As the United States Attorney General prepares for the trial of five people held for the past eight years in cages at Guantanamo, Americans are shaming themselves and their country by objecting to their trial.
George W. Bush abolished the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, and nobody--right of left--objected. Now after eight years of unconstitutional imprisonment for several hundred people, President Obama--who promised a year ago to close Guantanamo immediately--finally decides he will bring five of those men to trial. And Americans are outraged.
A U. S. Senator asks the Attorney General if he can "guarantee that these five men will be convicted." Doesn't that idiot Senator even know what law is? or what courts are for?
Americans are busy showing their ugliest underbellies. We are showing the world how utterly uncivilised the United States and its people are.
Shame. Shame on our stupidity and our arrogance. Shame on our lawlessness.
Bert Hornback
zaterdag 21 november 2009
maandag 16 november 2009
WORLD HUNGER, ETC.
His Alleged Holiness the Pope has decried the starvation facing the world's hungry. But His Gold-Shoed Greediness hasn't opened the Vatican coffers, or sold his gold shoes or a few thousand paintings, to help relieve starvation.
Why is hypocrisy so deeply ingrained in Roman Catholicism? It it simply that power corrupts? It's not just Vatican greed and the call for the rest of the world to be generous to the poor. The Vatican and its affiliates have led the world in sex crimes for centuries--from castration to pederasty--all the while preaching against homosexuality, and hiding sex criminals like Cardinal Law in safe havens in Rome.
It has fostered thousands of priest-begotten bastards, but condemns sex outside marriage. It pretends to praise St. Francis--and other holy poor men and women--while despising them. It praises and allegedly worships a Jesus who condemns everything they stand for.
If Christians followed Christ, they would abolish churches, and contribute all their wealth to the world's poor, in Jesus's name. And they would shut up about sexual morality.
Bert Hornback
Why is hypocrisy so deeply ingrained in Roman Catholicism? It it simply that power corrupts? It's not just Vatican greed and the call for the rest of the world to be generous to the poor. The Vatican and its affiliates have led the world in sex crimes for centuries--from castration to pederasty--all the while preaching against homosexuality, and hiding sex criminals like Cardinal Law in safe havens in Rome.
It has fostered thousands of priest-begotten bastards, but condemns sex outside marriage. It pretends to praise St. Francis--and other holy poor men and women--while despising them. It praises and allegedly worships a Jesus who condemns everything they stand for.
If Christians followed Christ, they would abolish churches, and contribute all their wealth to the world's poor, in Jesus's name. And they would shut up about sexual morality.
Bert Hornback
zondag 15 november 2009
JUSTICE
In the United States of America, "Justice" is a dead word. "Law" has no meaning. And the supposedly revered "Constitution" of the United States is nothing more important than crapper-paper, an ass-wipe.
We will not permit anyone to see the evidence that we have of torture and abuse of prisoners. The torture and abuse are violations of international conventions which--in its more civilised days--the United States officially agreed to. Those tortured and abused are being held without being charged with any crimes: this violates the U. S. Constitution.
But George Bush, the rogue president, suspended the right called HABEAS CORPUS--illegally, of course. The president can't suspend the Constitution; to do so is an act of tryanny. And Barack Obama--supposedly a legitimate president and an honorable man--agrees with Bush. So Obama is a rogue as well, a tyrant, an enemy of democracy and the rule of law.
And Americans quietly sit on their hands, watching football games, being selfish, and preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We have no shame. All we have are nuclear weapons, which keep the rest of the world from challenging all our crimes and immoralities.
Bert Hornback
We will not permit anyone to see the evidence that we have of torture and abuse of prisoners. The torture and abuse are violations of international conventions which--in its more civilised days--the United States officially agreed to. Those tortured and abused are being held without being charged with any crimes: this violates the U. S. Constitution.
But George Bush, the rogue president, suspended the right called HABEAS CORPUS--illegally, of course. The president can't suspend the Constitution; to do so is an act of tryanny. And Barack Obama--supposedly a legitimate president and an honorable man--agrees with Bush. So Obama is a rogue as well, a tyrant, an enemy of democracy and the rule of law.
