unfounded. Since 1999, when Doctors without Borders first began issuing its top 10 underreported humanitarian crises in the world, the DRC has featured nearly every year.

Just over one week of bombing in Gaza and everybody was up in arms. There were rallies and protests right across the world. In the media, pages and pages of reportage, analyses and testimony. Hundreds of journalists made the trip into Gaza to record first-hand the death and destruction. Together with them, the reports of ordinary Palestinians on social media lent us some clues of the scale of human tragedy unfolding in the homes, the media offices and the refugee camps in Gaza.

And then there’s the Congo...

Two of my friends are currently tramping around Goma wielding recorders and cameras, doing their bit to bring the crisis there to the attention of the world. It’s not that what’s happening there is going altogether unreported. All the major wires carry updates on the situation several times a day. The crisis is certainly not being ignored. It just is not exciting the same kind of fevered attention that Gaza did.

When superstorm Sandy ripped through the Caribbean and then the east coast of the US last month, many media analysts complained that coverage of the hurricane was overwhelmingly skewed in favour of how it affected Americans. No matter that people in Cuba and Haiti as equal citizens of the world also braced the hurricane and also suffered loss and a disruption to their lives, it was the effect of the storm on the US that filled the world’s media. Some analysts and observers of American dominance on the rest of us meek creatures used the asymmetry in media coverage of the storm in the US and outside as the US as proof of the warped focus of global media. (emphasis mine)

It is important that I own my own complicity in not talking about what's happening to people who look like me in the DRC.  All of my writing, with the exception of my limited coverage of Cote d'Ivoire, and the Marikana massacres, have had nothing to do with Congo.  But I have written about pseudo-sister, Susan Rice, so I don't feel too bad. The one statement Rice made, as Slick Willy's Under Secretary of State for African Affairs which forever rests in the nether reaches of my consciousness, is one Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report nails right here:

“We say hands off Ambassador Susan Rice!” Dr. Ron Daniels’ Institute of the Black World, a proudly Afro-centric organization, would do better to demand that Rice and the rest of the Obama administration keep their bloody hands off Africa. Republicans are “hypocrites “ who “have no moral or political authority to stand in judgment of Ambassador Susan Rice!” One can make that argument, but the Institute of the Black World and the rest of us certainly have the right and obligation to stand in judgment of a political operative and ideologue who, according to an article by Michael Hirsch in the Ethiopian Review, cavalierly dismissed the Rwanda/Uganda-sponsored M23 rebel group’s murderous rampages in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “It’s the eastern DRC. If it’s not M23, it’s going to be some other group.”  Rice delayed for months publication of a United Nations panel of experts report documenting M23 as a front group for Congo’s neighbors, who have all but annexed the mineral-rich eastern part of the country since invading in 1996, leaving 6 million dead in their wake, half of them below the age of five. Rice and her then boss, Bill Clinton, supplied the money, arms and political cover. As Under Secretary of State for African Affairs, Rice left it up to Washington’s Rwandan and Ugandan puppets to safeguard against genocide. “They know how to deal with that,” Rice is quoted as saying. “The only thing we have to do is look the other way.”

Rice’s African American boosters also choose to look the other way. They shame us all." (emphasis mine)

'Nuf said.

H/T to Sis Carolyn over at Perspectives -- Another Way to View for this great piece by Sikhvu Hutchinson -- Nice White Boys Next Door and Mass Murder:

“Standing in line at the California Science Center the day of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary school, my students wondered aloud about the race of the shooter. More than likely he was white,” they agreed. As the only people of color waiting to be admitted to the exhibit, their open question about race elicited visible unease from a group of elderly white women across the line from us.

In high school when my friends and I found ourselves at the business end of Inglewood PD officers’ rifles because someone in our car “looked” like a burglary suspect, it was a rite of passage initiation...

But contrary to the rap stereotype of Glock-toting men of color, an overwhelming majority of people of color are pro-gun control, while the majority of the white electorate is not. The high school assailants in the Littleton, Colorado, the Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Santee, California shootings were steeped in a NRA besotted gun culture that fetishizes readily available firearms as the ultimate medium for violent white masculinity.

