This was the slogan of the british government during WWII when Germany was actually bombing their cities. Compare that to the American rhetoric of the last few years:

• SARS will kill you! BE AFRAID
• The Bird Flu will kill you! BE AFRAID
• OBAMA’s death panels are coming for Grandma! BE AFRAID.
• The Muslims are coming to kill you! BE AFRAID.
• The New Black Panthers are coming to kill you. BE AFRAID.
• Mexicans are beheading people in the desert! BE AFRIAD.

Detect a pattern? Authoritarian governments and their agent constantly menace the public with imaginary and ginned up threats, but when things actually get out of hand, they switch to trying to keep us calm.

For more than a week now, the Japanese government has urged its people to stay calm as, while grave, the situation is under control. Think about that.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel. In his will, it said that the Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who “during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” In this case, the “preceding year” is 2008.

Obama was inaugurated as U.S. President on January 20th, 2009. Clearly, he did not abolish any armies in 2008. I’m not sure what he did, exactly, to enhance fraternity among nations or promote peace congresses (formal meetings) either, except simply getting elected. This is neither an attack on nor a defense of Obama. It’s simply a fact.

Although the Nobel Peace Prize committee does not identify nominees, we can take some educated guesses. Sima Samar, president of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, was the odds on favourite. Unlike Obama, Samar spent 2008 working for peace, human rights and women’s issues in Afghanistan. Please note: the primary U.S. objective in Afghanistan, is not “to bring peace”; rather, it is to disrupt “terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks.”

Obama is not nearly the strangest choice by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Henry Kissinger was given the prize in 1973 for working peace in Vietnam, despite the fact that he was largely behind starting the war in first place, and was an all-around evil motherfucker. In contrast, Mahatma Gandhi did not receive the peace prize, despite being nominated five times. More striking still, the fifth time he was nominated, they gave no prize at all year because, apparently, no suitable candidates were available.

The story here is not how Obama reacted, or should have reacted, or whether he should have turned it down. It’s not about Obama at all. The story is also not the media circus that’s pitched its ridiculous tents all around the issue.

The story, my friends, is that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has demonstrated, yet again, that it lacks any credibility. They’re not corrupt as much as inane. The whole process is a sham, a farce. They have delegitimized themselves by clinging to the coattails of a man who may go down in history as the last American hero – or, and I suspect this is more likely, will crash and burn as the greatest disappointment of our time.

Laws imply the design of the systems that enact them

Lawmakers don’t know sweet fuck all about the systems their designing

Lawmakers know even less about how to design complex socio-technical systems

To this list, I would like to add a fourth indictment of lawmakers: they vote on bills without bothering to read them.

How many people have died because of stupid laws and the broken social systems they create? Everyone who ever died in a traffic accident, or in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam, the Falkland Islands, and dozens of other politically-motivated wars. Everyone who died because they didn’t have medical insurance, because a nurse or physician made an error, or due to an addiction to something they didn’t know was dangerous until it was too late. Millions.

How many have gone to prison for “crimes” that arguably never hurt anybody, like growing marijuana for medical use? How many have just been inconvenienced or screwed over by airport security, border guards, unemployment insurance, etc.

Every member of every Congress, Parliament, Senate, etc. in the world who has voted for a bill without reading it is CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT for the damage that bill has done. For the misery and suffering inflicted by a broken society. To prison with them – all of them. We must start over.

This must not be allowed to continue.

See also:
Why The World is So Screwed Up
A Seven Step Program for Democracy 2.0
How to Hold the Legal System Hostage Until the Laws Apply to Everyone

This problem cannot be solved through elections. Most often, elections comprise a choice among two or more immoral, unethical, rich adversaries, none of whom have any intention to upset the status quo if elected, because the status quo leans sharply in favor of those in power. Thus, vote all you want – nothing will change.

