Liberal "Compassion"

I've never been more pissed off at the liberal worldview than I am right now, after watching this travesty.  Only the insanely wealthy could believe that exchanging fur for diamonds is a good thing, while thousands of people are worked to death in African diamond mines.

Diamonds, by the way, are controlled by the De Beers cartel, which artificially inflates the price of a diamond by hoarding the vast majority of production.  Somebody else has already run down the history of the diamond scam, and I suggest you give it a look over.  It's not surprising that Hollywood figures who are constantly encouraged to endorse the diamond industry, would feel good and smug about replacing fur for a bunch of pretty useless rocks.  Once again we see a fine example of how the fetishization of the individual leads to warped social priorities.

How much better would California be if the money spent on those outlandish outfits, was instead donated to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and work programs?  Or even better yet, how much better would it be if they could raise taxes on the rich!?

Few things are more vile than a heart which is in the wrong place for the right reasons.  Yet these are the people who dominate our media.

Everybody ELSE is dumb and I'm right, of course

There's a serious problem with the liberal moral framework once we apply it to relationships. If the individual is sacrosanct, then personal pleasure and self-fulfillment take priority. After all, we were constantly told when we were young that we're super special and capable of anything (a lie). This is fundamentally unworkable in situations involving more than one person. Either all parties have to set aside their self-interest for the purpose of community, or everyone remains self-interested and relationships become "alliances of convenience."

Excepting abuse or distance, the vast majority of romantic relationships that I see fail do so because of the lack of honesty and deception made necessary by self-interest. Either one party wants to "see" other people, or they cheated on what was presumably a monogamous relationship.

If you want to "see" other people, you want to fuck. Don't lie about it, because the person you've just dumped has no good indicators for how to change their behavior. If someone is an undateable schlub, telling them that it's not THEM it's YOU reinforces the delusion that we're just fine the way we are. We are not. Not that person and certainly not you. You certainly can't act under false pretenses, either. If you're not being honest with someone because you're afraid it will terminate the relationship, then YOU are the scumbag for practicing deception in order to keep getting laid.

We all have a problem hooking up, some of us moreso than others. But the youth of affluent societies, where we can afford to live within a liberal framework, have a particular problem just being with people for lengthy periods of time. We're getting bored with each other, and I don't see how this is acceptable.

None of this is to say that we should return to some reactionary moral paradigm. Yet we have to be honest about what's going wrong with our lives and "loved" ones. We have to be open and honest in our interactions with others, and for hormonally charged youth it basically means that polyamory is the future. Why pretend that we really care about being monogamous? Monogamy should be a standard held only for people that synch perfectly. Giving your life wholly to one individual is the greatest expression of love I can possibly think of.

Monogamy should therefore be the ideal, not the standard. Be for real.

Smells Like French Spirit

Tripoli is now in the hands of the Rebels... not the Rebels we were told about by every major journalistic institution, but the Berbers who organized in the western mountains. Despite this confusing monkey wrench thrown into the media narrative, there's a lot of good feeling regarding the outcome of this military intervention.

The Telegraph has already jumped the gun waaaaay too fast with a headline like "We have proved in Libya that intervention can still work." A bit too soon to claim that, especially since so far, the course of NATO intervention seems to parallel the invasion of Afghanistan:

1. We've sent in special forces so that air support can be called in for...
2. A pre-existing mutli-ethnic rebel force (the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan)...
3. For which we pounded every government asset bigger than a Toyota pickup so they could move in and occupy territory...
4. While the leaders of both armies (Ahmad Shah Massoud & Abdel Fatah Younis), who were potentially unifying forces in the post-war scene, have been mysteriously assassinated.

But there's one more step along the road to "Afghanizing" Libya:

To fill the political void, in December 2001 the United Nations hosted the Bonn Conference in Germany. The meetings of various Afghan leaders here were organized by the United Nations Security Council. The Taliban were not included. Participants included representatives of four Afghan opposition groups. Observers included representatives of neighbouring and other involved major countries, including the United States.

The result was the Bonn Agreement which created the Afghan Interim Authority that would serve as the “repository of Afghan sovereignty” and outlined the so-called Petersberg Process, a political process towards a new constitution and choosing a new Afghan government.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1378 of November 14, 2001, included "Condemning the Taliban for allowing Afghanistan to be used as a base for the export of terrorism by the Al-Qaeda network and other terrorist groups and for providing safe haven to Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and others associated with them, and in this context supporting the efforts of the Afghan people to replace the Taliban regime".[131]

To help provide security to support this Afghan Interim Authority, the United Nations authorized an international force—the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)—with a mandate to help the Afghans maintain security in Kabul and surrounding areas.

