Most Dangerous Nation In The World?

There is a terrific article out today over on TomDispatch. It's all about America--what we've been doing for some time, across the globe, what we're capable of and what we may yet do.

The Most Dangerous Country on Earth

It ain't Russia, kids.

The article poses the possibility of whether we, the United States, are, very likely and literally, the most dangerous nation in the world.

Honestly, no hyperbole, I think it's unquestionable.

Given our "yooge" army, our military and all our weapons and what we spend on what we call "defense" alone, that can be argued. Then, when you add in how many nations in the world we have military bases in? Over 700? All interfering in other nations' internal affairs?

Oh, yeah.

We think ourselves the most peaceful, peace-loving people in the world, sure. Standing up for peace and justice and fairness and right and equality. Sure we do.

But the truth? What we actually do? What we've done? What we're doing?

Read the article.

As it states, we just had the head of our own "..leading domestic investigative outfit...", the FBI, interfere in our own national election for our president.

Karma is most surely a bitch, isn't it?

And then, consider these facts. First, we spend more, as a nation, on what we call defense, than any other nation and in huge numbers.

Secondly, we supply more arms to the world than any other.



After repeatedly interfering in other nation's elections, at times assassinating one here or there and just "taking others out", our own investigative unit guides our own election.

The irony is virtually dripping.

You can go way back, at least decades, into what America has done in other nation's affairs or you can go to far more recent history with the Republican Party's and George W. Bush's very chosen war in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. And then there's all over the Middle East, of course, and Southern and Central America.

So, yeah, America, get over yourself. Look around. You are the biggest threat to world peace in the world.

And you have been for some time.

And you have no intention of stopping.

On This Day, 1965

Jon S. Randal (from FB)
March 9, 2014 ·

He was a white minister. Some said he didn't have to go, he had a good life in Boston, he had a loving wife and four loving children. But, he was horrifed at the brutality he saw happening in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, as what is now called "Bloody Sunday." So, when Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. issued a nationwide call to the clergy, urging representatives of all denominations and faiths to journey to Alabama and stand with African Americans there for the cause of voting rights, social justice, and equality, James Reeb answered the call. Believing that to do nothing in the face of injustice is as wrong as to condone it, Reeb knew he had to go.

Those of you who know your history know what happened and know what occurred on "Bloody Sunday."  On March 9, at an integrated restaurant in Alabama, Reeb and two other ministers were confronted by several white men brandishing clubs and shouting racial slurs. One man slammed his club into Reeb’s head, knocking him to the ground. Several hours elapsed before Reeb was admitted to a Birmingham hospital where doctors performed brain surgery. He never recovered, and he died on March 11, 1965.

His murder spawned national outrage. President Lyndon B. Johnson called Reeb’s widow and father to express his condolences, and on March 15, he invoked Reeb’s memory when he delivered a draft of the Voting Rights Act to Congress. That same day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eulogized Reeb at a ceremony at Brown’s Chapel in Selma:

"James Reeb, symbolizes the forces of good will in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers."

The last phone call Reeb made was to his wife at the restaurant before he was beaten. His wife would later say that Reeb believed in the aims of the civil rights movement, almost nothing could have stopped her husband from going to Selma, though he knew the risks associated with doing so.

James Reeb, January 1, 1927 – March 11, 1965

We Americans Don't Seem to Learn From History

This week, I watched the first screening of PBS' Murder of a President  on American Experience, telling the story of US President James Garfield, his life, his deeply tragic assassination and death 200 days later.

It was fascinating to the point of riveting. Such great and deep history. Sad it isn't taught in our schools. Seems he was a brilliant man who fought for the people and even for the slaves of the nation, a very welcome rarety.

Too bad we don't still, to this day, have such Republicans.

Anyway, it pointed out to me, once more, how we Americans don't learn from history and I'll tell you why.

We all know our President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed, also tragically and needlessly, in 1865, at the hands of a mad man.

At the time, Presidents didn't have security guards and protection. So the assassin came in, had access to the President and shot and killed him easily, if horribly enough.

You would think we would, as a nation, learn something from that, right? Like that we need to protect our presidents?

Nah.

We're Americans. Learn something?  Heck, no. Not from the past, not from recent history, nothing.

16 years later---sixteen whole, long years---then-President James Garfield, still unprotected, was headed to a train station, rather famously as it was in the newspaper, for pity's sake, so a crazy man came up and shot him, repeatedly. It didn't kill him instantly but soon enough, it was done.

