We're Still Bombing Afghans = The War Is Not Over

Imagine for a moment that you're a person who loves a little child who was killed by aerial bombing, burnt to a crisp, by the U.S. military. It could be 1945, 1950, 1969, 1995, or pretty much any year in the 21st century.

"Malika Ahmadi, two, died in a U.S. drone strike on Kabul today, her family says. Has the war of 20 years cost us the ability to care?" Source: David Swanson, Pressenza

Now imagine that it just happened yesterday. And that the U.S. corporate press is proclaiming that the war they've been waging for decades on your country is "over."

That the U.S. corporate press lies for a living -- right out in the open -- makes no difference to you in your grief.

It mostly makes a difference to the taxpayers and voters of the country thousands of miles away where citizen are sold horseshit like, "We've got to fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

The lies that sell wars and buy elected officials use bogus concepts and slogans like "The war on terror" to incite fear and make compliance much easier than opposition.

A few people will go on social media platforms that are heavily censored in favor of corporate rule to express the truth laced with dark humor.

Well I think we can probably call it now and say that Terror has won the War on Terror.

— LouJo 🇬🇧 (@LouJoSays) August 29, 2021

https://twitter.com/LouJoSays/status/1432056340101439495

The U.S. has bombed little children to death under alternating Democratic and Republican administrations my entire life. 

It began bombing Afghan children following the unfortunate events of 9/11 in 2001 after a speech by then President George W. Bush proclaimed that "their harbors" would no longer be safe. (Note: Afghanistan is a land-locked country with no harbors.)

The current Democratic administration has announced that it will continue using flying killer robots to bomb Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. (It's also drone bombing Somalia, and plenty of other places, at will.) 

“Enough is enough,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement. “For more than ten years, our government’s drone strikes have killed thousands of innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Muslim world—destroying family homes, wedding parties, and even funeral processions. The civilian casualties in Kabul are simply the latest victims of this misused technology.”

Source: https://scheerpost.com/2021/08/30/demand-for-moratorium-on-drone-warfare-follows-latest-u-s-killing-of-afghan-civilians

Besides the warped views about war sold constantly over corporate airwaves, why is there a steady supply of men and women willing to remotely bomb children in Afghanistan?

Because after young people turned against the military draft for the war on Vietnam, U.S. corporate interests have made damn sure that the poverty draft continues blowing a steady gale force.

With no money for college and no money for dental care and no money for rent, food, and car expenses many young people in the U.S. feel they have no choice but to enlist. The poorer the state -- like my home, Maine -- the harder the poverty draft blows.

But some folks prospered during the 20 year war that's still not over.

(Feel like finding out how much war profiteers donated to the campaign coffers of your elected officials that refuse to actually end the war on terror? You can look it up here on OpenSecrets.org).

Water For Life, Not For Profit Theme Unauthorized At Maine's Bicentennial Parade

Lead organizer Luke Sekera-Flanders and educator Jake Kulaw carry a water defense banner in Lewiston Aug 21, 2021 created for Community Water Justice by the Artists Rapid Response Team (ARRT!). Photo credit: Nickie Sekera

A breathtakingly hot bicentennial celebration parade saw 100+ vehicles belching CO2 into the atmosphere as it wound its way from Auburn to twin city Lewiston yesterday in Maine.

Bringing up the rear was Community Water Justice walking entry "Bicentennial B-roll: The Villagers vs. The Pillagers!" (There were good banners in need of carrying, so I decided to leave my pitchfork in the car.)

It was a parade dominated by the corporate entities who treat Maine as a resource extraction colony: among them Poland Springs, the odious Central Maine Power, and Casella waste "management" i.e. trucking in construction debris from away and incinerating it as Maine-sourced waste.

We were an unauthorized entry to the parade and police twice ordered us out of the street, which we ignored. (Yes, white people can get away with that.)

Many people clapped and cheered our message, and twice at different points on the parade route someone shouted, "They saved the best for last!" As police tried to shoo us away the audience shouted, "Let them march!"

