"Bomb,bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran". The retrurn of the Neocons.

While we take some time to enjoy this summer's Olympics, I hope that we are also paying attention to the candidates running for president of these divided states of America as well. One in particular has been letting loose with some troubling rhetoric and pronouncements of late.

Mitt Romney, while standing on foreign soil, has declared that if he becomes president he will take this country to war with Iran to stop them from furthering their nuclear capabilities. Take some time to think about that for a minute. This is after one of his aides declared that Mr. Romney would back an Israeli military strike on Iran to thwart their nuclear enrichment program. Of course the very right wing Prime Minister of Israel agrees with him.

"Earlier, Netanyahu welcomed Romney as 'a representative of the United States' and told the Republican that he agrees with his approach to the Iranian nuclear threat.

"'Mitt, I couldn't agree with you more,' Netanyahu said.

'We have to be honest and say that all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota. And that's why I believe that we need a strong and credible military threat coupled with the sanctions to have a chance to change that situation,' Netanyahu said."  

Mr. Netanyahu spent a lot of time around these parts (Graduated from Cheltenham High) and I have heard from some folks that are familiar with Benjamin that he had some issues even back then. First of all Benjamin, Mitt is not a "representative of the United States", he is simply a wealthy private citizen trying to become our president. But I digress.

The problem with Chickenhawks like Mitt Romney is that they have no idea how dangerous this type of rhetoric can be to the stability of the world, and particularly in the Middle East. Mitt said he wouldn't campaign on foreign soil, but this all about getting Jewish votes in the upcoming election and showing a contrast in his foreign policy style with Obama. By saying that an "Iran strike is on the table" if he becomes president, he is trying to show us that Obama has been president for almost four years and hasn't struck Iran as yet. What is he waiting for?

Well Mitt, he is waiting for the diplomatic type solutions such as economic sanctions to work, and from all appearances -with all due respect to Mr. Netanyahu and the Neocons in this country- it appears that they have been working.  

What is sad about all of this is that Mitt could ultimately become our president, and, if he does, we might wish for the days of W. I am not going to rip his personality like my man Brooklyn Bad Boy over at Kos, but everything about Mitt Romney should bother you. (We could start with the fact that that Dan Senor is his foreign policy point person.) And it should really bother you if you have a male loved one who would be deemed eligible to go to war for this country.

*Pic from Getty images 

        

  

Lusting After Youth And War

I know I mentioned the incumbent split for Sweden's Lust For Youth and Denmark's War, The Glass House Etiquette, a little while ago. Well, Avant! Records is about to drop that bomb - go get it. Also important though is LFY's new full-length, Growing Seeds. I'm really digging it. I know there is a lot of this diseased synth pop that lurks around in the ether, but there is something about this album and this band (now just the solo outfit for Hannes Norrvide after partner in crime Amanda's departure) that tends to nail it more consistently than others. Maybe it's just me - but there is something sexy and addictive about this record. I reckon its my favourite in this vein this year. It's not ultra surprising, as I was a fan of the Gothic Germanic-wave of their previous release Solar Flare, but this really steps up. 'Cover Their Face' is doing me over and over again - I feel wonderfully violated. Yes, I am a little bit of a whore - Lust For Youth does that to me, every time.


Grab Growing Over here.

Lust For Youth - Behind Curtains

And for you War fans...

War - Somme, Maggio

Declaring War On The Ice Age

It's no secret that I'm a rabid fan of Denmark's punk nihilist teens Iceage - their New Brigade record is easily one of the best of its kind for the past decade, at the very least. Whilst we all wait anxiously to see if they can ride the wave of expectation to create another killer album, their frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt combined with Sexdrome's Loke Rahbek to form weird electro-disco-no wave-punk outfit War. I say weird, because I shouldn't like this - but I do. Very much. They put a 7" out through Sacred Bones last month, backed up by a split with Lust For Youth (through the great Avant! Records), and the resultant feverish aural masturbation that has hit the taste-makers of this insipid world is OTT - but somewhat warranted.

War - Brodermordet

What's Wrong with This Picture?

I have stated that everyone needs R and R, and (outside of assault issues) This Blog generally avoids american politics unless there is humor or free speech involved, but I'm starting to get weirded out.
Pakistan cuts supply lines to our troops in afghanistan ?
burning effigy of U.S. President

Student supporters of Islami Jamiat Talaba, a student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, hold a banner while protesting against NATO forces in front of a burning tyre in Lahore November 26, 2011.  The banner reads, "Terrorist NATO and America, leave our country." Credit: REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

while
the president golfs and goes to BB games again?

