We Are Making Progress

Here.

The rightwing crazies are using this poll to show that Americans are turning into a bunch of Commies, which makes no since, as they also say that Americans hate socialism so much that they are going to repeal Obama’s health care reform.

Really, the poll is not as hopeful as one might think. First of all, capitalism and socialism are not defined. Furthermore, while only 5

This implies that Americans think that American capitalism is not a free market (neoliberal) system, which is preposterous. Instead, 2/3 of Moronicans think that the state and the corporations combine to screw workers and investors (Corporatism?), and this is somehow against free market principles (LOL).

Duh. That’s how society works under capitalism, dummies. Under neoliberalism, it’s the same thing with Premium fuel. You want neoliberalism, but you don’t want all the droppings that come with it. That makes no sense. This shows me that Moronicans are political amateurs who don’t know their political economic asses from a hole in the ground. They can be excused of course, since we have farce for politics, an infernally confusing and dishonest Lying Machine for a media and a culture of stupidity on rocket fuel.

But we don’t even have corporatism here. It would be nice if we did. Corporatism is what they have in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, etc. The state is very heavily involved with the corporate sector and in fact works together with corporations to guide the economy and national industrial policy with a view towards nationalism. It works pretty darn good!

We don’t have corporatism; we have a neoliberal system in which the capitalists run the show, and the state just stays out of the way and lets them run wild, or worse, helps them charge through the streets running over everyone in their path. Then the state comes through, sweeps up everyone who got run over, and puts them in jail or fines them for being in the way or something.

We have a corporate dictatorship enabled by a state in bed with the corporations. That’s not corporatism. In corporatism, the state tells the corporations what to do, and the corporations say, “Yes sir.” Here the corporations tell the state and everyone else what to do, and the state says, “Yes massah, kin I fetch it for you?”

On health care, things look grim, but this is Rasmussen. 5

Anyway, it looks like we have our work cut out for us convincing people that repeal of this bill is not in their best interests and that this reform, meager as it is, is on balance a good thing. If you think it’s creeping socialism, we need to end the conversation and part our ways, but even most Moronicans are not that stupid.

If Moronicans really do want to repeal this bill, I say the Hell with em. It that’s true, then it shows Americans are no good and deserve every shitty thing that is going to happen to them in the future, because they’re supporting it all and egging it all on.

One of the lies about this bill is that it has “cuts in Medicare.” There are no “cuts in Medicare.” That’s just another one of the lies that the Republicans said.

The truth is that it’s the Republicans who want to get rid of Medicare. They’ve hated it from Day One, and they will never accept this great socialist program. In recent years, they have been trying to get rid of Medicare with medical savings accounts, Medicare Plus Advantage plans, etc. When we try to point this out, they accuse of us saying, “Mediscare!” and say that they are only trying to save the program.

That’s like destroying the village to save it in Vietnam.

The purpose of the italicized plans above is to destroy Medicare by removing the healthy people. The resulting program will only have the sickest people in it, and it won’t work. All insurance programs work by having good actors and bad actors. Health insurance works by having both healthy and sick people. You get rid of the healthy people, and the program fails. That’s the GOP project, but they never admit it.

Obamacare cuts the Medicare Advantage plans, which suck anyway. These were sold to moneyed seniors back in the 1990’s via a multimillion $$$$$$ and extremely dishonest ad campaign. I know seniors who signed up for these crooked plans, and they are almost all sorry they did.

The Republicans got the US government to pay elevated rates for these gold plans. For instance, say the Medicare rate is X. The Republicans got the government to pay let’s say X + 1

Well, this bullshit should be cut out altogether. The government should pay X rate for Medicare and X rate, not X +1

Oh boo fucking hoo.

"Why Are You So Fascinated by People You Can't Stand?" by Alpha Unit

Don’t believe racists when they say they dislike Black people. Black people and what makes them tick are their favorite topic. They can’t get enough of talking about Blacks, looking at images of Blacks, or analyzing Blacks. What if there were a group of people you didn’t like? Suppose they had all kinds of character flaws that made them almost impossible to like. Because of this, you wanted nothing to do with them, and you could live happily ever after never running into another one again. Why would you ever be seen in public discussing them as if they were the most fascinating object in the world? Why would you care what made them tick? Isn’t it enough that they are inferior and to be avoided as much as possible? If you were serious about having nothing to do with them, you would be getting your affairs in order so as to get out of anyplace that had any significant number of them. Your behavior would show that they’re serious. After all, White Flight isn’t anything new. Right now, I’m thinking of this person I don’t like. And you know something? I don’t want anything to do with him! I don’t care why he is the way he is. I don’t devote a lot of time to analyzing him and going over his faults with other people. If he dropped off the face of the earth, I wouldn’t miss him. Because I don’t like him. I have no interest in persuading other people not to like him. I have no desire to sit around with other people making fun of him or debating why he is as awful as he is. Because I don’t like him. I have better, more interesting things to do. But racists have a lot of time to spend on studying a group of people they supposedly dislike and want nothing to do with. Black people are supposed to be innately inferior, right? If so, why do you care why we do what we do? Why would you seek out multiple opportunities to discuss Black behavior and look at videos of Black behavior, and why is Black behavior so fascinating and entertaining to you? I don’t think this is the way you act toward people you want nothing to do with and cannot stand. So why do you pay so much attention to Blacks? What do you want?

“Why Are You So Fascinated by People You Can’t Stand?” by Alpha Unit

Don’t believe racists when they say they dislike Black people.

Black people and what makes them tick are their favorite topic. They can’t get enough of talking about Blacks, looking at images of Blacks, or analyzing Blacks.

What if there were a group of people you didn’t like? Suppose they had all kinds of character flaws that made them almost impossible to like. Because of this, you wanted nothing to do with them, and you could live happily ever after never running into another one again.

Why would you ever be seen in public discussing them as if they were the most fascinating object in the world? Why would you care what made them tick? Isn’t it enough that they are inferior and to be avoided as much as possible?

If you were serious about having nothing to do with them, you would be getting your affairs in order so as to get out of anyplace that had any significant number of them. Your behavior would show that they’re serious. After all, White Flight isn’t anything new.

Right now, I’m thinking of this person I don’t like. And you know something? I don’t want anything to do with him! I don’t care why he is the way he is. I don’t devote a lot of time to analyzing him and going over his faults with other people. If he dropped off the face of the earth, I wouldn’t miss him. Because I don’t like him.

I have no interest in persuading other people not to like him. I have no desire to sit around with other people making fun of him or debating why he is as awful as he is. Because I don’t like him. I have better, more interesting things to do.

But racists have a lot of time to spend on studying a group of people they supposedly dislike and want nothing to do with. Black people are supposed to be innately inferior, right? If so, why do you care why we do what we do? Why would you seek out multiple opportunities to discuss Black behavior and look at videos of Black behavior, and why is Black behavior so fascinating and entertaining to you?

I don’t think this is the way you act toward people you want nothing to do with and cannot stand. So why do you pay so much attention to Blacks? What do you want?

“Walking With the Comrades,” by Arundhati Roy

“Walking With the Comrades,” by Arundhati Roy

This is a very long piece by famed progressive Indian author Arundhati Roy, who is an excellent writer. Note: It’s very long at 123 pages, but if I made it through, so can you.

Her famous book is The God of Small Things.

After months of waiting, she got an opportunity to spend time with India’s Maoist rebels. She exposes a seemingly endless web of lies that have been spun about them by the despicable Indian state.

First of all, these are poor people, very poor. They’re actually starving and dying of hunger and disease. This particular group are tribals called Gonds in Chattisargh. The Gonds are the remains of the most ancient people in India, and they do have an Australoid appearance going by their skulls. These people have been failed and worse from Day One by this sickening Indian state. That’s 61 years of utter failure, failure that kills millions of Indians every year.

I’m not ecstatic about these Maoists, but they seem to be the only people in India who care about the masses anymore, or who ever did. Everything else has failed, and it’s time to try something new.

Not only are the Maoist supporters poor, but the army itself is poor. This is a ragtag army going up against one of the biggest militaries in the world.

There is a lie that the tribals are “caught between two forces.” This is standard counterinsurgency bullshit that the Western media loves to play up. It’s not true.

Another lie is the Maoists are university-educated eggheads who are using the poor tribals as cannon fodder for their Utopian plans. Not true.

The truth is that the Maoists are the tribals and vice versa. That’s all there is to it. Even the leadership are tribals. And far from being caught between two sides, the tribals are solidly behind this army. In fact, while Roy is with them, they receive reports that tribals in new areas have issued calls for the Maoists to come defend them. They want squads and guns, but there are no men and guns to spare. A report comes in from another area where graffiti has appeared in tribal villages, “Maoists Come Save Us!”

The leadership of the Maoists has a history of some pretty scary statements in the past, but on the ground, this is not the new Shining Path or Khmer Rogue. They’re just poor peasants with guns, nothing else.

The lies go on and on. The Maoists are blowing up school buildings because they hate education. Not so. First of all, the schools in this region are all long since abandoned. The teachers get paid whether they show up or not, so they just stay home. Further, all of the schools have been taken over by the Indian security forces. Yes, the Maoists have blown up schools, abandoned schools filled with security forces! So what?

An Indian commenter showed up recently and said that Maoism had failed, and the reason for the total failure of the Indian state to provide for its people was over 40 years of Indian socialism with slow economic growth, referred to as “The Hindu rate of growth.”

The Hindu rate of growth this is a lie. The Indian state’s growth during this period was about the same as the rest of the region, such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Sure, it’s slow growth compared to South Korea and even Thailand, but the whole region does poorly compared to South Korea and Thailand.

Anyway, we progressives don’t think too much of Indian socialism. It left half the population starving, killed at least 4 million people a year, and left 200 million people living in the streets. You call that socialism?

Economic growth has gone up since neoliberalism 20 years ago, but as usual, almost all of the wealth has gone to around 1

Further, the neoliberalism that reigns in India is never going to provide for the people. The Indian people need infrastructure, roads, schools, health care, on and on. Neoliberalism guts the state and leaves it with no funds to pay for any of these things. Education, roads, infrastructure, medical care, etc. is all supposed to be provided by the private sector, if anyone. With that philosophy, the peasants are never going to get any of these things.

These Maoists are not even really hardline Communists. Their first project is to switch over to a true national capitalism, confiscating the property of the multinationals and the country-selling treasonous internationalist ruling class who have no allegiance to India. So the vast majority of the private sector, and all of the patriotic private sector, would be left intact during a period, like Lenin’s NEP, designed to grow the economy and develop the country.

At some point, there’s to be a transition to socialism, but who knows when that will come.

The Maoists have issued a document saying that they intend to seize power by 2050. That’s 40 years away. Unfortunately, that is probably realistic or even optimistic, but it’s way too much time. In the meantime, seizure of state power is still a dream away.

Teabaggers Aren’t About Race

Oh, of course not. What ever gave you that idea?

What a dumbass cracker! Can't even spell nigger!

One thing I think is clear is that Teabaggers are not White Nationalists. White Nationalists for the most part don’t like any Blacks period. Teabaggers are more like typical White racists. If you study White racism, you know that in the US, these folks always had a Pet Negro or two around. Sort of like a pet dog or pet goat. Not really human, but still quite lovable. And the Teabaggers have a few Pet Negroes here or there. What can you say? Every race has its traitors!

Teabaggers are not about race! Michael Steele (R-House Negro) even said so!

So, the Teabaggers do not really hate Obama because he’s Black. Mainstream US racism has gone far beyond that. If he was a Pet Negro, they’d cuddle right up to him. He’d even be advantageous to use as a rejoinder to the racism charge.