Besides our banners we wore or carried Stolen Spring logos, Maine Natural Guard, and "God bless the corporations for giving us candidates."

photo credit: Nickie Sekera

Getting press coverage was the usual struggle (one sentence in the Lewiston Sun Journal, crickets elsewhere) but Luke was well-prepared with a press release. An excerpt:

The parade...is sponsored by many of Maine’s worst environmental offenders, including Poland Spring (who is the headline sponsor), Casella, and Central Maine Power. Nestle recently sold Poland Spring to a pair of private equity firms now operating as BlueTriton Brands, playing Wall Street games with our water sources. These companies’ sponsorship of the bicentennial celebrations showcases the State of Maine’s relationship with these polluting corporations, and presents a great opportunity to show solidarity in our collective struggle for a healthier future. While many residents are aware of individual issues such as the CMP Corridor, industrial fish farms, Casella, Metallic Mining or Poland Spring bottled water, they are not aware of the larger context - that Maine’s environment is the target of exploitative international private interests.

Beyond being detrimental to Maine’s long-term economic, environmental and social stability, 

these corporations' presence in Maine is contradictory to any reasonable path to mitigating the effects of harmful changes in our climate. 

Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, revealing that the key window for action to prevent the worst effects of climate change is within the next decade. Its findings confirm what Indigenous and environmental activists have been saying for decades - unless we dramatically reduce carbon emissions and pollution, we will face the consequences. 

The purpose of this action is to engage the public with the reality and urgency of Maine’s position as an object of corporate hyperfocus, and elevate the struggles for Indigenous sovereignty, water security, and environmental health into the public eye.

Indigenous sovereignty might save us if we listen in time. How much indigenous wisdom was evident at this celebration of Maine's statehood? None that I saw besides our messaging. I know that Penobscot elders were holding a water ceremony that day, and also that former chief Barry Dana regards the bicentennial as a celebration of the long colonial genocide on Native people of the region.

photo credit: Nickie Sekera

When I was a small child in Maine it seldom got hot enough for swimming, according to my California girl mother. Yesterday in Lewiston-Auburn it was a 89 degrees and very humid. 

But why worry about all the carbon-belching parade vehicles and the lead sponsorship by Poland Spring, formerly owned by the multinational water extractor Nestle. 

The banner Luke carried had been modified to reflect that private equity water investors doing business as Blue Triton now own Poland Springs water extraction sites in Maine. What could go wrong? 

Health Care Workers Who Won't Get COVID Vax To Be Out Of A Job In Maine

My status updates on spybook seldom get much attention, but lately almost anything about COVID choices gets a lot of comments and clicks (and a gratuitous offer of COVID information I can trust? I'll pass.) 

Yesterday I had a mildly shocking experience receiving health care and I posted this:

The context here in Maine is that our governor has given health care workers notice that, unless they are vaccinated, they will have to stop working in health care. 

If you think this should be a foregone conclusion, you haven't been paying attention.

There have already been two protests in Maine cities with hundreds of health care workers marching for their right to get up close and personal to administer health care without being vaccinated.

I have persistently shared my theory that the underlying purpose of COVID was to divide the 99% against one another so that the 1% can continue their reign of austerity for us and obscene wealth for them. That, too, has gotten a lot of clicks and shares so it will probably be taken down as misinformation soon (read it here while you can).

Many of the comments I cannot agree with, but I let the debates rage on because

I'm genuinely curious to know how other people understand this health crisis and the optimum ways to respond.

Both right wingers and liberals tend to be really nasty with the name-calling, insults, and generalized lack of respect for other people. I think that's sad and I never "like" that kind of language. Every genocide and civil war begins with dehumanizing language aimed at "others."

I am reminded of a theory I encountered recently: holding demonstrably false ideas in public is a way of signaling loyalty to your group, thus conferring an evolutionary advantage. If true, this explains a lot. Especially how 45 became more popular with his fan base for tweeting lies that everyone knew were lies. If you want to check out this theory, you can read about it here.

A ubiquitous comment from both sides wonders how the others could be so stupid.

This is an ableist comment unless what they really mean is ignorant. No, stupid and ignorant aren't synonyms. One means unable to use reasoning well and the other means lacking information. People with developmental delays in cognition are not uneducated but they are differently abled. As for what happened with public education in the U.S., don't get me started.