And Americans quietly sit on their hands, watching football games, being selfish, and preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We have no shame. All we have are nuclear weapons, which keep the rest of the world from challenging all our crimes and immoralities.
Bert Hornback
WE THE PEOPLE
Many USers are worried about the Obama government's plan to try five of the detainees from the US concentration camp at Guantanamo. Good Americans, they are worried that the five captives may not be convicted in our courts. Many Americans are afraid of justice, afraid of the rule of law.
It is possible that justice might prevail in the trial of those five men. The evidence against them was likely gained by illegal surveillance, or by torturing them. It won't be admissable in court.
Rather than face that possibility, many USers want to keep those men in prison for the rest of their lives. Many Americans want to "disappear" them. Are there any USers left who remember when Americans responded with horror at the "disappearances" of people in other countries?
Of course, the United States has "disappeared" people for years, thanks to the thugs at CIA and NSA. And for the last nine years we have held hundreds of "disappeared" people at Guantanamo--and still hold them there, a full year after we elected a president who promised to close down that illegal torture camp.
Presumably, the Obama government thinks it has something of a case against these five men. But the other 300? The government must not have a case against any of them; the only thing they may have done wrong was get captured.
"Abandon hope all you who enter here." That's what the sign says as you enter Dante's Hell--or Guantanamo. And if many USers had their way, the motto of the American courts would be what the Artful Dodger thinks ofthe English courts in Dickens's Oliver Twist: "This ain't the shop for justice."
Our patriotic friends and neighbors say, "We can't trust our courts to lynch people."
Americans aren't a people who respect law, or want justice. We aren't even a "we," really. And not believing in justice or society, we aren't a "people."
It is possible that justice might prevail in the trial of those five men. The evidence against them was likely gained by illegal surveillance, or by torturing them. It won't be admissable in court.
Rather than face that possibility, many USers want to keep those men in prison for the rest of their lives. Many Americans want to "disappear" them. Are there any USers left who remember when Americans responded with horror at the "disappearances" of people in other countries?
Of course, the United States has "disappeared" people for years, thanks to the thugs at CIA and NSA. And for the last nine years we have held hundreds of "disappeared" people at Guantanamo--and still hold them there, a full year after we elected a president who promised to close down that illegal torture camp.
Presumably, the Obama government thinks it has something of a case against these five men. But the other 300? The government must not have a case against any of them; the only thing they may have done wrong was get captured.
"Abandon hope all you who enter here." That's what the sign says as you enter Dante's Hell--or Guantanamo. And if many USers had their way, the motto of the American courts would be what the Artful Dodger thinks ofthe English courts in Dickens's Oliver Twist: "This ain't the shop for justice."
Our patriotic friends and neighbors say, "We can't trust our courts to lynch people."
Americans aren't a people who respect law, or want justice. We aren't even a "we," really. And not believing in justice or society, we aren't a "people."
maandag 2 november 2009
Teaching Greed
American universities teach greed.
Never mind that they sometimes teach more "academic" subjects like maths and physics and philosophy, history, chemistry, and literature. Mainly they teach greed.
They teach greed by example. There are now 28 American college presidents who take salaries of $1,000,000 a year, or more. And there are hundreds more who take salaries of $500,000 a year, or more. There are also dozens of football and basketball coaches who take salaries of $1,000,000 or $2,000,000. And how many thousands of vice-presidents and vice-provosts who take salaries of $400,000 or more!
Our students aren't stupid. But they are intellectually and morally vulnerable. And no matter what they learn in their classes about society--and the sciences and social sciences as well as the humanities departments teach about society and social values--our students see the example of their universities' "leaders." And their example is hard to resist, and hard to misinterpret. GREED is what it says. GREED.
Universities in America don't teach their students how to make money, except in "business courses" and "business schools." But American universities teach their students--all their students--to want to make money. That's the goal. That's what students are learning.
How shameful. What an obscenity. What a disservice to humanity. What a destructive undertaking.
Bert Hornback
Never mind that they sometimes teach more "academic" subjects like maths and physics and philosophy, history, chemistry, and literature. Mainly they teach greed.
