Monday, January 31, 2011

Saviors in Uniform? (Updated, 2/2)

"The Army and the People Are One!" Don't count on it.
















"The army is all good men but the police, every policeman is bad," explained Egyptian demonstrator Mustafa Abdel Wahab to Time magazine. Mr. Wahab is as tragically mistaken in the first assessment as he is correct in the second. 

In Egypt -- as is the case nearly everywhere else -- the police and army are what Alexander Hamilton called "correspondent appendages of military establishments." Not every individual soldier or policeman is exceptionally depraved, of course. But the institutional purpose of such establishments is to serve the depraved interests of those who control the State. This is why, as Hamilton pointed out, military bodies (which include police agencies) "have a tendency to destroy ... civil and political rights." Decades of "emergency" rule in Egypt have destroyed whatever trivial substantive differences may once have separated the police from the military. 



In the late summer of 1994 I spent a couple of weeks in Cairo covering a United Nations conference on population control. That event attracted thousands of people -- politicians, delegates, lobbyists, activists, and journalists -- from around the world. In anticipation of media scrutiny the Mubarak regime made a considerable effort to prettify itself. The cosmetic changes included issuing brand new white uniforms to the heavily-armed police officers who were deployed in small groups everywhere in downtown Cairo.

I remained in Cairo for a few days after the conference ended. It was my expectation that the departure of the Important People would bring about a change in the security situation. In a sense, I was correct: The white uniforms were put away, and the heavily-armed police who prowled the streets reverted to their standard military attire. Like other visitors, I had assumed that the high-profile police presence was the exception, rather than the rule. We were wrong.



The ongoing upheaval in Egypt offers a potent illustration of the fact that government police agencies are instruments of plunder, rather than protection -- and that protection of person and property is best handled privately.


When they weren't beating people in the streets or hauling them off to be murdered, plainclothes thugs from Egypt's Central Security Service (or Mukhabarat) brazenly looted private businesses or provided protection to those who did -- deputized criminals referred to by one protester on the scene as "prisoners who have been released by that bastard Mubarak in return for their services to beat up civilians." Egyptians not employed in the coercive sector responded by creating private anti-looting patrols. 

Private defense: Egyptians link arms to protect property.

Public loathing of the government's police force is widespread in Egypt, which is a healthy development in any society. However, as Mr. Wahab's comments illustrate, the growing disrepute of Egypt's police organs organs has actually enhanced the stature of the military.

Writes Steve Coll of The New Yorker: "There have been reports that protesters are relieved to see the Army in the streets; no doubt, as in many other like countries, the Army has more credibility than the corrupt and often torture-prone police." 


For 31 years, Hosni Mubarak has been a CIA sock puppet ruling through decree while maintaining a pretense of "legitimacy." Mubarak avoided naming a successor, most likely because Washington didn't give him permission to do so. In the terminal crisis of his reign, he has tapped Omar Suleiman, the head of the Mukhabarat secret police, to serve as vice president. Since Suleiman has been running Egypt's apparatus of imprisonment, torture, and murder for decades, this appointment wasn't really a promotion. And in his current position Suleiman would be in charge, even if somebody else is cast in the role of figurehead.

Dictator-in-waiting: Suleiman, left, with Israel's PM Netanyahu.
 Ian Black, Middle East editor for the London Guardian, points out that Suleiman "is the keeper of Egypt's and the president's secrets, a behind-the-scenes operator who has been intimately involved in the most sensitive issues of national security and foreign policy for nearly 20 years." 

Not only was he was the dungeon master and chief persecutor of Egypt's political dissidents, but he also coordinated rendition and torture operations with the CIA. He's also been a dutiful asset of the Pentagon, according to WikiLeaks. 

A Foreign Policy profile of Suleiman published two years ago points out that Suleiman was a rent boy for both sides during the Cold War circle-jerk: He attended "the Soviet Union's Frunze Military Academy" while Cairo was a Soviet client, and then "received training at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center" at Ft. Bragg in the 1980s. As head of the Mukhabarat, Suleiman was"one of a rare group of Egyptian officials who hold both a military rank ... and a civilian office...." His most important assignment was to monitor "Egypt's security apparatus for signs of internal coups." 

