Victory for the Revolution in Egypt

[jts]

Here is a link to an article entitled "Americans Are Being Prepared For Full Spectrum Tyranny". The tyranny to which we are being prepared is being imposed on us by the U.S. government, not by the Muslim Brotherhood.

http://alt-market.co...pectrum-tyranny

Martin

I believe that's true, Americans are being prepared for full tyranny.

The biggest terrorist organization is the government of the USA. They terrorize people in other countries in unprovoked wars. They terrorize the citizens of the USA. They use the phony "war on terrorism" to terrorize. Their goal is world totalitarianism on steroids.

This was inevitable. It had to happen. Freedom leads to prosperity; prosperity leads to tyranny. Everybody who knows anything about free market economics understands the first part, freedom leads to prosperity. The second part, prosperity leads to tyranny, perhaps needs some explanation.

A thousand years ago when countries were extremely dirt poor, one room hut and a dirt floor, government couldn't get much revenue from the people. But in a modern super-affluent country, government can tax people maybe a hundred times as much money per person and still leave them enough to live a good life. Government revenue supports government power. Government power leads to tyranny.

So it looks like this:

freedom --> prosperity --> government revenue --> government power --> tyranny

We are headed for the worst tyranny ever on planet Earth.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So you think that what I posted was "crap"?

Yup.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You are not paying attention, Michael, to what I am saying.

William,

Sure I am.

If someone is over the top and bigoted, but pro-USA, you are all over him. If he is over the top and bigoted and anti-USA, you are very, very tolerant if not apologetic (but not apologetic on this thread, just tolerant).

I think I'm paying very good attention to be able to notice that selective use of criticial thinking in a non-critical fashion.

Michael


EDIT: Here's my opinion based on years of reading the posters concerned.

If Richard (Infidel) were able to bomb a group of Muslim leaders, but take out a couple of schools full of children and schoolteachers, I believe he would go out to a fine restaurant to celebrate and get drunk on champagne in absolute joy.

If Martin were able to bomb a group of USA neocon-like government leaders, but take out a couple of schools full of children and schoolteachers, I believe he would feel bad about the innocent deaths for about 5 minutes, then slam his mind shut to that part and sleep like a baby, knowing he has struck a blow for justice and all things good on earth.

I believe you would suffer greatly thinking about the dead kids and the adults who cared for them in both cases, but during discussions, you give the second a pass because of the five minutes and the anti-USA thing.

That's what I see.

[Martin Radwin]

You are not paying attention, Michael, to what I am saying.

William,

Sure I am.

If someone is over the top and bigoted, but pro-USA, you are all over him. If he is over the top and bigoted and anti-USA, you are very, very tolerant if not apologetic (but not apologetic on this thread, just tolerant).

I think I'm paying very good attention to be able to notice that selective use of criticial thinking in a non-critical fashion.

Michael


EDIT: Here's my opinion based on years of reading the posters concerned.

If Richard (Infidel) were able to bomb a group of Muslim leaders, but take out a couple of schools full of children and schoolteachers, I believe he would go out to a fine restaurant to celebrate and get drunk on champagne in absolute joy.

If Martin were able to bomb a group of USA neocon-like government leaders, but take out a couple of schools full of children and schoolteachers, I believe he would feel bad about the innocent deaths for about 5 minutes, then slam his mind shut to that part and sleep like a baby, knowing he has struck a blow for justice and all things good on earth.

I believe you would suffer greatly thinking about the dead kids and the adults who cared for them in both cases, but during discussions, you give the second a pass because of the five minutes and the anti-USA thing.

That's what I see.

You really love to engage in wild speculations about people you have never met and know next to nothing about. For the record, I have never advocated nor do I in any way support bombing or any other forms of violence against anyone, including government officials. This is nothing but a fantasy of your own imagination, backed up by absolutely nothing. The idea that I would ever advocate the killing of innocent people is absurd, and that you would launch such an accusation against me in a public forum like this based on nothing, without even the slightest hint of any evidence to back up your accusation, is something that makes you look like a fool without even a modicum of respect for the truth.

As a libertarian, I am totally, unalterably opposed to the use of violence except in self-defense against those who initiate violence. The fact that you accuse me of being willing to kill innocent school children as collateral damage is even more ludicrous in view of the fact that many objectivists advocate precisely this belief in the conduct of U.S. government foreign policy, justifying wars conducted by the government which have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people abroad, something which I have always condemned in the strongest possible way.

Regarding your use of the phrases pro-USA and anti-USA, why don't you try defining just what these phrases are supposed to mean before actually using them? The USA is an abstraction referring to a nation with a land area of almost 4 million square miles and a population of over 300 million people. So just what exactly does it mean to be pro or anti a nation of 300 million people? Here's a hint --- the USA is not the same as the U.S. government. Being pro-USA is not the same as being pro U.S. government, and being anti-USA is not the same as being anti U.S. government. Although equating the two is precisely what the U.S. government wishes Americans to believe, for reasons that are too obvious to mention.