With the fundamental equalizer of democracy (elections) gone, a disenchanted public must turn to other means. I hate to say this, but peaceful protest don’t do shit. Worse, violent protests will only attract more violence. (UPDATE: Worse still, some so-called western democracies are working to criminalize dissent.) And just forget about overthrowing the government of any modern country. Unless you manage to hypnotize the military, all the rifle-toting rednecks in the Southern U.S. won’t mean dick-all.

One thing that’s left is jury trials, and herein lies the power. As a juror it is your right to find a defendant “not guilty” for any reason you like, regardless of the judge’s instructions. So here is the plan: if you are an american and are called for jury duty, find the defendant ‘not guilty’ on the basis of discrimination, then get on the news and explain. Until Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the cast of The Torture Show are held responsible under the law, no one will be.

I recommend this same method of protest in any country where those in power purport to be above the law. I don’t know if it will work, but it will damn well get some attention.

5. Mad Scientists

I blame bad movies. Well-meaning scientists are not going to accidentally destroy the world like in bad movies.

Yes, the Large Hadron Collider may create tiny black holes. No, they can’t consume the planet. If you calculate the size of possible black holes, and their maximum potential growth rate, you find that it would take billions of years for them to get large enough to do anything.

Yes, scientists are trying to make more intelligent machines. No, they are not going to take over the world terminator-style. Machines cannot magically leap beyond their programming the way they do in the movies. A computer cannot suddenly leap beyond its programming and become self-aware. Sorry, doesn’t happen. The fear that some scientist will create a computer that will try to destroy the human race is based on fear of change coupled with society’s overwhelming ignorance regarding how computers work. Besides, scientists have already created something that can destroy the world: it’s called a nuclear bomb.

Why it’s been inflated: Some groups trump up, just make up, the “dangers” of scientific advancement to bolster the anti-science, anti-empirical, anti-rational subculture. These are the same assholes who want creationism taught in science class.

4. Socialism

The way people talk about socialism in North America, you’d think it was a biblical plague. Socialism is just a different way of distributing wealth. There are lots of socialist countries. I’ve been to some of them. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France – they all seem like nice places to live. No signs of the apocalypse as far as I can tell. If you think socialism is going to magically destroy humanity by reducing the centrality of greed in the politico-economic bullshitscape, you’re a tool. Go visit Norway, and then try to tell me that all those tall, healthy, attractive blond people who get free medical care and five weeks of vacation each year are the end of the world.

Why it’s been inflated: As I’ve described before, the rich have to work very hard to maintain support for capitalism among the poor, who, in most countries, have figured out that capitalism is bad for them.

3. Population movement (illegal immigration)

Nothing gets as much undo media attention as illegal immigration, especially across the Mexico/U.S. border. What the hell do you think a bunch of poor Mexicans are going to do that will bring down life as we know it? They mow lawns and pick fruit and live in fear of deportation. Leave these poor people alone and worry about the things that might actually kill you! Oh, and shut the fuck up about the border fence! Ever hear of a ladder you ignorant redneck fucktards?

Why it’s been inflated: People who take on illegal immigration do so under cover of employment statistics: ‘Illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs’ and all that. This is, of course, just the cover story. The real reason is racism pure and simple. An influx of latinos and hispanics threatens the purity of the great Aryan Klan… er, I mean race. Yes, race. Aryan race. I would argue that the same is true of resistance to immigration in many countries in europe and asia. The primary reason for resistance is making sure ‘we’ (whoever we are) maintain a controlling majority – not give up ‘our’ country’ to ‘them foreigners.’ The secondary reason is about jobs and strain on social services, but even this argument finds its genesis in the racist premise that jobs somehow ‘belong’ to members of the ruling group and that immigrants will require greater help from social services and contribute less to national productivity than the locals.

2. Economic disasters (recessions/depressions)

Whenever you hear some corporate/government douchebag agree, in principle, that the environment should be protected, but argue that now’s a bad time, what with the economy and all, HIT THEM.