Unlike those who had previously held his position, Suleiman became a public figure several years ago as Mubarak -- who reportedly suffers from cancer-- became enfeebled. He and his handlers spent several years building internal coalitions and developing diplomatic contacts abroad. As Cairo-based journalist Issandr Amrani points out, "most Suleiman supporters recognize that to gain the presidency he would most likely have to carry out a coup -- perhaps a soft, constitutional one -- but a coup nonetheless."

Thumbs up for tyranny!
Well, how about a "People Power" coup, orchestrated with the help of the kind folks in Washington? That appears to be what we're seeing in Egypt now, and we could conceivably see something similar here in the United States before the decade is over.


The convulsion in Cairo brings to mind Brig. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap's essay "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," which was published in the Winter 1992—93 issue of the U.S. Army War College journal Parameters -- a subject I have discussed before.

Dunlap used the literary device of a smuggled prison letter composed by "Prisoner 222305759," condemned to death for "treason" by the American military junta of Gen. E.T. Brutus. Following a series of military disasters overseas and domestic crises at home, Brutus staged a coup in the name of protecting "public order" from the corruption of the political class. 

In the decades leading up to the putsch, the "Prisoner" recalled, "The one institution of government in which people retained faith was the military." Even as the public lamented the corruption and profligacy of Big Government, they had nothing but bottomless respect for the Regime's chief instrument of death and property destruction. The military retained its prestige in spite of the fact that its structural defects -- made painfully visible by a long, bloody, and futile war in the Gulf --  left it "unfit to engage an authentic military opponent."

While the military was no longer well-suited to fight and win wars, its subtle integration into every element of domestic life made it perfectly suited to carry out a coup: 

"Eventually, people became acclimated to seeing uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood. Now troops are an adjunct to almost all police forces in the country. In many of the areas where much of our burgeoning population of elderly Americans live — [military dictator] Brutus calls them 'National Security Zones' — the military is often the only law enforcement agency. Consequently, the military was ideally positioned in thousands of communities to support the coup."

During Egypt's long "state of emergency," its army managed to lose two wars abroad, while fine-tuning its skills as an instrument of domestic suppression. Granted, it has announced that it will not fire on Egyptian citizens, which is always a welcome development. But why should the Egyptian Army fire on protesters, given that the citizen uprising is helping to entrench military rule, rather than end it?

With our own economy unraveling and our political class becoming shamelessly predatory and unbearably impudent, it's not difficult to imagine a similar scenario playing out in America, with Tea Party Republicans -- for whom the military (which in our system includes our own "torture-prone" police) is sacrosanct --  eagerly welcoming a military coup as "liberation" from Big Government. Perhaps Field Marshal Stanley McChrystal -- formerly military proconsul in Afghanistan, most recently seen flogging Soviet-style "national service" in the pages of Newsweek -- could be tapped to play the role of America's Omar Suleiman. 

UPDATE 


"`Why don't you protect us?' some protesters shouted at the soldiers, who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home." 

This on-scene account from Tahrir Square described a coordinated attack by a mob of "pro-government protesters," some of whom were mounted on horses or camels. The assailants -- criminal subcontractors in the employ of the regime -- used clubs, whips, straight razors, and machetes. They acted with complete impunity, beating and killing at whim. Among their targets were journalists attempting to document the pogrom: Anderson Cooper discovered that international celebrity conferred no protection.


Among those chronicling the scene are Graeme Wood of The Atlantic, who was present in Tahrir Square during the last mass protest -- the 2003 demonstrations against Washington's assault on Iraq. 

"During those protests, the police encircled the protesters and let them scream for a couple days, Wood recalls. "Late at night, I stood among the police, asking them about their hometowns in Upper Egypt. Then, around midnight, they were called to attention, told to harden their lines, and finally to march toward the remaining protesters, letting none escape. Truncheons came down, and within a few minutes they had rounded everyone up into paddy wagons, and the square resumed its light evening traffic."

While blood is being shed in Tahrir Square, government-organized bands of criminals are looting everything in sight. The police are actively protecting the thugs and looters. Meanwhile, the "good men" in the Army do nothing to protect those who had trusted them.



 Your donations -- which help me keep Pro Libertate on-line -- are very appreciated! God bless.






Dum spiro, pugno!

25 comments:

Mr. Mcgranor said...

This is an interesting examination of Egypt. Thanks for the read.

Stephen T. McCarthy said...

>>.....it's not difficult to imagine a similar scenario playing out in America, with Tea Party Republicans -- for whom the military (which in our system includes our own "torture-prone" police) is sacrosanct -- eagerly welcoming a military coup as "liberation" from Big Government.