However, these youth were instantly transformed into symbols of troubled, tragically “misunderstood” teens. National conversations about the perils of bullying dominated the airwaves. It was accepted that these tragic figures were “our boys,” our recklessly wasted youth. It was conventional wisdom that preventive mental health resources could have minimized their inner turmoil. As the bloggers Three Sonorans note in their piece, “White Privilege and Mass Murder in America,” “whenever white men commit mass murders it is just a freak isolated incident, but when we look at other crime statistics for minorities the reason given is that it is something innate to their culture, to their family. It is those people.”

With Columbine there was tacit understanding that these boys’ acts were symptomatic of a potentially imperiled national heritage. Conversely, any time violence erupts in a black or Latino context it’s a racial indictment, an indictment of a community, not a reflection on the rogue acts of lost boys from salt of the earth homes.

As my students and I left the Science center, bracing for more news about the scope of the attack, it was clear that the tragedy would dominate the news for weeks to come. The senseless slaughter of children from the “perfect” town may finally prompt serious bipartisan legislation to curb the barbaric gun lobby. But it will not prompt analysis of the violent masculinity at the heart of whiteness. And if any of these nice white boy shooters had been black the national sentiment would have echoed the biting comment made by my student Jamion: “Send those niggers back to Africa.” (emphasis mine)

Biting is right, and totally on-point IMHO.

On a final note, as I talked to my youngest about the shootings during "family dinner time" last Sunday,  he told me about this -- Libor scandal grows as the fathers of two mass murderers were to testify:

One interesting connection to the tragedy that took place at the Sandy Hook school is that the father of Adam Lanza has a connection to the theater shootings that took place in Aurora earlier this year by James Holmes.

Both fathers of the shooters were allegedly expected to testify in the Libor scandal that rocked the banking world in June.

The father of Newtown Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza is Peter Lanza who is a VP and Tax Director at GE Financial. The father of Aurora Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes is Robert Holmes, the lead scientist for the credit score company FICO. Both men were to testify before the US Sentate in the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. 16 international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested. (emphasis and interior link on HSBC mine)

While I knew about the Libor scandal, I wasn't aware of any connection whatsoever to either the Aurora or Newton massacres (funny how you think your kids aren't really paying attention to what's going on in the world in which they live -- but they are).  I told him I knew there was a reason I couldn't get this post finished, and this unknown information was probably why!

This story hasn't been officially investigated -- and why would it, if it is, in fact true? After all, the Changeling's appointment of GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt to lead his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness would certainly nip any meaningful digging by the MSM in the bud, no?

I just have to say that I don't believe in coincidences.  And while I still haven't found any smoking guns, the fact that Nancy Lanza had also been previously employed -- on Wall Street, coupled with this, most interesting fact pointed out by commenter, Peter Hyoguchi in the afore-linked piece that:

"Three of Peter Lanza's financial associates from GE Capitol headed to prison because of this fraud. Why would Peter Lanza not be called to testify? James Holmes' father designed the software that assesses national credit scores which is the focus of this Federal trial so why would he not be called to testify? It's unlikely just a coincidence."

Adding to that -- there were, in fact, hearings scheduled (and had) in Congress regarding America's involvement in the Libor scandal (neither Holmes, nor Lanza mentioned, far as I can see)!  Hell, despite the fact that it all may sound circumstantial,  it's certainly enough to have me scratching my head about the murders in both, Aurora and Newton.

Yes, the Changeling has quite a few things regarding human life about which he needs to sincerely squeeze out a tear or two, but I won't hold my breath that he will.  Why?  Because he's a perfectly cast, risk-averse, deus ex machina who always sticks to the dog-whistling, photo-op script he's been given.