Remember that scene in The Day After Tomorrow when the hero/scientist guy is trying to explain how the impossibly-fast ice age is about to glaciate all of Canada and the Continental U.S. in about 6 seconds? And then one of the big-wigs, who looks a lot like Dick Cheney, says ‘What will this do to the economy?’ WTF, right? Yeah that’s what I feel like whenever someone says we can’t have a carbon tax because it’s bad for business. Or we can’t have stricter pollution controls. Or stronger fuel efficiency standards for cars. Or areas protected from mining.

Let me put this as simply as possible. Recessions cannot kill billions of people. Environmental collapse and climate change-induced food shortages can. Fuck the economy. The economy’s not going to kill us. Ignoring environmental concerns because money is tight is barking mad.

Why it’s been inflated: Some people are just too damn thick to get their heads around the idea that their actions create reactions in their habitat, and that those reactions can and will kill them. Even if anything comes of it, they think they’ll be long dead beforehand, and they honestly don’t give a fuck about their children and grandchildren, or the fate of humanity in general. And the crazy thing is, we not only let people like this vote, but also let them run for office!

1. Terrorism

Without venturing into the absurd, the realistic worse case for terrorism is a single nuclear detonation in a major city. If optimally placed, this might kill hundreds of thousand or even a few million people. That would be bad. Extremely bad. However, it is not the end of humanity. Humanity would go on. Japan went on after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed at the end of WWII. The modern world would go on after the bombing of another major city.

Compare this to bona fide EXISTENTIAL threats to humanity. Just one medium-sized asteroid impact, and the only things left would be bacteria and cockroaches.

Yet, the world spends spend trillions of dollars on terrorism and a paltry few million searching the skies and trying to figure out how stop a giant rock from ending life on earth. That’s something in the order of 100 000 times as much money going to a lesser threat as goes to an existential threat.

Why it’s been inflated: Are you familiar with Dick Cheney? Donald Rumsfeld? Governments have all kinds of reasons to inflate the threat of terrorism. It helps control the populace by stimulating blind support for the government. It creates a culture of fear that facilitates the undermining of civil rights to increase executive power. The political opposition cannot effectively convey its message without seeming down right unpatriotic. Information that would damage the administration can be hushed up ‘for national security reasons.’ And most of all, Cheney and Rumsfeld were heavily involved in defense contractors. Even when they took office (when, normally, one would have to divest themselves of all private holdings to avoid conflicts of interest) they both flatly refused, and retained stock in defense contractors (see Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”). Inflating terrorism is about two things: money and power.

The rich in the United States of Torture, however, have successfully tricked the poor into supporting capitalism and viewing socialism with disgust. To accomplish this, they have employed at least six tactics. Although I focus on U.S. examples in this article (because they are the most obvious) the same tactics are used in many other countries.

1. Conflate economic conservatism with social conservatism

During the cold war, it was important to maintain support for retarded military spending. To do this, the U.S. government demonized two apparent traits of the Soviet Union: a centrally-planned economy and the promotion of atheism. Hence, “godless communists.” To further rally the people, it was crucial to make atheism and communism seem inherently evil. This nonsense remains prevalent today.

The Lunatic Fascist Theocracy Party (commonly called The Republican Party), has used this to their advantage by further conflating socialism with communism and secularism with atheism. They can then arguing that, in promoting social spending and separation of church and state, the Spineless Conservative Party (a.k.a. The Democratic Party), are evil, as is there agenda.

This effect has been exacerbated by the promotion of evangelicalism, especially in the southern states.

2. Conflate economic freedom with civil rights

Using some rhetorical voodoo I simply don’t understand, many people in the U.S. have been tricked into thinking that restraints on businesses, like those sought by unions, are the same as civil rights violations. Telling a corporation that it cannot destroy a national park to build a mine, or make pickup truck that only get 8 mpg, has nothing whatsoever to do with civil rights. Human rights such as the right to free speech and freedom from arbitrary discrimination, apply to individuals, not corporations. Economic ‘freedom’ has nothing to do with social freedom. If anything, increased economic freedoms allow corporations to impinge on human rights.