Why do the Teabaggers, the Republican Party, and the entire US rightwing hate Obama? Obama’s an uppity nigger; he’s a Negro that just don’t know his place at all. The White folks done told him over and over, “Boy! Now you sit down and be quiet, boy! You hear me?”

But Obama’s one uppity Negro, and he just won’t sit down or shut up and let The Man take over and do what’s best. Obama is a proud Black man who is working to better his people, and we ain’t gonna have none of that around these here parts. Y’all best believe me when I say that!

Conservative Lie #1,482, 091: The Public Schools Are Failing to Educate Our Children

This lie is very widely believed, even across the political spectrum.

A lot of Blacks even fall for this one. They believe it because public schools suck in Black areas. But public schools are just fine in White areas, so there’s nothing wrong with public schools per se. Public schools are screwed up in Black areas because they seem to be broke and falling apart. I’m not sure why they are falling apart, and I’m uncertain why they are broke.

The kids know that there are hardly any books, and the books that they have are 10-20 years out of date, so the smarter ones are pissed off and disgusted about this. There’s no money for anything in these schools, so increasingly, we teachers are supposed to pay for school supplies out of our own pockets. But why the Hell should we do that? I used to do it, but I resented it, and I would charge the kids for the pencils and pens.

In part, the Black schools are ruined by the Black kids themselves. They destroy the schools. They take the books and fling them across the room, cackling wildly. I could scream and yell and did, but nothing will happen. I could call the Administration, but they won’t come. Bottom line is there are a lot of shithead punks, mostly males, in Black schools who simply do not belong in regular classrooms. Where do they belong? I have no idea, maybe a Continuation School. They destroy things for the rest of them.

There is a trope going around that the Black schools are full of incompetent teachers. I sure didn’t see it when I worked there, and I worked in the heart of the ghetto for years. I saw maybe one incompetent teacher the whole time. Those are some of the most competent and dedicated teachers of all, and they deserve a shoutout.

Sure, private schools are better for Black kids. You know why that is? Because they throw out all the knuckeheads, that’s why! You get three strikes in those schools if you are lucky. What people don’t understand about public schools is that we have to take everyone, special ed, really dumb kids and the worst behavioral cases around.

Sure, we can suspend or even expel the real knotheads, but then the Blacks and anti-racists screech. There’s a lot of talk that Black kids are suspended or expelled on a far higher percentage basis than other groups. Black and anti-racist leaders constantly say what a racist outrage this is.

As someone who spent years on the ground in heart of the mess, I assure you there is no discrimination going on. The hardest thing to do in a Black school, other than teach, is to get a Black kid expelled or suspended. Or even sent to the office.

The Administration doesn’t want to deal with the knotheads, and they figure you ought to be able to control the class. Further, the Admins are heavily Black, and they are not wild about disciplining their own kind, which is logical. I can say with a clear conscience that the only reason Blacks (almost all males, by the way) are suspended or expelled more is because they are dramatically more likely to act bad. If anything, they are not getting expelled or suspended enough! Is there racism? Maybe, but I never saw any in Los Angeles at least.

Charter schools are another fake diversion. I don’t see they are needed. Why do we need charter schools? Because they wipe out the teachers’ unions! Yay! You know, those evil teachers’ unions. Let me tell you something, if you’re a schoolteacher and you don’t have your head up your ass, you want to be in the union.

There’s an argument that the union protects incompetent teachers. First of all, it’s hard to be a fuckup teacher. When I taught school, they rode on my ass 24-7.

It’s true, the riding is way worse in the White areas, and there’s little riding in the ghetto, but there’s little expectations in the ghetto because the students are so awful. Yet even in the ghetto, I tried my hardest. And most other teachers did too. Why? I dunno. Inner city teaching pretty much sucks, and the only people there are pretty dedicated. Anyone else just isn’t even there in the first place, or they leave real fast.

What’s the real reason for the endless conservative attacks on the public schools? In the US, conservatives are so insane and evil that they actually hate public education. I believe that they are ideologically opposed to it. I’m not sure if they want to wipe it out all together, but I think they want to defund it like 3rd World elites do.

Let’s take a look at a graph at how the public schools are failing our kids.

As you can see, public education is totally failing our kids. Snark.

“Limited Government” in Action

It is a standard trope of the Right, at least here in the US, that one of the things that they hold dearest is something called “limited government.”

In the rest of the world, that’s pretty much what the Right wants too, though in the rest of the world, they can’t say that, because the people don’t want “limited government.” So they say other things. In much of the rest of the world, the Right usually has to pledge to battle poverty. In the 3rd World, everyone from all ends of the spectrum usually pledges to battle poverty.

But only the Left ever does anything about it. That’s because in the 3rd World, the Right stands for neoliberalism or unbridled capitalism and mimimal government. Neoliberalism, unbridled capitalism and minimal government are usually not capable of battling poverty. And why should they be? Truth is there’s no money in fighting poverty. In fact, from a capitalist POV, fighting poverty is usually a gigantic money-loser.

Hence, anti-poverty measures are typically undertaken by the state, since the state doesn’t care whether it loses money or not.

Neoliberals often tout economic growth as a poverty fighter, but it doesn’t work very well. Decades of experience with neoliberalism has shown us that neoliberalism usually benefits only the top 2

The neoliberal liars noticed this early on, and said, “Just wait! Neoliberalism takes time to filter down to the masses.” So people waited and waited, and the trickling down never happened. After decades, people not being stupid, they got gave it up and said, “Chuck the neoliberalism.” This is what is happening in Latin America.

Of course, the US, the World Bank, the IMF, most of the Western media still push neoliberalism since it’s great for corporations and the top 2

If you’re a big business or have lots of money, neoliberalism tastes pretty good. But for the vast majority of humanity, it’s nothing but a shit sandwich.

In the US, the Republican Party only works for the top 2

The Asian tigers are held up by neoliberal liars as exemplary examples of the glories of neoliberalism. True, they’ve had great economic growth. But they sure as Hell didn’t do it with neoliberalism.

First of all, they all put into place a comprehensive land reform. This is essential to wipe out feudal relations in the countryside and get rid of rural poverty and hence take out revolutionary sentiment in the rural areas. In addition, after land reform, the nation can often grow much of its own food, and it doesn’t need to import so much food.

Most countries that have not undertaken land reforms are still seriously fucked up.

Any Latin American nation that undertakes a land reform is immediately threatened by the US with aid cutoffs, and the US, via the CIA, usually tries to take out the government in various ways, usually via a coup or assassinations. In this way, US imperialism has prevented development in Latin America. Local elites are traitors who care nothing about the long-term development of their national economies. They live like royalty via feudal land relations, so they always oppose necessary land reforms, and hence, the nation stays backwards and fucked up.

In addition to land reform, the tigers all undertook heavily state-dependent development. Their development was characterized by intense economic nationalism, state-guided development, often social democratic features either provided by the state or corporations themselves as in Japan, and intense economic protectionism until fledgling industries could finally compete internationally. The tigers didn’t use neoliberalism at all. They used the opposite!

Neoliberalism will never develop one country on Earth. It works, in a way, in an already developed country, but everywhere, even there, it has a Third-Worldization effect on the public space.

The best place to look at the effects of limited government is where it’s been tried since Day One: The Third World! If there’s anything that characterizes the Third World, it’s limited government. It’s almost libertarian in that respect. You can see the shithole that has resulted, quite logically, from a gelded public sector in the Third World. Limited government creates shitholes.

Sure, rich people don’t mind living in a shithole. They just create nice little rich people enclaves where they live it up and say the Hell with the rest of the country.

You can actually live pretty well in a shithole with tons of money, cheap hired help, armed guards or a private army, gates or walls around your residence or property, a septic tank, bottled water, a 4X4 all wheel drive and a generator. There are always private schools for the kids, private clinics if you get sick and nice upscale shopping areas where you can buy whatever you want.

You usually pay no taxes either, which is pretty cool. The state, to the extent that it exists at all, is controlled by you and your buddies, and the military and cops are at your beck and call to solve any issues you might have with the hoi-polloi.

Even limited government is not enough for quite a few typically young and moneyed American naifs. They desire the Super Deluxe limited government – full-blown Libertarianism.

Libertardianism is so insane that fortunately it’s never really been tried, except we seem to have a lab experiment going on in Somalia right now. There’s been no state at all there for over a decade now, so it’s full-blown anarcho-capitalism or super-radical libertarianism.

There aren’t even any cops or army. In their stead, obviously, private cops and private armies have sprung up. They even “compete” anarcho-capitalist style, but having continuous shooting wars with each other, the logical consequence anywhere on Earth you have private cops and armies (in effect, warlords). Nothing works, and Somalia’s even more of a shithole than it’s ever been.

There are even some wonderful insurgencies running amok. The insurgents get a lot of support with their calls to “restore order and rule of law.” So much for popular support for Libertardianism.

On most standard scales of fuckedupedness, Somalia is either #1 or in the Top 5.

Way to go, Libertardians, way to fuckin’ go.

“Encounter Killings” As a Counterinsurgency Tactic In India

This article deals with the so-called “encounter killings” of two Maoist leaders in India. Encounter killings have been going since the early days of the insurgency 40 years ago.

Here’s how it works. Indian The state arrests people who they think are guerrillas. Probably in most cases, they are armed guerrillas. Then the state handcuffs and blindfolds them and drives them out into the jungle where they murder the POW. Then they say that the person was killed in an armed “encounter.” Thing is, sometimes there are shootouts with guerrillas in which guerrillas are killed. Guerrillas are also taken from hospital beds and jail cells to the jungle to be murdered. This is the way the Indian state operates.

Well, I don’t agree with that.

A normal state working according to the rule of law arrests suspected guerrillas.

It’s hard to say what to do with them afterwards. Sometimes, but not typically, they are put on trial in a civilian court. That’s the fairest method. The problem with this is that often they are acquitted of the charges, so states don’t like to use this method.

Another thing to do is accuse them of “rebellion,” or “terrorism,” which are civilian penal offenses carrying stiff sentences. Guerrillas are typically arrested under these civilian statutes, although really, they are a belligerent force that ought to be subject to the UN rules and kept as POW’s.

But almost no state ever recognizes a guerrilla force as a belligerent deserving of UN rules. This is one thing that the Colombian guerrillas have demanded, status as a belligerent. That’s why they “kidnap” enemy soldiers and lawmakers who either run counterinsurgency programs or vote for them in Congress (arguably, belligerents).

Clearly, state police and troops are enemy forces and may be captured by the Colombian guerrilla and kept prisoner, which is what they do. Incredibly, the entire world media says these POW’s are “captives” who were cruelly “kidnapped” by the evil guerrillas. Like Hell, they’re POW’s like any other in any other war.

The guerrillas keep these POW’s in order to trade them for imprisoned guerrillas who they see as guerrilla POW’s held by the state.  The state has refused to trade POW’s with the guerrilla, so the guerrillas just keep their POW’s forever. And why not?

In many wars, guerrillas often capture state security forces, disarm them, and ask them to join the insurgency. If they don’t want to join, they often just release them. The NPA in the Philippines typically just disarms and releases many state and private security forces. This works well for them, as, since the state is total crap, even many security forces have no allegiance to this Army of the Rich. Knowing the NPA’s reputation, state forces often just choose surrender, give up their guns and be released instead of standing and fighting.

It’s stupid of guerrillas like Iraqi Al Qaeda to execute state security POW’s. If you have a reputation of executing enemy POW’s, most people are going to fight you to the end instead of surrendering, since you’re going to get killed after you surrender anyway.

