Poldark Was Right: All Wars A Waste Of Good Men

Reading some awesome real history of the war of independence this morning and admitting to myself that I have become somewhat obsessed with a Masterpiece Theater remake of Poldark. Its hero is presented as an egalitarian nonconformist whose idealism appeals to me even as I recognize that I'm having my consent manufactured and enjoying the process.

Maybe it's just that, at this moment in history, I relate to a middle class with a tenuous hold on property looking nervously over their shoulders at the starving peasants. The "rich peasant" class are problematic in any era. They're not the 1% but they are landlords and, generally, upholders of the status quo.

As my mother, a history major who made her way from dire poverty to the affluence built on ignoring the suffering of exploited labor and colonies, was fond of saying: "Comes the revolution, we'll be the first to go."

I'm also pondering the examination of the source of Poldark's relative prosperty, the original sin of mining, which rapes the Earth and destroys the health of workers in dismal conditions in order to produce metals and gems that become the wealth to fight over and the weapons with which to fight.

The series is based on a historical novel I have not read but probably will.

The first episode kicks off with British redcoats shaving and gambling in the primordial beauty of Virginia, forested as we imagine it before Europeans began cutting down the old growth trees. They are attacked, probably because their imperial splendor shows up like so many red flags to the colonist hiding behind trees. Poldark goes down and there is an eerily beautiful bird's eye view shot of him sprawled among the other wounded and dead. A painterly depiction of the human cost of empire.

Once he is patched up and returns to life in impoverished Cornwall, he faces the ignorant questions of those who stayed home partying while the British empire fought to keep its far flung colonies under control.

In one instance, he is asked how Britain could have lost the war and he replies, "By picking the wrong side, madam." In another a young lady aiming to snag him in matrimony asks how the war was in a tone you might use to ask your friend how the picnic was. Poldark: "Like all wars -- a waste of good men." Amen to that.

Remembering that Brexit was brought on by the massive refugee influx to Europe that was brought on by NATO's wars in Iraq and Syria, I reflect today on the chain of unintended consequences stemming from imperial hubris. 

Racism and hate language are on the rise across this continent and that, the government in Mexico is slaughtering and torturing people resisting the corporate takeover of their education system, and people think the solution is more weapons, more wars, and more walls.

Happy 4th of July, y'all.

Obama Administration's Count of Deaths By Drone Exceptionally Inaccurate

Photo source: Rawstory.com

In what Ryan Devereaux writing for The Intercept called a "gesture at transparency," the Obama administration has put forth what is arguably its biggest lie among many big lies.

There is much to cry about and a little to laugh about in the three page summary of his executive order.

What could be funny in a report claiming that between 65 and 116 innocent children, grandparents, aunts and uncles had their lives snuffed out by flying killer robots in areas the U.S. seeks to control but can't be bothered to declare war on? Dark humour abounds in the absurd statements of an administration that gives the impression of drinking its own Koolaid. 

For example, the vast under reporting of civilian death as compared with any other estimates was released,

consistent with the President's commitment to providing as much information as possible to the American[sic] people about U.S. counterterrorism activities.

This is absurd because Obama is regarded as the least transparent president in history, exceptionally committed to persecuting whistleblowers, as chronicled by publications from Democracy Now! to the Wall St. Journal.

Here's another one: "areas of active hostilities include Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria." By means of this euphemistic phrase, the Obama administration avoids including the considerable number of civilian deaths in those unfortunate areas. It limits its body count to air strikes in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen -- countries most people in the U.S. would be hard pressed to locate on a map. 

But perhaps you would agree with me that if the U.S. is sending flying killer robots to surveil and bomb your neighborhood over the course of several years, you live in an "area of active hostility." 

I found the report's final sentence laughable as well:

The U.S. Government remains committed to considering new, credible information regarding non-combatant death that may emerge and revising previous assessments, as appropriate.

This will become "appropriate" when hell freezes over if the capital G government's disregard of several careful examinations of data on drone strike deaths is any indication. Mostly because the previous assessments would need to be multiplied by eight in order to align with, for instance, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's careful methodology.  The Long War Journal and The New American Foundation have also carefully counted far more civilians killed by drones than the Obama administration cares to.

Photo source: Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Does the Obama administration believe its own lies?

Possibly not, since the "news" came in the form of a pronouncement on a long holiday weekend.

The U.S., as we know from Obama and other cruise missile liberals, is hella exceptional. 

The thing about exceptionalism is it leads to the hubris that guarantees its own downfall.

Ignorance about geography on the part of my fellow USians is but one symptom of our exceptionally fatal affliction with imperial hubris. This ignorance is useful and is probably nurtured in the cradle by the misnomer "America" which treats two enormous continents as our very own soveregn nation. 

Research indicates the more misinformed they are about a country's location, the more inclined they are to invade it. Although this finding was in regard to Ukraine, it is credible that U.S. constant violent intervention in the affairs of countries south of our border is given a pass by people trained to consider it all "America" anyway.

Independence Day celebrates the successful tax revolt of settlers chafing at the financial burdens of a bloated empire waging wars far beyond its borders for years on end. An endless stream of blowhards will claim in speeches on July 4 that justice and liberty for all was thus established on the rich continent of North America. No such thing has ever occurred, but white privilege makes the claim plausible to the type of people who think corporate "news" is reliable information, and who believe the U.S. has only killed 116 innocent people in 473 drone strikes.