Friday, September 22, 2017

Everybody Is Equal And Whites Are Supreme Philosophy May Have Originated In #Nambia

Extreme weather, extreme suffering and extreme ignorance are the order of the day. Two deadly hurricanes in a row have Puerto Rico waist deep in water and without power (electrical or economic). Two big earthquakes in a row have Mexicans digging schoolkids out of rubble with bucket brigades. 

But, hey, the mythical country of Zambia is doing great according to the demagogue with bad hair.



It can be hard to write satire when the Commander in Chief of the world's imperial armies makes up country names. Not in drunken tweets. At the United fucking Nations.

It was with these thoughts on my brain that I encountered debate over an upcoming alleged "Rally to Denounce Political Violence" being organized by white supremacist types in Maine's capitol city on September 30. The facebook event page speaker list includes John Rasmussen - Selectman, Organizer of The 1st Boston Free Speech Rally.

One of the comments on the event page (possibly since removed):  "I don't agree with white supremacy but everybody is equal and hopefully they can show that not all white supremacist groups are violent."

A creepy "manarchist" type I know from the Occupy Augusta days created the event -- which will likely draw a large counterprotest. Anti-racist organizers had already been calling on people to go door to door on October 9 to discuss KKK recruitment flyers distributed to homes in Augusta earlier this year.
Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Meanwhile, militarized police are beating the protesters in St. Louis in the streets over yet another acquittal of a white police officer paid by the public to serve and protect while killing black men, women and children with impunity. Oh yeah, while chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!" That is the police chanting, not the protesters.

According to Jamiles Larty's report in The Guardian: "Mike Faulk, a reporter for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, told colleagues he was 'pepper-sprayed in the face while an officer’s foot held my head to ground.'"

The false narrative of "two sides to everything" is playing out in the corporate press coverage of white supremacist rallies all over the nation. The false narrative of the (white supremacist) Vietnam War is playing out on corporate PBS and being discussed all over the nation. It drew this response from Veterans for Peace co-founder and poet Doug Rawlings:

So what did I expect anyways from an exercise in documentation that calls itself “a story”? A series of stories, actually, that loop back on to themselves, making the viewer question which one is true and which one isn’t. Or are they both true at the same time? This kind of a narrative is a slippery slope that is greased by moral ambiguity, leaving the audience crumpled down at the bottom of the hill in a bit of a daze. Maybe that’s it. Maybe we should just give up and accept the filmmakers’ imagistic metaphor of a red plague creeping down Indochina that we brave band of lads were sent to dam up. But I can’t. And I won’t.

The false narrative of  "hey, it's just a job" on building weapons of mass destruction at General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works shipyard has been playing out in my inbox as I exchange views with a documentary photographer in the area. During our debate the Senate passed the largest Pentagon budget ever, a whopping $700 billion. And upheld the now 16 year old blank check for war, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Because both of the corporate parties love to see their "defense" contractor campaign contributors raking in the cash.

Weep for us; we will all be under water soon at the rate we are going.

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