Hamas has found that a live Israeli soldier is worth far more than a dead one, hence they go to great pains to keep even badly injured IDF captives alive, and treat them well, using them to trade for guerrillas in Israeli prisons. Very smart.

Most guerrillas tend to execute or assassinate state spies. Spies are a serious problem for any guerrilla force, and you can’t let people get away with it, otherwise lots of folks will spy for the enemy, and your forces will get decimated.

Ideally, guerrillas should just hold enemy spies POW, but most guerrillas lack facilities for holding POW’s, hence there’s nowhere to keep them. You either release the spies back to probably spy again, or you do something with them. The only thing to do with an enemy spy is to kill them. You really need to make an example out of these folks.

The Indian Maoists often put spies on trial in front of the people. The people decide either we can trust this person again, or we can’t trust them. If they can’t trust them, they are killed. Guerrillas catch a lot of shit about this from human rights groups, but what are they supposed to do? You can’t just let spies go unpunished.

Guerrillas also sometimes execute enemy security forces who are members of death squads. Death squads run around massacring the civilians who support the guerrilla, and killing death squad members is arguably killing a war criminal. Human rights groups flip out over this too, but why should the guerrilla release death squad members to kill again? Forget it.

Typically, in many insurgencies, when guerrillas are captured, they are just murdered soon afterwards, usually after being tortured to death. This was the case in El Salvador and Guatemala. The Israelis also often arrest Palestinian fighters and just take them out and murder them. It’s pretty much standard procedure.

In some cases, the state sentences guerrillas to death on rebellion or terrorism charges. This is what Iran does. I’m not necessarily opposed to that. The guerrillas have often killed or injured state security forces. Although they are probably POW’s, states seem to treat them as common criminals instead and try them as one would try a murderer. That’s arguably reasonable.

Another thing you can do in counterinsurgency is run an assassination program. I suppose this is fair, provided you are actually targeting guerrillas. Anyone who is part of the guerrilla may be targeted at any time, night or day, wherever they are. You don’t need to offer enemy forces an opportunity to surrender first. You can just fire on them as soon as you see them. Guerrilla spies may be arrested at any time, but they should not be assassinated, since they are probably not armed.

One thing I do not agree with is arresting guerrillas and then murdering them or torturing whatever information you can get out of them and then murdering them. That’s ridiculous. I don’t see how you can justify it in any way.

But this is standard counterinsurgency procedure, and it’s taught in US military schools, especially the School of the Americas. US, South Korean, Taiwanese and especially Israeli advisors go to foreign lands and train rightwing armies in how to fight guerrillas. An essential aspect of this program is to kill and torture, often to death, guerrillas after you capture them.

They also teach the armies to wage war on the entire opposition political spectrum, by arresting, beating, harassing, torturing and murdering the unarmed civilian opposition. Opposition villages are to be razed, and opposition women are to be mass-raped. This is all US standard counterinsurgency doctrine cooked up by the Pentagon and the CIA and taught by the US and its buddies to far right governments at war with their peoples all over the world for many decades now.

I don’t agree that that’s how a civilized state fights a counterinsurgency, sorry. Count me out.

Stop Encounter Killings In The Name Of Countering Maoism!

Public Statement 23 March, 2010

Countercurrents.org

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the recent killings of senior CPI (Maoist) leaders Sakhamuri Appa Rao and S. Kondal Reddy in ‘encounters’ by the Andhra Pradesh police.

While the AP police have claimed that they were killed in gun battles in two different incidents in Prakasam and Warangal districts, there are strong grounds to believe that the two Maoist leaders were first arrested in Maharashtra, taken back to AP and then shot in cold blood. The use of assassination, kidnapping and torture by the forces of the Indian State to contain the Maoist insurgency is not new or surprising but remains even now, as before, an illegal, immoral and reprehensible strategy.

Firstly, the use of such methods by the Indian police, paramilitary forces or army – under whatever pretext- go against basic provisions of the Indian Constitution and puts them on par with ordinary criminals or even terrorists.

The fact that the Maoists do not believe in the Indian Constitution does not mean the Indian government should also abandon its commitment to the only consensus document that gives it its own legitimacy. The Indian State has a duty to uphold the Constitution, irrespective of the opponents it faces, and failure to do so robs it of its entire claim to represent ‘Indian law’.

Secondly, there is enough evidence to show that the use of such dirty methods, once justified by the political masters, unfortunately becomes a bad habit making the Indian security forces a threat to the lives of millions of ordinary Indian citizens. The fact that India has one of the world’s highest numbers of custodial deaths and ranks extremely high in the list of countries using torture is testimony to this dubious phenomenon.

The people at the receiving end of such violations of law by the Indian State on a day-to-day basis are the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, poor communities as also the people of Kashmir and the North-East and this is completely unacceptable.

We demand that the Home Minister of India and the Indian government put an immediate end to the use of abduction, torture and fake encounter killings to tackle the Maoist and other armed insurgencies. Lawless governance and impunity for wrongdoers in uniform leads to loss of faith in democracy. The institutional failures that give rise to insurgencies also need to be understood and tackled in a political manner for any lasting solutions.

A. Marx, Academic/Activist, Chennai Bhaskar Vishwanathan, Activist, Chennai

Amit Bhaduri, Economist, New Delhi Dilip Simeon, Academic/Activist, New Delhi Satya Sivaraman, Journalist, New Delhi Aseem Srivastava, Economist, New Delhi Amit Sengupta, Journalist, New Delhi Rabin Chakrabarty, Academic/Activist, Kolkata

Spanking Lowers IQ?

A very interesting study implies that spanking lowers IQ by approximately 2.8-5 points, on average 3.9 points. The more the kid is spanked, the more the IQ drops. Kids were tested at age 5 and then retested at various ages after that. The kids that were spanked the most had their IQ’s drop the most. The worst drop was seen for kids who kept getting hit into the teen years.

The study looks pretty good, because it is looking at IQ’s at a certain age, and then correlates the actual falls in scores with an environmental variable, in this case spanking.

This tends to rule out parental IQ and genetics. I.e., the stupider the parent, the more they are going to hit the kid, and the smarter the parent, the less they hit their kid, since beating your kid is a pretty stupid thing to do. Or on the other end, the dumber the kid, the they act up, and the more they get hit. The smarter the kid, the better they act, so the they get hit.

But it is not normal for an IQ score to fall like that, so that would tend to rule out these confounding variables.

Black parents spank and hit their kids like crazy. I’ve seen them doing it many times, often in public. It’s conceivable that Black IQ scores could rise by 4 points or so if Black parents would quit beating on their kids so much.

Black IQ scores in the West are very interesting. Setting US White IQ = 103, Black IQ at age 5 = 98, yet at age 24 = 89.8. 98 is a very high score, and it’s only 5 points below Whites. If you have spent a lot of time around really young Black kids, you will notice that they are not exactly stupid at all. In fact, they seem to be quite alert, curious and actually intelligent.

Yet after age 5, Black IQ starts to drop, and by age 24, it has fallen to 89.8. There are very reasons suggested for this drop. One is that the extreme positive environment in the US artificially elevates US Black scores in youth, when environmental effects are strongest. Environmental effects tend to fade with adulthood, when genetic effects tend to kick in. So the drop is just genes kicking in, and the early charge is not sustained.

Others say that Blacks mature faster, and this explains the dropping scores, but I analyzed Black IQ scores in Africa deeply, and I found little if any drop, certainly not a 10 point fall. White scores do not drop at all with age.

So heavy Black corporal punishment may be one of the factors in that 10-point fall.

Let’s look at the lineup:

Upper tier
US Jewish                       116
US Black African                110
US East Indian                  109
US East Asian                   108
US White                        103
US average                      100
US Black age 5                  98
US Hispanic  (2nd generation)   98

Lower tier
US Filipino                     97
US Eskimo                       94
US Hispanic  (average)          92.5
US Amerindian                   92.5
US Polynesian                   90
US Black age 24                 89.8
US Hispanic  (1st generation)   88
US Hmong                        85

Some things need explaining in this chart.

First of all, the US White IQ has been changed from 100 to 103, so everyone’s score has been bumped up three points as a result. This is because tests used to be normed at the US White score = 100, but they changed that recently and now the US average = 100 and the US White score has been bumped up three points, because White scores are three points higher than the US average.

All scores are for the ethnic group inside the US, not in their home lands, where scores may and do differ. Hence, scores are lacking for many groups in the US since I lack access to scores in the US.

Indian (109 versus 85) and African (110 versus 70) immigrant scores are much higher than in their countries. This is obviously some selective immigration going on here. We are selecting mostly the best and brightest of the Africans and Indians, as it ought to be.

US East Asian does not include Hmong or Filipinos, and generally = Koreans, Chinese and Japanese.

US Jews are Ashkenazi Jews. Sephardic Jews might only score 93 or so.

I am guessing, but I think that Hmong scores are artificially depressed due to poor English language skills. Their test scores show a profound high math and very poor verbal trend. I have met many of these people, and they are not unintelligent at all.

The fact that Black kids have high IQ’s, and Black African immigrants have some of the highest IQ’s in the US (Higher than US Whites!), shows that racist stereotyping along the lines of “niggers ain’t got no brains,” still widely seen among racists, lacks empirical rigor on the individual level anyway, depending especially on age cohort and nation of origin.

"They've Come Undone," by Alpha Unit

A lot of right-wing Americans are boiling over with fear and loathing over this “health care” bill that just got signed into law. I hear they’re smashing windows, making death threats against legislators and their kids, urging one another to lock and load (Why aren’t some of these people serving in Iraq and Afghanistan?). Listening to them, you’d think this is the first time in American history that “government” ever became synonymous with “tyranny.” It’s going to start making people do things against their will and everything. They can’t be serious, can they? Is this new law what it took to slap some sense into them? It seems they’ve never heard of government imposing itself on “the people” before. Or forcing you to do something – or buy something – against your will. That’s what governments do best, right wingers – force people to do stuff. You of all people should know that. Some of you have been telling us for years that government is force. And you are right. The only difference is what things you’re being forced to do by which governments.” “Well, the government’s gonna force me to buy health insurance!” you protest. Is this the first time the government ever made you buy anything? The government makes people buy all kinds of things – infant car seats, low-flow toilets, car insurance, you name it. I don’t like it, either. But you didn’t notice until now that the government can order you to buy something? For your own good? (It’s always for your own good.) The government insists on being notified if you want to add on to your house, for goodness’ sake. Your very own house that you own free and clear, that you ought to be able to do whatever you want with. You’ve got to notify them and you’ve got to make sure they approve of what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Thinking of taking in a renter? There are laws about that. There are laws about how to get rid of him, too. Were you consulted before you were forced to recycle? My local government makes me do it – which isn’t the worst thing it makes people do, okay – but it won’t do anything about the people who go through my bins confiscating whatever they want, making all kinds of racket and leaving stuff lying around for me (that is, for my husband) to pick up. In fact, the government is very good at keeping honest, law-abiding types on a leash. It can’t do a damned thing with the others. Lawless types don’t care if the government says they can’t do something, but you’ve noticed that. And government doesn’t care. People who submit will always outnumber those who won’t. Right wingers submit as much as anyone else. The government can order you to serve on a jury. It tells you that you must pay a minimum wage. It can order you to join the military. It would take forever to enumerate all the things the government makes you do, or forbids you to do. These people who are all up in arms about “government tyranny” are like someone who has been kidnapped and almost completely tied up – but suddenly complaining that his captor wants to handcuff him. I don’t care what kind of government you live under. The question is, are you on a short leash or a long one? Is there a choke chain? Is your collar standard issue, or is it jewel-encrusted and really pretty?