Before the U.S.-led invasion, there were fears that the invasion and resultant disruption of services would cause widespread starvation and refugees. The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended activities within Afghanistan at the beginning of the bombing attacks but resumed them after the fall of the Taliban.
Wikipedia

Now that it looks like the Libyan state is about to change hands, people are seriously debating whether or not we should put boots on the ground in Libya (this shouldn't even be considered, it's so damn ridiculous). Including the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, a man who should clearly know better. Things aren't shaping up very well so far, if one wanted to avoid comparisons with Afghanistan.

Requesting support from NATO was unavoidable for the Rebels. This is not a critique of their struggle, but a critique of our involvement in it. Because the image it presents will have a much wider impact in the Arab world.

Contrary to what the State Department says in their press releases, the Arab Spring is a major headache for the United States. We've spent the last ten years supporting autocrats and despots like Gaddafi, in order to make them allies in our "War on Terror." Which is primarily targeted against al-Qaeda. Yet now we're supporting al-Qaeda-in-Libya, as part of an effort to take down said ally in the War on Terror.

So why Gaddafi and not the others? Well we've had a long history of propagandizing against Gaddafi as a Mad Dog, beyond reason or engagement (even though we engaged with him for a decade). So of course this angle would be played up once his soldiers were making their way towards Benghazi. Gaddafi was a leader whose military primarily functioned as a police force, with no significant air defense. This makes an aerial campaign much more effective in Libya than stronger security states like Syria.

So what does this have to do with the Arab Spring?

Now, every autocrat and "ally" can point to the Libyan rebellion and say, "Look! Do you see!? The Western imperialists are behind this wave of 'democracy,' don't be fooled!" It's an effective propaganda tool, and not one that will be thought of critically with state media dominance (something that's not so absolute with al-Jazeera on the scene). Whether it works or not doesn't really matter, since we're not interested in deposing any more dictators, or seeing any more Arab revolts succeed. Even in the case of Iran, it's better strategically for them to nip the protests in the bud and remain antagonistic towards the West. Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs make easy foils when talking about the Middle East, and an Iran as an existential threat perpetually justifies US presence in the region.


None of this is to say that Libya will definitely turn out like Iraq or Afghanistan, just that it looks really really bad. Especially since we're presumably doing this intervention to keep Gaddafi from doing to his own people what we routinely do to others in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. France's involvement really stinks, too, since they haven't been shy about neocolonialism in their own African back yard. Or have we all forgotten how they just backed a strong man in the Ivory Coast who was ok with Christian machete massacres?

But enough of the poo poohing and doubt, it's time for some feelgood.

We Must Dissent

I could never deal with bullies.  I was always powerless while hidden away from the watchful eyes of adults, where the strong prey on the weak and avoid justice through plausible deniability.  So I withdrew from children and lived in a world of my own.  Being socially stunted, I was diagnosed with asperger's syndrome in high school.  I was medicated, but it never seemed right.  I couldn't keep up with the pills, and so I remain the same.

I wanted validation.  I wanted acceptance.  I wanted others to see me as I saw them, to love me as I loved from afar.  I wanted to be normal.

But now I am 26 years old, and I see that the world of adults is also run by bullies.  They set the laws, they deny responsibility, and the rest of us have no recourse to correct these injustices.

Who wants to be normal?  Normal people rape.  Normal people kill.  Normal people steal from those who need, while using their ill-gotten fortunes to ensure that only those who steal to survive are punished.  Why in God's name would I ever want to be Normal?

A lot of people have feared that I lost touch with society, but the truth is that I've never been more in touch with it.  Never understood it as I do now.  I find it abhorrent.  Its traditions disgust me.  So I reject its norms!  I reject its laws!  I reject the traditions which deny our dignity and our commonality for the sake of an eternal order which will inevitably fall! Because if it does not; if it can not; then truly we are in Hell.

WE MUST DISSENT

 

The Iron Sheep

A flock of sheep were trapped in a ravine by the wolf pack.  Greedily they devoured an unfortunate ewe, while the rest of the flock looked on.  Frozen in terror.

Suddenly one of the rams stood up, moving to the front and facing the wolves.  A perturbed sheep bleeted at him, "How dare you stand on two legs?  Who are you to defy God's design!?"

The Iron Sheep said back, "No God designed me to be prey."

No one else in the flock stood up, and The Iron Sheep was eaten.  So one by one, the flock was devoured.