3. Fool the poor into thinking they can one day be rich

One reason the poor don’t revolt is that they live with the hope that one day they can be rich. They don’t want a fair distribution of wealth, they want to maintain the unfair distribution so that they can become ridiculously rich. For most people, of course, this is a pipe dream. Unfortunately, prominent examples including rappers and professional athletes serve to prop up this fiction. They, however, have something most poor people don’t: unusual talent.

4. The tax-and-spend liberal meme

Another piece of brilliant malevolence involves promoting the Tax-and-Spend Liberal stereotype. Liberals (socialists) supposedly pass oppressive taxes and spend money like trailer trash at Wal-Mart. This is, of course, complete bullshit because, between WW2 and 2007, the Republicans increased the U.S. national debt by about $6.9 trillion while the Dems only increased the debt by about $1.8 trillion. Both parties spend money like mad, they just spend it on different things. Republicans spend money on unnecessary wars, Dems spend it on healthcare and other social programs. This is, of course, painting with a broad brush, but you get the idea.

5. Demonize socialism as a welfare state

You often here these talking heads going on about the U.S. becoming a welfare state, “like France”. I have a feeling that they don’t actually know what “welfare state” means, but it sounds bad, so they say it anyway. A welfare state is a nation where the government assumes some responsibility for the health, happiness and fortunes of the people, often implemented through a social safety net. In other words, if you lose your job and you don’t have any family or friends who can or will support you, you don’t starve to death or have to live on the street. If your response to a person who’s lost his job and can no longer support his family is “fuck ‘em – let ‘em die,” seek psychiatric help. But this is exactly what conservatives are saying when they deride the ‘welfare state.’ Their derision is based on the fallacious conclusion that any sort of government assistance for the poor will incentivize them not to work. This is bullshit. People are not rational, self-interested computational agents. People have pride and dignity and ambition and a desire to do something with their lives. And besides, we have substantial scientific evidence that creating a social safety net does not decrease economic performance (see A. B. Atkinson, Incomes and the Welfare State, Cambridge University Press, 1995).

6. The illusion of progressive taxation

Progressive taxation means that the more money you make, the higher your marginal tax rate will be. Poor people generally don’t understand the tax system (because it’s really fucking complicated). Thus, they think that, since they have to pay more taxes when they move up to a new tax bracket, the millionaire down the road pay a higher rate than they do. Nope. Sorry. Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

You see, there is a difference between the official tax rate and the effective tax rate. Rich people hide their money through various exemptions, credits and legal mechanisms so that they pay far less in taxes than their marginal tax rate suggests. This creates an illusion of progressive taxation, which helps to cover up how badly the poor are getting screwed.

Conclusion

In most countries, the poor support socialism and the rich support capitalism. Since there are more poor people than rich people, and everyone gets one vote, countries with fair elections tend to move toward socialism. Therefore, to maintain a largely unregulated economy, the rich in the U.S. must expend significant effort and resources to hoodwink the populace into supporting capitalism, or rig the elections. Or both.

Related Posts
The Biggest Money-Grab in History
The Hypocrisy of the Freedom Rhetoric

As a political statement to assuage the so-called ‘muslim world,’ I suppose it’s not bad. Interpreted in the light of facts, history, and a rational, ethical perspective, however, and it’s overwhelmingly bullshit. Here are the 10 worst examples (in no particular order).

1. Tradition and progress

Obama: “For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over acentury, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt’s advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress.” Then later: “There need not be contradictions between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies enormously while maintaining distinct cultures.”

Why it’s bullshit: There is no harmony between tradition and progress. Tradition means ‘not changing’ and progress means ‘changing.’ When you ban gay marriage, you favor tradition. When you allow gay marriage, you favor progress. There’s no harmony. There can be compromise, but a compromise between tradition and progress is usually a compromise between a nonsensical position and justice.

2. Hostility to Islam

Obama: “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.” Later: “The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights.”

Why it’s bullshit: First, Obama is implying that western hostility to Islam is somehow imagined. Walk around in Texas with a turban and a beard for a while and you’ll quickly find out how real it is. Second, many Islamic leaders ARE hostile toward human rights. That’s why Iran rejected the UDHR as a codification of western values.