No body guards. No protection. Nothing.

So a couple centuries later, do you think we'd learn anything from, say another countries military foray into another country?

Do you think we'd pay any attention to the world and international, military history of, say, France, that had attacked and fought the people of Vietnam?

Oh, hell, no.

Go ahead. Attack. Go in. Think you're going to win. Think you're going to win the people over. With bombs.

We all know how that went.

Couple decades later?

Not just one nation but two.

Iraq?  Afghanistan?

Oh, heck, yes, let's attack.

Forget that the British and Soviets both attacked and fought and were repelled and in effect beaten in these places and by these people.

Ignore it.  Go ahead and attack.

We're Americans.

We don't need to learn from history.

The Gettysburg Address

Given this day, 1863



Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal"

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground-- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, to stand here, we here be dedica-ted to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Quote of the Day -- Timely

Then and today



Bobby Kennedy, A Remembrance

Robert F Kennedy, November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968

From a time long, long ago when leaders were more for the "little guy", the average man and woman on the streets and not just the big, the powerful, the wealthy and corporations.



Bobby Kennedy

That he is resting in peace.

On this day

A reminder

In remembrance

"Now, I think that I should have known that he was magic all along. I did know it - but I should have guessed that it would be too much to ask to grow old with and see our children grow up together. So now, he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man." --Jackie Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy, Rest in peace

Murdered 44 years ago today. (Thank you Bob McWilliams for the reminder).

America's and American's so-wrong view of history

I think it's exemplified by this video.

"We didn't start the fire."

Nonsense.

Pardon the crude language but to be more emphatic, because it deserves it, bullshit.

I think it can easily, historically and factually be argued from at least Vietnam on that we--the US--did, in fact, start the fire.

We chose to go into Vietnam. We chose to add soldiers to the country. We chose to escalate the war. We chose to stretch it out, too, and bomb Cambodia.

To say otherwise gives us far too much credit and excuses our incredibly stupid, murderous, killing ways, then and now, what with Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our President at the time, one George W. Bush and his administration chose to go into Iraq, disgustingly, shamefully, ignorantly and irresponsibly enough. And totally against national and international law.

Far before Vietnam, too, there's the messy, inconvenient little truth and fact that the US chose to have Chile's own Salvador Allende assassinated. Sure, he was a Marxist but he was democratically elected by the people of that country.

"We didn't start the fire"?

Again, bullshit.

Let's not kid or lie to ourselves.

We've been starting a lot of fires, as a country.

And for a long time, sadly.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende; http://www.zompist.com/latam.html; http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/poli/soa/chile.htm

Quote of the day

"Can you imagine the difference if half the money spent in Gulf wars were spent on developing our own energy...?" --From "Larry" on a Yahoo! News report right now, in the comments, from a story on Staff Sergeant Bales, in prison at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, for shooting 16 Aghanis last week. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-describes-talk-afghan-killings-suspect-175642911.html

It takes celebrity to get people to notice. And act

Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people have been tortured and killed, over many years, by their government in the African nation of Sudan and little action is taken by the nation and peoples of the world. What, finally, gets us all to sit up, take note and do something about the atrocities? Celebrity. As has so truly been said by me and many others, if they had oil, we'd have been in there years ago. As it is, they don't, so we aren't. At any rate, now, perhaps, at long last, the world's attention may, possibly go to helping these poor people. We'll see. Here's hoping. Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/9148839/George-Clooney-arrested.html

On the Afghanistan shooter

Regarding the alleged Afghanistan "shooter" who is thought to have killed 16 Afghan men, women and children, discussions have already begun about putting him on trial and then, who should do that trial--the Afghanis or the US with our trial system. And my first reaction is---WHOA. Stop. Holy cow. This needs to be looked into so much, it's unquestionable. With what little information is already out, it seems that this Staff Sergeant has served in 3 tours of duty to Iraq, for starters, and "was involved in a vehicle accident and suffered a head injury," recently. The fact is, we set these men up--usually young men--to kill people, put them under a tremendous amount of pressure and then get surprised when atrocities happen. There are a great many people out there, already, in the world and on the internet (of course) and some of them Afghanis, sure, but some of them Americans who have already concluded that he's a) guilty and b) deserving of the death penalty. I've heard and read these comments. A friend even said he thought it a good idea to turn him over to the Afghanis for trial. I'm of the opinion there is no possible way he would be given a fair trial there--that seems easy to see--but he may not even get a fair trial here in the States. I'm of the opinion there is an exceptionally high likelihood he went "out of his head", so to speak and believe me, I'm no apologist for the military and/or for military atrocities. Murdering innocent civilians, men, women and children is never "okay", by any means but in this case, I think time and evidence will likely show there are extremely extenuating circumstances. If anything, I think time will show this Sergeant deserves humanity's sympathy, empathy and yes, forgiveness, if anything. As it is, people here are calling for his trial while different sources in Afghanistan are already calling for his death. Links: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-afghan-shooter-stryker-brigade-175222910.html;

