Month: January 2010

They’re old men now, but some of the songs that helped make the rock band, Pink Floyd, famous were all about the Establishment Machine that churns out human beings like clones to do its bidding, whether slaving in its factories or dying in its wars.

Today, thirty years on from Pink Floyd’s heyday, the Establishment Machine continues to flourish, churning out half-educated, unskilled, fodder to shape into its soldiers and workers. Just occasionally, one manages to wriggle out the Machine by using his brain and rejecting the doctrines forced upon him.

It’s likely not to make a splash on the NBC or ABC News in America; after all, Guantanamo Bay Detention Center was lauded during the Bush era as some sort of ‘holiday camp’ for America’s infamous ‘enemy combatants’.

Over the years, some of the torture and brutality imposed on Guantanamo inmates has come to light. The glorious, freedom/democracy-spreading, United States of America has been revealed as the cold-blooded, uncaring, thug of a nation it truly is.

As is so often the case, when those in authority fail in their duties and obligations, it falls to the ordinary folk of this world to make amends, where possible, whether by publicizing wrongs done, assisting to put matters right, or, like Brandon Neely – ex US military, and once a guard at Guantanamo Bay – seeking out those he wronged and offering a heartfelt apology.

Neely’s story, and those of Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, who were picked up by the US military in Afghanistan and taken to Guantanamo, is told adequately by the BBC and can be found at the link near the bottom of the page. There is little point repeating it here, but in America it only takes one man doing the right thing to bring the assholes out the closet in their droves, screaming ‘coward’, ‘moron’, and other epithets denouncing those who bother to think for themselves, and supporting the brainwashed lackeys of an Establishment happy to utilize them as cannon fodder.

Well done, Brandon Neely – one of few who manage to escape from the Machine.^[1]

^{[1] “Guantanamo guard reunited with ex-inmates” BBC January 12th 2010}

Filed under: Reconciliation

“Baby, it’s cold outside,” crooned Dean Martin, in a desperate attempt to persuade his girlfriend to stay the night. Whether he succeeded is hardly clear from the song (though, it’s certainly implied).

It’s incredibly cold in Illinois right now. Temperatures have plummeted to below zero degrees Fahrenheit and snow is moving relentlessly in this direction.

Europe is faring as badly. The UK has had over twelve inches of snow, and disruption reigns throughout the continent. China and Japan are suffering the worst snowfalls in living memory.

All of which is a real joy to many people. Not because they have fun sledding, or building snowmen, or even indulging in the occasional snowball fight. Read the comments of newspapers, headlining the appalling weather, and the reason becomes clear.

They’re full of such sage remarks as: “What about global warming, then?” and, “Ho, ho, ho, so much for the climate change scientists and their crazy ideas.”

Judging from these missives, half the world’s population is content to accept a bit of cold weather as meaning the most knowledgeable and experienced of climate scientists have been talking through their titfers for the last twenty years. The blinkered stupidity displayed by so many of the human race never fails to amaze me. When they prefer something didn’t happen, they’ll seize on any bit of worthless information to prove it isn’t going to.

The initially imperceptible warming of the atmosphere, due to pollutants like carbon dioxide, does not mean we should all be basking under summer sunshine in the middle of winter. After all, a rise of six degrees in the temperature of the planet would almost certainly destroy most of life on Earth, but a local rise of six degrees on a hot summer’s day only means spending a little more time at the beach, for most vacationers at their favorite resort.

‘Global warming’ is an unfortunate phrase, leapt on by the great unwashed and ignorant as a convenient yardstick with which to batter climate change science into the ground. If it’s cold outside, how can there be global warming? If it’s hot out there, it’s just a summer’s day.

Climate change means exactly that: a slow and gradual change in the patterns of weather, to more violent and apparently freakish occurrences.

And, Baby, isn’t that exactly what’s happening across the Northern hemisphere right now?

Filed under: Not suffering fools gladly

Right wing radio broadcaster, Rush Limbaugh, was recently rushed to hospital in Hawaii with severe chest pains. The blogosphere was rife with comment and speculation. One female commentator caught my attention. She wrote that, while she disagreed vehemently with his views, she still hoped he’d make a full recovery from the affliction that ailed him.

I fail to comprehend the thinking behind such a statement.

Perhaps she might have hoped the bullet that finally laid out Adolf Hitler would not have proved fatal? Or that the rope from which Mussolini was hanged parted before his neck did?

Evil dies with those who perpetrate it. Rush Limbaugh preaches evil, just as surely as Hitler or Mussolini. He has no interest in the ordinary American. His only concern is fostering the system that made him a multi-millionaire, at the expense of others left in the gutters of Chicago, and San Francisco, and New York.

Rush Limbaugh said of his medical care today:

“Based on what happened to me here, I don’t think there is one thing wrong with the American healthcare system. It is working just fine.”

Of course, it is – for multi-millionaires like Limbaugh it works a treat.

Frankly, I’ll be glad when he’s dead. Similarly, I’m sincerely relieved that Hitler and Mussolini are no longer a threat to the people of this planet. We have enough problems to cope with right now, without the likes of such evil bastards as Hitler, Mussolini, or Limbaugh.

There’s only one way Rush Limbaugh will make me happy – by providing me with the opportunity to dance on his grave.

And the sooner, the better.

Filed under: Stuff the niceties