Quite correct!
What too few Americans realize is that, by and large, military and police personnel are largely drawn from the same "mentality pool".

In fact, a large number of police officers are former soldiers. Whether they are employed by the Pentagon or by the Bumphuhk, Iowa Police Department, the "Crack-Some Heads-And-Kick-Down-Doors" mind-set remains the same.

Personally? I don't "support" 'em!

~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'

liberranter said...

Stephen, you've hit the nail on the head!

As for Amerika, and the Amoricon majority's idol worship of the U.S. military as a pure-as-the-driven-snow institution, I think I can say with absolute certainty that this reverence will quickly turn to fear and hatred in the very near future. As I've pointed out here and elsewhere, once the national economy collapses and the dollar turns into toilet paper, these "heroes" will devolve into bands of predatory brigands, with the population at large becoming their target. We'll see then how much "support" the "troops" get. An even bigger question will be how much resistance a weak, dependent, and dumbed-down public puts up once they are directly threatened by those who are supposed to "protect and serve" them.

I'm not optimistic.

dixiedog said...

Claiming a clear distinction b/w the military and the police is called cognitive dissonance. Also, seeing a clear distinction where one doesn't really exist is not just an Ami affliction, of course, but is cosmopolitan.

This Egyptian upheaval is not about freedom since the ME has no concept of true freedom as America has experienced, or had experienced to a large degree early in its existence. They've always had dictators just as most, if not all, of black Africa.

Rudderless, aimless "mere" mundane mobs will always be thoroughly deceived by one cunning political group or another. The Russian mundanes swapped the Tsars for the Bolsheviks, the Cuban mundanes swapped an Ami puppet for a Soviet one. A true goal of freedom goal was never on the table.

Sigh, the results of this kind of "mere" mundane street theater is always imminently predictable: it's either "heads" or "tails," a Hobson's choice. Two sides of the same coin.

The MB are not "founding fathers" and they are the prime movers in orchestrating these protests. It's really an Islamic consolidation, not a freedom revolution.

Ordinary folk who burn, purloin the property of fellow mundanes, injure or kill fellow mundanes, and/or otherwise act like savages on the loose have no moral rudder with which to guide them.

In some ways this is like the various riots in the US during the 60s and the '92 LA riots where the supposed oft-stated "concern" over how fellow mundanes were treated was merely a cloak for a mundane savagefest to ensue, injuring and/or murdering fellow mundanes and damaging or purloining personal property.

Indeed, the US Leviathan and its attendant media marionettes speaking/writing about the pursuance of "democratic goals" is an oxymoron. The Egyptian Arab mundanes like nearly all Arab mundanes elsewhere in the ME, if allowed to truly attain these democratic goals, will undoubtedly lick the boots of the "new" boss, the MB, as the only viable "opposition" group, gaining for it "da Power." Lawdy, "freeeeeedom!" CAN prevail!

What was that jungle noise I used to involuntarily hear way too often? Oh yeah, "Fight da power!"

Bullsense...

Meet the new vibrant boss, same as the ol' tired boss!

Bwahahahahahaha!!!

Anonymous said...

Will: Short and sweet! I knew that Mubarak (like ben Ali in Tunisia) was a Company Boy; I didn't know about Suleiman's tool-hood or about Mubarak's illness. Thanks for the enlightenment. Both Mubarak and Suleiman, of course, are Army Officers.

Dog: As a reluctantly realistic student of American history, I can assure you that the tale of Liberty's "good old days" here is almost entirely fabricated: such individual freedom as actually existed in the US, post-Revolution, was well on the wane by the time of the Constitutional Convention. Google "Shay's Rebellion" for one example among many. Even Wilson and both Roosevelts with their bullshit wars were doing naught but following a long and consistent precedent. "American Exceptionalism" is just one more example of Leviathan's Big Lie. The problem isn't one particular instance or form of government, it is the very concept of The State. The choice at hand isn't which insignia your banner should bear, but whether you will choose to fly the black flag, or some random jingoist menses sop.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,

I believe the caption on your photo, "Egyptians link hands to protect property" is slightly misleading. As far as I can tell, the building in the background is the Egyptian Museum, containing the magnificent King Tut treasures and tens of thousands of priceless artifacts. This museum was entered by looters in the early days of the riots. The police who were supposed to protect the priceless artifacts had all run away, except for just 3 who stayed at their posts. The public, realizing what was happening, took it on themselves to defend their cultural heritage. They and the 3 policemen apprehended the 9 looters who had made it into the main part of the museum, and recovered the few artifacts they had been able to steal. The public then linked arms in a human chain right around the building to prevent any more looters gaining access.