3. Justice

Obama: “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity…I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Why it’s bullshit: Muslims, Christians and philosophers define justice differently. In Islam, justice is about satisfying the rules of the Koran. That’s why Saudi Arabia jails women for the horrible crime of having been raped. Real justice is based on physical and emotional harm, and on fairness. These two conceptions of justice are incommensurate.

Obama: “There’s one rule that lies at the heart of every religion — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.”

Why it’s bullshit: The golden rule is a nonsensical basis for ethics. It can be refuted with trivial examples: ‘If I were gay I would want people to try to cure me;’ or ‘I would love it if she pinned me down and had sex with me, so I’ll pin her down and have sex with her. She’s only screaming “no” to get me in the mood’

4. Tolerance

Obama: “And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”

Why it’s bullshit: Deeds like stoning people who wish to convert to a different religion.

Obama: “The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as — it is as if he has killed all
mankind.”

Why it’s bullshit: In the “Holy Koran” an “innocent” is a muslim innocent. See Surah 9:121: “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them.”

Obama: “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance”

Why it’s bullshit: You do know that homosexuality is a crime in Iran and Saudi Arabia, right?

“We can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism.”

Why it’s bullshit: Hostility toward religions is an inescapable logical consequence of a human-rights-based view of ethics. Religions institutionalize human rights violations, especially around freedom from discrimination. It’s not a “pretense of liberalism.” It’s a direct result of the bigotry, misogyny, and evil motherfuckery enshrined in the Abrahamic religions.

5. Freedom of religion

“freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion” later: “Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.”

Why it’s bullshit: Freedom of religion is a contradiction in terms.

6. Atheists Beware

Obama: “And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share.
This is the hope of all humanity.”

Why it’s bullshit: This american-centric proselytizing if I ever heard it. These are not everyone’s aspirations, and certainly not mine. Not everyone has a family to love. Not everyone wants an education. Not everyone wants to work. And not everyone has a god.

Obama: “when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — (applause) — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.” Later: “The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision”

Why it’s bullshit: Take your faith and your god and your prayers and plant them in your ass where they belong. The sooner we stop brainwashing our children with this anti-rational nonsense, the sooner people will stop killing each other.

Obama: “The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we
have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”
The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”
The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of
God.”

Why it’s bullshit: The funny thing about holy books is, they’re so big you can cherry-pick whatever you want from them. For Example:

The Holy Koran tells us: “Forbidden to you are…married women, except those you own as slaves.” (Surah 4:20-, 24-)
The Talmud tells us: “If a heathen (gentile) hits a Jew, the gentile must be killed.” (Sanhedrin 58b)
The Holy Bible tells us: “How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock,” (Psalms 137:9).

7. Nukes

Obama: “When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations.”

Obama: “But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America’s interests. It’s about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.”

Obama: “I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. ”

Why it’s bullshit: All of these quotes reveal the central hypocrisy of American nuclear weapons policy – ‘it’s ok for us to have nukes, but not you, and we want nuclear disarmament, as long as everyone else disarms first.’ This is based on the fundamentally racist, ethnocentric assumption that the US is more trustworthy than any other nation. The primary reason to seek a nuclear arsenal in the modern age is to deter American invasion.

8. War

“The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America’s goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity.”

Why it’s bullshit: you did not go by choice? WTF? Of course there was a choice! You could have just, you know, stayed home and focus on intelligence gathering instead of warmongering. You could have done black ops instead of overt war. You could have used diplomacy and negotiation to broker a deal with the existing Afghani government. No choice my ass!

Obama: “And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale.”

Why it’s bullshit: Then the US ruthlessly murdered over 100 000 Iraqis, claimed credit, and now states it’s determination to keep on killing in Afghanistan. To be fair, Obama says he wants to leave Afghanistan, but to be more fair, it’s all just talk. If he wanted to leave, he’d order troops home, not order more troops to go.