I know dropping drone bombs is easier than torture,

and instant death of terrorists solves the whole gitmo problem,

but i feel confused somehow...

http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-24-troops-dead-nato-helicopter-attack-140517725.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-pakistan-nato-idUSTRE7AP03S20111126

excerpt:

..."Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's shipments by land.

The attack is the worst incident of its kind since Pakistan uneasily allied itself with Washington immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. targets.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan, its ally in the war on militancy, have been strained following the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in a raid on the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May, which Pakistan called a flagrant violation of sovereignty.
A spokesman for NATO-led troops in Afghanistan confirmed that NATO aircraft had been called in to support troops in the area and had probably killed some Pakistani soldiers.

"Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what highly likely caused the Pakistan casualties," said General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

He added that he could not confirm the number of casualties, but ISAF is investigating. "We are aware that Pakistani soldiers perished. We don't know the size, the magnitude," he said.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said the killings were "an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty" and added, "We will not let any harm come to Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity." ..."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jan/14/counting-obamas-campaign-promises/

Spider with headlight-- always scary

Book Review - The Underdogs : Mariano Azuela 6*

Image via Wikipedia Written about events during the Mexican Revolution, this tale follows the exploits of a group of villagers who band together under their local leader Demetrio Macias.  The men seemed to have joined the Revolution not out of ideals, but because a side has to be picked, and a poor working man has to be anti-Federal.

Demetrio leads through force of action, but when a Federal deserter, Luis Cervantes, arrives with his city education and, initially at least, his strong sense of ideals for the Revolution, the group find they have a spokesman who can express why they are fighting.

As the war grinds on, Demetrio's band experience some success, but along the way they become corrupted by greed and revenge.  Petty killings occur on the flimsiest of pretexts, and robbery and looting become the order of the day.  Eventually they come to be feared and hated by the peasentry in turn as the federal soldiers who burn Demetrio's home were hated by them. Cervantes uses the power of his speech to set Demetrio up as a great general, with Cervantes rising in power at his side.  The city man though can see which way the wind blows, and as the Revolution begins to turn on those people it was meant to serve, he flees the fighting with his war loot and sets himself up in business.

When the gang eventually return home they can find no peace.  Demetrio is asked why he keeps on fighting, but after two years the fighting has come to define his life and he can see no other purpose for it.

The Underdogs chronicles the failures of the Mexican Revolution as it turns on the very people it was meant to serve.  In its unflinching treatment of the main characters and Azuela's depiction of men changed by war and greed, it paints a picture which has become more familiar to us in more recent war books and films, particularly those concerning the American involvement in Vietnam.

An interesting read that introduced to me a period of history I knew nothing about, but which makes clear the eternal pointlessness and brutalising nature of war.

Glenn Beck in Israel, Days of Rage on Wall Street, The Mayor of Philadelphia, Flash MObs, and Who are You?

Everybody is manifesting who they are. Calls for love and nonviolence, calls for rage and economic equality, calls for looting and beating,

calls for courage,

calls to bring Down the Government, calls to Expand the Government.

There are movements to eradicate Jews and

to Remember the Holocaust.

Movements

to feed the poor and to stop the assault on women and children in Afghanistan, in Congo,(video)  in the USA, in that crazy place called Iran.

Efforts to get rich no matter what and

efforts to preserve our natural habitats and beauty, to stop those who treat our fellow beings with cruelty.

Oh, that grown-ups of wisdom and love were running the show...

This is a time to educate yourself. Watch films, read materials from "the other side" if you want to be able to talk, to communicate with each other. I hope everyone who reads this will not be trying increase the divides between us, but to softly open hearts.

We walk about

Manifesting who we are. Preaching nonviolence is not necessarily practicing it. Who you think you are, Be Really.

Do you want to Be Right and punish others, embarrass those who are wrong or who disagree with you, do you want to bring down public humiliation on those who are working against your noble goals--?

or do you want

Hearts to Open,

Enlightenment to come,

Peace to reign?

How do you think you can do that? What do you think will make that happen? Do you want results, change, love and relief, or do you want to smugly Display your Correctness?

Anyway, that's what i ask myself from time to time...

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad

 Syria's Tyrant

 Philly Mayor to Youts: Grow up: AP news

destroying forest--/a-battle-is-under-way-for-the-forests-of-borneo

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111782564

UK looters shoot at the unarmed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/20/riot-shooting-footage-violence-organised

wall street

days-of-rage-to-take-down-wall-street-this-september/

Rich rich rich:   http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

caring for all children?

western materialism?

