Nefaria.com » Rants

What Patton would have said…

musashi — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:47:16 +0000

Yesterday I received a chain-letter in my inbox. I’m not going to repost it here, but here’s a few links:

Link #1 (scroll down a bit)

Anyway, I get quite a lot of chain-letters like this so it goes without saying that I don’t respond to all of them. However, sometimes I feel compelled to do so, depending on the content and/or the issue being “discussed” (I use that term lightly). This particular letter struck a nerve with me; it’s full of the usual nationalistic/fascist psychobabble — it’s obvious that it was written specifically for a certain subsection of American society.

*sigh* …

Anyway, here’s my response:

Indeed, this is a disgrace. But I think that this point needs clarification. The disgrace isn’t with the Muslim Americans who wish to exercise their right to religious freedom by building a mosque or community center on privately owned property; the disgrace is that some Americans are trying to deny other Americans from exercising that right.

This e-mail claims that the group who wants to build the mosque is an extremist group. However, by any realistic measure, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The proponents of this claim say that the leader of the group has ties to a man who supports extremism and funds madrasas(sp?), but notice how they never actually name this person.

Alwaleed bin Talal. This is the man they’re talking about. Who is he? For starters, he’s a Saudi prince, but that’s not as interesting as this next fact:

He is also the part owner (2nd largest shareholder) of News Corp, which is the parent company of Fox News — the main media outlet that has been relentlessly stirring the pot on the issue of the “terror mosque”.

So, either Fox News is funding terrorism via Alwaleed bin Talal, which means that Fox News is funding the construction of this “terror mosque” while simultaneously opposing it; or Fox News isn’t funding terrorism *and* the members of the group building the mosque are actually peaceful American Muslims just trying to exercise their right to practice their religion — a right guaranteed by the Constitution — in the face of immense xenophobia and ignorance on behalf of everyone opposed to the building of the mosque.

But “what about this radical Imam?” you might be asking. Oh you mean Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf; the same guy who has been working with the U.S. State Department (since the Bush administration) to promote religious tolerance in the Arab world.

Read that again.

The Imam — the leader of the group building the “terror mosque”, worked with the U.S. State Department on at least two separate occasions in 2007 and is currently working with the State Department to promote religious tolerance amongst Muslims.

…Some “radical” he surely is.

By now a few things should be painfully obvious:

(1) The Muslim group building the mosque is not a collection of terrorists, extremists, America-haters, etc.

(2) Fox News is keeping this non-issue going because it’s good for ratings.

(3) Opponents of the mosque actually have no valid reason to oppose it, all of the “reasons” they have can be attributed to not knowing the details of the situation (mentioned previously), xenophobia (i.e., fear of people of other races/nationalities/religions), racism, politically or religiously-motivated hatred of Muslims, or just plain stupidity.

Again, I find it absolutely disgusting that any American would work to restrict the rights of another American, while claiming this to be his or her “patriotic duty”. There is no greater enemy to the United States than this fever of ultra-nationalism that gripped our nation around the throat… we truly are on the road to fascism. Let me put it this way: There is nothing “patriotic” or “American” about ignorantly laboring to limit the Constitutionally protected rights of fellow Americans just because their religion or even their politics disagree with yours.

I also think it’s worth repeating that on 9/11, it wasn’t just Christians who died when the twin towers fell. Within the walls of the WTC buildings, many people of different races, nationalities, and religions carried out their daily routines — Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Baha’is, etc., all died in the attack.

…and one more thing

The despicable acts committed at Abu Garib were atrocities, and Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks so attempting to justify them by invoking 9/11 is either disingenuous or ignorant… or both. Also, two wrongs don’t make a right.

###

But maybe General Patton would have something to say about the current state of our nation…

I wonder if he would question the wisdom of fighting a virtually un-winnable war on two fronts — one of those war fronts being a product of deception, corruption, and outright lies on behalf of the Bush administration… I wonder if he’d question the integrity of the leaders who started war in Iraq and then let their corporate pals practically rape the treasury department in the form of charging the government and the taxpayers exorbitant bills for sub-par or completely nonexistent services…

I wonder if he would be proud that half a century after WWII, the citizens of his homeland have forgotten the lessons of the Weimar Republic and the Nazis, and instead are happily marching down the road to fascism themselves…

I wonder if he would be proud that our politicians have embraced fearmongering as a means of controlling the populace…

Somehow, I doubt it.