Obama: “We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military — we seek no military bases there” later: “I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases”

Why it’s bullshit: You seen the Iraqi embassy? Looks like a military base to me…

Obama: “the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein”

Why it’s bullshit: You mean, the one’s who survived? There are more than 650 000 dead Iraqis who might beg to differ.

9. Torture and the Rule of Law

Obama: “I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year. (Applause.) So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law.”

Why it’s bullshit: This is nonsense. Obama has essentially provided all of the american war criminals who approved, ordered and conducted the torture with full amnesty, and proposed a new policy of indefinite detention in American prisons. It’s not gitmo that matters. Gitmo is just a bunch of buildings. What matters is that the U.S. is officially holding prisoners without trial and obstructing the prosecution of war criminals. The rule of law is the maxim that decisions should be made based on the law rather than relying on arbitrary governance. Indefinite detention programs and protecting war criminals for political reasons is the very antithesis of the rule of law!

10. Israel and Palestine

Obama: “So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”

Obama: “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong
and it does not succeed.”

Obama: “The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people.”

Why it’s bullshit: This is all meaningless talk. The U.S. gives $3 Billion a year to Israel and brands the leaders of Palestine ‘a terrorist organization.’ If Obama really wanted peace in the region, he could just withhold Israel’s funding until a deal had been reached, or give half of it to the Palestinians to encourage economic development in the region.

Random stupid comments

Obama: “Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail”

This is meaningless. There’s never been a world order. All large empires in history have failed, or still exist in some form, and can be expected to fail eventually. All large empires have elevated some groups and persecuted others.

Obama: “We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a
simple concept: E pluribus unum — “Out of many, one.””

But socialism is somehow evil in America

Obama: “the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson — kept in his personal library.”

Obama is implying that Jefferson had great respect for Islam. This is the guy who said “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” More good Jefferson anti-religion quotes here.

Obama: “I made clear that America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam.”

So he can see the future now?

Obama: “And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments”

If the rest of the world said the same, the US would be distinctly unwelcome. This is more ethnocentrism – ‘when we go to war, it’s for a good reason. Other wars are stupid.’

Obama: “And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America;”

Setting up scholarships on the basis of religion is a violation of basic human rights, specifically freedom from discrimination based on religion. And don’t give me any affirmative action bullshit. The most persecuted belief system in the US is Atheism, not Islam.

Obama: “create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo. ”

It’s called email, dipshit.

Obama: “The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores — and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average.”

This is called selection bias. The US only lets in Muslims if they are particularly intelligent, well educated, and capable of supra-normal contributions to society. The fact that they do better than average is an indicator of racist immigration practices, not enhanced opportunity.

Conclusion

Free thinking people everywhere, beware. Obama is not the American Messiah. He’s another corporatist, religious whack-job tyrant. He’s no more pushing a liberal agenda than I am pushing a religious one. Atheists, liberals, environmentalists – if you’re relying on this asshole, you’re fucked.

Dear Megan,

It seems to me that you are fixing to drag the Republican Party kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. For this I applaud you. However, the Republican Party consists of a precarious alliance between the Party of Lincoln (social progressives / fiscal conservatives) and the Party of Limbaugh (lunatics). To succeed in your endeavor, you will have to take the former to war with the latter.

To truly win, you will have to understand why many people in Canada and Europe, and many educated people the world over, view The Democratic Party as a group of conservatives, and the Republican Party as a group of fascist theocrats. You seem like a very bright young woman. I strongly recommend that you read The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein. When you understand why Klein calls Republicanism a mental disease, you will have a much better chance at clearing a way forward.

–Kavan Wolfe

Let’s hope she actually reads her email.

Jack Bower Defense

The Bower Defense goes like this: ‘If you’ve got a nuclear bomb about to go off, and the only way to find out where it is is to torture a terrorist, fuck him!’