An anecdote from pre-COVID days:

I once learned how to use an app for making online quizzes. Another learner and I took a sample quiz where one of the math questions depended on knowing the order of operations i.e. PEMDAS. The other learner doubted the answer and it bugged them enough that they brought it up to me later. I explained why I thought it was the right answer using PEMDAS and then added, "______ was a math major and is our IT director so I'm pretty sure if he and I disagree about the answer to a math problem, he's gonna be correct." I could tell that this did not resolve the other learner's skepticism. They trusted my answer -- I was a literacy coach -- more than his! Possibly because they had a closer relationship with me than with the IT director? Who really knows.

Distrust of experts -- even in an education setting -- has been with us for a while.

And it can be deadly. 

Maine legislator Rep. Chris Johansen continues to go into crowds unmasked and to fight vaccines and masking requirements for large gatherings despite the fact that both he and his wife contracted COVID. His wife died.

Then there's the fact that the No Child Behind Act, passed with bipartisan support during George W. Bush's adminstration, took an ax to both science and social studies education. It did this by preferencing reading and math for the test-and-punish regime that enriched for-profit testing corporations. Science clawed its way back via STEM and other intitiatives from the outside world, but much damage had  been done. And social studies has never really recovered. 

That explains a lot, too, doesn't it? It's clear how even many elected officials really don't know the structures of government or understand their role in that structure. Once big money controlled all three branches of government at the federal level, and many if not all state legislatures, the old civics lesson on "how a bill becomes a law" became a lie anyway.

It would probably be elitist of me to point out that it isn't doctors or registered nurses (RN) refusing to get vaccinated for the most part. 

Here in Maine it's the much less educated health care providers who are the refuseniks e.g. certified nursing assistants (CNAs), lab technicians, hospital kitchen workers, group home attendants, and the like.

My sister works at the leading research hospital in northern California as an RN and has for years. I value her information and advice because so far it has been ahead of the curve i.e. the intel that she passes on from the epidemiologists at her hospital anticipates what eventually the CDC gets around to recommending. I'm guessing this is because UCSF researchers care about health rather than about commerce, while the CDC must serve two masters.

Meanwhile, every school district in Maine -- and there are a lot of them -- has been thrown to the wolves to hold the line for science amid shouts, threats, and jeers of uneducated and/or ignorant parents.

Then there's the big picture context.

Source: https://twitter.com/OpinionatedLab/status/1426296638654619648

Lies are the currency of the day. Big lies, ones that can kill you.

Well, after all this gloom and doom I feel moved to end on a lighter note. No idea who created this gem:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/snarkavenue/photos/a.397515703684731/3517531905016413/

Revolution Needed, So Our Corporate Overlords Are Fanning The Flames For Second Civil War

 One of President Obama's many rewards for enriching banksters at the taxpayers' expense was this summer "cottage" on Martha's Vineyard.

Why do we need a revolution, you say? 

In rough order of priority:

o Global climate crisis driven by capitalism is spiraling out of control and the window to walk us back from catastrophe is rapidly closing.

o Global pandemic has killed millions and appears headed to kill millions more with a system of medical apartheid and for-profit medicine in the U.S. and other non-socialist countries.

o Eviction crisis on top of already galloping homelessness not only creates trauma for millions but is a big factor in the spread of COVID.

o Military spending and weapons systems surging -- including building nuclear weapons, illegal under international law because they could easily end human life if used.

o Incarceration for profit in the U.S. and to impoverish and disenfranchise Black, indigenous, and people of color is growing worse and was already at crisis levels. Racist policing continues at crisis levels but is now more visible due to cell phone videos.

o Student debt continues to depress the prospects of entire generations.

o Minimum wage is now about 1/3 of what an actual living wage should be in 2021, especially because of rapid, ongoing inflation of the cost of housing.

o Child care and public education continue to be underfunded in the face of immense unmet needs.

How are our corporate overlords fanning the flames for a second Civil War?

Charlottesville, Virginia "Unite the Right" rally August, 2017 

In roughly chronological order:

o Propaganda rather than useful information sharing is the norm across the spectrum of corporate-owned "news" outlets, from Fox News to CNN. The steady erosion of reliability in sourcing information is the work of corporate media and corporate social media that censors on behalf of the ruling class.