“They’ve Come Undone,” by Alpha Unit

A lot of right-wing Americans are boiling over with fear and loathing over this “health care” bill that just got signed into law. I hear they’re smashing windows, making death threats against legislators and their kids, urging one another to lock and load (Why aren’t some of these people serving in Iraq and Afghanistan?). Listening to them, you’d think this is the first time in American history that “government” ever became synonymous with “tyranny.” It’s going to start making people do things against their will and everything.

They can’t be serious, can they?

Is this new law what it took to slap some sense into them? It seems they’ve never heard of government imposing itself on “the people” before. Or forcing you to do something – or buy something – against your will. That’s what governments do best, right wingers – force people to do stuff. You of all people should know that. Some of you have been telling us for years that government is force. And you are right. The only difference is what things you’re being forced to do by which governments.”

“Well, the government’s gonna force me to buy health insurance!” you protest. Is this the first time the government ever made you buy anything? The government makes people buy all kinds of things – infant car seats, low-flow toilets, car insurance, you name it. I don’t like it, either. But you didn’t notice until now that the government can order you to buy something? For your own good? (It’s always for your own good.)

The government insists on being notified if you want to add on to your house, for goodness’ sake. Your very own house that you own free and clear, that you ought to be able to do whatever you want with. You’ve got to notify them and you’ve got to make sure they approve of what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Thinking of taking in a renter? There are laws about that. There are laws about how to get rid of him, too.

Were you consulted before you were forced to recycle? My local government makes me do it – which isn’t the worst thing it makes people do, okay – but it won’t do anything about the people who go through my bins confiscating whatever they want, making all kinds of racket and leaving stuff lying around for me (that is, for my husband) to pick up.

In fact, the government is very good at keeping honest, law-abiding types on a leash. It can’t do a damned thing with the others. Lawless types don’t care if the government says they can’t do something, but you’ve noticed that. And government doesn’t care. People who submit will always outnumber those who won’t. Right wingers submit as much as anyone else.

The government can order you to serve on a jury. It tells you that you must pay a minimum wage. It can order you to join the military. It would take forever to enumerate all the things the government makes you do, or forbids you to do. These people who are all up in arms about “government tyranny” are like someone who has been kidnapped and almost completely tied up – but suddenly complaining that his captor wants to handcuff him.

I don’t care what kind of government you live under. The question is, are you on a short leash or a long one? Is there a choke chain? Is your collar standard issue, or is it jewel-encrusted and really pretty?

The Latest “Black People Acting Up” Video

Following on the heels of the Epic Bearded Man and Chinese Girl Fights Black Girl videos, we have another video of a Black person acting all ornery and playing the fool.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-KFA1U8iOw]

In this case, she ought to know better, as she’s a university student and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. It’s hard to tell what’s going on, but she gets into a loud verbal argument with another woman in class, then throws a water bottle across the room at the other woman (this part occurs before the filming starts), then apparently threatens the teacher and the other students, then the teacher calls the campus police. The cops come in, ask her three times to come with them, she refuses, so they take her down, cuff her and take her away in a big screaming, kicking, screeching hysterical mess.

She was arguing about a bad grade on a paper and had been holding up the class yelling about this for half an hour.

This is getting linked around, and already has 450,000 views. It’s apparently getting linked to “HBD” (frankly racist-lite)* blogs like One STD.

One STD tunes in with a discourse on whether this behavior is due to elevated testosterone in Black women. I guess I’m going to pass on that one, other than to note that it’s an old stereotype, frankly confirmed by many honest Black women, that a lot of Black women are pretty angry and aggressive. Black guys have always said that, but then Black guys tend to often be that way themselves, so maybe they just deal.

It’s interesting that in a lot Black domestic abuse cases, the women don’t just sit there and take it like your typical meek White battered woman doormat. They fight back, hard! Often with weapons, and sometimes with deadly force.

*I really hate to call HBD sites racist-lite, because I don’t like to be dicky and through the racism word around promiscuously, but you need to call a spade a spade sometimes. Truth is, racism-lite is probably true only of the best of them. The rest are even worse. One thing that seems to motivate almost all HBD sites is animus towards Blacks, and to a lesser extent, towards Hispanics. Or animus towards NAM’s if you will.

It’s completely wrong to conflate them with White nationalists, though some White nationalists are calling themselves HBD’ers as part of the endless effort to sugarcoat and disguise their philosophy.

The very phrase “HBD” bothers me, since it’s so often just a cover for racism of some variety or other. It’s pretentious-scientific, and seeks to disguise its real nature.

I don’t like the word “NAM’s” too much either, though it adds a descriptive terms not in our language. Problem is almost everyone using the term NAM’s is a White racist. Gee thanks guys, for ruining a perfectly good word. Considering who’s using it and the context in which it’s being used, why not just get rid of NAM’s and call them “muds?”

Did the Proto-Iberians Come From the Caucasus?

Bible: In Genesis 10 and 1Chronicles 1, the fifth son of the patriarch Japheth is named Tubal and the sixth – is named Meshech.

Roman Literature: In the Septuagint the name is given as Th-obel, and Th-ober in the Codex Alexandrinus (Ezek. 39:1). To the Greeks, the sons of Tubal were the Τ-ιβαρηνοί (T-ibar-enoi); to the Romans they were the T- ibar-eni or T-iber-eni.

Herodotus (Roman historian) says the land of the Tibarenians belonged to the 19th satrapy of Darius the Persian (Histories, III, 94). In VII, 78 we see the T-ibar-enians or T-iber-enians allied with their cousins the Maschians or Meskhians, sons of Meshech. Both peoples were renowned for their archery skills, and the close association of the descendants of Tubal with those of Meshech even to the present day is attested in several of the prophecies in the Bible that have a future fulfillment.

Appian (Roman historian) gives the range of opinion on the two Iberias: ‘As for the Iberians of Asia, some think them descendants of the European Iberians, others think them their ancestors, while others think that they simply share the same name’. (Mithr. 101).

In modern times, scholars have sought to establish a link between the two Moschians: Moschians in South Georgia and North Turkey, and Boschians (Bascians, Bascs) in North Spain and East France. Note the resemblance between “Bascs” and the Basques.

The people, who were later named Iberians (or dwellers along the Rio Ebro) by the Greeks, as well as Bascians, migrated to Iberian Peninsula in the third millennium B.C. The origin of the Iberians and Bascians is not certain, but archaeological evidence of their metallurgical and agricultural skills supports a theory that they came from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Iberians and Bascians lived in small, tightly knit, sedentary tribal groups that were geographically isolated from one another. Each group developed distinct regional and political identities, and intertribal warfare was endemic.

The Caucasian Iberians (Tiberians) and Maschians (Meskhians) may indeed have come from the Caucasus.

However, later on, there was tremendous Celtic influence as the Celts seem to have overrun the entire peninsula. Nevertheless, as late as 2000-3000 years ago, pre-Roman Iberian languages were spoken all over the peninsula. The remains of these languages are found in many placenames. The languages are isolates, and have no known relatives. It’s possible that they may be related to Basque though.

The Celtic influence can also be seen in many placenames. Celtic influence is profound in Northern Spain, especially in Galicia, Asturias, Calabria, over to the East in Aragon and certainly in Catalonia. Celtic influence is deep in the north of Portugal in a region called Lusitania.

Iberian genes do not show much connection to the Caucasus, but Basque genes do look somewhat Caucasian and are anomalous in Europe. I have studied the Basque language at length and a connection with the languages of the Caucasus, especially Northeast Caucasian languages like Chechen, seems likely to me, but not yet proven.

Not all Europeans are “Indo-Europeans.” They were only the latest wave of White or Caucasian types to move through Europe, and Europe was already heavily populated by little known “Old Europe” types before then. No one knows what these ancient Europeans looked like, but reports say that they were short and had dark hair and dark eyes.

Going back 12,000 years or so, European skulls look like the skulls of modern-day Arabs, and European genes from the same period also look like Arab genes. Whether or not Arabs are White is an interesting question.

A young woman from North Yemen - Southern Saudi Arabia, probably an Ismaili or Zaidi Shia of some sort. The best way to describe someone like this is to say that they are a part of the Mediterranean race of Whites. Probably a desert-adapted version of Meds. This woman is a fairly pure Arabid, probably with little African mixture.

The best answer seems to be that there are White Arabs and Non-White (Caucasian) Arabs.

A White Egyptian girl, characteristic of a White Arab or possibly a White Berber. She could easily be, say, an Italian. White in this case means "looks like a European." Tell a White nationalist that there are some White Arabs. They get really mad!

Whatever they are, if you are European, it looks like Arabs are your grandparents.

Classic Arabid type from an anthropology textbook. Say hello to Grandpa, White man.

Tell that to a White nationalist sometime. It really pisses them off!

Cannabis and Schizophrenia is Probably a Minimal Relationship

One thing that is interesting when you study certain issues a lot is that the more you learn about the issue, the less you understand it. In fact, most things just get more and more confusing and make less and less sense the more you study them. And this points to the limits of scientism. So many things just don’t seem to make much sense. Science claims it can discover the truth to anything and everything. In theory, it can.

But in praxis, it’s another thing altogether. So much of life remains fairly or seriously mysterious no matter how many studies and books are issued on the matters at end. Is science able to explian these things? Not at the moment anyway.

I often find that in discussions, I have to say things like, “Yes, I know it doesn’t make sense, but in this field a lot of things don’t make sense.”

So it is with cannabis and schizophrenia. Things just don’t make sense.

Those of us who went through the 1970’s watching 1000’s of people smoke cannabis heavily and never saw a single case of toxic psychosis, not to mention schizophrenia, are taken aback by the recent insistence that, say, cannabis ups the risk of schizophrenia by 38 times, or that 1

Yet the relationship keeps showing up, over and over, in study after study. It’s regular, independent of confounding factors, and even typically dose-dependent. That’s as good as it gets in science.

Nevertheless, it still doesn’t make sense.

The rate of schizophrenia collapsed while the rate of cannabis use exploded. Cause and effect indeed!

As you can see in the graph, a rate of schizophrenia of 12-13/100,000 from 1950-on collapsed starting in 1967, falling to around 3/100,000 as of 1983. It seems to have leveled off at around that rate ever since. Starting around the mid-60’s and continuing through the 1970’s at least, cannabis use in the UK went through the roof. It completely exploded. At the same time as the rate of schizophrenia collapsed by 7

It doesn’t make sense.

Yet over and over, we see this relationship. The only explanation that makes sense is that something in the prodromal syndrome of schizophrenia makes pre-schizophrenics seek out cannabis in particular. The worse the prodromal symptoms, the more cannabis they use. Cannabis use clearly seems to be bringing schizophrenia on sooner in those who would develop it anyway.

This study is the best analysis yet. For every 4000 adolescents who use cannabis daily, one of them will get schizophrenia as a result. We have to prevent 4000 cases of heavy cannabis use by teens to prevent a single case of schizophrenia.

It hardly seems worth it.

How do we reconcile that cannabis is causing any psychosis at all nowadays, not to mention schizophrenia, when it never seemed to cause these reactions back in the day?

There was a young guy who was hanging out over here a lot a while back, an Hispanic gang associate type. He was a heavy user of this very strong “skunk” cannabis. When he used it, he was constantly peeking out the window, apparently looking for the cops. He also totally freaked out if I ever opened the blinds one bit. I’ve never seen anyone act so paranoid on pot before. I’ve only seen people act like that on cocaine, especially if they smoke it or shoot it.

The cannabis nowadays is much, much stronger than even the strongest pot we smoked in the 1970’s and even 1980’s. Sure, hashish and hashish oil were around back in the day, and sure we used it all right, but they were not widely used. They are breeding it for THC maximalization, and it has THC levels of up to 15-2

Back in the day, cannabis had approximately equal levels of CBD and THC. The psychotomimetic effects of THC were counteracted by the antipsychotic effects of CBD.