Related:
- UBS Libor-rigging settlement exposes pervasive bank fraud
- In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats
- Sen. Boxer Proposes Putting National Guard Troops in Schools
- Mayor wants cops in North Charleston elementary schools
- Gun rights advocates: Arm our teachers to help stop school shootings
- Gun sales surge after Connecticut massacre

Close-ally murder -- guess we still don't have enough blood on our hands

UPDATE:  My learned Sister Carolyn shared these links with me in the comments, but once I watched, I had to add them here:





And let's not forget where Israel gets their shit (to include those nukes nobody but Mordechai Vanunu is willing to talk about)!  Gilad Shalit is home in Israel, safe and sound and Palestinians are still dying -- while the whole world watches.

~#~

Yesterday, while most Americans were caught up in another episode of "All My Generals," -- this is what Israel was doing in Gaza:



My, my, my.  Sure can't blame Julian Assange, Bradley Manning or WikiLeaks on "exposing" this targeted murder of Ahmed Jabri, the head of Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip.  This video is courtesy of the IDF, themselves (pretty sure Qaddaffi, wherever he is, knows exactly what this is all about).

Natasha Lennard's, "The latest from Gaza?" offers an interesting blow-by-blow of the continuing, "David and Goliath" struggle going on (no need to point out who's Goliath is there?).

If it weren't such a tragic piece of reality, I'd have to say h/t to Bibi for boxing the Changeling into that "pragmatic strategy" for which all you armchair enthusiasts (who think you're really a part of this damned game) like to pat his ass on the back. Lest we forget Bibi did support Romney:

But it is tragic, and we, here, should all be ashamed of the blood on our hands (particularly the, "I've got Israel's back" guy):

Israeli aircraft have bombed tunnels on Gaza’s border with Egypt through which basic civilian goods and arms destined for militant groups pass into the tightly blockaded region.

White House adviser Ben Rhodes said Thursday afternoon that the U.S. has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the group to stop its rocket attacks.

Then he says this!

"We’ve … urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas such as Turkey, and Egypt and some of our European partners to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate." Meanwhile, Rhodes made clear that no such de-escalation requests were made by the U.S. to Israel. “Ultimately it’s up to the Israeli government to make determinations about how they’re going to carry out their military objectives” he told press. (emphasis mine)

What kind of schizophrenia is that??!

Update (Nov. 15, 11.00 a.m. EST): The death toll continued to rise in Gaza on the second day of Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense — a full military assault which began yesterday with airstrikes that killed Hamas military leader Ahmad Jabari. Reuters, citing the Gaza health ministry, says the death toll in the blockaded region since the start of the Israeli operation has risen to 15, including eight civilians among them a pregnant woman with twins, an 11-month old boy and three infants. Meanwhile three Israelis have been killed since Wednesday by Palestinian rocket fire.

Please, do read all of Ms. Lennard's piece and then explain to me about "balance of power." And when you're done, watch, and think about this:

  

Related:
- Obama's kill list policy compels US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza
-Israel and Hamas Step Up Air Attacks in Gaza Clash
-Israel Escalates Gaza Attack With Assassination
-When Former CIA Chief David Petraeus Enraged the Israel Lobby

Catching up on some "Ruminations"...

Sheridf's, "The Wait of the Nation II:  Parent Companies, the "Bain" of our Existence!" over at The Crunk Feminist Collective, is the best piece I've read about Romney and Bain Capital since all this hullaballoo first broke in the MSM. Here's my comment to her explaining why I think so:

"sheridf…What a wonderful piece of “follow-the-money,” investigative writing! I have to admit, when I saw the title on my emailed subscription, I said, “Argh!, more Romney-Bain sh*it! Does it really matter when he left (besides the fact he may have lied; I mean, Hell, all politicians lie about their money and what they do to get it, if they can get away with it — ALL of them!)?

But this sh*t right here?? This, is the kind of information the MSM and the Changeling’s campaign folk (full disclosure: I’m no fan of his, or them, either!) should be putting out there! Particularly given it’s horribly, negative contributions to the “framing” of our children’s, parents’ and families’ lives (which, as I think about it, speaks to yet another way the current residents of the “Big House,” continue to ignore, “big picture” issues affecting the Black community — I mean, Obesity is/has been his wife’s “signature” issue! Brava my young sister! Thank you for this work…"

Please do take a moment to tune out the MSM's dog-whistles and read this important and very relevant-to-the-Black-community piece of investigative journalism (cuz Lord knows you won't get it from either campaign's talking heads!).