But in the end it doesn’t really matter because he’s not around to comment on current events, so any speculation about what he may or may not have said is completely pointless. Whomever wrote this e-mail, claiming to know what Patton would have said, has no way of knowing if he or she were right, so it might just be a good idea to ignore useless drivel like this rather than forward it on to others.

In closing, I’d like to issue a challenge:

If you claim to be a patriot, educate yourself about what the Constitution and other founding documents *really* say. Don’t just continue believing in a rosy interpretation of what you imagine them to mean just because it fits your biases, politics, prejudices, etc. Recognize that ALL citizens of this great nation deserve the same rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. There are no “privileged” classes based on race, gender, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation — under the laws of our secular government, we are all equals. And if you really, really think that you’re a patriot, read the following excerpt from William N. Grigg, and then take a hard look around you. Take a hard look at what this nation has become. Take a hard look at what YOU have become… and then do something about it.

Quote:

While the terms patriotism and nationalism can refer to the same thing — the love of one’s native country — in practice they have acquired very different meanings. Nationalism, in practice, describes not to the love of a country but rather the veneration of its central government.

As historian John J. Dwyer notes, nationalism is a degenerate impostor of patriotism. “The patriot says, `I love my country,’ works for its good, and defends it if necessary — against enemies within and without,” writes Dwyer. “He strives and prays not primarily that God will bless his country, but that his country will bless God. The nationalist, meanwhile, says, `My country is better than yours.’ `My country is the greatest there has ever been.’ `The greatest nation on God’s green earth.’ `They hate my country because it is so good.’”

Nationalism focuses on the State, rather than the community. It is unambiguously based on zero-sum assumptions about power, and nationalists define victory in terms of imposing their will on others.

Source:

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2007/03/patriotism-vs-nationalism.html

###

Sincerely,

Charles Hamilton
U.S. Army Iraq War Veteran (2003)

H.CON.RES.274: ‘Reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions.’

musashi — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:46:50 +0000

I sent a letter to my congressman this morning regarding this resolution*; those of like mind are encouraged to do the same. Here’s what I said:

Rep. Van Hollen,

I’m writing to you because I’d like to know your stance on H.CON.RES.274; a house resolution titled:

‘Reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions.’

But before we get to that, I’d like to point out that (as you are probably well aware) this resolution is highly unconstitutional. “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God” are remnants of McCarthyism — a dark period in our nation’s history where the lives of many innocent people were needlessly destroyed in a storm of nationalist fervor. Proponents of this resolution will argue that since these mottoes make no reference to any specific religion, they don’t exclude anyone. But this is poor logic at best. In order to believe that, you’d have to believe that everyone in the U.S. believes in a god of some sort, which is definitely not the case.

This resolution also has the effect of reaffirming the myth that the U.S. was founded upon “Christian” values/ideals and was intended by the founding fathers to be a “Christian” nation. History is full of evidence to the contrary — the “Treaty of Tripoli” for example, explicitly states that the U.S. is not ‘in any sense’ founded upon the Christian religion. However modern day revisionists are doing their best to push this myth down the collective throat of the public.

I’m sure that you’re aware of what is going on in Texas currently; Religious zealots have taken over the school board and are pushing for a curriculum that marginalizes the civil rights movement, evolution, Thomas Jefferson; attempts to whitewash the less-savory parts of American history (e.g., the near-extinction of native Americans, slavery, McCarthyism, etc.) And — this is the worst part — furthers the misguided idea known as “American Exceptionalism”. This is the idea that the U.S. is somehow special; that we are immune to the ills that plague other nations because we have been chosen by God to be an example for other nations to emulate. This idea is extremely self-serving and jingoistic. It breeds arrogance and an attitude that the U.S. is the only relevant nation in the world — we can do whatever we want, invade anyone we want, we are accountable to nobody. In effect, this idea has turned us into the world’s bully.

You don’t have to look too far to see that we’re on a dangerous path towards fascism. Today, a large portion of Americans have forgotten the difference between patriotism (e.g., dissent, honesty, civil discourse) and nationalism (e.g., blind adherence to an idealized version of our nation, demonization of unpopular speech and the people doing the speaking). These same Americans wear their ignorance as a badge of honor — they harbor contempt for people who disagree in the slightest sense, and they’re willing to do violence to further their “cause”. They have absolutely no regard for the rights of those whose beliefs conflict with their own; indeed, the spread of eliminationist rhetoric by conservative media outlets has had the effect of dehumanizing anyone who doesn’t see things their way. When politicians speak of “True Americans(tm)” as if some of us are lesser citizens, we should all be worried because we’ve heard this sort of rhetoric in the past and we know exactly what it leads to… in case this isn’t clear enough, I’m talking about Germany in the 1930′s.