I’ve smoked this new super-pot, and while I can handle it with no risk of psychosis or even serious freak-out (I doubt if any reasonable quantity of any reasonable drug would make me psychotic), it’s easy to see how it could bend someone’s head in a pretty bad way.

We are getting regular reports of people smoking this stuff and hearing voices afterwards, if only temporarily. That’s really strange; we never heard strories like that back in the day.

So the solution to the conundrum of how pot is psychosis now when it never seemed to in the past is that the pot is incredibly strong super-pot, which is almost like another drug altogether.

Has Catholic Theology Always Believed Life Begins at Conception?

The answer to that question is apparently not! Most people don’t know this, but for many centuries, official Catholic doctrine held that abortion was allowable up until “quickening.” That’s when mother senses the fetus kicking in her stomach. Quickening occurs around the third or fourth month of pregnancy, around the end of the first trimester in modern phrasing. So the Church allowed abortion until the first trimester.

At that point, it was assumed to be alive, or human, or something. Thing was, abortion was rare back in those days, just like Hillary Clinton wants it to be. Before the age of antibiotics and disinfectants, abortion was not common, it was quite dangerous, and women often died during the procedure. Nevertheless, it was done. The era of surgery began long before the 20th Century.

I don’t have access to any Church doctrine from those days, so I’m not sure what they based it on.

But if you read Dante, you get some glimpses into what they may have been thinking. Dante, writing in the early 1200’s, was not a Pope or a Church father, but he was an extremely religious Catholic. That is clear in all of his writings. He lived his life this way too, and after he moved away from Florence to the east, he was well-known for cursing and throwing stones at fellow citizens who he thought were sinning for some reason or another.

Hence, Dante’s works are good for glimpsing Church doctrine in the early days, since Dante won’t support any teachings not sanctioned by the Church.

In Dante, there are passages which discuss the development of human life and the soul. They are very interesting for a peek into what the early Church felt about human life and its beginnings. Dante’s version, like much of his thinking, is very Aquinian – via St. Thomas Aquinas, the great early Christian philosopher who wrote in the 1100’s.

Dante’s version of the beginnings of human life (and the development of the human soul) is not exactly in accord with modern science, but nevertheless, it is straight from Aquinas. Early peoples had some knowledge of conception and the development of the fetus in the womb. Women miscarried back then, and when you look at the material, you can see the fetus in the rejected uterine matter. From there, they could postulate various things.

First of all, soon after conception, the beginnings of human life take shape.

****** Stage 1: Dante says that in the beginning, the fetus is animate, but it is not even yet an animal. It is more like a plant; it is “vegetative.” This seems strange, but what he means is in terms of consciousness. To say it is like a plant means it is alive, but it can’t think. Plants are alive, but they don’t seem to think. In other words, it has the soul of a plant. I assume that killing a fetus at this stage would be as sinful in Church terms as killing a plant.

Stage 2: Later the fetus changes into a form that is part-animal and part-plant. This seems odd again, but he’s again speaking in terms of consciousness, or soul. Dante describes this fetus as being like a sea anemone, or as having the soul of a sea anemone. A sea anemone is an animal that looks and somewhat acts like a plant. It probably has a brain, but clearly it’s none too bright. It’s nearly transitional between plant and animal metaphysically speaking.

It’s vegetative (alive) and it has elementary sensory abilities, but not much beyond that. Killing a fetus at this stage would be as sinful in Church terms as killing a sea anemone.

Stage 3: After that, the fetus changes into an animal. But it is a non-human animal. Once again he speaks metaphysically. This means that it can’t really reason or think intellectually, or that it has no consciousness. It’s like a dog or a cat, or it has the soul of a cat or a dog. Killing a fetus at this point would be as sinful in Church terms as killing a dog or a cat.

Stage 4: Finally, at some point, the fetus is touched by God through some sort of mechanism and it is given a soul. At that point, it becomes a human being, since non-human animals lack souls. ******

It follows from this that the Church believed that in Stages 1-3, the fetus was not yet a human being. It was presumably for this reason that abortion was allowed until quickening.

The Catholic Church is derided as reactionary, but in some ways it is more progressive than at least fundamentalist Protestantism. Recall that the original Protestants rebelled because they thought that the Church had drifted too far away from Biblical teaching. They were a back to basics movement sort of like the Salafists in Islam.

There is a corollary between the Muslim Shia and Catholicism and between the Muslim Sunni and Protestants. The Sunni are also, like Protestants, a back to basics faction, this time of Islam, that traditionally believes that everything we need to know about Islam was codified in the Quran and Hadiths back in 800 or so. Anything else is deviation at best, heresy at worst. The Shia, on the other hand, feel that Islam is open to continuous interpretation by the high priest caste, which are the Ayatollahs or mullahs.

Ayatollah is derided as a reactionary, but he made some interesting judgments. One was that transsexualism is compatible with Islam, but homosexuality is not. Homosexuality was felt to be a choice and hence a sin, while transsexuals were created by God. There is a top Ayatollah who used to be a man and turned into a woman. Some other big Ayatollah has married her and they are now man and wife.

There is also the phenomenon of temporary marriage. In the religious city of Qom in Iran, there are many institutes of Islamic studies. Religious students come there from all over Iran to study. The city is teeming with female prostitutes. In some areas, the prostitutes gather, and young male students hook up with them. Then they go find a friendly neighborhood Ayatollah who gives them a temporary marriage of one or two days. Then they go off to do the deed in the local cemetery or some such place.

In Lebanon, the Ayatollah Fadlallah is said to be rather progressive as these fellows go. He issued a famous ruling that said that female masturbation was allowed by Islam that caused quite a stir in Lebanon.

It’s things like temporary marriage and the transsexual Ayatollah that drive Sunnis up the wall. The Sunnis, like Protestants, have no religious leaders who make official interpretations or reinterpretations of doctrine. There’s nothing to be interpreted. All the interpretation has already been done.

Sometimes mullahs issue rulings of clarification, mostly to say that this or that is a sin, or to condemn this or that. Some of these come out of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. They carry a lot of weight, but most Sunnis don’t pay much attention to such rulings. A lot of fatwas get issued, but those are just condemnations. And most of the folks issuing fatwas, like Osama bin Laden, have no right to do so. Mr. bin Laden is no scholar of Islam, hence he’s not allowed to issue fatwas, and if he does, they carry no weight.

The Catholic Church is similar to the Shia in that they also have church leaders who reinterpret doctrine for the faithful. In this case, it is the Papacy. The Catholic Church reserves the right to reinterpret religious doctrine as times change. Hence they changed course and endorsed Galileo after initially opposing him.

And recently the Pope declared that evolution is compatible with Catholicism, whereas tens of millions of Protestants are still Creationists. Catholic Creationists probably don’t even exist. Why are there so many Protestant Creationists? There’s nothing in Protestant doctrine telling them it’s nonsense, and there’s not much, if any, official Protestant doctrine anyway.

So neither the Shia or Catholics are necessarily as reactionary as they are often made out to be.

Way Too Weird

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5fWTQvUxDQ]

This is “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies, from the 1969. However, the music is recorded by Sin Sisamouth, a Cambodian recording artist. I’m sure you’ve all heard of him. Pol Pot killed Sin Sisamouth, that bastard.

The footage is from some weird Cambodian movie from the 1950’s called Apsara, starring Princess Norodom Bopha Devi. I’m sure you’ve all heard of that movie too and of course the actress is very famous too. Back then, Cambodian royalty often starred in the movies! The woman in this clip is Sak Si Sbong. She’s really a babe. At the end, she starts to get the lead into the Sak for some Sbonging, but then it cuts out. I think after the ending, it turns into a porno flick, but unfortunately, that part was cut from this version.

Check out the black and white footage, the period cars and dude singing the Archies song in the Khmer language! The guitar sounds weird too, almost like surf music or a Hawaiian steel guitar. I really think you need to be on LSD to truly appreciate videos like that, but unfortunately, I don’t take that drug anymore. Oh well, I can always conjure up a flashback.

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCs6pSE8_I]

Charming, charming.

The Congressional Black Caucus is ferociously booed on their way into Congress. The booers are teapartiers, and for some very odd reason, 10

At around the same time, the tea partiers yelled, “Faggot!” at Barney Frank.

A White Republican lunatic screamed “Baby killer!” at a White Democratic lunatic, Bart Stupak, on the floor of Congress. Why? Because Stupak is going along with some less restrictive anti-abortion language than the crap he originally put in, and he was supporting the bill.

Seriously, this shit is pitiful. White people are going stark raving nuts in this country. I’m embarrassed of my lack of melanin.

It’s times like this that I must reluctantly agree that the declining White population of America is a good thing in a certain way. 9

They lost this one, and this is just the beginning of the end. The days of Reactionary White America are waning. As Whites decline and non-Whites increase, there will be problems, but we will finally get some good socialist programs here in these benighted United States.

I’ve changed my mind on the health care bill. It sucks, but it’s better than nothing. It’s a progressive change. You figure that anything that every Republican and most of the Blue Dogs in Congress is against has got to be a good thing. 10

So this is the beginning of the Republicans’ Waterloo. They had to kill this. It’s all about ideology. The particulars of the bill are unimportant. In fact! This is nearly a carbon copy of the alternative bill that the Congress Republicans proposed in 1993 during the fight over Clinton Care. Now they’re all lined up against it, over my dead body! What the fuck, Republicans?

But it’s really about what this bill represents. It represents, yes, socialism. It’s a repudiation of neoliberal metaphysics that says that everything of any value in society must come from the market, not from the state. It’s a body blow to neoliberalism and their whole unbridled capitalism, smash the state ideology.

As William Kristol noted in 1993, Clinton Care had to be opposed because it might work, and people would probably like it. And we can’t have people deciding that government programs have good mouth feel. No. Government programs are evil. Government must not be allowed to do anything good. Once people start deciding that government programs are actually fun rides for the average Joe, the Free Market game is up.

Look at how furious the Republicans are! They’re hopping up and down like they’ve got bumblebees up their asses! There’s got to be a reason for that. Screw the specifics, this was all about ideology. And with this defeat, their ideology suffered a devastating blow.

They’re going to run on overturning it in the next election, but I doubt if that will work. But they’re sure to have the entire corporate MSM media behind them all the way. I’d be surprised if one outlet comes out for ObamaCare.

Several state attorney generals are filing suit against the bill, claiming it is unconstitutional. On what basis might this bill be unconstitutional? I can’t see how that’s going to go anywhere.

Worse, there is talk about appealing the bill to the Supreme Assholes of the SCOTUS. Judging from some of their latest rulings, including the corporate money is free speech outrage, possibly the worst ruling since Dred Scott, my heart sinks. These Supremes are just insane enough that they might decide on the usual fraudulent, conjured out of thin air grounds, to overturn the bill. It’s a frightening prospect.

Tea party rallies area about 9

But the White nationalists have made it completely clear on their websites. They are saying what few others will dare to say. Jared Taylor and the Occidental Dissent folks are explicit that ObamaCare is a transfer of wealth from Whites to Blacks and Hispanics. And this is why they oppose it.

Well, of course. .

As with so many things in our society, opposition to ObamaCare is so about race.

Bad Moods

Leaving Me

Jewel looks up at me, sad eyes blinking at the sky. “Leaving me, leaving me, leaving me,” she says. “Everyone is always leaving me.”

My Life

That’s it. That’s all there is. My life. My sordid life.

