No matter who wins, we lose

As revolutionaries of the future and not the present, we do have to realize that it doesnt matter who "wins" in the zionist, iran, hezbollah, hamas, us, ukraine, russia, houthi battle between fascist, nationalist forces because no matter who wins, we will still lose. Support for any nationalist, religious theocracy is only a false peace

In iran and many other nationalist revolutions, including america's own revolution, liberal, and,especially, progressive idealists have always been shoved under the bus.

The left has been left out in the cold. 

Lebanon is the current victim of zionism. To pretend that this is merely a "self-defense" is ignorant, it is the us/israel clean up of terrorism as defined by 9/11 ideals. Do we need to remember the results of the last two american wars in the region. Iraq, under the auspices of corporate oil interests and afghanistan, taliban cultural, religious, and national restrictions still in effect since the 80's. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, all under impotent military dictatorships, and in Egypt's case the failure of arab spring revolutionary attempts.

Like 9/12 in america, Oct 8th in Israel, pro-nationalism on the march, the battlefront.

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America Fatigue Syndrome

 

I couldn't have said it better.

OPINIONOPINION,

Opinions

I suffer from America Fatigue Syndrome, do you?

America Fatigue Syndrome is not the figment of a neurotic imagination. The upset, weariness and recurring bouts of déjà vu it triggers are real.

• 

Andrew Mitrovica

Al Jazeera columnist

Published On 6 May 20226 May 2022

 

A woman holds up a sign during a protest in Foley Square, after the leak of a draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito preparing for a majority of the court to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade abortion rights decision later this year, in New York City, New York, US, May 3, 2022 [Jeenah Moon/Reuters]

I am so tired of the United States of America.

Perhaps you are tired of America, too. You may be an American who has – like many of us outside of America – become exhausted by and with America.

If it is any consolation, exhaustion is one of the telltale symptoms of America Fatigue Syndrome, a condition that, I suspect, much of the sentient world is suffering from – consciously or unconsciously. The other signs include a near chronic agitation, bewilderment and sense of déjà vu.

Sadly, there is, as far as I know, no cure.

America Fatigue Syndrome is not the figment of a neurotic imagination. The upset, weariness and recurring bouts of déjà vu it triggers are real.

I feel it all the time. I feel it in my bones and mind. It is a weight. An albatross. A constant. A drain. Pushing down, down. Do you feel it?

A few countries can do that to you. America is one them. America is exceptional in this regard, you might say.

Lately, more than ever, I have wanted America to go away, and, for once, be still or quiet – just for a moment. I need, perhaps like you, to come up for a gulp of air and enjoy a tiny respite from the ubiquitous presence and bane of America.

What a tonic and pleasure it would be not to have to consider or write, however briefly, about America.

It is, of course, impossible. We cannot turn America off or change the dial. The sad, infuriating, and debilitating cacophony of America is inescapable. America is everywhere, around the clock.

America invades us all.

Still, it appears to me at least that America’s grip on our psyches and attention is even more acute these days. America dominates in the familiar ways: money, power, and the 24-hour news cycle.

And the news is bad, bad, bad. One convulsion after another. Repeated over and over in a loop, until a new convulsion arrives. Each one reverberates like an earthquake, damaging people and places in visible and invisible ways.

It has been like this for a while. From 9/11 on, in particular. Year after year. President after president. A war, then another. Death. Lost hope and homes. Secret dungeons. Torture and other violations – big and small. Explosions of hate, violence and ignorance. Twenty-six children massacred at school. Their murders “a hoax.” A 100 percent proof fascist riding an escalator into the presidency. More explosions of hate, violence and ignorance. A white police officer kneeling on a Black man’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Disinfectants and other fantastical potions to tame a plague. An insurrection in defence of a lie.

It never ends.