I’m pleading with you as a concerned citizen and a veteran of the U.S. Army who served his country in Iraq — a veteran who knows all too well what the current climate of ignorance, fearmongering, lies, religious zealotry, and propaganda has done to his country… please, do not support this resolution, or even better, do everything within your power to kill it outright. We need not reaffirm this myth! Doing so is only adding more fuel to the fire. Those who worship at the altar of nationalistic religious fascism will only use it as a weapon against their fellow citizens.

Thank you.

Charles E. Hamilton III

I’ll post the response (I’ve e-mailed Rep. Van Hollen in the past; he usually responds) when I get it.

Thanks for reading!

*Correction; this is a resolution and not a bill. The original letter uses the term ‘bill’.

Glenn Beck doesn’t understand the Internet… (if he does, then he’s making a big deal about this simply so he can have something to yap about)

musashi — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:11:40 +0000

First, watch the following video:

http://www.dailykostv.com/w/002008/

Just a point of order before I get too far into this; throughout this post, I’ll use the terms “warning banner”, “warning message”, “logon banner”, “network banner” and “privacy statement” interchangeably… they all refer to just about the same thing and serve the same purpose.

Now if you are to take Beck at his word, this is scary shit right? Wrong. First of all, don’t take beck at his word [ever], he’ll give you brain herpes. Here’s the deal, that disclaimer that he’s taking such a big issue with? Yeah, it’s a pretty standard warning message actually. Take the U.S. Army’s website for example (warning, you’ll have to confirm a security certificate exception); one of the “scary issues” that Beck has with the warning on the cars.gov website is that it’s too broad (never mind the fact that it has to be… we’ll get to that in a second). If you read the security warning on the Army’s site, it too is broad and so is their terms of service. Moreover, all this bullshit about “America, do not try this at home.” is just silly fucking nonsense, meant only to scare people who do not know any better. This security message that Beck is all up in arms about is what is known as a “warning banner”. Warning banners are common on just about all corporate and government computers that are accessible from the Internet (…and have been common for a looooong time). Even some private computers, such as someone who runs a web, e-mail, ftp, etc. server from their home for personal use will have warning banners. In addition to those, it’s also common to see similar, broadly worded messages at the bottom of some e-mails (pursuant to the “e-mail” policy of some organizations). Their purpose is to cast a wide legal net so that in the event that someone abuses the system in question, legal action can be taken. The basic purpose of any warning banner should be to make the following point: If you attempt to circumvent the security measures employed by this system, succeed in doing so, and/or abuse this system in any way, legal action will be taken against you. Not to belabor the point, but here’s what the DOJ has to say about warning banners:

Network banners are electronic messages that provide notice of legal rights to users of computer networks. From a legal standpoint, banners have four primary functions. First, banners may be used to generate consent to real-time monitoring under Title III. Second, banners may be used to generate consent to the retrieval of stored files and records pursuant to ECPA. Third, in the case of government networks, banners may eliminate any Fourth Amendment “reasonable expectation of privacy” that government employees or other users might otherwise retain in their use of the government’s network under O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987). Fourth, in the case of a non-government network, banners may establish a system administrator’s “common authority” to consent to a law enforcement search pursuant to United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164 (1974).

If my name were Glenn Beck, I’d be throwing a tantrum upon reading eliminate any Fourth Amendment “reasonable expectation of privacy” … and I wouldn’t read the rest before running to the camera with a story about how the Communist-terrorist Obama administration wants to eliminate our Fourth Amendment rights (never mind the fact that the referenced DOJ website was in existence well before Obama took office)… but I digress.

Warning banners, such as the one Beck is holding up as an example of “scary shit that the Obama administration is doing” shouldn’t frighten anyone except for those who plan on doing exactly what the warning message tells them not to do. Warning banners are passive security measures; they need to be broad in order to apply to any/all possible cases of abuse. They don’t actually make the computer/network/website/etc. more secure (with the exception of causing would-be “crackers” to think twice before trying anything). Their real power comes from the fact that they can be used in court to show that the defendant had been warned in advance and knew full and well they were doing something that they shouldn’t have been doing.

