Since leaving America August 2006, I have traveled to sixteen countries. A great deal has happened. This site is to share my thoughts, photos, music, writings, travel experiences, and developing political/social commentary with you. I hope you find it interesting and informative.
My latest book is a powerful and empowering collection of commentaries and insights by some of today’s most respected political thinkers. The world is a mess and America is in big trouble. Despite the finger-pointing, it is the U.S. itself which is causing its own problems. Perpetual war is destroying our nation. To stop the unfolding disaster, we must honestly look at how our own leadership and policies have led the country astray. This book is the perfect place to start.
Featuring interviews of Noam Chomsky, Larry Wilkerson, Paul Craig Roberts, Mark Skidmore, Coleen Rowley, William J. Astore, Abby Martin, Dan Kovalik, Lee Camp, Finian Cunningham, Michael T. Klare, Cynthia McKinney, Scott Ritter, Joe Lombardo, Bruce Gagnon, Norman Solomon, Peter Kuznick, Ajamu Baraka, Margaret Kimberley, Matthew Hoh, Garland Nixon, and Dennis Kucinich.
As an eBook (75% off … $1.99 USD, May 22nd – 29th) . . .
I’m still trying to reconcile this and a second report to come up with a meaningful, hopeful picture for the future of our country. One that’s not built around bullets, bombs, stealth fighters, attack drones, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, killer satellites, and the possible shrouding of the planet in a cloud of life-ending radioactive dust.
The problem is me, of course. It seems I’m allergic to chaos, destruction, death, maiming, carnage, genocide, ecocide, macho posturing, chest-beating. I don’t find war drums at all appealing, or even danceable.
Others — according to the report, it comes in at 62% of our fine citizens — find reason to implicitly celebrate all of the above, judging that the $715 billion official 2022 defense budget, proposed by President Biden, is right on the money, so to speak. In fact, 17% of those polled think we need to spend more.
By the way, I specifically chose ‘official defense budget’ because that has never really been the whole story. The second report was done in 2019. It’s by the Congressional Research Service and is titled Overseas Contingency Operations Funding: Background and Status. You can view it here.
“The Congressional Research Service has estimated that such supplemental spending from September 11, 2001, to fiscal year 2019 totaled an astonishing $2 trillion above and beyond the congressionally agreed upon Pentagon budget.”
Even this is not the entire picture. Because buried in the budgets of the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, secretive funding of the CIA, the 17 major agencies of the intelligence community, and other national security related organizations, is unreported black budgeting. We can only offer educated guesses on the sums allocated to these agencies. We do know they run in the tens of billions of dollars.
So as we’re struggling to find the money — we all know it’s there but the fiscal conservatives require us to put on a show of penurious virtue signaling to slap down the MMT folks — to repair our infrastructure, address climate change, convert the U.S. economy into the right stuff for the 21st Century challenges of stability and sustainability, scramble to either put together a viable health care system or find a place to bury the bodies, address massive unemployment and underemployment, achieve solvency for Social Security and other unfunded liabilities, yes, as we scour every square inch of our great country sea-to-shining-sea with metal detectors, looking for every buried nickel and dime for all of these noble and necessary endeavors, the vast majority of citizens have decided the $1+ trillion we spend ANNUALLY to police Planet Earth, spy on our own citizens, put bases and weaponry in any country that will have us, expand NATO and increase the probability of a major war, build “more usable” nuclear weapons, deploy our fighting machinery in outer space, intimidate Russia and China, and create hostility and enemies across the globe, is money well spent.
I will credit the Deep State and MIC with a true victory here. While “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known” (George W. Bush), “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known” (Barack Obama), has been humiliated and/or defeated in every military conflict since World War II, the massive psyops brainwashing of the American public has been a resounding success!
Muhammad
Ali hardly spoke publicly during the last decade of his life because of
his Parkinson's Disease. What a tragic loss for the world. Ali was
funny, insightful, inspiring, brilliant!
There is much talk that Hillary Clinton's aberrant behavior -- bouts of coughing, physical weakness, public freezes,
and the constant attendance by a mysterious "doctor" at all media
events -- signals that she too is suffering from this incapacitating
affliction.