~#~

Glenn Greenwald's got some interesting links in #2 of his "Various Matters" post.  It appears there's at least ONE MSM journalist willing to confront this administration on their undying fealty to Israel.  Glenn has the transcript, but if a picture's worth a 1000 words, then a video is -- priceless! Check it out:

~#~

Now after all this, the Changeling adds insult to injury by, sending "Biden to NAACP convention":

The NAACP had hoped that President Obama would speak during its six-day confab, as he did when campaigning in 2008 and again in 2009. In 2010 Michelle Obama addressed the convention...On Tuesday an NAACP spokesman said the group was reserving a Thursday speaking spot for the president. (emphasis mine)

Well, seems they've certainly got the "hope" part of his "Hope and Change" message down pat!  I guess since Biden thought the Changeling was, "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy...” -- THAT guy thought it was okay to send him to a room full of similarly situated Black folk in his stead. (smdh)  Talk about needing to "take off your bedroom slippers and put on your marching shoes" -- so you can march the hell away from this joker!

I think I can safely say that his tenure in the Big House, has effectively put Blacks in an untenable position.  We've not demanded, nor gotten anything from him!  Who's really going to take us seriously after we've sat back and let him get away with ignoring us for four (maybe eight years) with hardly a collective peep?  Come on family, ain't y'all tired of asking:

**UPDATE:** Obama Administration Creating African American Education Office.  Well, family, he finally threw out one of his "executive order" crumbs.  Oh,  go ahead --  I can just imagine all the, "See!  I told you he cared!" happy-dancin' going on right now!

But wait a minute!  Is it just me? Or did it take over three and a half years AND three months before the election to even spit in this direction? Seems to me, if it looks like a shut-the-hell-up duck, and quacks like a shut-the-hell-up duck -- it's a damned shut-the-hell-up duck!  Just sayin'...

~#~

The Julian Assange Show on RT News continues to offer up some interesting conversation that again, we need not look to the MSM to provide:



Occupy movements notwithstanding -- there appears to be little, if any, danger of popular forces creating practical, functioning, new and significant "models" here, Noam!

~#~

Israeli-Arab community upset over new military draft law (article that accompanies the video):

Arab Israelis make up about 20 per cent of Israel’s population. While they have not traditionally been conscripted by the government, many of them choose to serve willingly, either in the army or community service, thereby becoming eligible for the same social benefits that Jewish Israelis enjoy after serving.

However, the new law would make the above service mandatory for the Arab population, raising questions among a community torn between their loyalty to the Jewish state and their heritage as Palestinians. (emphasis mine)

Man! All I can say is -- that is some re-e-ally sad, split-mind shit right there.

Like many minorities here, the Druze have been trying to be "patriotic" and serve "their country" (even though the Zionists, much like "real Americans" here, see it as their country).  And if they do, they get a shot at a somewhat equal and decidedly "better life" -- at least materially.  But when one considers that the Druze must fight and/or kill, other Palestinians, that whole "material" thing seems a bit hollow (the Civil War springs to mind).  But that's just me.

And then of course, there's this, Israeli Military Draft Panel Defies Netanyahu:

Shaul Mofaz, chairman of parliament's largest party, Kadima, told reporters Netanyahu "crassly" violated their coalition agreement on Monday when he disbanded the panel, which proposed ending sweeping exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men and penalizing them if they dodge the draft. Many Israelis deplore the privileges that the ultra-Orthodox receive, but Netanyahu is reluctant to alienate what are traditional supporters by adopting proposals they vehemently oppose...The draft privileges for the religious date back six decades, when Israel's founders granted exemptions to 400 exemplary seminary students to help rebuild great schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. The numbers of exemptions have steadily ballooned over the years, and today, an estimated 60,000 religious men of military age are exempted. The pattern of studying instead of serving continues long past draft age, with ultra-Orthodox men commonly spending their lives in religious study instead of working, while collecting welfare. (emphasis mine)

Sounds a lot like those "exemptions" enjoyed by many of the well-connected, college-bound in this country, no? -- like this, one of many:  Starting as a freshman at Stanford University in 1966, Romney received a series of deferments, including one for his role as a “minister of religion or divinity student,” that kept him out of Vietnam (read that here). 