They teach greed by example. There are now 28 American college presidents who take salaries of $1,000,000 a year, or more. And there are hundreds more who take salaries of $500,000 a year, or more. There are also dozens of football and basketball coaches who take salaries of $1,000,000 or $2,000,000. And how many thousands of vice-presidents and vice-provosts who take salaries of $400,000 or more!
Our students aren't stupid. But they are intellectually and morally vulnerable. And no matter what they learn in their classes about society--and the sciences and social sciences as well as the humanities departments teach about society and social values--our students see the example of their universities' "leaders." And their example is hard to resist, and hard to misinterpret. GREED is what it says. GREED.
Universities in America don't teach their students how to make money, except in "business courses" and "business schools." But American universities teach their students--all their students--to want to make money. That's the goal. That's what students are learning.
How shameful. What an obscenity. What a disservice to humanity. What a destructive undertaking.
Bert Hornback
vrijdag 23 oktober 2009
FUNDING FIGHTING DOESN'T FEED PEOPLE
Funding fighting doesn't feed people, but peace does. In the United Gun-toting States of Bombs Bursting in Air America, however, we fund fighting: for the year 2010, at the rate of $2,000,000,000.00 a day. That's two billion dollars a day. And that's just for the Department of Defense. (It used to be called the "War Department"--which at least was honest. Given that our two current wars are--as Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Greneda all were--wars of aggression, not national defense, the present name is an obscene lie.)
Part of the Pentagon's $600,000,000,000.00 budget--$160,000,000,000.00 total or almost $500,000,000.00 a day--will be spent on our two outrageous, illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And nobody will object. We are so committed to violence that to secure passage of a bill to protect homosexuals from hate crimes, the measure had to be attached to a fat military spending bill. (Knowing that the Defense spending bill would pass, twenty-seven Republican senators voted against it just to demonstrate their approval of violence against homosexuals.)
If we spend $2,000,000,000.00 a day rebuilding the Iraq we have destroyed and feeding and housing and educating Afghans, we might actually win peace in both countries. But all that our $2,000,000,000.00 a day for contunued war will win for us is further destruction, more violent deaths, more hatred, more shame.
"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Baron Acton said that a hundred plus years ago. And here we stand, budget in place, blood on our hands, and bombs away: absolutely guilty.
Part of the Pentagon's $600,000,000,000.00 budget--$160,000,000,000.00 total or almost $500,000,000.00 a day--will be spent on our two outrageous, illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And nobody will object. We are so committed to violence that to secure passage of a bill to protect homosexuals from hate crimes, the measure had to be attached to a fat military spending bill. (Knowing that the Defense spending bill would pass, twenty-seven Republican senators voted against it just to demonstrate their approval of violence against homosexuals.)
If we spend $2,000,000,000.00 a day rebuilding the Iraq we have destroyed and feeding and housing and educating Afghans, we might actually win peace in both countries. But all that our $2,000,000,000.00 a day for contunued war will win for us is further destruction, more violent deaths, more hatred, more shame.
"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Baron Acton said that a hundred plus years ago. And here we stand, budget in place, blood on our hands, and bombs away: absolutely guilty.
zondag 18 oktober 2009
DESTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION
I want to talk about a silly word, which is used to do something that is not good. GOOD is a social word: it and "gather" come from the same root, and mean the same thing. "Together" is an intensified version of "gather." And something that holds together--or holds us together--is GOOD.
One of the things that hold us together is language. Communicationis another social word, and language, as verbal communication, is socially important. Communion is a word that probably comes not from com+unis ("one together") but from com+munis. Munis is a curious word that means both "gift" and "duty"--and it gives us words like "common," "communion," and "community." All of those words have to do with or gifts to each other or our duty to each other.
Good things hold us together.
In our language a structure is something built. If I destroy it, I destruct it: un-build it. Construction is something built complexly, out of parts, put together, to make a new structure.
When we read we put things together, to understand them. We read words in sentences, we read maps, some of us read tea-leaves or the lines in palms. Sentences, maps, tea-leaves, the lines in palms are all, in a sense, constructions. A single line on a sheet of paper is not a map, nor is a single line in the palm of a hand. Nor is a single word.
