Author: R J Adams

This one-time satirical comedian, always happy to have a go at the US Establishment, prepared to stand up and fight for the ordinary Joe, appears to be slowly moving into the very circles he once lambasted.

Of course, despite his irreligious protestations, we all know he’s Jewish. Consequently, criticism of Israel is verboten in his company, and he’ll find any excuse to rail against the Palestinian cause. Despite this obvious character defect, in the past I’ve always been prepared to forgive his occasional rants on the subject, as on other matters we’re in agreement ninety percent of the time.

However, his last show (Friday, March 21st) left me scratching my head in sheer disbelief. His first guest was the documentary film-maker Errol Morris. Morris has recently completed, “The Unknown Known”, a documentary on George W Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

It’s hard to imagine that Maher would show anything other than utter contempt towards a man responsible for the deaths of four thousand US military personnel and an uncountable number of Iraqi civilians, in what must surely rank as the greatest US blunder in its history (though Vietnam came close!) – at least, up until the time of writing.

Contrary to my expectations, Maher positively leapt to Rumsfeld’s defense, leaving Errol Morris feeling decidedly uncomfortable. (Transcript below):

Maher: You know, I’ve got to say — I think, you know, if we’re ever going to get anything done in this country, we have to not hate everybody who doesn’t agree with us all the time. This is guy who to me is like the anti-Bush. Bush was the guy who said, ‘I don’t do nuance,’ remember? This guy does nuance on everything. I mean, the title of the movie, “The Known Unknown.” What is his quote there that you took and made a whole movie about? ‘There are things we know that we don’t know, things we don’t know that we’ — I couldn’t even fucking follow it. But Donald Rumsfeld is a guy who thinks about things.
Morris: I wouldn’t go that far.
Maher: Really?
Morris: Really.
Maher: He doesn’t think about things? He put out 20,000 memos in his time.
Morris: There is thinking about things and then there’s obfuscating and evading things.
Maher: Yeah, there’s some of that, but…
Morris: Some of that? What are you talking about? That’s all that there is. There is nothing more.
Maher: I disagree. I don’t see him as the worst. First of all, I don’t see him as a giant egomaniac. You asked him [about] the Iraq War. Would it have been better if we never went at all? He said, ‘time would tell.’ Most other people in the Republican Party say, ‘absolutely, no doubt. It was the greatest thing we’ve ever did.’ ‘I don’t know. We’ll see.’ That’s his view of a lot of things.
Morris: ‘Time will tell,’ what kind of an answer is that really?
Maher: That’s a real answer.
Morris: No, it isn’t. I’m very, very sorry.
Maher: Really, you mean history has never judged anything over more than 10 years?
Morris: Look, someone suggests that they may not like your policies, may not like the war. What do you say? You say, ‘well, let’s wait a while, say 100 trillion years and then maybe we’ll find an adequate justification for what we’ve done.’ Maybe it will all turn out. Maybe we won’t be here anymore.’
Maher: So there’s nothing in between 10 years and 100 billion years, you see?
Morris: A small amount.
Maher: Well, I mean, ok, I will not concede that point. But we can agree to disagree.

There was more, but you get the gist…

Nothing fades more rapidly in the public consciousness than recent history, and it seemed Maher had totally forgotten that Rumsfeld, his deputy, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and a number of others who found cosy employment within the administration of George W Bush, were all supporters of William Kristol’s….

…and Robert Kagan’s…

…”Project for the New American Century”.

Wikipedia lists eighteen PNAC ‘members’ who served in GW Bush’s administration.^[1]

Only a few weeks ago, Maher had Kristol as one of his guests. The PNAC was never mentioned. When Maher railed generally about the cost of all the recent military interventions and wars, Kristol returned:

It’s the price we have to pay for being the world’s policeman.”

Since when has America been the ‘official’ world’s policeman? It’s not. Remember INTERPOL? No, not the band! The International Criminal Police Organization, into whose hands the tracking down and arresting of those behind the 9/11 attacks should have been squarely placed. They ARE the world’s policemen.^[2]

Maher totally ignored Kristol’s comment, never questioned it, and changed the subject.

Among other nasty things, the PNAC supported US world domination by dramatically increasing military spending ($15 – $20 billion increase annually) in order to:

ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for the U.S. military:

Defend the American homeland;
Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
Perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
Transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”.

Far from treating the 9/11 attacks as a horrible event deserving swift intervention by the FBI and other international police forces, the PNAC saw it as a great opportunity, almost God-given considering their written statement only twelve months previous, that their aims would be difficult to achieve “…absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor”.

I would not venture to suggest there was any collusion by the PNAC in the actual events of 9/11. Evidence for such, if there is any, is yet to be discovered, and the true facts of the attacks may well not be uncovered for decades, if at all. Indeed, it may well be the truth is already public knowledge.