My respect for the Egyptian people has been enormously enhanced by this incident. In spite of the riots, the ESSENTIAL rule of law and order remains intact, defended by the vast majority of the public. The rioting crowds have NOT engaged in mass murder or looting of personal property. They HAVE looted businesses which are seen as the symbols of gross economic inequality, and single individuals or small groups have tried to loot private homes, but those are being defended, usually successfully, by their occupants.

The destruction has been quite focused, for example the ruling Party Headquarters building, which was set ablaze, plus some 20 police stations which have been burned down, and scores of police vehicles which have been torched. Banks have been looted. But as far as I have heard, no mosques, churches, museums, or private homes have been attacked by the mobs. This restraint by the rioters is truly something to wonder at.

If a similar phenomenon ever occurs in this country, one wonders if the American mobs would be equally respectful of their fellow citizens' property, and as defensive of their cultural heritage and values. I have my doubts.

Considering that the hated police have fled into their burrows and vanished from sight, and the Army is refusing to fire on the rioters, there has been astonishingly little actual breakdown of society in Egypt. This is remarkable, and tells us that, at least in that country, the police are more the cause of lawlessness than the remedy for it. The despicable creature Suleiman, head of the secret police, is a traitor to his country, a suck-titty lapdog of Israel, and a vile mass murderer.

One prays to God that the Egyptians can avoid having him foisted on them as their new ruler by America and Israel.

I am very hopeful, unlike Dixiedog above, that the Egyptian people may, with luck, elect themselves a new government which will give them more freedom, less subservience to Israel and its lapdog the USA, and maintain respect for all religious minorities. The MB is not necessarily another Taliban. Egypt is a far cry from states like Afghanistan and Somalia. In its ethos and values, it is more an impoverished second-world country than a third-world failed state.

We should not necessarily prejudge the MB using propaganda that has been fed to us by those in our American political parties, their Israeli masters, and our 3-letter agencies, who all want to perpetuate for ever the spurious "War on Terror," so that they can loot and extort trillions of war-dollars from the American public.

Unless our ever-corrupt political class in the USA perverts and misdirects the Egyptian Revolution to their own war-mongering ends, I am actually optimistic for the future of Egypt and its fine people.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

I'm hearing the Muslim Brotherhood is not as influential as has been reported. This guy covers the Middle East pretty well - http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-look-at-pattern.html

Nate said...

What about "saviors in uniform" turning out to be some UN or other globalist affiliated force? Is there any possibility of that happening? The thought came to mind after I saw the headline on the Al Jazeera ticker basically say 'World Bank President Robert Zoellick calls for global help to Egypt'.

Yossarian said...

Will, off-topic, but I reread your article The Conscience of a Killer and twice you mentioned that two of the cops' reenactments would put one of the cops in the line of fire:

“As the version of the killing performed by the Kenosha PD's Perjury Playhouse Theater Troupe demonstrates, a killshot fired from the left would have placed Lt. Kreuger in the line of fire.”

“Officer Gonzalez supposedly shot Bell in the right side of the head, despite the fact that this would have endangered Lt. David Krueger, who was standing directly behind the victim.”


This is from a story about an “officer” killed by “friendly fire.” This case of friendly fire was unavoidable because that’s what happens when two cops facing each other shoot yet another unarmed man. Did I say unarmed? My mistake.

I don’t have the link from the story, but here’s what I had written down:

Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster said an initial review by his department indicates Officer Jerry Alan Jones, 27, was shot early Sunday morning by “friendly fire” as police tried to stop Brian Good, who was using a half-ton Chevrolet pickup truck as a deadly weapon.

Sometime later Saturday night Patrolman Jones spotted Good’s truck and gave chase, following the man into the Pinch/Quick area.

About 1 a.m., Good, who had a female passenger in the truck, pulled off Quick Road onto a patch of gravel. By that time, three more police cars were involved in the chase, and officers attempted to use their vehicles to block Good’s truck, Webster said.

Good slammed his truck into police cars, trying to get back on the road. Police Chief Brent Webster said when that didn’t work, the man backed up the truck, apparently to try again.