Martin

[william.scherk]

You are not paying attention, Michael, to what I am saying.

William,

Sure I am.

If someone is over the top and bigoted, but pro-USA, you are all over him. If he is over the top and bigoted and anti-USA, you are very, very tolerant if not apologetic (but not apologetic on this thread, just tolerant).

I will try to figure out who is this "someone" you may or may not be referring to. Let us call him Walid Shoebat. Is he over-the-top (whatever that means)? Is he over-the-top, but pro-USA? No, he is not what I would call over-the-top (which does not carry any meaning about the truth or untruth of his charges and claims).

Is Shoebat pro-USA? If so, what the hell does that mean? What does "pro-USA" signify?

Here is an example of my confusion, Michael, my remarks on Amal Saad-Ghoyareb.** She is a Lebanese resident, and hardline leftist anti-imperialist. She is not Pro-USA, but Pro-"Resistance." She is an ally or friend of my compatriot Camille Alexandre Otrakji, who tends to think of me as an unblinking USA-first captive of the Neo-cons. Ghorayeb cites Lenin in her outrageous and sloppy article at Lebanon's daily Al-Akhbar English.

She may be described as 'over the top' in her comments, but you will need a sample to experience it for real; here are a couple of quotes from a couple of her articles:

The third-way campaign against Assad only serves the strategy and interests of the US and Israel, who have made no secret of the fact that his fall would help them achieve their wider strategic ambitions of weakening Iran and resistance forces in Lebanon and Palestine. Moreover, agitation against the regime on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes further incites sectarian oppositionists who identify the regime with Alawis, thereby indirectly fanning the flames of Sunni-Shia tension in Syria and the region at large.

As Lenin observed regarding third-way politics: “The only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a ‘third’ ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms, there can never be a non-class or an above class ideology). Hence to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity. But spontaneous development of the working class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology.”

Now to Sharmine Narwani ... who is an Iranian-American, product of top USA schools (Columbia) and a fervent 'anti-USA' person in terms of foreign policy. She is a firm "Resistance" ideologue, who ascribes to the murky USA plot all the problems in Syria.

More.

My compatriot Otrakji 'outed' me as the anonymous moderator of the online magazine Syria Comment. He revealed my name for a reason he would not disclose. I resigned. At or around the same time, I criticized Narwani for her outrageous rhetoric about American (and UK) journalists. She badmouthed (without giving specifics) a writer whose opinions and reporting I respect. Sharmine labelled this writer as being a "House Arab," and a presumed lackey of the USA, and railed against 'white men' ...

So, a lackey of the Imperial USA hegemony, as Camille, Sharmine and Amal believe, or an anti-USA troll, Michael? What does the scope of your knowledge suggest? Which pile should I be sorted into. Which is easiest? Which is true?

+++++++++++++

So, Michael, if you are missing scope, and if you are not engaging with what I actually say or do in this thread on the issues raised, what do I think, what can I think of your comments? From a vantage point far above events it seems you sort me into a pile, and occasionally indulge in mild and pointless insult -- rather than take issue with facts, observations, explanations and opinions I put forward for discussion.

For example, do you recall the verbiage about 'troll,' 'weird,' 'leftist mind-set' yadda yadda blah blah? This does not trouble me for the insult, but for its vantage in the sky, far above, all-seeing, all-knowing, all labelling. Socialist mindset weird troll with a feud.

I do not expect you to engage with my points about say, Morsi and shitty Chicken-Little reporting. Why? Because I believe you agree with me. When you looked closer at the cough reporting of the Morsi Wife + Shock/Horror aide to Clinton mother Sisterhood, you said to yourself, "WSS is right on this. Shoebat is not credible." When you thought about the Clear and Present Danger, you said, "I want facts, not speculation and fear-mongering. The Clear and Present Danger is more from the Islamist/s who take/s power, less from their Ladies Auxiliary. William is right, let us keep a close eye on Morsi and events, and let us establish clear benchmarks to watch for."

Is that right, partially right, or utterly wrong?

At least in my imaginings. I frankly doubt you did any independent investigations, any sorting into True, Untrue, Speculation, Unwarranted, Wrong, Right, etcetera. You are not so interested in these details as they pertain to Egypt, I think.

So, any arch disengagement and name-calling does not make an impression on me, Michael, in the sense of a corrective or constructive criticism of my remarks in this thread. This present naming and shaming is pretty feeble on the whole, in my opinion, whether by misjudging Infidel, or misjudging Martin, or misjudging a concern with truth for a concern with partisan tropes. All this sorting and lumping does not move discussion forward one millimetre.

