Challenging Scientism

Here in the great State of Massachusetts, a great many irritated people, tired of immense taxation, voted for a pretty decent, hard working fellow from a local town to represent their interests and to oppose D.C. desires, as State Senator.

And it’s good as far as it goes. It might hold up the massive health care fraud. It does announce that many old Dems will be vacating their positions soon, and Congress and the Senate will see some new blood, most of which will be quickly corrupted.

New can be good, but it only goes so far…

Democrats will remain what they have been, and so will Republicans. Read the rest of this entry »

Israel, although I support a democratic and protected Jewish state, I do not support the invasion and bombing of Palestine. It will not solve the complex problems created by historical and current land-sharing agreements (or disagreements) created by the walls and barriers that exist between Palestine and Israel.
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The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will be deployed, October 1, 2008, in anytown, U.S.A., to do the work that civil authorities are presumably unable, for some reason, to do.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The end of anti-war protests? The end of anti-corporate protests?

Are you “unruly?” You might be, and the US Army has a “non-lethal” treatment coming your way.

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
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Putin’s Russia invades, bombs, bisects and terrorizes a sovereign nation.

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…and would we be foolish for doing so?

A European friend of mine (hello Janny!) asked me to think about the state of the US economy – its falling dollar, nauseous stock market, and defaulted home loans – in terms of the total percentage of funds spent on our military.

She then asked me to look, for the purposes of comparison, at the state of the European economy – it’s rising Euro, now replacing the US Dollar as the international standard – and its relatively spare military budgets.

The military budget for 2007 hovers at around $440 Billion dollars, (which does not include, I read online, Veteran’s affairs, Nuclear weapons research… or ongoing war – that is, Afghanistan and Iraq. So, add a couple hundred billion).

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Two days after Christmas, in the year 2007?

I think it’s a good, bad bet that it’s so. I think we will all have to learn a thing or two that we’ve been putting off…

The meaning of the terms “Wahhabi” and “Wahhabiism,” for example.

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With the arrival of the shopping season (and what season isn’t for shopping these days), we welcome, with open arms and purses, and wide eyes, the million tons of plastic, electronic paraphernalia from China and East Asia.

Earlier this year, I spent a month in China, home of American goods and products. The experience left me a little wide-eyed. Or, more than a little.

I wrote about it a little bit, Here and Here, but haven’t quite had the heart to get back to it in full. Somewhere inside, there is a voice that says, “If you don’t have anything nice to say….”

But, nice or not, I can’t sit on these thoughts anymore.
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China in Bid for US Security Firm 3Com

From the Washington Times (10/4/07):

“China’s Huawei Technologies and the investment firm Bain Capital Partners to buy 3Com, which makes equipment used by the Pentagon to block computer hackers, including those from the Chinese military.”

That is, everything’s for sale in America, even our defense secrets. They used to have a word for people who did this kind of dealing: Traitor, Quisling, Benedict Arnold. But that’s old hat. Now it’s all part of the great big happy new-world ordered family of universal-commerce and borderless free-trade that we’re learning to love (and fear).

Does this qualify as being in bed with China? I think it qualifies as something much worse.

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The entire history of humanity plus a complete philosophy of human behaviour, all in nine little words (plus a thousand, for the photo):

War On String May Be Unwinnable, Says Cat General.

You said it, General Bonkers… (Thanks to the paper of record, The Onion).

From The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith .

In respect to the employment of troops, ground may be classified as dispersive, frontier, key, communicating, focal, serious, difficult, encircled, and death.

1) When a feudal lord fights in his own territory, he is in dispersive ground.

• Here officers and men long to return to their nearby homes.

2) When he makes but a shallow penetration into enemy territory he is in frontier ground.

3) Ground equally advantageous for the enemy or me to occupy is key ground.

4) Ground equally accessible to both the enemy and me is communicating.

• This is level and extensive ground in which one may come and go, sufficient in extent for battle and to erect opposing fortifications.

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From The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith .

• Dust spurting upward in high straight columns indicates the approach of chariots. When in hangs low and is widespread infantry is approaching.
• When dust rises in scattered areas the enemy is bringing in firewood; when there are numerous small patches which seem to come and go he is encamping the army.
• When the enemy’s envoys speak in humble terms, but he continues his preparations, he will advance.

Chan Yu: When T’ien Tan was defending Ch Mo the Yen general Ch’i Che surrounded it. T’ien Tan personally handled the spade and shared in the labour of the troops.

He sent his wives and concubines to enroll in the ranks and divided his own food to entertain his officers. he also sent women to the city walls to ask for terms of surrender. The Yen general was very pleased.

T’ien Tan also collected twenty-four thousand ounces of gold, and made the rich citizens send a letter to the Yen general which said: “The city is to be surrendered immediately. Our only wish is that you will not make our wives and concubines prisoners.”

The Yen army became increasingly relaxed and negligent and T’ien Tan sallied out of the city and inflicted a crushing defeat on them.

From The Art of War, this translation and introduction by Samuel B. Griffith (a wonderful version, available Here).

Biography of Sun Tzu (as it appears in the Shih Chi, Sun Tzu Wu Chi’s Lieh Chuan).

Sun Tzu [?circa 453-221 B.C. - The Warring States Period ] was a native of Ch’i who by means of his book on the art of war secured an audience with Ho-lu, King of Wu.

Ho-lu said, “I have read your thirteen chapters, Sir, in their entirety. Can you conduct a minor experiment in control of the movement of troops?”

Sun Tzu replied, “I can.”

Ho-lu asked, “Can you conduct this test using women?”

Sun Tzu replied, “Yes.”

The King thereupon agreed and sent from the palace one hundred and eighty beautiful women.

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From “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu

Victory is the main object in war. If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed.

When your weapons are dulled and ardour damped, your strength exhausted and treasure spent, neighboring rulers will take advantage of your distress to act. And even though you have wise counselors, none will be able to lay good plans for the future.

For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.

War is like unto fire; those who will not put aside weapons are themselves consumed by them.

Thus those unable to understand the dangers inherent in employing troops are equally unable to understand the advantageous ways of doing so.

by Liam Scheff
Boston’s Weekly Dig, April 2003

[ed – written in 2003, before the fun really started. Some predictions proven quite wrong (see election 2004); But I think the analysis of the Democratic leadership stands. In any case, it’s something to remember – did we have a choice about the middle eastern war, or was it always an inevitability? – September 2005]

The leadership crisis of the Left was summed up in an e-mail I received from a friend last week. He wrote, “The politicians who I’ve admired in the past have become so attached to their positions of power that they can’t see the immorality and illegality of what they’re supporting. Like the Roman senators who gradually ceded every one of their powers to the Caesars and placed the Republic’s legions in the hands of Imperial dictators, so our current crop of national leaders are, for fear of risking their own necks, ceding the Republic to the neo-fascists running and hoping to run the country.”
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PR Investigator John Stauber Reveals How PR Experts Sold America on an Illegal and Dangerous War

by Liam Scheff – LA Citybeat 2003

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton are founders of the Center for Media and Democracy, an organization dedicated to exposing the PR tactics used by government and industry to influence and create public opinion. They publish the weekly watchdog journal PRWatch and are the authors of Trust Us, We’re Experts and Toxic Sludge is Good for You.

In their newest book, Weapons of Mass Deception, Stauber and Rampton reveal the hidden hands that manipulate US policy and thrust us into the Iraq war.

How were Americans sold the Iraq war?

When a nation is attacked, people always rally around the leadership. After September 11, the nation was scared. There were loud calls for revenge. Selling a war was not a difficult thing to do.
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