That was when officers opened fire. Both Alan Jones and Brian Good were shot.

Webster said Good didn’t have a gun, but officers still considered him armed with a vehicle.


So the cops, who considered themselves in imminent danger, opened fire as the truck was backing up. How tragic that a young cop was shot in the line of duty. Tragically funny, that is. Remember the man who was shooting it out with the cops and was using his nine-month old baby as a shield, so the cops shot the baby? Remember how they high-fived each other when they were acquitted of any wrongdoing? Remember their reasoning that shooting the baby was an unavoidable accident? There was smoke or fog so they couldn’t see that well as they were shooting, plus they were shooting through the wall of the building where the man was holed up. (As usual, some people who wrote comments about the baby shooting said the parents were here illegally, so they got what they deserved.)

But I said all that to ask this: what kind of training do these people get? Are they trained to stand in a circle and shoot at a target? Are they trained to shoot blindly through buildings knowing there are innocent people in the building? Are they trained to shoot at a man “armed with a vehicle” when there’s an innocent passenger in the car? Of course, nobody needs training to know these things are wrong and dangerous. I think their absolute hatred for people overcomes the tiny speck of common sense they may have. If you want to know what pure, unadulterated hatred sounds like, read the police forums or go to YouTube and read the comments on the German national anthem and the southern confederate songs. Or Google F**k the South.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

I'm not going to repeat what has been going on in Egypt. We all know that pro-Mubarak *paid* thugs from the poorest slums of Cairo, and secret police in plainclothes, have been using lethal violence against the protesters and the foreign press, and that the Army has finally stepped in to drive back the violent police and thugs, and separate the two factions.

However, we need to talk about the Muslim Brotherhood, which may well end up in power.

Just like the Republican Party, which embraces nutjobs like Sarah Palin, Eric "Israel Forever" Cantor, and Glenn Beck, as well as moderates like Ron Paul, John McCain and Bob Dole, the Muslim Brotherhood is not a coherent group with one voice.

The main group, after terrorist actions in its early days, renounced violence way back in the 1970s, and actually now holds 20% of the seats in Egypt's Parliament. However, dissidents calling themselves part of the MB, like Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's henchman, still advocate jihad and violent attacks on Western interests.

Quote from Wikipedia:

"However, once Al Qaeda was fully organized, it denounced the Muslim Brotherhood's reform through nonviolence and accused them of 'betraying the cause of Islam and abandoning their 'jihad' in favour of forming political parties and supporting modern state institutions'."

The bloody tourist attacks which occurred in Cairo and Luxor in 1997, and on the Red Sea in 2005, were conducted by violent brekaway factions, and were condemned by the MB and every Egyptian, who were ashamed of this un-Islamic murder of guests in their country. True Muslims take the code of hospitality very seriously.

However, there is indeed a great concern which even I, an advocate for democracy in Egypt, must face: If the Mubarak dictatorship, with its spies and secret police, falls, can a democratic government of a free country, where speech is allowed and private assembly is not spied upon, keep these violent Jihadi groups from destroying the society?

It is terribly easy for tiny groups of criminal fanatics to pervert and destroy the fabric of a free society, through terrorism and mayhem, and through false flag operations to rouse one sector of society to hatred against another. Divide and conquer. It is hard for them to do so under a dictatorship.

Let us not hail this freedom movement in Egypt with pure optimism, or with rigid pessimism. The future of Egypt is an open book, which is of great importance to us, because of Egypt's strategic location, and because of the portents of this uprising as a harbinger of the whole world's future.

Will fanatical Islamists in Egypt divide the society in order to conquer it? Will the oligarchs in the West set one segment of our own society against another, in order to keep us in economic servitude? -- Democrat against Republican? Christian against Muslim? Police against Mundanes? Employed against Unemployed? White against Black? Citizens against Immigrants? Poor against Poorer? We do not know.

We live in interesting times.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Anyone who wants to express their opinion, pro or con, to the Government of Egypt, here is the contact info for their main Embassy in Washington:

EMBASSY OF THE ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT
3521 International Ct. NW Washington DC 20008
TEL: 202.895.5400
FAX: 202.244.4319
Email:Embassy@egyptembassy.net

dixiedog said...

Dog: As a reluctantly realistic student of American history, I can assure you that the tale of Liberty's "good old days" here is almost entirely fabricated: such individual freedom as actually existed in the US, post-Revolution, was well on the wane by the time of the Constitutional Convention.