By the elasticity of the margins of your trope, "Over the Top and Anti-USA," you too can be judged badly, Michael. You do your own understanding a disservice by too swiftly deciding on Bad or Good from your vantage above it all. I do not think you have earned a laissez-passer yet.

I can be, have been and will be wrong -- on these issues, in details, in interpretation, in analysis, perhaps often, perhaps more rarely. A robust discussion can reveal my errors in interpretation and analysis. Instead ... we get your view from 10,000 feet.

Now, maybe you have correctly pigeon-holed me as some mindset-socialist anti-USA weird troll, but what does that tell us about your opinion of specifics in my argument as presented?

Not much yet. I have no idea what you think about Morsi, his wife, Weiner's wife's mom ... nor what a proper vigilant stance should be, since mine is ostensibly wrong by implication, by my presumed anti-USA bias.

Not one word from you yet on Morsi, FJP, SCAF, the constitutional court, the new President's inaugural speech, his promises, the expectations, and the criticism and the hope and fears from his opposition. Not a quote from the news, not a commentary on actual historic events. Not one word, Michael.

Are these things important, or is it more important to try to put WSS in his (leftist mindset weirdo troll) place?

________________

** I was unable to post my comments to the newspaper site.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb just published a new article in Al-Akhbar English. Try as I might, I cannot post the comment below.

This is a more even-tempered article on Syria than Amal's earlier piece. She cites historians and pieces of the historical record to support her contentions about the Assad father and son's Resistance credentials. She uses these sources of information (variously from named Israelis and published/leaded internal documents from US administrations) to make a fair case that it is far too simple (and wrong) to accuse either Assad of catering to Israel (by design). I find this reliance on argument and actual facts and statements to be fairly well constructed.

But.

What is odd to note is that the story above names a grouping of Syrians Amal calls "Third Wayers," but nowhere in the article does she name or quote one of these people. How are we to guess who she is talking about?

• -- cited by Third-Way intellectuals
  
• Third-Wayers peremptorily denounce the Assad leadership
  
• Another pervasive tendency among Third-Wayers, is to conflate Bashar al-Assad’s regional policies with his father’s
  

The article (and her first on these mysterious folks and their perfidy) is missing an important factor: quotes and cites from the folks she is criticizing.

This renders her argument against Third-Wayers into murky generalities.

-- that said, I am glad that Al-Akhbar is around. It is by no means a complete captive of Assad apologists, nor can its obvious worth as a 'progressive' outlet be denied (by me).

Will Amal get around to tangling with the Syrian 'revolution' again, this time dealing with the actual people and statements she disagrees with (among the Third Way)?

I hope so. It would make her seeming blindness to the excesses of the Syrian security solution more understandable.

As it is, I have yet to see Amal grapple with a single article or claim by a named Syrian she groups under the 'Third Way.'

Worst from the point of view of anyone who does not favour a continuance of Baath rule, is that Amal does not deal with the actual complaints of those who (peacefull and militarily) oppose Baath rule. Nowhere can we read Amal discussing the regime of law and practice that put these gentlemen in jail: Kilo, Mannah, Malleh, Azm ...

Nowhere yet can we read Amal dealing with those who charge the Syrian government with the grossest abuses, nowhere yet does Amal depict or engage with alleged systematic torture, arbitrary detention or unjustified military attacks that led to needless death among civilian populations.

I suspect that Amal has a big heart, a heart big enough to understand the pain and horror of those who have suffered under Assad rule. In the complex matrix of Things That Are Important, it seems that the Resistance of Syria excuses its sometimes brutal repression.

Would that Amal would turn away from historical justifications of Assad foreign policy and try to offer justifications for the 'mistakes' it has visited upon its own citizens.

Edited June 30, 2012 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now, maybe you have correctly pigeon-holed me as some mindset-socialist anti-USA weird troll...

William,

Now who is not paying attention?

I say what I say because I see what I see. In your case, I make my observation because I believe you have a heart and truly want to use your critical faculty. So I believe my feedback to you, while not welcome because it has negative points (and nobody likes that), will end up settling in a constructive manner.

Those other two guys are kinds of people I just don't like. There is no communicating with them without them parroting their bromides. They are stuck on their hate agendas like a needle on an old broken vinyl record, looping over and over the same old spiteful emotions and cliches. All they do is wallow in their hatred of their respective scapegoats and they always try to drag everyone down to their level. I can't stand people like that.

