The New Terrorism

I hear from George Monbiot, my favorite columnist, that there has been a call for renewed patriotism in Britain. Intellectuals are either joining the mob or jumping ship, and I couldn't agree more with his conclusion, "The world will be a happier and safer place when we stop putting our own countries first."
I am grateful for the article on more than one count though. As you can see in his profile, X Sama is a self-declared patriot of the world. I love all the places that I have been, and all the places I have yet to be. You can see my concern upon reading that, "to become a patriot is to lie to yourself." After some reflection, X Sama says that a new line must be drawn. How do we distinguish between patriots who love their country/ies and those who support their country's interests above all others? Let's play with the word a little then. The word patriot come from Greek. Patris mean fatherland, and iota mean the Greek letter thatsa very small... there you go. So for those who respect our fathers and the positive forces that gave us life, let them be called patriots. And if a person thinks that their country, or their father for that matter, can do no wrong, let's just call them children.

I also hear that terrorism has dominated the news, resulting in terror-OD for everyone. As a remedy, try reading some non-terror related news.

The camping renaissance

I had more links, but then realised that they were all rubbish. Face it. Any journalist able to advance their career is tackling the big depressing T. If you want something else, I suggest a good book.

Pre-Crime Branch to report on minority communities in UK

Special police units have been formed to identify and take down pre-criminals and those harboring crime causing thoughts. X Sama has learned that the units, newly dubbed, "Social Seismology Units," have already begun measuring communities for extremism. Positions within the new units will be filled by Pre-Crime officers.

In the past, seismological crime, caused by the violent release of pressure between opposing doctrines, was mainly the preserve of antiquated Post-Crime specialists. However, new developments in social science have allowed a new breed of crimestoppers to gather evidence of social tension and release it, before eruption.

A junior police officer with detailed knowledge of English beer told X Sama, "Crime is only a symptom of the greater infection of pre-crime. Extremist thoughts act as a carrier of the fatalistic disease. Once infected, the host begins emitting foreign brainwaves that act against domestic waves. It's only a matter of time before they blow. What we have come to learn from the London bombings is that violent eruptions are predictable and preventable."

Social Seismologists will use a variety of techniques to identify the source of infecting thoughts and their method of transmission. Separating and establishing a quarantine of the infected population has not yet been planned, but neuroscientists are already planning effective treatments for cleansing infected patients.

A spokesman from the American CDC announced that there would be a joint effort to educate English speaking peoples about the dangers of extremist ideas. Citing the danger of, "newly imported Muslims passing on this illness to domesticated Muslims all around the English-speaking world," the CDC has already extended the quarantine time for immigrating minorities.
"The real danger lies in the Muslims who were born in the UK and US," according to the CDC. "Thought-disease is extremely adaptable. At the moment, it is spread by Arabic, Urdu, and a handful of languages and in conditions rarely found outside of Islamic communities." Scientists agree that it could easily mutate and pass into English thought, becoming immune to harsh weather and vile food.

For the moment, it is hoped that the UK's SS units will succeed in preventing another eruption, but the US and Australia will not be waiting to see the results. ESPN-2, Tony Hawk, and Mountain Dew have already extended their copyrights to include all extreme jihad and extreme doctrines in the regions. It is widely believed that private ownership of extreme ideas will generate enough revenue and incentive for companies to regulate the flow of these thoughts and prevent pressure from building up to dangerous levels.

Supreme Court Tells Swindled Investors to "b*@*p off!"