It depends on one's definition of "freedom." Some people's definition of "freedom" is akin to "free as in merely I don't have to pay for it" and some people's (myself in this camp) is that freedom is "free as in charity." The former is unbridled, irresponsible do what the hell you fancy as long as it's legal and/or someone else pays, regardless of the consequences (cost) upon and to other fellow folk or society at large. The latter encapsulates the responsible, doing the hard right rather than easy wrong character makeup. Now, I'm not sayin' it's easy, as I stated, but a bent and intent towards this high mark. The former is all about 3 persons: me, myself, and I. The world doesn't operate that way, whether you or I agree macht nichts, that's just the way it is. One myth that's consistently babbled w/o ceasing is that there is a such thing as one's acting/behaving in such a way that it has no good/bad/ugly consequence or impact for/to/upon others around him/her. If you live in the jungle or the outer perimeter of civilization, or a remote cave away from other folk, then yes I could agree that there's no effects upon other folk. But, again, most folk unfortunately live in sardine can environments and are in close proximity to other folk.

Please don't contort the above as some sort of blind support for the State. It most certainly isn't. I'm simply attempting to look and dissect concepts such as freedom, among many other human concepts in a logical "big picture" sense to ponder deeply upon, which most do not care to do. All many folk see and care about is sating their lustful and depraved desires NOW, period.

Google "Shay's Rebellion" for one example among many.

Rebellions, some wise, some unwise, are common to humanoids throughout history and the contemporary government in question, naturally is going to respond, and yes, usually not in a warm and fuzzy fashion. Nothing new under the sun there.

Did I proclaim Liberty's "good ol' days" somewhere? To be clear from the start just in case, if you ever "hear" me say "good ol' days" it has little if anything to do with the given government in existence, but rather it has to do with what the general moral fiber and collective character of the contemporary mundane culture is made of since the character of government is reflected by the character of the populace at large.

<cont'd>

dixiedog said...

Even Wilson and both Roosevelts with their bullshit wars were doing naught but following a long and consistent precedent. "American Exceptionalism" is just one more example of Leviathan's Big Lie. The problem isn't one particular instance or form of government, it is the very concept of The State.

God ordained government. I personally think one reason why we have the concept of the State and why the State exists is that God uses the wicked and corrupt "higher powers" and "mere" mundanes as well as the righteous and virtuous "higher powers" and "mere" mundanes to get His purpose(s) accomplished. Look at what happened to Israel under the Egyptians and later when the pagan Babylonians came and stomped and beatdown the Hebrews and herded them back into captivity once again. God used the wicked/pagan to judge the Hebrews, but the wicked/pagan are always subsequently judged and smitten as well.

On a more individual level, if the mundane can't exhibit a modicum of self-control, regardless of whatever is happening around him (refer to Paul's immense self-control when the prison walls were destroyed by an earthquake and the consequences for others IF he fled and carried away the rest with him...saving the guard from self-slaughter, etc.), the control will be harshly imposed upon him externally - whether it's deemed good, bad, or damn plain ugly by a given perspective. It's just a law of nature and nature's God, plain and simple. It's the irony of ironies that a corrupt government run by a tyrant will nevertheless, and most certainly unwittingly, attempt to restrain their otherwise rudderless populace at large from doing wrong in many ways, even though the Regime's motives for doing so are self-serving and even wicked in and of themselves.

It's hard to explain exactly what I mean, but I've often wondered why authoritarian regimes don't allow activities such as pornography, prostitution, gratuitous violence in entertainment, etc. to be spoon-fed to their populaces among what few freedoms that do exist? Sure, they spoon-feed them other nonsense - glory of the State, the despot himself, etc., etc. and also restrict or even ban religion (particularly Christianity) in general, but amidst all that the given Regime still manages to often provide some kind of minimal moral rudder for the populace at large. Again, unwittingly I might add.

And lastly to prempt the "you're one of those Romans 13 firebrands" or something similar, no. I agree with Baldwin's State-owned Churches are killing America and his in-depth extrapolation and expounding of the "total picture" concerning Romans 13.

The choice at hand isn't which insignia your banner should bear, but whether you will choose to fly the black flag, or some random jingoist menses sop.