The Years

The years. The long years. The sadness of the years.

The Preterite

Like Caesar, like Jewel, like the Zone. Doomed, all three. Destined for the footnotes, for the archives.

Notes

Jewel is a hippie chick who lives in the Zone. Caesar is Jewel’s pet California Condor. The Zone is in California. Jewel lives there.

References

Lindsay, Robert. 1979. Meandering in the Midzone. The Thief of Love on the Loose in the Last American Frontier. Unpublished fiction.

The “California Can’t Afford It” Bullshit

I would call this the “California is broke” bullshit, but really, only the state government is broke.

Is the state broke? Are you kidding?

Let’s look at the stats. California had a PCI of 39,626 in 2006. That is the most recent year that statistics were available. Using the year to year growth from 2000-2006 as a guideline, we can extrapolate from 2006 to 2009, and get a California PCI of $43,364. California was the 9th wealthiest state in the nation in 2006.

That means that if California was a nation, it would be the Robert LindsayPosted on Categories California, Social Problems, US37 Comments on The “California Can’t Afford It” Bullshit

“Women Cry For It – Men Die For It!” by Alpha Unit

The 1930s were a volatile time, internationally. The world was moving inexorably toward the deadliest conflict in history, one foreshadowed by conflicts like the Spanish Civil War and the Italian occupation and annexation of Ethiopia. Germany, Japan, and Italy were tightening an alliance against the Soviet Union.

The world had been in a severe economic depression since about 1929, and this depression was partially to blame for a lot of the political upheaval that was taking place on just about every continent.

But all of this pales in comparison to what a certain group of Americans feared around 1936. Forget high unemployment and economic downturn; never mind German troops marching into the Rhineland. What scared the hell out of these people was something far worse, far more sinister and pressing.

The film Reefer Madness laid it all out for parents (obviously the White, middle-class parents) of America.

Over its typically melodramatic 1930’s opening soundtrack of swirling violins and somber horns, its foreword cautioned:

The motion picture you are about to watch may startle you.

Why? Because of its unsettlingly accurate depictions of the effects of “marihuana.”

It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly-increasing numbers.

After calling marihuana “a violent narcotic,” “an unspeakable scourge,” and “The Real Public Enemy Number One,” the filmmakers inform the viewer of what happens to people when they smoke the stuff.

Its first effect is sudden, violent, uncontrollable laughter…

If you’re ever around a bunch of kids and they suddenly start laughing violently and uncontrollably, they’re probably high. On pot. Next:

Then some dangerous hallucinations – space expands, time slows down, almost stands still…fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances…

What, exactly, are these fixed ideas and monstrous extravagances? Whatever they are, they are followed by:

…emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions…

This sounds bad enough, but it’s nothing in comparison to the end result: “acts of shocking violence” and “incurable insanity.”

And then, of course, they proceed to illustrate the corrupting effect of reefer on clean-cut young Americans.

They end up in attendance at parties where there are exuberant piano-playing and out-of-control dancing, which lead to lasciviousness and people dropping onto beds or being taken against their will on sofas. Or, worse yet, killed.

The stress of these events and their aftermath lead to an even more obsessive demand for “reefers” and, eventually, to sheer madness.

It was all part of a campaign to keep America’s children safe from a ubiquitous, noxious, soul-destroying weed. But whose campaign it was remains mysterious. Often you will read that it was financed originally by some kind of “church group,” whatever that means – but sometimes it is suggested that it was produced by the U.S. government, or, specifically, the U.S. Army.

It fell into the hands of people whose main affection was for American dollars. They laced it with some suggestive scenes, gave it its famous title, and made cult film history.

It’s been making people laugh – sometimes suddenly, perhaps uncontrollably – ever since.

Interview with GN Saibaba (Revolutionary Democratic Front, India

This is an interview with GN Saibaba of the Revolutionary Democratic Front in India. The government has recently accused of being a top leader of the Indian Maoists who is leading the planning for the counteroffensive against the government’s counterinsurgency. I really doubt that.

First of all, the military and political wings of the organization are completely separate. The political people have nothing whatsoever to do with the military campaign, any more than Democratic Party members were responsible for the US war in Vietnam from 1960-1968.

I’m sure they probably support the Maoists, but a lot of Indians support the government too. If you support the government, should the Maoists kidnap you or kill you? Of course not. Then why arrest some civilian for “supporting the guerrillas.” So what? What kind of crime is that anyway?

I really doubt that this guy is a top Maoist leader or that he has been sheltering top Central Committee members. The leaders of the Maoists, as with all such groups, are deep underground, not walking around in plain sight. If he’s sheltering wanted men, it should be simple enough to put him under surveillance and arrest him.

The government is now accusing all sorts of folks of being members of the Maoist organization, including many students at the universities in New Delhi. That’s a little bit strange. If they really are members, the state should prove it. But I doubt if they are. The Maoists have little presence in urban India, especially in New Delhi.

I’m not ecstatic about the Maoists, but everything else has failed, so we might as well give them a shot. But they have only an outside chance of winning. The latest I saw is that the Maoists had a long-term plan to take power by the year 2050. Wow, 40 years is a long time.

Indian capitalism is crap. Here we are, 60 years on, and 5

Way to go, Indian capitalists, way to fuckin go.

Interview with GN Saibaba (Revolutionary Democratic Front, India)

By Wilhelm Langthaler, 21 February 2010

G.N. Saibaba is Assistant Professor of literature at Delhi University, India’s one of the most prestigious institute. He is one of the most vocal voices of the democratic opposition and plays an outstanding role in bringing together the most diverse trends against the ruling elite. He represents the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF).

Q: The “India Shining” campaign promised industrialization and increasing wealth also the poor majority. Did this come true?

The application of globalization policy in India meant benefits first of all for the ruling oligarchy. A handful of families are in full control of the levers of power. Thanks to their position they could amass huge fortunes, particularly in the last twenty years. Eventually among the list of billionaires there are a lot of Indians.

The concentration of wealth has been growing rapidly while some 8

In the last six years we entered a new phase called “Second Generation Reforms”. What is the difference to its predecessors? The first phase was marked by the liberalization of the economy and the legal framework. It was mainly based on the IT sector. But there was little foreign investment. This has been changing.

Several hundreds of memoranda of understanding (MOU) with multinational corporations (MNC) have been signed, mostly related to the exploitation of natural resources. Mainly in central and eastern parts of India there are enormous deposits of iron ore, coal, bauxite, limestone and other minerals the western powers want to tap.

Thus incredibly huge swathes of land are being awarded to the MNCs. We are faced with an unprecedented sell-out of land, forests, minerals and water which did not even happen under British colonialism.

So the last half decade also saw growing resistance by the people against land grab, Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and industrialization projects. Given the intransigent reaction of the elites these often turn violent and armed – with or without leadership.

Q: What is the impact of the world economic crisis?

India cannot keep the crisis outside, unemployment has grown and huge job losses are continuing. Some five million workers lost their employment (as many as in the U.S.) and the textile industry virtually collapsed. Actually the middle classes are bearing the brunt of the crisis, while the upper middle classes can no more dream of a western-type comfortable life. It is the first time that the service sector’s white-collar employees are affected, such as in IT.

In Gurgaon [a suburb of Delhi were such industries are concentrated] engineers for the first time joined strikes of production workers. There are also signs that working-class and peasant struggles are coming together.

For the first time since 60 years we see a reversed pattern of migration. People are leaving the towns and returning to the countryside. But there is nothing left in rural India, though they cannot survive in the town either. Nowhere a source of livelihood remains. The agricultural sector is shrinking, despite the fact that some 6

Therefore popular protests are breaking out both in rural as well as in urban areas. Clashes in the streets erupt. Fortunately there is a revolutionary movement which can help organising the spontaneous turmoil caused by the crisis. There is a great potential for the revolutionary forces to grow in the present phase, as the brutal impact of the crisis pushes people to struggle against the system.

Q: Can you draw a first balance sheet of the military campaign “Green hunt” launched by the Indian army in the last autumn against the Adivasi resistance to evict them from their ancestral lands?

The operation is entering its fifth month and it is a full scale war with some 250,000 soldiers and U.S. military logistics involved. But there are no visible signs of success. Hundreds of innocent civilians are being killed, as well as ordinary soldiers, often from outside the region, who do not understand the local language let alone the political background of the conflict. As the governmental forces do not advance, they choose soft targets and commit atrocities. They have been suffering severe blows from the Maoist movement, who could kill some high-level targets. Motivation of the troops is plummeting.

Q: What about the reaction in the cities, especially among the educated middle classes?

The middle classes are slowly acquiring consciousness. But a polarization is under way, as the picture is changing day by day. The opposition against Green Hunt is growing and a big upheaval is not far away. The government cannot go ahead with this attack on the fast track and had to slow down.

As a matter of fact, most of the big mining and industrial projects are stalled due to the popular resistance.

Q: The press happens to speak of a “terrorist threat” also in India.

The American policy is being copied in India and used against any serious opposition. The army is sent even against ordinary demonstrations. The Muslims are collectively stamped as terrorists and the same with the Adivasis (Indian native people). Also the Dalits (untouchables) .

The U.S. ideology is excessively used by the Indian elite. In 2008 they installed the Unlawful Activity Prevention Act which is almost a replication of the earlier draconian Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act. By law, Maoism is now equated with terrorism. Also targeted are all Muslims, as well as the liberation movements of Kashmir and the Northeast.

Q: You yourself are accused by the police to be a decisive aide to the Maoists.

In the last months the government tried to implicate me with banned organisations, as I participated in the campaign against the ban on the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI(M)].

Actually the concrete accusations are all together laughable. How can I participate in a tactical counter-offensive or give shelter to central committee (CC) cadres? They say that I am broadening the base of what they call “outfight”, that my views are considered by the CC of the Maoists. In this way they can make me responsible for anything which is happening in India. They accuse me of my views and political stand.

This is part of a larger plan to silence the voices of democracy and the opposition to the anti-people policies of the government. They fear the growing criticism to their military campaign against the poorest of the poor, stripping them of their land and its resources. Today they want to shut my and others mouths, tomorrow all democratic voices. First they banned resistance organisations, which is wrong in itself. Now they try to burn the surroundings.

But civil society has come out and condemned the government for the vilification. A whole series of press conferences and public protests with high ranking personalities are in the making.

Q: Eventually on geopolitics: some think that India could join a future bloc together with China and Russia in favour of a multi-polar global system.

India has become the U.S.’s main ally in the region. I do not see any condition in the foreseeable future that this could change. The elites here are completely subservient to Washington and the tendency is worse and worse.

Dirty Dawgs Eat Pussy

This dirty Dawg decided to take the plunge and eat some cat. The smaller female is frightened, but a lot of young females are disturbed that anyone would want to go down on them, no matter how good it feels. Shout out to the Dawg for going where many men have gone before.

They say a lot of guys don’t like to eat pussy, but some of us Dawgs dig it, undersea adventures of Jack (or Jock) Cousteau and all that.

The female is grimacing while having the dirty deed done to her, but this is due to inhibitions. She was probably raised Catholic. With time, she will learn to relax and enjoy it. A tongue in the hands of a Master Dawg works near good as a your own finger in the shower, girls. Many lady cats agree and will toast a saucer of milk to that. Relax and enjoy the ride, sisters!

Which Starves More People, Capitalism or Communism?

Observer notes that both capitalism had Communism have bad records when it comes to starving people to death. He implies that one system is as likely to starve you death as the other.

That said, I would like to defend the Communist record against one of the worst slanders, that “Communism equals starvation.” Not true, it’s actually capitalism equals starvation.

And often times, both Capitalism and Communism had the same sordid record.