Carlos Piccata, who says he is a combat vet, to the Shasta, CA county commission: “It’s not going to be peaceful much longer. We’re building, we’re organizing. You won’t stop us when the time comes. This is a warning for what’s coming. There’s a million people just like me.” pic.twitter.com/EF8fjqGb1z

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 14, 2021

o White supremacy is in a desperate fight to remain in control, and numerous militias and other types of organizations have responded to perceived and real threats including the removal of Confederate statues and flags. Also, attacks on Black Lives Matter protesters, including killing them by running them down with cars (a practice that a few states have legalized) and targeting them for assassination.

o Law enforcement complicit in white supremacist movement, and armed to the teeth with cast off military equipment shared by the Pentagon.

o Widespread misinformation about public health protocols including vaccines, masking, and distancing and robust media coverage of refuseniks.

o Absence of national leadership on ending the pandemic leaving states, towns, and school boards to fend for themselves in the face of angry mobs. We are entering the third school year in a row pitting neighbors against neighbors and parents against school administration.

What can we in the U.S. do to bring on revolution rather than a second civil war?

In no particular order:

o Don't fall for divisive tactics. For example, consider the possiblity that "Divided We Fall May Be COVID's Underlying Purpose."

o Look and listen beneath the surface of false dichotomies.

o Don't demonize each other just because we disagree. People with ideas that seem wrong and dangerous may have PTSD from traumas. They may be experiencing hunger, bankruptcy, or lack of medical care. They may only have access to really poor information or outright disinformation. Don't write human beings off even if you loathe their ideas. 

o Free your mind and the rest will follow. Do your own thinking, take in new information, and be willing to rethink your beliefs. Put another way, don't mistake narratives for truth. Even this one.

Pentagon Cares About Climate Change, For All The Wrong Reasons

There is so much to unpack in this boneheaded article from online rag Defense One that it's hard to know where to begin: "Climate Change Is Already Disrupting the Military. It Will Get Worse, Officials Say."

The good news: the Pentagon has noticed that climate change is a thing

The bad news: the Pentagon is taking minimal responsibility for contributing to it, instead mostly just planning for how to mitigate changes that will be forced upon them. 

The good news: they're planning for changes like providing more help to fight forest fires.

The bad news: they're planning for providing more storm troopers to beat up, tear gas, pepper spray, and LRAD protesters when militarized police forces in U.S. cities want more boots on the ground. 

Pentagon brass quoted in the article also see this as bad news, but for a different reason: soldiers "aren't doing the sort of warfighter training that they need to do."

Police wearing riot gear try to disperse a crowd Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. You know, a crowd protesting that unarmed teenafer Michael Brown had been gunned down by police and left to die in the street. Source: Business Insider, AP Photo / Jeff Roberson

Really? It seems like urban warfare against people defending their right to life in their own neighborhoods will be one of the few things left for human warfighters to do in the 21st century. It won't take that many of them to press the buttons activating killer robots in the air, on land, or sea.

One of the hallmarks of what is passed off as journalism under late stage capitalism is claiming to ask hard questions while actually producing a puff piece.

(A sampling of the featured articles in this issue can be seen above.) Producing "analysis" that is devoid of context is a specialty, as is presenting as fait accompli various ghastly decisions and programs that are highly profitable to the already wealthy (e.g. missile "defense").

In its publisher's own words: "Defense One is a portfolio brand of GovExec, whose market-leading services help contractors support government leaders and their missions."

For "missions" here read "quest to land a lucrative position following time spent posing as a government leader."

So, absent a rigorous examination of how the Pentagon and its contractors are actually driving climate crisis, we're invited to view the problem from the "defense" perspective.

For example:

In June, the International Military Council on Climate and Security released its second report on the impacts of climate change on issues such as governance and civil unrest across the globe. They surveyed experts from a variety of institutions...asking them how they expect various risk areas like biodiversity, water availability, and instability within nations to evolve over the next decade. The experts held a dim view.  

"Respondents expect a majority of risks will pose high to catastrophic levels of risk to security. [emphasis mine] Ten and 20 years from now, respondents expect very high levels of risk along nearly every type of climate security phenomena,” the report said.  

