Wednesday, December 17, 2014

SAR #14351


Currencies vary, but everybody pays. 
 
The March of Civilization: ISIS has executed 150 Iraqi women for refusing to marry ISIS fighters and continues to crucify, behead and stone to death Iraqi children. The Taliban have slaughtered over 140 children at a school in Peshawar because the don't want little girls to go to school. In Yemen a car bomb killed 25 people, including 15 school children. Mexican authorities “ ‘knew about attack on [the 43] students as it happened,” did nothing to stop it, and have covered it up since. 
 
Just So Stories: The US hanged Japanese officers for waterboarding prisoners.

Contagion: The economic sanctions and the fall in the price of oil have bitten Russia on the ass, with vengence. The state raised interest rates to 17% in an attempt to stop the downward spiral, but it only encouraged the vultures to push the value of the ruble even lower. It's now lost about 50% of its value in six months. Russians who have foreign currency denominated mortgages are drowning. Those who have any cash on hand are buying up anything and everything as prices spiral out of control. The stock market, naturally, is crashing. “Catastrophe” is a good description. It'll be good tomorrow, too. Obama, always a reasonble fellow, will sign the legislation imposing even more economic sanctions on Russia and supplying weaponry to Ukraine. His Special Forces troops are conducting “urban training” in downtown Dallas. 
 
Lessons Learned: Half of American thinks torturing people, some innocent, some not, was a good idea, that it saved American lives, and would do it again. Propaganda works.

Under The Bed: The inflation monster that the right has warned us about for years as they whittled away at government services is not only in is in hiding, it's disappeared down the drain as investors disregard any chance of inflation returning for years, maybe decades. But don't expect the specter to go away – David Koch, for example, whines “I’m very worried that if the budget is not balanced that inflation could occur and my brother and I the economy of our country could suffer terribly.” He knows better; he just wants you to suffer.

Price Tags: A review of British operations in Afghanistan's Helmand province noted that “of all the thousands of civilians and combatants” killed or wounded “not a single al-Qaida operative or international terrorist” who could conceivably have threatened the UK was killed or captured.

Fine Print: If Richard Bruce Cheney, a former acting President of the United States, is so sure those 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were not torture, why doesn't he let us waterboard and rectal feed him for a week or two, daily, at noon, on live TV?

Best Headline: Paul Krugman's 'Putin On The Fritz'

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re: Propaganda works.

Not sure propaganda is needed when it comes to morals.

Duplicity is usually enough to justify any activity.

Jay said...

why doesn't [Cheney] let us ... rectal feed him for a week or two

Considering where his head is, I think that's just how he eats.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Jay gets extra credit on his homework.

Tulsatime said...

I think inflation only become a problem in an economy where labor recieves proportionate compensation for the increase in productivity, at least in traditional 'theory'.

Given the obvious suppresion of wages over the years, the only 'flation seen now is deflation. The increased price levels that have come from financialization of commodities has deflated the market, with hundreds of millions priced out of vacations, 2nd cars, education, and a middle class lifestyle in general. I guess old H Ford had it right when he decided to pay enough for his workers to prosper, not just survive. The Koch's and their ilk are wrong.

i don't know why i love preaching to the choir here, but so be it....

Blissex said...

«Half of American thinks torturing people, some innocent, some not, was a good idea,»

Consider what they may be thinking.

* Did taxes on USA voters rise a lot to spend on torture? Of course not, and maybe torture saved tax money by costing less than doing proper investigations and spying.

* Were the targets of torture people USA voters care about? Of course not, for the average USA voters they are disposable insignificant "untermensch".

For example look at it from the point of view of an average middle aged woman voter fearful of nasty looking "untermensch": that it did not raise property taxes, fine, that it resulted in the horrible suffering of nasty looking "untermensch" who have no rights she cares about, fine.

That USA voter also thinks that she personally is at no risk of being tortured, and that torturing nasty looking "untermensch" even innocent ones may scare some of them from threatening her.

Why would a middle aged scared woman voter from Real America object then to the random torture of "untermensch" nobodies that she does not care about?

She surely does not object about the killing of thousands of "untermensch" bystanders she does not care about in semi-random bombings, even if the bombs are incredibly expensive.

Some watchwords:

* "I have a right to safety at any cost [to somebody else]".

* "I have a right to be better safe than sorry [as long as someone else suffers for that]"

* "I have a right to never feel too safe [at someone else's expense]"

And the conclusions

* "We need to take the gloves off [only against disposable nobodies]"

* "You cannot make omelette without breaking some eggs [or some disposable nobody's bones]".

It is just the logical extension of the American Dream expressed as "F*CK YOU! I am fully vested" to "untermensch" nobodies that respectable suburban ladies don't care about.

Torture in the USA rendition archipelago after all is just slow motion bureaucratized lynching, and that is as Real American as apple pie and white picket-fences.