I don't bear any idolizing man-worship insignia, anonymouse @ 6:02PM. I've even stated in past comment threads that labels are meaningless noises to distract the simple-minded from what's really relevant and critically important... in the U.S. system anyway. That would be: should Leviathan be involved at all in the matter in the first place? And, as an critical addendum, that when folk toss away their moral compass, the State by default will become the arbiter of right and wrong because it's all the mundanes have to look to for what's legal (therfore "moral" in their minds) and illegal. And since the State (at least in the local, state levels), at least in the U.S. system, is a general reflection of their respective mundane populations.

<cont'd (yeah, I know..y-a-w-n)>

dixiedog said...

Lastly, I'm much MORE cynical than our gracious host and most others who regularly come here. If you care to search past comment threads you'll see I've even questioned why a farrago concoction such as the United States would or should even exist. Nothing and I mean nothing makes any logical sense as to why America was founded, other than it was God's specific will for it to be created specifically for the purpose of propagating the Gospel and missionary work to the world. And, in those endeavors it, historically and to some tiny (and shrinking fast) extent, still today, diligently has carried forth those tasks. In fact, I believe it's the only reason we haven't been laid waste and put asunder already by the Almighty. However, with the seemingly always increasing depravity, ignorance, and haughtiness spouted and displayed daily by the idiot box and entertainment media in general and devoured readily and regularly by the salivating rabid "mere" mundanes (most especially by so-called "Christians"!), the ongoing holocaust in child murder, etc., etc. ad nauseam, Amerika's time to die and become essentially a mere footnote is coming. Perhaps, the sooner the better. In my micro gnat-sized human view, however, I say, "Break this farrago up already, dammit!"

I pay little if any mind to most of the chatterboxes spoutin' and shoutin' endlessly on the 'net other than Grigg here and a few other blogs now and again. I pay NO mind to the idiot box's media pundits nor the Hollyweird crap at all. I'm no friend of statists, period, but a few really loathed particulars are the following:

Ecclesio-statists
Lavender-statists
Eco-statists
Welfare-statists
Warfare-statists
Space-statists (NASA)
Corporate-statists
Internet-statists
...
...

This "kill-switch" claptrap is still being bandied about within the imperial capital's halls of power and that's to be expected, I reckon. The Internet is an interactive medium where "mere" mundanes can make their voice heard and not merely sit by idly and passively be spoon-fed the statist mantra day in and day out along with having my mind soaked day in day out in the Hollyweird sewer on the stooge box (nowadays in HD!). As a side note, this needs endless repeating: all Leviathans would be virtually powerless without hordes of "helpful" informants, which are likely to be your next door neighbors as well as mine. IOW, the "mere" mundanes amongst us provide any and all Regimes with their true strength.

whitebuffalo said...

Lemuel Gulliver said..

"...as well as moderates like Ron Paul, John McCain and Bob Dole,..."

To quote Mr. Lebowski (not to be confused with The Dude), "What in God's Holy Name are you blathering about?!"

How can you claim that Ron Paul is in any way in the same category as the disgustingly statist John McCain and Bob Dole??!

Ron Paul is in no way a moderate; he is Libertarian. McCain and Dole are also not moderate because they are both big Gov'ment elitists. Libertarians and statists are neither moderate nor one in the same.

1389 said...

Don't be fooled: Obozo and his supporters were behind the war against Mubarak from the get-go:

Obama supports Islamist takeover of Egypt

Egypt: Populist revolt or Muslim Brotherhood?

The upshot will be hard-line Islamist rule via the Muslim Brotherhood.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Whitebuffalo,

OK, OK, mea culpa. I was TRYING to find 3 moderate Republicans to balance the 3 freaks, Palin, Cantor and Beck, but I guess I failed. Perhaps I should have just limited my comparisons to saying that not all ticks carry Lyme Disease, not all fleas carry bubonic plague, and not all snakes are deadly venomous, and left it at that. Perhaps I could have also pointed out that not all bats are vampires. Our dear readers would then have been able to select their own Republican favorites to suit those observations. I apologize for mentioning Ron Paul in the same breath with the verminous creatures that lurk within that august institution, and thank you for your well-deserved chastisement of my misguided attempt at charitable spirit.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Dixiedog,
This will either make you laugh out loud, or explode a blood vessel. It made me laugh. I don't know which it will do for you, but here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRgB2eeHZEw&feature=fvw

Enjoy!!
Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

I make here a prediction, which will take some years to be fulfilled, and so will be quite forgotten by the time it comes to pass:

The present Egyptian Revolution, a peaceful (yes, peaceful) protest of joyful hope by the people of Egypt, will fail. It will run out of steam, and fade away. The power elite, of the secret police, wealthy oligarchy, corporations, and Israeli-American influence, will prevail.