The Supreme Court just overturned the Arthur Anderson verdict. The impact of this, according to the article, is that investors who lost their life savings in Enron will have to drop their lawsuits against the splintered accounting firm and its partners.
Basically, they are saying that accounting firms regularly destroy documents by the truckloadbefore an investigation and there is no concrete proof that AA is guilty. They say that the lower court should not have admitted that document destruction as evidence. Nevermind that Enron was hiding billions of dollars of debt and Arthur Anderson was responsible for ACCOUNTING for it all. In fact, they are specially licenced to account for it and assure us that everything is as it seems in the financial statements. Nevermind that AA was broken up to deter what everyone in the industry admits: the Big Five accounting firms cook books in exchange for lucrative consulting contracts. You can't pay an accountant extra to ignore your crimes, but you sure can buy a lot of 'advice' from him.
During the appeal, a sympathetic freelance accountant had this to say,

"I myself showed my buddy how to create shadow companies and swindle hard working people, looking forward to retirement. I told him to take a few million here and there, but his gambling took a hold of him. I used my accounting license to help hide the crime. Thankfully, he kept $50 million for me. I shred all of my evidence, but God Damnit! I do that because that's what accountants do, not because I was trying tohide anything! This could have happened to anybody in the industry, and my heart goes out to those brave managers who were stripped of everything, except their billion dollar estates protected under Florida law. "

If the Supreme Court continues to be filled with right-wing amoralists (yes, even US liberals are right-wing), it is only because people want a good show. When the verdict against the powerful is always sure to be 'not guilty', it's no wonder the nation spends its time screaming over the fate of the weak. America feels like a big man, telling pregnant women, coma victims, and individuals what is right and wrong. In the meantime, his bosses are screwing his wife and drinking his beer.

Oil Men

Not to divert attention away from the mass murder & cover-up in Uzbekistan, but the US Press is once again attempting to hide information in plain sight.

The New York Times says:"The United States did not do enough to curb corruption by American companies involved in the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, say Democrats on a Senate committee investigating abuses in the program."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/politics/17food.html
It also says that BayOil fought the US governments attempts to block the illegal oil kickbacks (directly paid to Saddam).

Meanwhile...

The Guardian has a lot more detail on the content of the Senate report, which has documented evidence of Navy and State Department approval and assistance of the deal (the oil tanker had promises that they wouldn't be seized for illegal sale to Jordan) and evidence that Bush was notified by the UN several times that Saddam was sitting there, receiving kickbacks and that BayOil was refusing to open their books.http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1485649,00.html

At least the Washington Post mentioned the involvement of the State Department and Navy. Still, the US treasury simply 'missed' the violations. Even though they were repeatedly notified by UN investigators, they did not turn a blind eye... they simply ordered a copy of Bayoil's books, and promptly refused to show them to the UN. They must have thought, "Gee, we can't see anything wrong here, no way are going to let the UN see these completely legitimate expense lists."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/16/AR2005051601369.html

Democracy on the side

When the flame of democracy went out 2000 years ago, we had to wait for the French and Americans to rekindle it. Of course, the champions of inequality have realised that if you want it to stay dead, no one can know that it has gone.
Read how inequality is incompatible with the right to choose. Ask yourself what is democracy without control over money? What is a free person without employment rights?

Consider the case of US president Lincoln, who was assasinated. This great leader, this visionary, enshrined in the minds of Americans, had the sincerity and courage to set his people free. Freed the slaves and freed the free. The greenback (paper money backed by the treasury) was an unparalleled gift. For a short time, the American people could vote and have an impact on the prime decision, the fuel of our lives, jobs, families. Then Honest Abe was shot, the central bank returned, and we spend our time arguing the last decision, how to stay afloat on the debt.

If you are having trouble with these ideas or their evidence, which, in the words of Noam Chomsky, "is all right there on the surface of history," then I ask you to do something about it. X Sama is here to help you.

Calling All History Teachers!

X Sama begs you to introduce the BBC documentary series, The Power of Nightmares (<--full script and commentary for those who cannot screen the film). In 3 one hour parts, it provides stimulating analysis of the birth of radical Islamic and neoconservative movements. The 3 parts have been joined, edited, and shortened for the Cannes Film Festival. Read a little more about it here. You won't be seeing it any time soon on US television or in theaters, so grab a copy where you can (torrentspy; demonoid).

And if it gets you in too serious of a mood, if you just can't swallow the idea that historical forces are shaping our governments, our leaders, then there's an alternative paradigm presented in H. Frankfurt's lecture turned book, On Bullshit.