However, there can be no doubt that Rumsfeld and associates cold-bloodedly used that horrific day to their own ends – resulting in the invasion of Iraq and the lasting devastation of that nation.

Not only was Rumsfeld complicit, he masterminded the whole show from his position as Secretary of Defense.

To this day he shows no remorse. Errol Morris indicated his view of Rumsfeld was that of an evil man: cold, deliberating, unfeeling and uncaring.

Maher describes him as “…a man who thinks about things.”

What Maher, perhaps, fails to recognize is that many of history’s most evil men were individuals who “thought about things.”

Despite my ongoing criticisms of Bill Maher I’ve not yet given up on him. His production company, “Bill Maher Productions,” has recently launched a new series on HBO, “VICE”. The first program laid bare the facts of Greenland’s ice-melt, and exposed the ‘bond’ system in Pakistan that keeps whole families in slavery.

There can be no doubt that Maher earns his money – $23million at the last count. Unfortunately, with money comes power, and a gradual consorting with others of similar fortune. This inevitably leads to a process of acceptance blinding to the shortcomings of those with equal, or even more, wealth and power.

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” was a quote of the 1st Baron Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, in April 1887. We all know it.

Less well known is another of the baron’s quotations:

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.”

Donald Rumsfeld undoubtedly committed the most monstrous of errors. Is Bill Maher, perhaps, one of those ‘ablest men’ of whom the good Baron Acton was referring?

^{[1] “PNAC Associations with Bush Administration Wikipedia.}

^{[2] “INTERPOL Wikipedia.}

[cvg-video videoId=’4′ width=’400′ height=’300′ mode=’playlist’ /]

…to be born a European!

I’ve met many Americans since I came over here eleven years ago. Not one of them bears the slightest character resemblance to the arrogant, smug, prat featured in the above commercial.

I’m sure there’s many like him, who revel in this sort of overbearing behavior. We see them every day on our TV screens: news anchors, politicians, even some comedic chat show hosts (you’ll note I’m not singling out Bill Maher!)

The true Joe American is nothing like that. It’s time the media realized it. All it does is give America a bad name – as a nation of arrogant bastards.

Oh, and incidentally, the first electric vehicle was built by a European, a Scot named Robert Davidson from Aberdeen, in 1837, and it was a French physicist, Gaston Planté, who invented the lead-acid battery in 1865, which was vastly improved in 1881 by another French scientist, Camille Alphonse Faure.

An Englishman, Thomas Parker, designed and built the first truly practical electric car in 1884 using his own design of rechargeable batteries. The Germans were building electric cars by 1888.

It wasn’t until fifteen years later the first electric vehicle – a tricycle(!) – appeared in the US.

Oh, and in case you weren’t aware -the 2014 Cadillac ELR has a 1.4 liter petrol engine under the bonnet – sorry, I meant, “hood”. It’s electric range is a paltry 35 miles.

Which makes it something of a fraud – n’est pas?

^{[1] “It’s all in Wikipedia” N’est pas?}

RSS feeds are a wonderful invention of the computer age. They let us know when our favorite blogs have a new post available, saving the drudgery of constantly harking back, only to find the same old drivel from six months ago that we’ve already read half a dozen times before.

I do hope regular readers of Sparrow Chat have such notifications available to them. For those who don’t, I must profusely apologize on behalf of the scumbags who managed to put the website out of action again for over a week, subjecting anyone attempting to access it to advertisements of a decidedly shady nature.

I’ve written of these sad, anti-social, creatures before so will waste little further space or effort on them. Every society has its outcasts, roaming the dark areas at the edge of civilization. The modern day internet hacker is no more than the 21st century equivalent of the 17th century founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, who ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor’s printing presses in 1844. The Expositor was an Illinois town newspaper that took exception to some of Smith’s preachings.

Smith, who was Mayor of Nauvoo at the time, had the paper terminated and the presses destroyed. He was later charged with riot, then ‘treason against Illinois’, and shot dead by a mob while awaiting trial.^[1]

It’s unlikely the modern day hacker would suffer a similar fate to that of Joseph Smith, but internet attacks on Sparrow Chat have now become so frequent they’re unlikely to be random SQL injections or botnets. Other websites, on the same host, are never affected.

I’m now convinced they’re in response to ‘anti-gun’ posts, or what are seen as ‘anti-American’ essays, that appear on Sparrow Chat from time to time. No doubt there are those, like Joseph Smith, who would wish to prevent such writings from publication, and turn to a ‘brute force attack’^[2] in retaliation.

The criminal hacker would seek to wrest temporary control of our computers from us. Perhaps of more concern are the corporate entities striving to take permanent control of them. How many of us have found ourselves members of “Google+”, without knowing how it came about? “Google+” is all about invading privacy – clawing information about us from watching our every computer move. How long will it be before Google can determine when we’re at work, robbing a bank, making love…

…or even using the toilet?