So if I'm reading these pieces correctly, mandatory for most Arab-Israelis -- exemptions for all ultra-Orthodox Israelis/Zionists. Hell, I'd be more than a little ticked off my-damned-self!

I had one more, but it's way too long to insert as a mere rumination.  Hope to post it soon.

My, my, my...

The Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning head of "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" speaks...



...and plenty of exceptional, "we're-so-much-better-than-those-savages-over-there-celebrating-American-death-in-the-streets" Americans - celebrate.





Did you now?  Not what some folk are already saying (Warning:  photo is graphic, even if not real).  And really, after all this time hunting him, can you see them quietly disposing of the "trophy" - at sea?

And one other thing.  While I totally agree with what Messrs. Sirota and Hedges have respectively said in their pieces below - a common, seemingly inherent "white-American" hypocrisy reared its ugly head, stuck out its tongue and said, "Nah, nigger ya'll still don't count."

In his, "USA! USA!" is the wrong response, David Sirota says:

This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory: He has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history -- the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed. (emphasis mine)

I've really had enough of whitewashed history (one of the main reasons we can't productively talk about race in this country). Somebody please tell me - how exactly has "America's psyche" changed?
From the time it accepted its first ebony cargo from Senegambia courtesy of the British  - via The Good Ship Jesus (apology from the captain's descendant notwithstanding), to the Indian Removal Act and the taking of Osceola's head, to the Ku Klux Klan, to Apache helicopter pilots and boots on the ground, to leading NATO's "humanitarian"/assassination mission that took-out a father and his children - America has BEEN a pretty "bellicose" society, cheering on killing with little or no assistance from anybody (except the "usual suspects") - least of all Osama bin Laden.

And in Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden's Death, he says:

I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight. (emphasis mine)

S-o-o-o, "we...have become the monster that we are attempting to fight."   Really?  And who was the monster during slavery, and the pursuant (and continuing) Jim Crow?  To paraphrase Pogo Mr. Hedges - as a country - "We have met the 'monster' - and he is us."

James Allen's introduction to "Without Sanctuary" is as relevant of America today (thanks to WikiLeaks and YouTube) - as the very American era it portrays:

Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an unearthing of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience.  Part postal  cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and other acts of a mad citizenry.  The communites' best citizens lurking just outside the frame.  Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt.

After almost 45 years, Dr. King's, "Beyond Vietnam:  A Time to Break Silence" is still right.  And having a society-identified, Black man in the Big House - with an apparent penchant for assassinations and a serious case of Can't Remember Shit when it comes to them - hasn't changed a damned thing.  {smdh}

UPDATE:  This piece in Spiegel Online is an interesting commentary on how the Changeling has "upped our status" in the world (every bit of snark intended).  All I could think - upon seeing this photo #1 in the gallery of 13 (click on Photo Gallery: The Hunt for Bin Laden for others) was - "Natural Born Killers"...

US President Barack Obama and members of his national security team, including Vice President Joe Biden (left) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (second from right) watched the operation live in the White House situation room. (emphasis mine)

Art by Leon Kuhn - h/t Black Agenda Report

It doesn't matter how his faithful try to spin this one - let's just be clear - that megalomaniacal, little caramel drop amid all those white faces - sitting there, watching the carnage LIVE like it was a sequel to those "Saw" movies - is just like the rest of them.

UPDATE II:  Seems Obama & Co can't help but swirl down Disraeli's toilet of  'three kinds of lies':  "Lies, Damned lies and statistics."  I don't know whether to laugh at, or feel sorry for, Brennan (sacrificial lamb that he was) as he regurgitated this stupid shit:

Qualifying the narrative of the assault that he offered to reporters, Brennan explained that some of the information came from live video feeds of the raid. "I wasn't there," he said. (emphasis mine)

WTF??!!  Ask your damned bosses!!  Glued to the f*ckin' plasma as they were, it was surely as close to "being there" as being there could have possibly been!