If
Hillary Clinton is elected and does indeed have Parkinson's Disease, we
can only hope that this horrible, debilitating disease quickly
progresses, ravages her nervous system, that she is immobilized and
silenced by it, rendered completely mute. Because too often what comes
out of her mouth consists of self-serving lies, treacherous distortions
and fabricated narratives, threats to other world leaders and nations, destructive fantasies unhinged from any moral anchor or basic decency, these being so extreme and strident they've become an existential threat to the human race and evidence she is totally detached from reality itself.
On the other hand, this Parkinson's business -- although very convincing evidence and analysis
has come to light -- at this point is all speculation. I'm not a
doctor and I have no way of knowing the state of her physical health.
She's certainly not telling.
What is not a matter of speculation is the state of her mental health.
Much has been made of the video of her laughing about Gaddafi's anal rape with a knife, mutilation, and death at the hands of monstrous terrorists. "Oh look, how jaded she is, how she celebrates such brutality."
Indeed, even the most tactless diplomats in the past would have
sugar-coated this barbaric incident with some well-crafted language:
"It
is, of course, unfortunate when any national leader's life is ended
this way. Mr. Gaddafi may in our view have been less than acceptable
but he worked hard for the people of Libya. Such savagery cannot be
condoned under any circumstances."
Ms.
Clinton apparently sees no need to embrace such standards. Then again,
neither do other hardened criminals and psychopaths who, unburdened by
considerations of shared humanity or unaware even of the "optics" of
such insensitivity, take joy in the suffering of perceived enemies, thus
view the taking of human life as a sport, or an occasion for a joke.
Hillary Clinton is the textbook definition of a sociopath.
Manipulative and Conning They
never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving
behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly
hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to
be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
Grandiose Sense of Self Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."
Pathological Lying Has
no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them
to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in,
a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely
convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt A
deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core.
Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and
opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who
end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let
nothing stand in their way.
Shallow Emotions When
they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more
feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by
insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would
upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their
promises.
Incapacity for Love
Callousness/Lack of Empathy Unable
to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for
others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature Rage
and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval
produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating
hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing,
entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for
their impact on others.
Irresponsibility/Unreliability Not
concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or
indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame
themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
Hillary Clinton sees herself as some grand chess master, shaping the world -- in particular theMiddle East -- to
her liking and that of Israel. Her muscular world view and truculent
foreign policies are parallel to and probably inspired by the
geopolitical ramblings -- by the way, since recanted -- of Zbigniew
Brzezinski, author of the seminal neocon manual for world conquest and
global empire, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
Hillary Clinton's evident ambition is to sit in the history books next
to Margaret Thatcher, Disraeli, Alexander the Great . . . perhaps even
more fittingly, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.
This
selfish woman will do anything and everything to promote and deify
herself. No cost is too great, no amount of human suffering will be
spared, everyone in her path will either genuflect or be destroyed. She
will do whatever it takes -- even if it requires nuclear war
-- to achieve the ascendant place in the history books she believes she
deserves. A warped sense of destiny fueled by narcissism and lust for
power demands it.
This
is the real sickness of Hillary Clinton. Two aspirins and a glass of
orange juice won't help what ails this demented creature of pomp and
entitlement. Nor will pumping her full of Levodopa. It's temporary and cosmetic. Hillary's pathology is enduring and systemic.
Electing
this monster -- as opposed to the monster served up by the Republican
Party -- to the presidency would be like injecting leukemia cells into
the body politic of America. The country is already being hollowed out
from the inside by the greed of those she identifies and associates herself with.
It's both appalling and frightening to see the MSM regularly cast this
ruthless, self-serving, social climbing lapdog of the .01% as a
"progressive" and the candidate of the common people. Are we really
that stupid? That gullible?
This election is sure one for the books.
It's as if America keeps searching for that one final nail for the coffin of its misguided and increasingly floundering empire.
Hillary Clinton might just be that nail.
[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
There's great danger in such loose play with inspiring and provocative language. Not
the danger that citizens might rise up and actually incite a radical
and much-needed transformation. But the danger that the idea of such a
transformation will be trivialized and gutted of any substance by empty
campaign rhetoric and fatuous sloganeering.