The experts concluded that the global governance system isn’t prepared for many of the risks. So, in part because of that lack of preparedness, more and more of the international response to climate-change-related issues will fall to men and women in uniform. [emphasis mine]

You can almost hear contractors like Microsoft and their top brass clients salivating over this prospect, can't you? 

But not to worry. Technology will save the day! (Budgets go ka-ching.)

Unless it doesn't.

The article ends on what I considered to be a hopeful note:

"...you’re making a decision based on the probability of occurrence, and that’s what you’re putting in. But what if you get it wrong? And what if you get it wrong with something that’s mission-critical?”

Mission-critical like crashing human life on this planet because you ignored the 100% probability that failing to count military emissions leads directly there? 

link to petition site

To: Participants in COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, November 1-12, 2021

As a result of final-hour demands made by the U.S. government during negotiation of the 1997 Kyoto treaty, military greenhouse gas emissions were exempted from climate negotiations. That tradition has continued.

The 2015 Paris Agreement left cutting military greenhouse gas emissions to the discretion of individual nations.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, obliges signatories to publish annual greenhouse gas emissions, but military emissions reporting is voluntary and often not included.

NATO has acknowledged the problem but not created any specific requirements to address it.

There is no reasonable basis for this gaping loophole. War and war preparations are major greenhouse gas emitters. All greenhouse gas emissions need to be included in mandatory greenhouse gas emission reduction standards. There must be no more exception for military pollution.

We ask COP26 to set strict greenhouse gas emissions limits that make no exception for militarism, include transparent reporting requirements and independent verification, and do not rely on schemes to "offset" emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from a country’s overseas military bases must be fully reported and charged to that country, not the country where the base is located.

The Fire This Time

Nagasaki in August, 1945 Source: HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES

This month, a hot one in the Global North, is when we remember the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two types of nuclear weapons. This month the old lies will be trotted out: the U.S. ended the war and saved countless (American soldiers') lives by dropping these bombs. 

This month the old lies will be refuted -- eloquently and with copious references by David Swanson in Hiroshima is a Lie among other places.

Anyone paying attention to WWII actual history rather than the History Channel (some say, Hitler Channel) version knows that Japan was about to surrender. And the U.S. government knew it. The unnecessary firepower was primarily intended as a show of strength to warn the U.S.S.R. that, with Nazi Germany defeated -- primarily by the U.S.S.R. -- the U.S. was the new bully on the block.

But firebombing cities full of civilians was nothing new in 1945. The U.S. had already burned up many cities in Japan and Germany. 

And burning civilians to death has continued as the signature act of aggression by U.S. forces.

Napalm was developed, a jellied form of petroleum, to burn Vietnamese jungles and people.

Drones were developed to deliver Hellfire missiles remotely without risk (other than debilitating moral injuries to last a lifetime) to the bombers.

White phosphorus was developed to burn on contact and keep burning deep into the flesh. It's used extensively by Israel and the U.S. on civilian populations.

And now come global raging fires, a result of runaway military use of fossil fuels which is accelerating rather than abating in the face of climate emergency.

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/07/apocalyptic-scenes-hit-greece-as-athens-besieged-by-fire?
Joseph Galanakis/Rex/Shutterstock

Greece is on fire, with ground temperatures beyond belief.

Oregon has gone almost two months without rain and is burning.

Just two examples out of many.

When will we stop burning up people, animals, fish, birds, and forests for profit?

When will we realize that to live by the sword of fire is to die by the sword of fire?

Respect to the environmental activists begging us to find a better way to live, throwing their spanners into the works of late stage capitalism.

Respect to the nuclear resistance activists begging us to realize that any further deployment of nuclear weaponry spells doom for humans as a species.

In the face of facts on the ground, why does the U.S. keep building nuclear weapon systems? For profit, of course. The revolving door between the Pentagon and military contractors guarantees that these deadly contracts keep rolling in. 

Source: https://jpegy.com/artsy/you-cannot-eat-money-33756

Indigenous wisdom is ignored at a time in history when listening and heeding could save us. 

Will we listen in time to save us from the fire this time?