This is nonsense. First, Torture is not effective. You’d have better luck getting the terrorist asylum, a steak and a blow job and then asking him nicely. Second, he’s not a terrorist. He’s some dude that’s been ACCUSED of terorism. In “free” countries, people are innocent until proven guilty. Third, rights don’t go away whenever they’re logistically inconvenient. That is precisely the evil our grandfathers and great grandfathers fought to protect in the last war that was actually justifiable in any sensible way, World War II.

This defense is based on a utilitarian system of ethics, where the motto is ‘do the least harm.’ In a rights-based system, which is what all western democracies have embraced, an individual right to freedom from torture is not contingent upon consequences. It doesn’t matter what’s at stake, torture is off the table. [Note: I don’t actually support either utilitarian or rights-based ethics, but that’s not relevant here.]

Obama Defense

The much more nuanced ‘Obama Defense’ goes something like this. Dick Cheney and his CIA associates went to the Justice Department with a list of interrogation techniques and asked for a professional opinion as to whether they were torture. The DOJ gave the wrong opinion, so Cheney and the CIA approved torture, and ordered it’s use. Officers then tortured individuals. You can then argue that the officers who actually did the torture are not guilty because they were just following orders. The people who gave the orders are not guilty because they did not intend to torture – the justice department said it wasn’t torture, after all. Finally, the DOJ guys aren’t guilty because they just gave an opinion – they did not have any contact with the prisoners.

Nuanced? Yes. Bullshit? Also yes.

Torture is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a male or female person…”. Unless the DOJ is composed of team of doctors, nurses, surgeons, psychologists, psychiatrists and other medical professionals, it is not qualified to determine whether or not a particular technique or combination of techniques constitutes torture. Hint: the DOJ is a bunch of lawyers! Thus, they gave a professional opinion for which they were obviously unqualified that resulted in a serious crime. They are professionally negligent in this regard, hence GUILTY.

Cheney and the CIA administration knew goddamn well they were going to inflict severe pain and suffering. They didn’t go to the DOJ to find out, they needed to cover their asses. Furthermore, they should have known that only medical professionals, not lawyers, could judge pain and suffering. Moreover, common fucking sense should have told them that they were going to far when prisoners started dying. Hence, GUILTY.

Lastly, the individuals actually doing the torturing can argue that they were told the techniques were approved; therefore, they didn’t think it was torture. Again, when the prisoners began screaming in pain and begging for their lives, common sense would dictate they were going too far. Furthermore, we’ve seen the “we were only following orders,” defense before. It’s called the Nuremberg defense. You see, near the end of WW2, the Allies figured these slippery Nazi bastards would claim that they were just following orders. So they got together and proclaimed explicitly that “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”. Since WW2, the Uniform Code of Military Justice has been updated to reflect this – it now states that a soldier may refuse an unlawful order. In fairness, a soldier refusing an order, while under enemy fire in the middle of a battle might get shot by his CO, but CIA interrogators were not under fire and had plenty of time to resign. Soldiers are supposed to be men and women of honor. A man of honor would not try to beat information our of a helpless prisoner who’s had never even been charged with a crime, let alone tried and convicted. The CIA torturers are not innocent bystanders who honestly believed they weren’t hurting the prisoners. They are sadists or cowards.

Racism

It’s time to call this situation what it is – institutionalized racism. The American public and the Obama administration are not going to prosecute because these victims wear beards and turbans. If the CIA secret prisons were full of white christians, everyone would be losing their minds about this. If the CIA secret prisons were full of black men and women, Kenyans perhaps, there would be riots in the streets. As it is, the Bush administration has incited a hate-shift from blacks and hispanics to muslims (and gays, but that’s another issue). Don’t believe me? Let’s contrast a the 16-year-old black pirate who was taken prisoner after the whole somali pirate standoff, and the 14-year-old arab kid who was picked up in afghanistan, with no apparent evidence of wrongdoing. The black kid will be tried in New York. The arab kid has been in Gitmo for 7 years, despite 1) there being so little evidence against him that the man hired to prosecute him is now his defense lawyer 2) having never been tried or even charged with a crime, and 3) having a federal judge order his release. But he’s still there!

This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s racism. It is the use of hate as a political weapon.