In consequence, the next revolution, a few years from now, fueled by despair instead of hope, will be violent, since this is the only way to dislodge those who presently have a monopoly on violence, power, and injustice. It will be organized and directed by those groups who have access to weapons and are prepared to use them, namely, violent Islamist radicals. (NOT the Muslim Brotherhood, although the killers may cloak themselves in that identity.)

The frustration and despair of the once peaceful people of Egypt will be transformed into violence, mayhem, and chaos, mass murder, mass looting, hatred, and viciousness. Egypt, sitting astride the Suez Canal, will then become another Afghanistan or Iraq, and OUR sons and daughters will be bleeding into the sand and dying, to defend the Suez Canal for the benefit of the world's corporations and oligarchs.

Nothing ever changes. One clique of bloodsuckers can only be removed by violence, and replaced by another clique of bloodsuckers. The ideology the bloodsuckers claim makes no difference - Capitalism or Communism, Fascism or Democracy, Islam or Judaism, whatever - it is all bullshit. Their true ideology, their true religion, is money and power.

Consider America and our violent Revolution, which was the only way to dislodge the violent British Crown: Are we any better off today, as the USA, than we would have been as a province of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and America? Does it really make any difference to our miserable peasant lives, if at football games we sing the "Star Spangled Banner," instead of "God Save the Queen?" I really do not believe so. We might even have been better off, and less oppressed, as subjects of the British Monarchy, than as peons of the Israeli Lobby and the Global Elite.

Humanity is a miserable and unfortunate species, and has been so ever since money was invented by us. Satan is the ruler of this world - the Bible tells us so - and nothing good can ever be established on this planet. Only in our personal lives, in our own small space, can we hope to live in a holy and a Godly way.

Have a nice weekend.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

PS: Message to Dr. Zahi Hawass, Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority:

Dr. Hawass, I recommend you construct a vast underground concrete vault in the Egyptian Desert, empty all the treasures of the Egyptian Museum into it, and cover the vault over with ten thousand tons of reinforced concrete. Considering what the Islamic nutjobs did to the cultural treasures and museums of Afghanistan and Iraq, this is the only way you will save the treasures of Ancient Egypt from final destruction. You have about 3-5 years to build it. The Sphinx you cannot save: it will go the way of the Buddhas of Bamiyan - a pile of rubble. The Pyramids will survive, only becasue the fanatics do not possess sufficient dynamite. The only cheerful note (for some,) is that by the end, the oligarchs of the world, most of them Jews happy to finally take revenge for their enslavement in Egypt, which they still memorialize annually after 3,500 years, and quite unconcerned with the loss of non-Jewish cultural heritage, will be rubbing their hands in glee as they count their latest trillion dollars. Money and power -these are the Gods of the chosen ones of the Ruler Of This World, be they Jews or white men, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

- Gulliver

whitebuffalo said...

Lemuel Gulliver said:

"I make here a prediction, which will take some years to be fulfilled, and so will be quite forgotten by the time it comes to pass:"


Gotta say that everything you write next after this quote is an astute observation. It follows the the maxim: don't fear the angry man, fear the hungry man. And man - everywhere - is getting hungrier and hungrier for truth, justice, and liberty. It is interesting to note how technology and the inherent spirit of hope are propelling humanity forward into a new sense of understanding. Or total destruction. I guess it all depends on how the technology is used and how mankind's hope is manipulated.

Bob said...

Another excellent article, Will.

Unknown said...

Should any be interested in a different view of official corruption in Egypt you may find this perspective from an American that has live and traveled the world for the last 40 yrs on a sailboat.
http://www.cruisingworld.com/destinations/places/the-voyage-in-between

liberranter said...

Lemuel, your prediction could just as accurately describe the future here in the UFSA as it does the future in Egypt.

dixiedog said...

Dixiedog,
This will either make you laugh out loud, or explode a blood vessel. It made me laugh. I don't know which it will do for you, but here goes:


Anyone with no real power behind their hootin' and hollerin' antics doesn't disturb my apple cart, much less upset it, hoss.

Besides, political satirists, especially blond black ones, are always good for a laugh, Gulliver. Thanks for the link.

Bwahahahaha!