What
is he really saying? Will he stop the drone attacks? Will he cut the
military budget by 40%? Will he close 500 bases and bring the troops
home? Will he end the special ops missions which have occurred in at least 135 countries
so far this year? Will he put a halt to our self-sabotaging
aggressiveness in the world, driven by the greed of DOD contractors and
stoked by the neocon delusions of world empire? Will he open a
constructive dialogue with Russia and China to promote peace and
multi-polar power-sharing? Will he end the contentious, chest-beating
encirclement of China -- the silly sophomoric "pivot to Asia"? Will he condemn the apartheid and aggression by Israel against the Palestinians?
I'm all for revolution. But I'm for REAL REVOLUTION.
If
Mr. Sanders wants to talk about revolution and stake out the higher
moral ground, there is certainly a way to do it. Refer to the above
questions.
Understand there is more at stake here than the cosmetics
of a campaign strategy. Applying just a little common sense and a
pocket calculator, one can only conclude that there is gross
inconsistency and guaranteed failure in promoting an agenda of
far-reaching domestic reform without conjoining it with a repudiation of
America's out-of-control militarism and imperial visions of grandeur.
Mr.
Sanders' critics from the right claim his socialist ideas will bankrupt
the country. And there is a lot of merit in this. The simple, obvious
truth is there will be no money at all for his wonderful ideas under
the current budgetary regime, UNLESS we as a nation are cured of our
addiction to war. THAT
is the revolutionary message. War is bankrupting us and destroying any
prospect of a good life for everyday Americans and a hopeful future for
our children. THAT
is the sobering message we don't hear from any of the candidates.
Sure, Jill Stein has consistently been saying it. But the sad fact is
that Green Party continues to conduct a stealth campaign which is all
but invisible to the public. Her ideas are never heard.
Most Americans are sick of war.
No voice is being given to the anger and frustration of the American
public in this regard. Even the constant demonizing by politicos and
the media of Vladimir Putin and chicken-little fear-mongering about
Russia is losing its punch.
Putting
aside the current risks of moral bankruptcy, nuclear war, and economic
collapse, it would be a shrewd and welcome move for Mr. Sanders to
rethink his militarism, allegiance to the military-industrial complex,
and tacit embrace of empire-building, and give voice to the truly revolutionary idea
of America as a nation which promotes peace and harmony, democracy and
freedom, cooperation and constructive engagement across the globe.
What a slick and audacious campaign strategy, eh? Telling the truth to the American voter about how war is becoming a fast track to economic collapse and social disintegration.
This
next chart shows that indeed America is "exceptional". It is, as it
likes to remind the rest of the world and its narcoleptic citizens,
truly #1! Right there at the top of the list for wealth inequality among the major economies of the world. Gosh, it makes a guy proud!
Why is this suicidal?
Without
getting into the economics -- which falls in the category of killing
the organism which hosts the parasite -- the psychology is
straightforward.
Giving
credit where it is due, America will achieve its arc of failure and
self-annihilation -- its swan dive into the abyss -- with the
self-assured grace and style which is the mark of a great empire.
The
only thing that might attenuate its balletic descent into the dustbin
of history would be a major war -- almost certainly nuclear -- which
would incinerate the bird mid-flight.
Symptoms of decadence and decay in a dying empire are not hard to identify these days.
I've assembled a montage of photos from the recent Wasteland Weekend
in California City, California. Read into them whatever you wish. In
view of the ongoing carnage we endure on a daily basis, America's
infatuation -- or is it obsession? -- with violence, and the unraveling
of anything resembling civility or sanity in our politics, I predictably
have to wonder . . .
Are we peering into the future?
By
the way, since my own fashion sense is a flawed mechanism, I make no
negative judgment here. In fact, I find what follows, if not pleasing,
certainly spectacular and thought-provoking.
Thus, my insatiable curiosity prompts me to ask: If indeed clothes make the man (and woman), then what version of homo sapiens exactly do we see being constructed here?
Without further ado, I present you the post-feminist ladies of the apocalypse.
Golly, do they have a copy of The Road Warrior at my local video store here in Japan?
I need to brush up on survival tips.
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