The latest convulsion occurred earlier this week. Five men and one woman in black robes have apparently decided to do what they once promised, under oath, not to do: overturn a Supreme Court ruling delivered 49 years ago that guaranteed a woman’s provenance over her body.

Precedent erased. Rights erased. Progress erased. Replaced by religious extremism masquerading as jurisprudence and a kind of authoritarianism that, unsurprisingly, has men dictating to women who has agency over their destiny.

In erasing Roe v Wade, Justice Samuel Alito and his rancid, right-wing confederates have revealed the other “big lie” about America – that it is a nation governed by the rule of law and not parochial passions.

Alito and evangelical company have also made this plain: The Supreme Court, like the other institutions that represent the “pillars” of democracy, is a sober-sounding farce, populated, in the main, by reactionary zealots who treat the law and constitution with contempt and who call a preening demagogue their patron saint.

More madness in a country addicted to madness.

The country – if America can be called that – is unmoored from reason. It is, instead, mired in a perpetual state of madness. Not all of it, mind you. Enlightened Americans have been made exiles inside America, watching as the rest of America goes mad.

America is fraying from the centre out – not at the edges, otherwise known as the “fringes”. When, as Yeats wrote: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

The cuckoo “fringe” is now mainstream.

This, combined with the relentless fury that is such a defining aspect of much of America, makes for a toxic and corrosive brew, eroding America’s already mythic foundations.

A black hole is devouring America. It is growing bigger and darker. Every day, more Americans – mostly, but not only, Republicans – are being sucked into a disfiguring vortex of fury that inevitably translates into lunacy.

The lunatics and their made-in-America brand of lunacy are on regular display. You know the lunatics’ names. They are invited onto TV and radio by charlatans to share their synapse-draining musings to gin up more lunacy because lunacy plays and pays well in America.

Despite their impressive credentials and scholarly pretentiousness, Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas and Coney Barrett probably watch and listen and nod approvingly along – confirming, yet again, that the smart fanatics are the most dangerous of all.

Stupidly, I had hoped that given his persuasive loss in early November 2020, the lunatic-in-chief’s appeal would fade like the embers of a dying fire.

I was wrong.

The calm I longed for never came.

Today, looming beyond the not-so-distant horizon, the lunatic-in-chief waits, dangles coveted endorsements and conspires at Mar-a-Lago, ready to reclaim the title of commander-in-chief.

He taunts us still. The prospect of four more years of convulsions is as harrowing as it is all too possible.

At this point in a column, a writer is obliged to offer a fix, a prescription, or a remedy. I am at a loss.

I do not know if there is a fix, a prescription or a remedy for the madness that courses its malevolent way through America.

It may be too late.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

---

• 

Andrew Mitrovica

Al Jazeera columnist

Andrew Mitrovica is an Al Jazeera columnist based in Toronto.

Dystopia Utopia #3 Greenland

 

Dystopia Utopia #3 Greenland

If given the choice most people when choosing between a good outcome or a bad outcome for a future, will usually try and bend toward the good outcome. It’s only natural, isn’t it?

It is difficult to imagine why but if we presume most people in power in any one nation are educated and that education provides a resemblance to a traditional, cultural heritage, soaked in a historical brine of both future and past, glory and tragedy, we can predict a reasonable desire for a positive outcome.

 There are so many imaginative writings these days, not coincidentally, coinciding with scientific, political, and what some might call moral predictions of imminent disaster, decay, and divine intervention. Dystopias are everywhere now. This is the Age of Dystopia.

In days of yonder and yore, prophets, witches, soothsayers among others were constantly going about pointing out what might look like reasonable prognostications for their times, of death and despair as reality. There’s no doubt that something like the Great Plague or the burning of Rome or the sacking of ancient cities by hordes of militia, lawless infidels, would all seem to convey a sense of “the end is near”. And for many in all those circumstances, the end certainly did come very close and for many came for them and went without them.