The way it was, the way it unfortunately ended

According to a note with the video post: "Walter Cronkite had almost finished broadcasting the "CBS Evening News" when he received word of Martin Luther King's assassination. His report detailed the shooting and the nation's reaction to the tragedy."

Video of our govenment Americans should see

This is a very recent exchange at a press conference at the White House between ABC News' Jake Tapper and President Obama's Press spokesperson, Jay Carney. If you don't have much time, go straight to the 2:18 marker for the key exchange: The key question: "Do you not see at all--does this administration not see at all how a president asserting that he has the right to kill an American citizen without due process and that he's not going to even explain why he thinks he has that rigth is troublesome to some people?" --Jake Tapper. And then there's the closer: "What do you think Constitutional law professor Barack Obama would make of this?" Great questions, Mr. Tapper. Please pursue answers for us and thank you for this, so far.

John Lennon: 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980

Imagine.

Prophetic and timely words

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past - let us accept our own responsibility for the future." - John F. Kennedy, May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963

"Dirty Harry: 2012"---The movie we need now

For those who don't know, the "Dirty Harry" movie was about a cop (Clint Eastwood) who caught some good people with good intentions, killing legitimate criminals, because of what they--the "bad guys" did or were doing. They were drug dealers or heads of prostitution rings or whatever. The movie I'm suggesting here would be one of citizens, just like the original movie, who take it upon themselves to kill (yes, forgive me) the heads of corporations and political parties that are doing horrible things to the country, the US. These people would organize themselves throught social media--VERY 21st Century--not know each other (ala' "The Thomas Crown Affair") and would very stealthily assassinate, via the most technologically-forward ways possible, the heads of corporations, say, who are exploiting our tax laws or polluting the country, things like that. It wouldn't all be Left-Wingers doing this, by any means, either. It would, in the end, have to be shown that what they were doing was wrong, horribly wrong, but a) they'd have taken out a few of the worst, most egregious people and b) it would stand as a statement for the people, both in the movie and the viewers of the movie, out here in reality, that the people want and need their country back and want what's right done, not just what's good for corporations and profits. Oh, and, I hate to say it, but for "teaching" purposes, these vigilantes would also take out some of the most self-serving greedheads in Congress, too. I'm telling you, I'm inspired. I don't like "killer" movies but this one I'd see. We'd also have people from both all the political wings of all parties, like Chris Matthews and Glenn Beck and Michael Moore, etc., etc., denouncing what these people are doing. Naturally there would have to be the head of an oil company lost in there somewhere. We might call it "DB" or some such (to rhyme with BP, maybe?). Stay tuned, folks. I'll let you know if I start writing. (Update: On second thought, shortly after posting this, I realize no such movie could or should be made as there would be someone or some group of people out there who would take it as instruction).

With Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lawford? And Sammy Davis, Jr??

You may have noticed that the secret files the FBI had on the Kennedy family were just released. Yes, they were. And since there's no great hue and cry coming out due to this, you know it must be pretty dull stuff. But after reading The Daily Beast yesterday, I came across this little tidbit: Were There Kennedy Sex Parties? The Smoking Gun turned up one scintillating memo describing the report of sex parties involving the Kennedy brothers, in-laws, three members of the Rat Pack, and one Hollywood bombshell. The source of the report is unclear. The memo reads, “It was reported that Mrs. Jacqueline Hammond”—the ex-wife of the former ambassador to Spain—“…has considerable information concerning sex parties which took place at the Hotel Carlyle in NYC, and in which a number of persons participated at different times. Among those mentioned were the following individuals: “Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe.” I'm sorry but I remember Peter Lawford (not naked, mind you) and Sammy Davis, Jr., and all I can say is, ICK. And believe me, I'm trying to be mature, adult and sophisticated in my response. Now go turn on the TV and get this image out of your head. Link to original post: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-14/kennedy-fbi-files-death-threats-sinatra-monroe/

Scott Roeder's sentence

Thank goodness.