"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red

"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done

"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ

Jun 7, 2010

How Stuff Works IV

I originally intended another pictorial/video demonstration, but in all honesty I couldn't do it. I don't do death and war porn. Below, in the other parts of this series, I have shown the effects of DU (picture of deformed child). The decision to use the photo proved more difficult than I imagined, but in the end I posted it because it did not show the direct use of violence.

For this installment, I had intended to use a video which depicted the hanging of an Iranian woman, for murder and adultery, which sparked much outrage in the West, several years ago. A hanging which followed the alleged executions of two homosexual men and which accompanied the usual clarion calls for sanctions and war against Iran. For mine own, I despise the death penalty. I hate it with an unmitigated loathing, with an unvarnished and unadulterated disgust and contempt that borders honestly on the supra-rational.  I understand murder and the stupidity of human moments. I understand killing in warfare, especially for those who just want to make it to tomorrow.

I sympathize with Lucy Parsons, too.

But perhaps no act other than colonial warfare puts the claims of the State into sharper focus, revealing them as a charlatan's game and rank hypocrisy for all with eyes to see, than the death penalty.

The State that executes demonstrates the deception and evil inherent any States' claim to righteous protection of their subjects.

All the same, I had intended to juxtapose that video which sparked so much outrage with the images of the men executed by the Israeli commandos sent to do that wetwork by a beloved and coddled US protectorate.

I just cannot do it. Even a rat bastard asshole, like myself, has limits.

In both cases, we have executions. In the first incident, much bleating and chest thumping about Iranian oppression, human rights violations and enmity to "Western Values."

In the other case, no one in the corporate press or the American government expresses anything approaching condemnation, outrage or even disavowal. Nothing. No mention of human rights. No mention of shared values. Just nothing.

As Lindorff writes for Counterpunch (full link below),

"...Of the other eight dead, the medical examiners found that five had been shot in the back, or in the back of the head. This critically important information has not appeared in US news reports. Some American news organizations have left out the autopsy information entirely from their reports as of Saturday. CNN, in its report on Friday, did note that five of the nine were shot in the head, and at close range, but the all-important fact that most of the victims were shot from behind was left out. ABC had the same information on Thursday, again without mentioning the shots from behind. In its article on Friday, the NY Times had yet to even name Dogan, the American victim, much less mention the bullets that hit him or how he was shot."

 Full Counterpunch Story.


Yep. Shot in the back of the head.

Iranians hang people?

Drum beats for war.

Israelis gang land execute Turks delivering aid to Gaza?

Silence. Fucking silence.


In other words: How. Stuff. Works.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uh, there's kind of a difference. The Iranians are persecuting others. The Israelis are protecting others by defending them against ultra-violent right wing extremists. The Iranians are against human rights, while the Israelis are upholding them. That is, unless you believe the propaganda that the people on the boats were there to offer "aid". But if you'll believe that you'll believe anything.

Andromeda said...

Jane, I saw that video. I watched the whole thing, but perhaps I was only able to watch it because the computer I was on had no speakers so all there was were people dressed in ridiculous costumes with the sick lyrics posted beneath.

If the sound were on, I doubt I could have watched the whole thing.

I am hoping for the sake of the world that some real footage of what happened on the flotilla---and not the edited Israeli version---is still out there somewhere, waiting to surface, waiting to shed light on the Israeli lies in a way in which is indisputable.

Andromeda said...

By the way, Jack Crow, you may have heard this but apparently the Turkish prime minister himself is considering participating in a flotilla headed for blockade.

And Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? What a joke.

Jack Crow said...

Jane,

I haven't seen it. I don't doubt everything which comes out of Israel (or I'd never get a chance to read Atzmon, Sand, Levy or Avnery, for a short list), but I certainly distrust anything that comes from the Israeli State.

And I don't know if the hasbara campaign has started to backfire. Most Americans believe the Israeli-US line - not the contrary.

Sad, really.

Andromeda,

I'm not a fan of media campaigns. In the same way that I'm not a fan of using the State to counter the State. Media campaigns rely on the enemy, to get one's message heard.

Which is why I don't think efforts to use the press to publicize the events of the raid can ever come to any good.

Samizdat is better.

Anonymous,

I don't trust any government. I don't think the Iranian state is any better than the Israeli one.

My point has no bearing on any of that. My criticism was of the reception, not the origin.

Respect,

Jack

Andromeda said...

JC,

I guess I only brought up what the Turkish prime minister said he might do to highlight the hypocrisy of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama. I was just being bitter and cynical, please forgive me. :-)

Samizdat. Yes. I just started a blog whose sole purpose is to disseminate (what I find is) real information, "censored" in a manner of speaking, because it is not what the state wants you to believe, but rather what is actually occurring.

Knowledge is the only true power. Any other power is fleeting, and often dependent on the state (fiat money, a prestigious government of institutional job, etc.)

Knowledge alone is something that NO ONE can ever TAKE from you; they have to take your life to take your knowledge. It cannot be lost or taken from you in any other way. Even in the face of an oppressive, lying state, you can spread knowledge, reader to reader.

Andromeda said...

Jack Crow, I made my own blog, Take the Pen, if you ever want to check it out.

It just started it so it's pretty bare.

The "about me" is a wall of text that I plan to later cut up and put on different pages, and I'm going to change the layout and side-bar at some point, but for now there's a few posts to read.

I hope to update it frequently as world events unfold.