Well, last night I watched “Greenland” another one of those disaster movies cocooned from the many other nuclear/climate disaster threats to mankind’s existence. There was a comet raining down death, fire, and destruction on the world and the hero and his family have to go from Atlanta to across the Canadian border to catch the only scheduled plane to Greenland where the USA has an underground “nuclear protected” air base that’ll protect anyone who can get there.

When I was in the Air Force, if you got sent to Greenland (Thule Air Force Base), you got sent to Hell, although it was colder than Hell obviously. So, it's surprising that given Greenlands place in the scheme of things now, in this dystopian future, it is the place to be. And I reckon that given what we know about climate change, it is a possibility that places like Greenland and Antartica may become more inhabitable, thus some different places we'll go to war over.

I'm sure that tucked away in some small room in the defence Department bowels there are already contingency plans for these new lands exposed by climate change. Good to know america is looking out for the rest of us. Ha!

I was thankful that finally that some of those city size bunkers the USA spent trillions of dollars on protecting us from a Soviet dystopian invasion finally got utilized, but it was hell getting there for the heroes of this sci-fi anti-fantasy.

I’ve been reading some other science fiction in addition to watching a couple of outer space serials on Prime and Netflix. I like to know what people are thinking is going to happen. My only concern is how most of the disasters that befall us in tv land are immediate and short-lived, mainly because American ingenuity or Western ingenuity, depending on how much we want to give credit to White Supremacy, usually finds a solution, usually through co-operation but spurred by individual heroism (we always give thanks to those who do well and are both mentally and physically equipped to handle catastrophies).

Unfortunately, the older I get the world seems more dystopical, mainly because as once a youth, I’ve seen that fighting optimistic cloud that hovers over all the reality, turn blacker and blacker as the world (and I) age.

The Past surrounding “my country tis of thee” is of more interest to me than my own history, mainly because it’s fascinating to see the constant reminders that our nation is capable of making its dressed up Past  intangible enough that most people seem to believe it’s actually reconcilable, while our own individual mistakes are forever lost in all our own memories dispersed ( for better or worse) and certainly become irredeemable in others minds. Imagine me believing that. Oh yeah, that’s what’s religion is about. Reconciliation with ourselves.

The fact that the Future always looks bleaker or brighter than the Present, depending on what side of Optimism we reside, we’re all presented with and which ones we allow into our own rhetoric, conjoined with whatever facts (about the passing of Time) we want to believe or feel depressed by.

You know those facts, like whether something (love, health, wealth) will last “forever” or will Luck, Fate, natural order of things (temporary, decomposition, degrade, change), wishful thinking will prevail.

The only thing that prevails is Death and maybe rightly so, our history has been delegated/relegated to those who live the longest, the guardians of remorse and remembrance of all things Monetary.

Dystopia depends upon which side of the gun you’re on. Natives/indigenous populations were on the wrong side of the cross, slaves on the wrong side of freedom, and innocent civilians are on the wrong side of all military interventions/war, no matter who’s doing the winning and who’s doing the losing.

Every nation state has a dystopia brewing or becoming realized. The enforcement of laws in an unequal manner are always dystopic. The Taliban, Israel, and America are three of the worst examples of dystopic realities. Of course, most Americans don’t see it that way and neither do Israeli Jews nor Taliban militias.

Why do we always believe that denial by authoritative fiat is the Truth?

Why are we still afraid?

Aren't we one world now? Are we still cowering behind our own flags, entrenched in the safety of our own freedoms, the freedom to ignore, the freedom to not be involved, the freedom to not be affected. Are those freedoms? The democrats showcase their politicians, all saying the same thing, shouting freedom, opportunity, equality, diversity, inclusion but if we believe in the sanctity of the system, then anything is still acceptable, including authoritarianism, fascism, and more recently, acceptance of genocide.

When the convention is over, when we are not drowning any more from the waterboarding media of hope.