(As to some of the other posters who sometimes write spiteful things, a couple have conditions like being Aspy. So I discount their statements. But even in the ones who don't have conditions, I don't feel hatred as their premise and driving motor in life--or at least the motor that drives the majority of their comments on this forum. So I chalk it up to sounding off, which is a very human thing. Hell, I do it, myself. But these are people who talk in the main about topics other than their hatred. In other words, hatred for them is merely part of the tapestry of a normal human way of being, not the entire dwelling.)

As to substance, I want to engage you on some of the issues, but I am up to my eyeballs in my projects and no time for reading about all this hatred swirling all around in the Middle East (which is primarily where you are doing a lot of your research).

When I get time, I will engage, I promise. But it's like discussing history with George Smith. Reading and internalizing gobs of information take time. You both are so serious about your research you simply leave others behind. That's not bad, but that's just a fact. I'm certainly not complaining.

But my role is to keep this forum a place for discussing ideas--where people can think through things without all the spite and peer pressure of political and/or religious tribes. I comment very bluntly about hatred, bigotry and so forth at times because this stuff is an intelligence-killer and a morale-killer--unless you are running a lynch-mob.

I am not, nor will I ever be, in the humor to host that. (Well... there was PARC... )

Anyway, I think the hatred and fear imbalance is a relic in our brains of a former time in human evolution. We needed automatic responses in our past in order to survive. Hatred and fear worked great for dealing with dangerous things, like the critters that wanted to eat us for one example. But many of the former threats are just not relevant in today's living environment.

Still, look at the news. Fear and hatred are the vast majority of what you see in the headlines.

Now look at the facts, say, of Peter Diamandis in Abundance. Here are a few shockers:

Poverty the world over is at an all-time low and getting lower. We are living in the least violent time in human history. The human life span has come close to doubling in about 100 years, and has doubled in quantity. A Kenyan in the bush with an iPhone has access to more knowledge and communication than recent USA Presidents (like Clinton).

And it goes on and on and on. There is a total lack of correspondence between human life as it is portrayed in headlines and life as it really exists. Or, to put it differently, there is a total disconnection between life as we think it should exist and life as it really does. After all, if nobody read the headlines, the news companies would go out of business.

Why spend the precious non-returnable minutes of our lives hating scapegoats--and trying to prove that this hatred is justified--in the midst of the greatest abundance the universe has ever contained for any one species? We can all live exceptional lives right now. As individuals! All we have to do is focus on building instead of destroying. (Most of us are too chickenshit to actually destroy much of anything anyway.)

Our reptilian hater brains want none of it, though, and generally tell our fact-finding neocortexes to shut the hell up. They keep telling us the world is going to the devil in a handbasket and whoever thinks otherwise needs to be attacked.

But it's healthy to let go of hatred as a driving focus of one's life. Hatred causes stress. I read an article recently that claimed there are now studies showing a definite link between stress and Alzheimer's disease.

So even when I end up finding the time to wade into the waters you swim in, I will probably not stay for extended periods. Frankly, I'm pretty excited about putting together the things I am working on, but they don't work well in the waters of wrath.

Michael

[william.scherk]

We can all live exceptional lives right now. As individuals! All we have to do is focus on building instead of destroying ...

Our reptilian hater brains want none of it, though, and generally tell our fact-finding neocortexes to shut the hell up. They keep telling us the world is going to the devil in a handbasket and whoever thinks otherwise needs to be attacked.

[ ... ]

So even when I end up finding the time to wade into the waters you swim in, I will probably not stay for extended periods. Frankly, I'm pretty excited about putting together the things I am working on, but they don't work well in the waters of wrath.

Michael, besides all that, check out the real-time commenting on the timeline ... the little red symbols under the waveform. The waters of wrath could churn. It could bring snark to a whole new level if we pitched in. Edited July 1, 2012 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

You're a hoot.

Well done.

btw - I have a small correction (possibly due to unclearness on my part). I don't think Martin would cheer kiddy death or even adult killing. I think he would slam his mind shut to it as he cheered the elimination of evil as he perceives it. This brings to mind a useful categorization of people Robert Ringer presented in Winning Through Intimidation. (I'm going from memory, so the following is probably slightly different than the original.) He emphasized that these are the ONLY kinds of people in business.

One type was "I'm not sorry I had to cut your hand off at the wrist when you reached for your chips, but I play that way."

Another type was "I'm very sorry I had to cut your hand off at the wrist when you reached for your chips, but it wasn't my faulr--the game (or my incompetence) made me play that way."

And even another was, "I'm not sorry I had to cut your hand off at the wrist when you reached for your chips, because I never intended for you to get your chips even though I promised you on my sacred honor that I would let you have them."

Considering that we are discussing killing and not business, in making all due adaptations, I consider Martin's approach more in the second category, right before his mind slams shut. Too much love of hatred will do that to you if you are not a bad guy innately.

Michael