Get some peace, whereever you may find it.

martin-luther-king-week-at-k-state-and.html

dr. martin luther king, jr. says:

As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. (1956)

We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. If I am stopped, our work will not stop, for what we are doing is right. — 1956, in Montgomery, Alabama

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love. (1958)

A fifth point concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him. (1958)

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. (1963)

We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart. (1963)



oh, hitler

W.A.R.



 

frederick douglass

 

Neda Soltani Do not Forget

peace prize for chinese dissident

glenn beck and israel jeruselam post

 

The Face of Cruel: HERE

 

"The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."

Be as you wish to appear.

— Socrates

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." — Socrates

Gassed

Gassed by John Sargent

He Swallowed...

Image via Wikipedia"He swallowed a pulpy mouthful of bread as if there went with it the disordered and suffocating mass of his memories" - from Under Fire: The Story Of A Squad by Henri Barbusse.

A Soldier’s Cemetery

Image via WikipediaBehind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.

There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss. -John William Streets (killed and missing in action on 1st July 1916 aged 31)

Anthem For Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen - Kenneth Branagh

War Means Mass Rape--Still, Again, Continuing, as the Generations Pass... Eman al-Obeidy Video

One cannot write about it all the time. One tires of writing, and reading, and thinking about it. Still, it must be chronicled, repeated, and from time to time, shouted. Here is a column from Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star:
excerpt:  (Posted on Mon, Apr. 11, 2011)

Libya proves that war still means mass rape

By MARY SANCHEZ
"You can read about it in the Bible, and it remains true to our very day. Rape is an integral part of war, a favored tactic to demoralize an enemy army or population.
Mass rape is never quite acknowledged in the glorious accounts of the victors, and the shame of it impels the defeated not to dwell on its memory. Often it’s left to historians to dredge up its horrors, or to a handful of victims that demand justice. Only recently has rape in wartime become a topic for sustained discussion, much less systematic prosecution as a war crime.
But now there is Libya and Eman al-Obeidy.

Is her name unfamiliar? If you pay attention to the news on television, you might recognize her strained face and her anguished cries. She is the woman who last month was dragged out of a Tripoli hotel as she desperately tried to relay to international press the story of her kidnap and rape and (and the kidnap and rape of numerous other Libyan women) by henchmen of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Despite the risks to her safety, Obeidy bravely made her way to the hotel to tell her story of being raped and sodomized by Libyan security forces. Cameras caught the scene as government thugs beat and kicked reporters who tried to protect Obeidy.   
It seems she was picked up at a checkpoint because her accent gave her away as being from the east of Libya, the center of the rebellion against Gadhafi. “Let the men from eastern Libya come and see what we are doing to their women and how we rape them,” are the words Obeidy attributed to her attackers.

Broadcast around the world, the incident forced the Libyan government to follow a hackneyed script of denial and damage control. She’s lying. She’s a drunk, a thief. Then the inevitable: She’s a prostitute. Libyan government operatives circulated a home video of a belly dancer, claiming the dancer was Obeidy and that the tape was a pornographic film.
Right. The world is not buying it.

The truth is that Obeidy is a law school graduate. She’s also fortunate. Her well-timed outburst before international reporters quite possibly spared her life, and may spare her from the fate that awaits most Libyan women who are raped: being shuttered behind closed doors, sent to live in rehabilitation centers as if they were the criminal, not the victim. Obeidy is a symbol now.

Men have long been the main instigators of war, but women often bear its most gruesome scars. A 1996 UNICEF report, titled 'Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War,' declared:
'From [recent] conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina to Peru to Rwanda, girls and women have been singled out for rape, imprisonment, torture and execution. Rape, identified by psychologists as the most intrusive of traumatic events, has been documented in many armed conflicts including those in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus, Haiti, Liberia, Somalia and Uganda.'

Rape has been used as a method of spreading HIV/AIDS, to contribute to ethnic cleansing and human trafficking as women are forced into prostitution... ...We can hope that the bravery of Eman al-Obeidy, her dogged determination to use the media to expose the Libyan regime’s atrocities, will help the world denounce rape as a crime of war." To reach Mary Sanchez, call 816-234-4752 or send email to msanchez@kcstar.com

Waiting for Justice

More HERE and HERE

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

Image via WikipediaHalf a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they tuned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
o the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The painting is Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, by George Frederic Watts (died 1904), given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1895.