It really depended who was running the given society, and at that particular time in history.

True, the diet is not top-notch, but it fills your stomach…

Ah, yeah, however, you could say the same thing for prison inmates :/

But let’s look at the figures:

The capitalist record is far worse. Capitalism starves to death 14 million a year, mostly in South Asia. How many starve under Communist or even neo-Communist systems like China nowadays? Close to zero.

Adding up all the starvation under Orthodox Communism from 1925-1990, it looks like there were around 21.5 million starvation deaths under Communism over a 65 year period.

         Starvation  Period    Rate       Per capita
USSR     5.5 m       1925-1990 84,000/yr  1/2,300
China    15 m        1949-1990 365,000/yr 1/2,730
Cambodia 1 m         1975-1979 250,000/yr 1/16
Rest     0           1945-1990 0          0
Total    21.5 m      1925-1990 331,000/yr 1/3,637
World*   336 million 1986-2010 7.14 m/yr  1/426

However, from 1986- present, only 24 years, capitalism has starved 14 million a year. That’s 336 million in 24 years, or 14 million starvation death per year. Whereas Communism averaged 300,000 deaths per year. In the 20th Century, capitalism was starving 42 TIMES as many people per year than Communism was.

And for a good part of that period, 2

Or, looking at the chart above, capitalism starves 8.65 times more people per capita than Communism and neo-Communism.

And that’s not including figures from Eastern Europe.

Good job, capitalists. Good fuckin job.

The California Budget Disaster

Good article here.

The article tells you pretty much all you need to know about what is going on.

The insane 2/3 supermajority to raise taxes by put in by the disastrous Proposition 13 passed by Californians in 1978. I lived in California both before and after Prop 13, and the contrast is stark. The entire public sector of the state, especially the schools, has been nuked by Prop 13. The Whites voted for it and then their own communities got fucked, but hey, anything for lower taxes, right? Idiots.

This was really the start of the racialization of the state’s politics, with Whites constantly holding out against taxation that they see as disproportionately going to lazy and criminal Blacks and Hispanics. No one ever comes right out and says it, but that’s the reality of California politics in a nutshell for the past 30 years.

If you move to just about any majority-White community in California, you will find that it is majority Republican, with hard right Assemblymen, state senators and Congressional Representatives. It’s as true in wealthy Orange County as it is in the poor desert, Central Valley, Sierras or North Coast. So in this most progressive of US states, a frankly White racist politics holds sway and dominates state politics.

There is a good portrayal, historical and present, of the Central Valley in the article. That’s the part of California that I live in – the San Joaquin Valley. Jeff Denham is the asshole state senator from my district. The area right around here is 6

Slashing government services and spending in a recession or depression is about the stupidest thing you can do, but that’s what we are doing here in California. The article details some of the cuts, lately to university and even K-12 education. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who poses as some progressive Republican, is actually hard Right on the all-important fiscal questions.

The California Republican Party, instead of getting more progressive to evolve and attract new members, is now dominated by its most reactionary members. It’s now a permanent minority party, but it’s the party of White California. No one ever has the balls to say that, so I will right now.

This article astutely notes that it is the rightwing Whites in my region who are creating this monumental clusterfuck in the state.

There is an increasing movement afoot to amend Proposition 13 or at least get rid of the lunatic 2/3 majority, via a ballot proposition. It will no doubt be an uphill climb.

The Charleston Five

Here.

It’s hard to believe that this happened in the US in the year 2000, but this is the sort of thing that goes on in the rightwing capitalist “democracies” of the 3rd World that so many of you commenters love so much. Unions are attacked by police. The police are used as agents of the state to attack workers and their organizations and any and all other progressive organizations. In other words, the cops are used as an army of the ruling class and the capitalists to attack anyone who opposes their interests.

What’s interesting is that this is what happens just about everywhere you have capitalism, although in the more evolved varieties as in Europe and much of the Anglosphere, it doesn’t happen that much anymore. As such, it seems to be a feature, not a bug, of the capitalist system. If capitalism is so great, then why is using cops (and in many cases, the national army itself) against popular organizations seemingly an essential part of this system? Commenters please respond.

A friend of mine spent a couple years in Alabama 20 years ago. The US South has a nearly caste-like class structure, and the one thing they hate more than anything else down there are union organizers. The whole system is based on cheap labor and always has been. My friend said that the White capitalist class are “assholes,” who behave similar to a Latin American ruling class, exploit all workers savagely and do not socialize with the White working class.

They have used racism as a tool for dividing White and Black workers (as capitalists often do), and it’s worked great. My friend said that the White and Black workers at his plant hated each other and had nothing to do with each other. They worked in separate parts of the plant.

There was a Black side of  town and a White side of town, and each group pretty much kept to their own side of town. The only Blacks on the White side of town were very well-dressed and on very good behavior. If any more scruffly Blacks showed up on the White side of town, Whites would quickly confront them and they would be gone back to their own side.

Similarly though, the Whites would not go to the Black side of town either. It was regarded as dangerous to go there if you were White. My friend went there to eat at a soul food joint, but they were the only Whites in the area.

The line pitched to the poor and downtrodden racist Whites of the South has always been, “At least you’re not a nigger.” These Whites, who as victims deserve sympathy more than anything else, have always found solace in the fact that as low as they were, “At least I ain’t a nigger.” That is, they could always look down on and feel superior to the Blacks who were even lower on the pole than they were.

And via racism, the White workers have always voted for the parties of White racism (formerly Democrats, now Republicans) instead of supporting parties that worked for their class interests. So White workers voted for the parties that were viciously exploiting them in the workplace.

This sort of crap used to happen a lot in the US a while back, with the last major outbreak in the 1930’s when cops were called out to violently break up strikes, opening fire on and killing some workers.

The etiology of the riot is hard to put together, but it looks a police army was set up outside the union hall to prevent the workers from picketing the scabs being used to break a dockworkers strike at the port of Charleston. The dockworkers union is targeted in South Carolina because it is one of the only powerful unions in the state. This particular union represented Black dockworkers.

The city jail had been emptied the night before to prepare for the riot that the cops knew was going to happen, since the cops were going to create that very riot. Workers walked up to the police line and told police that they wanted to go picket the scabs at the dock. Each time they were driven back with batons. So you see the police army was preventing the workers from having their peaceful labor picket.

After this went on for a while, workers started fighting back, grabbing police batons. There was yelling and screaming and racist cries from the cops, “We’re going to beat the Hell out of these niggers!”

Workers picked up rocks and started throwing them at cops. Union leaders went to the line to separate the two groups and got savagely clubbed. Workers went nuts, overturned light poles and hit photographers. Cops charged the group with a police armored car and a Highway Patrol car drove straight at the crowd. The crowd rushed up and smashed out the windows on the cop car.

In other words, a police riot.

The prosecutor later charged 5 workers to make an example out of them, break the union, and as a blow against union activity in the state. . The governor himself said that it was the state’s “right to work” (terribly anti-union law) law that was at stake.

Charges were eventually dropped

We think we are so progressive here in the US, then something like this happens and it seems like we are back in 1934.

What Schizophrenia Feels Like

Here is a fascinating video of what it feels like to have schizophrenia. My Lord! What a terrible illness! I can’t possibly imagine feeling that way, God forbid all of the time. Of all the drugs I’ve taken in my life, including high-powered hallucinogens like LSD and PCP, I certainly never felt anything close to that. I’ve never experienced anything like those horrible voices or peoples voicing sounding like they are in an echo chamber or fading in and out.

I suppose if you felt that way, I assume you would try to get your hands on just about anything that would make you feel better or at least make those horrible voices go away. Alcohol kills the voices, but you have to be dead drunk before it works.

What’s especially creepy about those voices is that there are multiple ones all going at once and it is really hard to figure out what they are saying. They almost sound like they are talking to each other in the background.

Damn that’s frightening. I would not wish that nightmare on my worst enemy. Can you imagine being like that 24-7.

When you see those homeless people walking around with the headphones constantly in their ears playing music all the time, they are trying to drown out those continuous voices with music. Also, when you see schizophrenics standing on the sidewalk holding a conversation with the air with no other human beings around that they could possibly be communicating with, I believe that they are talking to the voices. The voices probably answer back to them and carry on conversation with them. How strange.

The nature of these voices is subject of much speculation. The latest thinking is that the voices are simply the persons internal thoughts that are somehow being distorted by the brain into seeming like they are coming from outside.

It’s often said that schizophrenics “hear voices in their head.” This is not exactly what is going on. What’s going on is more like what you see in the video. The person actually hears the voices loud and clear like you would hear someone talking to you in real life. When they first start, the person usually runs around trying to find the person who is hiding in the house somewhere. That’s how real the experience is.

As I noted before, I had a schizophrenic friend for about a year. The guy was hearing voices a good part of the time. We would go for drives in the car and the voices would come out of the car radio. When it wasn’t even on! Over at his place, the voices would come out of the vents up near the ceiling. He eventually developed some delusions about his Mom’s former boyfriend installing some tape recorder up there – he thought there was tape recorder in the ceiling. With the car radio, he kept insisting we had to take my car radio apart so find out the source of the voices. We would be driving along and he would say, “You hear that?” and point to the radio. Of course, there was no sound coming out of thing – it was turned off! They get pretty angry when you can’t hear the voices too because it’s so real to them. It would be like if you could hear people talking in a store but everyone else would insist that the people around you are silent. It would seem like they are lying!

I had to make up all kinds of stories saying that I could not hear the voices too. You could say, “Yeah, I hear them too.” But I would not recommend that. You’re just reinforcing their crazy bullshit. If I did that, then that would prove to him that he needed to take the vents apart to find the hidden tape recorders. So I had to make up all kinds of bullshit excuses why I couldn’t hear the obvious voices but he could. I eventually told him that I had serious hearing problems and could not hear very well.

One thing is that people confuse these voices the internal stuff, voices or whatever, that we have in our heads. Those are not voices; those are just thoughts. I suppose you could create multiple voices inside your head as thoughts, but that would not be the same, and I don’t see why you would want to do that anyway. Internal thoughts are experienced as “thoughts,” schizophrenic voices are actually heard out loud with your ears as in the video.

People with OCD often say that they have “voices.” That’s because the OCD thoughts can seem very loud and persistent, like “super-thoughts,” or as if “they are coming out of megaphones,” as one guy put it. But you don’t actually hear it. It’s all inside your head, so it’s just thoughts, not actual voices. Also, OCD “voices” (thoughts) often just repeat the same thought over and over and over, unlike the continuous changing stream of multiple voices you saw in the video. With careful questioning, it soon becomes clear that the OCD sufferer has “thoughts” and not “voices.”

Nevertheless, a lot of dumbfuck clinicians can’t figure that out, and a lot of  OCD people get misdiagnosed as “schizophrenia”, “mild psychosis,” “a little bit psychotic,” “atypical psychosis” and other bullshit. I’ve been dealing with them online for some time now.

An interesting condition is where the OCD sufferer worries that he is going psychotic. Some of them search the environment for every single little sound and start misinterpreting normal sounds as “voices.” Then they are convinced that they are schizophrenic.

With careful questioning, a good clinician should be able to sort this out and see it simply as anxiety that searching the environment and misinterpreting or imagining normal sounds. That’s totally different from what’s going on in the video. I’ve talked to a few people with this condition online and it’s typical that they have a “psychosis” dx by some dumbass doc and are being mistreated with an antipsychotic. I usually order them to dump the doc, quit the antipsychotics, and go get a new doc.

Note: Sorry folks, I’m sort on a mental illness kick lately. I’ve been fascinated by this stuff for decades and I know a Hell of a lot about it. I’m not frightened of writing or reading about it the way that most people are, at least not usually.

