Monthly Archives: April 2012

Body-Parts Porn Again

Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, Military, War

OOPS, GI JOE’S BEEN BAD, AGAIN. Corpse desecration and other crimes against the occupied were said to be the purview of a “few bad apples” in an otherwise stellar American military. For a rarity, the body-parts pornography appears to be quite common. Naturally, every rational individual knows (NOT!) that blame lies with … the L.A. Times for exposing the latest incident of beastly behavior. All the better to deflect from the perps and the King’s comitatus that keeps them in blighted and benighted Afghanistan.

So what exactly are we talking about? Over to the LA Times:

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs. …

As was remarked upon in “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question,” “…the truth about the people we are pissing on and pissing off in Afghanistan is quite simple. America’s indisputably brave soldiers have been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population. These Pashtuns disdain the central government we desperately want them to obey. So it goes: We help local groups believed to be patriotic, but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate they despise.”

UPDATED: BHO’s ‘Blackism’ (& Boorishness)

Barack Obama, Political Philosophy, Pseudo-intellectualism, Race, Racism

There is a “difference between learning a culture and learning the ideology that is abstracted from it,” explains Jack kerwick, with reference to what he terms Barack Obama’s Blackism. “The difference between culture and ideology is the difference between a living faith and a static creed.”

“Blackism is an ideology,” contends kerwick. “The Blackist sees the entire world, from ‘the beginning,’ so to speak, to the present, in terms of racial categories, yes, but, more importantly, from the perspective of black deprivation. Race is the organizing principle of his schemata…the ideology of Blackism is not to be confused with black culture. This, though, isn’t to suggest that there is no relationship between the two. There is: the former is a caricature or abridgment of the latter. …”

“That is, like any other ideology, the ideology of Blackism is an abstraction from a complex, concrete, historically-specific tradition. In this case, the tradition in question is that of what we call black culture.”

Blackism, like any other ideology, supplies for its adherents a method, a relatively few basic principles or rules to which any black person living in any place and at any time can subscribe. To put it more clearly, unlike so-called black culture, Blackism doesn’t require immersion in a traditional form of life. Fluency in a culture is like fluency in a language; it is a hard won achievement that can be had only after much practice and over an extended period of time. Mastery of an ideology, in glaring contrast, is something that can be gotten within no time, for the rules or principles of an ideology are propositions that readily lend themselves to memory.

Obama has embraced “Blackism” for obvious reasons. Read “Obama and the Ideology of Blackism”; it’s a most provocative and thoughtful piece.

UPDATE (April 19): I agree with George. I don’t know if Kerwick presumes intelligence, but BHO is most certainly not overly intelligent, and he is certainly no intellectual, as I tried to show in ‘You Can’t Fix Stupid.’

Step Closer to Nationalizing Natural Gas

Barack Obama, Constitution, Energy, Ethics, Government, Regulation, Socialism

As America, led by the mindless media, fusses and frets over the parasites and the prostitutes—the poor women have been stiffed by the worms, as in not always paid for services rendered—news comes, via the SPPI Blog (hat tip to Roger Chaillet), that BHO has surreptitiously issued a Presidential Executive Order:

The Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources Executive Order seeks to create what amounts to a Presidential super committee that will oversee the regulation and development of the ‘unconventional’ natural gas industry for the purpose of ensuring a long-term natural gas supply for the United States, as well as to do so in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.

Expect energy costs to go up some more, although the last is the least of our problems.

Politicians Are Not Patriots; Prostitutes, On The Other Hand…

Crime, Ethics, Etiquette, Government, Labor, Media, The State

If regular visits with prostitutes kept the political class from launching trillion-dollar war- and welfare programs, and financing Fanny, Freddy and the Fed—I would personally contribute to a prostitution fund.

These prostitutes would be patriots.

(I mean no offense to prostitutes in this post. They are self-reliant, tough people who provide a necessary, if unsavory, service. I use “prostitute” here purely as a convention.)

A million here and there for a good time; that’s nothing in the grand scheme of the crimes committed by the Empire’s foot-soldiers and stooges and the cost of these crimes.

I’m referring to the latest storm in a C-Cup over which big media is having a conniption. It is the scandal at Hotel El Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, last Saturday, currently being finessed as an “alleged misconduct” and as a mere “incident.”

“The Secret Service sent home some of its agents for misconduct that occurred at the hotel before President Barack Obama’s arrival on Friday for the Summit of the Americas.” The scandal involves at least 10 members of the U.S. special forces, no less.

Wouldn’t you like to be “sent home” when you blow an assignment at work and leave the tab for the boss?

Note that not once did Dana Bash of CNN or Bret Baer of Fox News float the concept of firing the oink-sector scum. All share an understanding that no one who serves Uncle Sam and his agencies ever gets dismissed or disgraced. TSA pimps have license to fondle a crippled child or feel up the scarred breast tissue of a cancer survivor at the nation’s airports–and their identities and jobs remain protected.

Yeah, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”

Another minor scandal, where dismissing the detritus involved does not seem to be an option, is the General Services Administration’s $800,000 Las Vegas orgy at our expense, with GSA official Jeffrey Neely at the helm. Wouldn’t you know it? Mr. Neely “just invoked his fifth amendment rights and refused to answer any questions in the committee’s inquiry.”

As to the safety of the parasites and whether it was compromised by the prostitutes: I hope so. I want working for government to be one of the most dangerous jobs ever (unfortunately, the honest work of fishermen earns that distinction).