Y'all really need to stop insulting "we the people's" intelligence because obviously - THEY certainly f*ckin' know!!

Ah-h-h-h-h, but our really "knowing" was never the intent of the Changeling's puppet masters was it?

My head's exploding, so lemme just leave you with this young brother's seasoned, through-an-across-the-pond, clarity:

If "they" killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad then "they" also bombed a large number of wedding parties in Afghanistan, "they" murdered 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha and "they" gang-raped a 14-year-old before murdering her, her six-year-old sister and their parents near Mahmudiyah. If "they" don't want to be associated with the atrocities then "they" need to find more to celebrate than an assassination. Vengeance is, in no small part, what got us here. It won't get us out.  (emphasis mine)

Amen.

UPDATE III (and final on this web of lies):  Somebody PLEASE tell my non-computer-wonk ass how they could be - Finding treasures in Bin Laden computers when, according to this:

"The compound had neither an Internet nor a telephone connection. According to the New York Times, the al-Qaida terrorists inside burned their rubbish themselves rather than putting it outside for collection." (emphasis mine)

Now, like I said - I'm no computer wonk - but I'm just finding it hard to believe that:

1.  U.S. Enemy #1, who eluded not only our military forces, but our "intelligence" analysts for damn-near 10 years, lugged "... five computers, 10 hard drives, and scores of removable media including USB sticks and DVDs" around with him all that time on the run - yet burned his trash!  But just for shits-n-grins, let's say he did.  How'd he use them?  Guess he had one of those super-duper-too-encrypted-to-track, wireless broadband Internet connection cards.  Or, as some media outlets are now reporting - fiber optics cable.
2. U.S. Enemy #1 would take the time to run and bury (they are buried aren't they?) some damned fiber optics cable and NOT dig a damned get-away tunnel for himself and his family!

Anybody wanna buy a bridge?

"Operation Odyssey Dawn" - a show of imperialism from Hypocritic Oafs

(Yeah, no - "hypocritic" isn't a word - but I know y'all get my meaning!)

Sorry - again - for the interruption of the Africa series (it was life-changing - of course there's more!), but really - if there was ever any doubt about the hypocrisy of the Changeling (Nobel-laureate for peace that he is), Miz SOS and their whole "Change You Can Believe In" administration - they should all be cleared up with the launching of "Operation Odyssey Dawn."  {smdh}

"The Laureate and Libya" - Nate Beeler

The launching brought to mind two observations in a piece I'd read over at Race-Talk regarding another culture and another subject (though still relevant here I think) by contributor, Mikhail Lyubanski:

The assumption is that it is possible to rank-order nations/cultures on some supposedly objective hierarchy of “civilization”...Who gets to decide what is considered “civilized?”

Anyway - a few links from some folks who've been paying attention (because one of MY rants would probably take forever!):

• U.S. Stays Mum as Iraqi Security Forces Kill, Detain and Abuse Protesters
• Libya army transport deal frozen after US approval 
• U.S. Considers Arming Libyan Rebels Months After Approving Major Arms Deal Sought by Qaddafi
• The Invasion of Bahrain
• Yemeni forces massacre dozens of protesters
  UPDATE: The American Dilemma in Libya: To Bomb, Invade, Partition, Or All of the Above
• Military Action Against Libya Is Not Illegal, Not About Democracy and Very Limited
• Libya, Hypocrisy and Betrayal by the United Nations: Death and Destruction. US-NATO's New War in North Africa
• Nations Prepare for Libya No-Fly Zone
• Taking on Gadhafi:  Obama Finally Has His Own War

And how appropriate?!  He announces this foolishness IN BRAZIL - one of the five countries sensibly abstaining from this savior-cum-imperialist piece of work.  I looked at this today...

The Changeling and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff

 
...and I was HOPING she was thinking this!:

P.S.  If you believe the United States is in financial trouble, know that the powers that be (including their figurehead African-American puppet, joining in on an assault on an African country) believe there's nothing better for a recession than a war.