Suppose I say--aloud--the word there. Did I say "there," or "their," or "they're"? You don't know. So I add another word, merry. Did I say "merry," or "Mary"? I add and Tom. That doesn't help, except that I can forget about "merry." If I add, then, who, you have to wait again: I might be saying "There Mary and Tom, who are young, eat. . . ." Or I might be saying "Their Mary and Tom, who are young, are older than my Mary and Tom." Or maybe I'm saying "They're Mary and Tom, who are young."
The words work together, constructing sense. And the structure of the sentence lets me understand what the words mean, together.
But if I destroy that structure, I can't make sense of those words. Destroy is the act of destruction: which is not a good thing.
We have another word, deconstruction, used these days by people who don't care to read, who don't value communication, who aren't intertested in community or goodness.
A deconstructionist looks at a sentence--let's have a new one: "When I offered the small boy a cookie, he held out his hand, like a Catholic taking communion from a priest, then--trusting me--popped it in his mouth without even thinking that it might be poison." That's clear enough, isn't it?
But the deconstructionist ingnores what the sentence says, and instead focusus on and "priest" and "poison." Ha! he says. "Priests poison young people with what they pretend are gifts." And before you know it, we will be talking about religious prejudice and pedophilia and parental responsibility and safe streets.
Deconstructionism is an egotistical practice. It lets the deconstructionist ignore what someone has said, in order to talk about what the deconstructionist wants to talk about. It uses and abuses what other people say. It is a formalization of the attitude that lets some people say, "What I hear you saying is. . . ."
Deconstructionists pretend to be interested in language. But they aren't any more interested in language than they are in the act of communication--the gift and duty of communication. If they were interested in language, they wouldn't use a word like deconstruction. They would use the word destruction instead.
One of the things that hold us together is language. Communicationis another social word, and language, as verbal communication, is socially important. Communion is a word that probably comes not from com+unis ("one together") but from com+munis. Munis is a curious word that means both "gift" and "duty"--and it gives us words like "common," "communion," and "community." All of those words have to do with or gifts to each other or our duty to each other.
Good things hold us together.
In our language a structure is something built. If I destroy it, I destruct it: un-build it. Construction is something built complexly, out of parts, put together, to make a new structure.
When we read we put things together, to understand them. We read words in sentences, we read maps, some of us read tea-leaves or the lines in palms. Sentences, maps, tea-leaves, the lines in palms are all, in a sense, constructions. A single line on a sheet of paper is not a map, nor is a single line in the palm of a hand. Nor is a single word.
Suppose I say--aloud--the word there. Did I say "there," or "their," or "they're"? You don't know. So I add another word, merry. Did I say "merry," or "Mary"? I add and Tom. That doesn't help, except that I can forget about "merry." If I add, then, who, you have to wait again: I might be saying "There Mary and Tom, who are young, eat. . . ." Or I might be saying "Their Mary and Tom, who are young, are older than my Mary and Tom." Or maybe I'm saying "They're Mary and Tom, who are young."
The words work together, constructing sense. And the structure of the sentence lets me understand what the words mean, together.
But if I destroy that structure, I can't make sense of those words. Destroy is the act of destruction: which is not a good thing.
We have another word, deconstruction, used these days by people who don't care to read, who don't value communication, who aren't intertested in community or goodness.
A deconstructionist looks at a sentence--let's have a new one: "When I offered the small boy a cookie, he held out his hand, like a Catholic taking communion from a priest, then--trusting me--popped it in his mouth without even thinking that it might be poison." That's clear enough, isn't it?
But the deconstructionist ingnores what the sentence says, and instead focusus on and "priest" and "poison." Ha! he says. "Priests poison young people with what they pretend are gifts." And before you know it, we will be talking about religious prejudice and pedophilia and parental responsibility and safe streets.
Deconstructionism is an egotistical practice. It lets the deconstructionist ignore what someone has said, in order to talk about what the deconstructionist wants to talk about. It uses and abuses what other people say. It is a formalization of the attitude that lets some people say, "What I hear you saying is. . . ."
Deconstructionists pretend to be interested in language. But they aren't any more interested in language than they are in the act of communication--the gift and duty of communication. If they were interested in language, they wouldn't use a word like deconstruction. They would use the word destruction instead.
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