Diagnosis: Schizophrenia

This is a pretty interesting bit of writing, on the Schizophrenia.com website under “Success Stories.” I guess they don’t moderate the site since this poor woman is anything but a success story. She’s severely ill in fact, and this becomes clear. I would wager this is a case of paranoid schizophrenia again. It looks like it hit after age 27, which is pretty late. She had good function before then.

I had graduated in Business and Finance from Leicester Polytechnic and had worked in London ever since.  I joined Manpower (an employment agency) as a Sales Supervisor, the left to sell computers, then went back as a Training Manager, running 3 training centres in Central London.

As you can see, before she was ill, she was functioning quite well. Then she started using a lot of cannabis, and everything just fell apart.

I started smoking a lot of Cannabis with a friend, Jeannette. This was when the world turned on its axis. Before during meditation I had felt the presence of something. A finger manipulating my third eye, a still small voice giving me words of encouragement. Now the world spiritually was against me and the universe was trying to tell me something. It started with the world trying to teach me a lesson.

After that, the poor woman is seriously ill. The delusions have a lot to do with mediation, yoga, chakras, etc. but this is the stuff she was into before she got ill. Whatever you were into before you got ill might end up being gist for the delusional mill.

When I first started reading, I noticed that she seemed to be getting raped by men or possibly her doctors. After you read a more, it’s clear that no one is raping her at all. She’s also never been kicked in the vagina. Her delusions and hallucinations have a lot of sexual content.

I’m not sure what that means, but it’s pretty common among female schizophrenics. Promiscuous women are seen as bad women and sluts, so her hallucinations and delusions are centered around her being a “whore.” The schizophrenia will just pick up on anything around that is bad and play it up full volume.

Male schizophrenics often have delusions and hallucinations about being homosexuals, because being a gay male is seen as bad, failure, etc. in an analogous way that a promiscuous woman is seen as bad, failed, etc. The schizophrenia just picks up on whatever you fear most and then blasts that into your ear all the time.

At the time that she wrote this, she is seriously ill, and the meds do not seem to be making her any better.

Her writing is pretty chaotic, which suggests the undifferentiated type of schizophrenia, yet her premorbid functioning is more typical of the paranoid variety. Ultimately, these subtypes don’t seem to matter much.

But the next time you come across writing that looks like this, if you’ve been paying attention, you know what and only what diagnosis comes screaming off the pages.

Cannabis and Schizophrenia Redux

We have already gone over this subject at length in a previous post. However, I am starting to change my mind on the subject after a lot of reading. It is looking more and more like heavy cannabis consumption during the teenage years is somehow implicated in the development of schizophrenia later on.

How this works is not known. Cannabis is probably not causing it directly, otherwise we should see epidemics of schizophrenia. More likely it is triggering it in a person who is already vulnerable. But the evidence has been flooding from, now from 30 different studies. And the younger the person is when they start and the more they use in the teen years, the greater the risk of schizophrenia later on. Some studies are even finding a dose-response relationship.

The fatal flaw in this theory has been that the rate of schizophrenia has not risen during since the start of the cannabis epidemic. I used cannabis for many years myself, and I known thousands of users, many of them long-term and heavy users. Other than making some young people lazy and somewhat paranoid, I haven’t seen a lot of ill effects from the drug.

I knew one guy who had schizophrenia who loved pot, but it made him a lot worse, so everyone tried to keep it away from him.

I’ve known only one marijuana user out of the many thousands of drug users that I have known who developed schizophrenia, but he was a heavy speed user for 10-20 years. He developed schizophrenia around age 37 after using methamphetamine heavily for 10-20 years. I am pretty sure that over a decade of heavy speed use caused his schizophrenia since heavy meth use causes massive damage to the brain.

I’ve never known any other cases, and I never saw any cases the whole time I was growing up. I hung out with heavy users, sold the drug myself for many years, and never saw any psychosis, not even a temporary case. However, the pot around nowadays is extremely strong and the age at first use has been dropping. I tried some recently and can testify that it is extremely strong indeed. I can handle it fine as I can easily handle just about any drug out there, but I can see how it could flip someone.

Quite a few of the local young people around here smoke pot. I’ve gotten to know quite a few of them and learned of their heavy marijuana use. They ranged in age from 16-23. A couple of them were dealers in their 20’s who were using large quantities of this very strong pot.

I knew about the pot-schizophrenia link and I kept looking for it in all of these individuals. I have yet to see a case of psychosis, much less schizophrenia, among these young people. I saw one person who got paranoid on pot, and I saw other cases of the “lazy pothead” syndrome, but in general, they were quite healthy mentally and led full and enriched lives. If cannabis is implicated in schizophrenia, it sure doesn’t cause it very often, as most even heavy users seem to avoid this drastic consequence.

Many kids are using this extremely strong pot at younger and younger ages, often daily for many years in adolescence. The pot we were using was much weaker, most of us did not use it every day, and most of us didn’t start using until around age 16 or so. Heavy use started around age 20 or so.

While cannabis in general does not appear to cause significant structural damage in adults, some very ominous findings are coming out about use in adolescence.

A recent study found that adults who started using cannabis before age 17 (16 or younger) had smaller brains overall, had less grey matter (fewer brain cells) yet more white matter (connections between neurons) (Earleywine 2005). Less neurons yet more connections isn’t exactly brain damage. Instead it’s just a brain that appears to have developed in a different way.

But this is the problem. The brain is still developing during adolescence. If cannabis impairs and changes normal brain development, this could be a bad thing. As it stands, no one should use cannabis before age 17 due to the risk of permanent brain changes of unknown significance. Delaying use until after age 16 apparently results in avoidance of these changes.

Even the most pot-critical researchers are claiming that cannabis is only causing 8-1

This interview was quite interesting. This psychiatrist posits that cannabis is causing schizophrenia, but only in people who use it, usually on a daily basis, for years starting in adolescence. The risk is greatest the younger you start. Delaying use until 19 or 20 results in dramatically lowered risk. The risk apparently drops to zero if one waits until age 21 to start using cannabis. In other words, I, at age 52, could smoke a ton of dope between now and the time I die and it won’t give me schizophrenia no matter how much I use.

At the very least, it’s certain that early and heavy cannabis use brings schizophrenia on sooner than it would have occurred ordinarily. However, that means years of life lost to psychosis that are gone forever. Many schizophrenics who use cannabis find that they have a worse course, as the cannabis triggers new psychotic episodes.

Yet schizophrenics seem to love the stuff, paradoxically. That’s probably because at first it seems to calm them down. Schizophrenia is a horrible illness, and sufferers will take just about anything to escape from the symptoms.

One theory that keeps coming is that is quite common in the early stages of schizophrenia (the prodromal phase) for users to turn to various drugs to relieve their distress. Schizophrenics often go years before their first diagnosis.

This article by Robin Murray, a notorious proponent of the cannabis-schizophrenia link, describes a case of supposed cannabis-induced schizophrenia in a teenager. At age 15, he became a heavy cannabis user at age 17, probably to treat his symptoms. A few years later, at age 20, he was finally diagnosed. Halfway through his prodromal symptoms, he began using cannabis to treat his illness.

I had a good friend recently who was a paranoid schizophrenic. He was 28 at the time and had apparently had the illness since he was 20 or so. He had not yet been diagnosed.

Hence the cannabis-schizophrenia link is said to be merely kids in the prodromal phase seeking relief for a condition that they are going to develop soon anyway and cannabis is not implicated in the disorder. This is always possible, but new research is suggesting that this is not the case.

With the new research, it is looking more and more like teenagers need to stay away from cannabis period. If they wish to use it, they should wait until age 19-20 or even better yet, age 21 when all cannabis-schizophrenia risk is gone.

References

Earleywine, Mitch. 2002. Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence (pp. 149-150). New York: Oxford University Press.

Sardine Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy is becoming very popular and has a wide variety of applications, but I just tried Sardine Aromatherapy at my place. It works great!

Here’s what you do:

1 tbsp olive oil 1 can sardines in lemon and pepper 2 garlic cloves 1 onion

Fry the mixture very slowly for a long time, enough to let the sardine aroma saturate the residence. When it’s finished, you can eat it. I just did with Couscous, 1/3 lemon, and 1 1/2 tsp each of parsley and cilantro. It was damn good!

Whatever you do, don’t open the windows!

For the rest of the day, the sardine aroma will permeate through most of your living quarters.

Better than perfume, cologne or incense!

Paranoid Schizophrenia: Exhibit A

From an incoming link to a Twitter page and then to a Myspace page. I will say that he is an excellent artist. At first he seems like a very smart, sane person who is putting you on or doing some kind of a parody. Either that or he has some really fancy and elaborated thinking process going that’s well thought-out and coherent, but most of us are not onto it. The more you read, the less that seems to be the case.

Preoccupation with religion (the Bible) and especially the Devil (you can see he has shaved his head and grown a Devil goatee so he looks like The Evil One himself).

He does look like Satan, doesn't he? He also looks seriously nuts. He's got that crazy stare in his eyes. I wasn't going to divulge the guy's name, but if you try to download his photo, the paranoid motherfucker sends you a virus! So fuck you, Steven Pyle. And get help.

There’s also some complex stuff going on about Black Israelites and how Whites are evil invaders in America and need to be expelled. It’s like he’s incorporated whack Black and Brown Nationalist cant into his delusional project. LOL.

So I guess he’s a Cultural Marxist Multicultural Paranoid Schizophrenic. I figured it would come to this. Cultural Marxism and multiculturalism is so nuts on its face that you often wonder how it is that so many White people buy it. Answer I guess is hardcore brainwashing. It’s funny that Radical Multiculturalism is so nutty that even the crazies are incorporating it into their delusional systems, where it fits quite nicely.

But on the other hand, he has also seriously got into Tea Party “Obama is Evil” stuff and he parrots all the latest conspiracy theories about Obama. Once again this is risible because it just shows just how insane the Tea Partiers really are. When the schizophrenics start using your theory as material for their delusions, you’ve got to start wondering about the soundness of your theory.

I kept trying to go easy on the guy. He went to good schools, he went to art school in the US and Paris, and he’s a kickass artist, but he’s got to be out of his mind.

He’s also apparently a heavy cannabis user. As I make clear in the next post, in many cases, heavy cannabis use dramatically worsens the course of schizophrenia. I figure it’s probably making this guy a whole lot crazier.

You can also see that the personality is pretty well preserved in the paranoid subtype of schizophrenia, which tends to come on later in life, often in the late 20’s to early 30’s. But that’s just when they get dx’d. Typically, there is a 5-10 prodromal phase that precedes the dx. This guy is 31 years old, right around the age for full-blown paranoid schizophrenia to hit. You can also see that he’s got it together enough to produce a fancy webpage, along with some really cool artwork.

This is because paranoid schizophrenics, even when unmedicated, can often function at a fairly high level. The preservation of personality may be due to it hitting later in life. That is, the illness hits after the person has already developed a substantial personality. Other types that hit earlier in adolescence are worse because they hit while the personality is not yet well-formed. Many of these folks are said later to be “41 years old going on 16.” This is because the illness hit so early and their personality basically stopped developing after the illness hit.

Just the writing itself gives it away. If you study this stuff long enough, you can diagnose based on a writing sample alone. In this case there is no other possible diagnosis but Chronic Paranoid Schizophrenia. After 5 years, it goes chronic and the delusional system gets very well systematized and laid out. Yet the person has deteriorated quite a bit, and you can see the deterioration in the writing – you read it and you think it sort of makes sense, then you think again and say, “Huh?” That’s characteristic of schizophrenia.