It’s so easy to become a member of Google+, but have you ever tried to escape from it? It is possible to do so, but it took me twenty minutes and an internet search, because Google doesn’t make it simple. And, if I click on the wrong link one day…

…I’ll be back inside again before I know it.

We’re all indoctrinated to be unconcerned by those mysterious downloads that regularly arrive from Microsoft, or Android (Google, again!), ostensibly to keep our computers secure, but we have no idea what they really do, or what they contain.

I run Windows XP on three computers, and Linux on two others. My XP machines are set to receive downloads from Microsoft, but not install them automatically. I like to see what they’re purporting to place on my hard drives. Consequently, I was somewhat surprised to see each of my three machines shut down and re-boot over the space of twenty-four hours, and to be informed via a pop-up message that Microsoft had installed updates that required an immediate re-boot of all three. There was no information on why, or what the download contained.

On checking “Control Panel’, I found all three machines had been hacked by Microsoft, and the download panel set to automatic install. Presumably, this was done to allow the installation of the previously mentioned download. While it may have had an entirely benign purpose, we’re supposed to trust these corporations in a rather, “father knows best”, sort of way. Which is fine when Big Daddy only has our interests at heart. Personally, where Microsoft and Google are concerned, I have my doubts.

It’s only recently Google removed its Gmail Notifier from circulation. The excuse: it was no longer needed as these days everyone checked their emails on their ‘smart’ phones. That’s a downright lie. I don’t. I relied on the Notifier and spent wasted time attempting to ascertain why it suddenly stopped working and permanently displayed an annoying exclamation mark, with the pop-up message: “Cannot connect to your mailbox. HTTP error 404”.

Was it costing Google anything to leave it alone? Probably not. It’s just another tiny example of how the dictatorial control of corporate business is steadily hacking away at our daily lives.

I began by discussing internet hacking, but that’s not the only form of hacking taking place in our societies today. There’s a more serious one – and I’m not talking Edward Snowden. He deserves a darned sight more support – not just from the American people, but from the population of the world at large. It’s not just the US government that has hidden secrets its people have a right to know about.

My own country, Britain, is gradually being taken over by what were once US companies, but are now called, “Multinationals”. The British government, probably via corrupt, ‘back-door’, payments to its members from corporate bosses, has sold out the nation to these corporations.

We must all be aware by now of the cosy relationship, recently thrust into the limelight via the News of the World scandal, between British politicians and the Murdoch corporations. Another prime example is the UK National Health Service, in process of being dismantled, brick by brick, and sold off for pennies on the dollar to private US health companies. Much of the UK manufacturing base has gone to US companies: famous names like Cadbury – taken over by Kraft Foods and factories closed; Debenhams – stripped of its assets by two US private equity firms; Asda, now part of the Walmart conglomerate.

Even as the News of the World was hacking royalty and a murdered teenager (among others), the British economy was being hacked apart, its politicians happy to let it happen because their hands are deep into US corporate wallets. Meanwhile, two and half million Britons are unable to find work, and the government labels them, “Scroungers”.

International hacking isn’t just a new internet problem. It could be defined as the standard practice of a dominate superpower. One dictionary definition:

…to damage or injure by crude, harsh, or insensitive treatment; mutilate; mangle”

The Romans were past masters of the art; the British became equally adept. The United States is now in the prime of its hacking days. Militarily, economically, even religiously, the US steadily encroaches on the weaker nations of the planet, destroying economies and cultures in pursuit of corporate gain. How many Americans have conveniently forgotten…

…this image, well publicized during the Iraq war, as US armor hacked that nation to bits before leaving its remains to be devoured by fanatical religious vultures?

They’ve even found a new word for it: globalization.

I doubt my rants on Sparrow Chat will make one iota of difference in the end. But if we all sit back and say nothing then we may as well hand our lives and our freedoms over to the Walton family, or Ronald McDonald, today.

Those who try to silence Sparrow Chat are misguided. Corporate bosses couldn’t give a monkey’s toss what I say or write, even if they were aware of it. It’s the work of manic gun-lovers and ill-informed ‘freedom freaks’ who think they’re defending some long held tradition of Americanism, unaware that it never truly existed, and never will.

They don’t need a gun to be free. They only need one to kill. If they think they’re defending the American way of life, then they’ve never really studied the American way of life. It neither bears, nor has it ever borne, any relation to the ideals they try to uphold, yet cannot even find the words to define.

They may think it’s good to hack into websites that espouse a different doctrine from theirs, but their myopia blinds them to the reality that it is they whose freedoms are being hacked, even as they strive in their own inept way to defend the perpetrators.

^{[1] “Death of Joseph Smith” Wikipedia.}

^{[2] “Brute Force Attack” Wikipedia.}