I've said it more than once, these problems-war, inflation (recession, economic collapse, crisis), immigration standstill, all this and more is the result of decades of both parties aggressive and passive alignment with the principles of status quo capitalism, profit, and greed. Nearly every politician has benefited and profited from our democracy. 

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Miracles

Miracles

A miracle is when i win the lotto grand prize jackpot without buying a ticket.

A miracle is when i don't pray for something like trumps assassination and i get it anyway.

A miracle is when i walk through the valley of shadows of death and live to tell about it.

A miracle is when i walk a million miles in your shoes and i dont have one blister.

Another miracle would be if someone would do to everyones guns what the israelis did to hezbollah pagers. Has Israel shown us the way again?

A miracle is when god abandons us to reasonable expectations.

And the last miracle is when everyone on the earth gets whatever they can reasonably expect.

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I'm replaying this document as an example of how history ( men's version of events) smothers the ideals and real human desire to find equality, justice, and humanity in each other.

This document came about in 1948 at the same time as the emergence of the Zionist state of Israel and it is obvious from events of today, these ideals have been rendered useless by the rise of fascism, imperial designs, and national savior politics.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

1.    Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

2.    No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

1.    Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

2.    Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

1.    Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

2.    This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

1.    Everyone has the right to a nationality.

2.    No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

1.    Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

2.    Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

3.    The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

1.    Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

2.    No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

1.    Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

2.    No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

1.    Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

2.    Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

3.    The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

1.    Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

2.    Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

3.    Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4.    Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

1.    Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

2.    Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

1.    Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

2.    Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

3.    Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

1.    Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

2.    Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

1.    Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

2.    In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

3.    These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein. 

Elk grove

 

Lately ive been watching a series of tennis and sports events out of places like Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar, Doha, including golf, soccer, beach soccer which I've never seen before but probably has been around as long as beaches have been around.

One interesting thing ive noticed is the overviews of some of these oil rich desert cities is quite amazing. Especially at night, the emergence of a metropolitan landscape comparable to urban environments such as chicago, new, york, and many other modern (old) cities worldwide.

So, i got to thinking about elk grove. For those who dont live around sacramento california ( California by itself, one of the top five economies in the world, though you wouldn't know it by all the hype over its impending bankruptcy) should know that forty years ago, elk grove, was an all rural, old post gold rush community made up of farms, oak trees, and though i don't know for sure, maybe a lot of elk.

In the past forty years, land development there has been a keystone example of suburban development for people who want to escape the drudgery of urbanity, though have to make the sacrifice of driving everywhere to go shopping.

Well, it was inevitable that the growth of sacramento proper met the growth of suburbia (elk grove in this case) and elk grove took up the banner of self cityhood. 

Unfortunately for elk grove and many other small, fast growing towns and rural communities, they found they still have to comply with many broader regional and state mandates, especially when it comes down to the national crisis of homelessness and its parent, the lack of low cost housing, sometimes arbitrarily called affordable housing, which in today's world with the cost of contracts and construction is always a misnomer, but it looks good on paper.

Ive come this far but as yet haven't made my point yet.

The particular issue in some places like elk grove  and other small, older communities who want to retain that rural background, especially in their old town downtown main street america style, are under pressure to build more up to date "low cost apartments" right in the midst of their one connection to the simpler past that suburbanites enjoy with  outdoorsy cafe coffee and pastry, like they do in paris or rome, but never did in gold rush era towns.

After much hoopla, mostly limited to the small elk grove tabloids, the battle over where to put its low-cost apartments it was being forced to comply with, was by deciding they would put it somewhere else, further away from old town the better. This was not a simple thing though. It would entail having to tinker with local, state land use requirements, rights of ways, buying of property, all causing either money restraints or time-consuming regulation statutes.

Time will tell how it all turns out, but it seems obvious to me, if not to you, that the housing crisis is going to go on for a while, the real question being will the "right of people to have a space where they can be, go the same way as the rights of privacy, opinions, and hairstyles went?

Let me just finish by saying, "Were not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy."

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