In regard to this particular warning banner, I went to the cars.gov website to see what I could find out about it… it turns out, that the only way you’ll ever see the message that Beck is ranting about is if you are a car dealer participating in the CARS program. Given the potential for fraud on behalf of unscrupulous car dealers, I’d say that the strong wording of the warning banner/privacy message (whichever you choose to call it) is entirely appropriate. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens looking for information about the CARS program only consent to have their IP address tracked (which is something that all webservers do by default anyway).

This is just another example of fearmongering on behalf of a fanatic who cannot reconcile his world-view with reality.

### Update! Here’s some more information about this from Daily Kos, enjoy.

The Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials.

musashi — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:15:10 +0000

I’m surprised that Faux “News” hasn’t given this much coverage at all. Here’s what Lou Dobbs had to say about it:

And here’s a copy of the treaty.

Now my two cents…

I’m always wary of any legislation that removes rights or places restrictions because in my opinion, once you start along the path of taking rights away from the populace, there’s really no limit to the number of rights that could be potentially taken away. The people making the rules seem to believe that the rules somehow do not apply to them, or, they view the rights that they’re crusading against with such contempt that they have convinced themselves that only “bad” people would complain about them being taken away. I hate to frame this in such simplistic terms, but this probably fits the mentality of the majority of people who would push a “prohibitionist” agenda. With respect to gun rights; I have a particular problem with people who crusade against gun ownership—in all it’s forms, while not realizing that it was private gun ownership on behalf of the colonists who fought for the freedom of this nation, that has given them the right to bitch about guns. These very same people also ignore the fact that private gun ownership is first and foremost a matter of self defense—not recreational activity. Highlighting this point is the following line in the text of the SIFTA treaty:

RECOGNIZING that states have developed different cultural and historical uses for firearms, and that the purpose of enhancing international cooperation to eradicate illicit transnational trafficking in firearms is not intended to discourage or diminish lawful leisure or recreational activities such as travel or tourism for sport shooting, hunting, and other forms of lawful ownership and use recognized by the States Parties;

If they actually understood the reason the Second Amendment exists, then the words “self defense” or something to that effect, would appear in this paragraph. But they do not. Instead, we’re left with the ambiguous statement: “and other forms of lawful ownership and use recognized by the States Parties;”

The Second Amendment exists because our forefathers realized that as time goes on, the probability that the government would stop serving the people and serve only itself, approaches one. They also realized that should this ever happen, the people should have the right to rise up and replace the government with one that better suits them—which is exactly what just took place a few years before the Second Amendment was conceived. The prohibitionists also like to argue that such a rebellion would likely not be successful. This completely misses the point. During the Revolutionary War, the greatest military force at the time (the British) were defeated by a rag-tag force of under-gunned and outnumbered farmers. But the revolutionaries had one thing on their side: they were fed up with the oppression that they were experiencing at the hands of their current government, and they were willing to die fighting against it.

The prohibitionists always like to point out crime statistics as a reason for banning weapons. This is a flawed approach, because it’s obvious that if you are going to commit a crime then you don’t care much about the law. If alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t outlaw something and expect it to just go away. You also can’t make the law-abiding population safe by taking away their ability to defend themselves… and aside from the impractical concerns involved with the police force protecting every single citizen; it’s not really the job of the police to defend you from criminals anyway.

Their definitions are all wrong too. For instance, “assault weapons” … what an ambiguous term! Damn near anything can be used as a weapon to assault someone with. Ignoring this, the anti-gun crowd has effectively defined “assault weapons” to include weapons that are only cosmetically similar to military style weapons. To me, this is just ignorant fear.

I’ll end this rant with a plea; if you feel the same way that I do, please contact your Representatives and/or Senators to express your opposition.

Social Security Changes (bullshit)

musashi — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:41:55 +0000

So last night I get this e-mail:

> > SOCIAL SECURITY CHANGES
> >
> > It does not matter if you personally like or dislike Obama. You
> > need to sign this petition and flood his e-mail box with e-mails
> > that tell him that, even if the House passes this bill, he needs to
> > veto it. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone.
> > If the government gives benefits to 'illegal' aliens who have never
> > contributed, where does that leave those of us who have paid into
> > Social Security all our working lives?
> >
> > As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow 'illegal'
> > aliens access to Social Security benefits.
> > Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires
> > citizenship for eligibility to that social service.
> > Instructions are below. If you don't forward the petition and just
> > stop it, we will lose all these names.
> >
> > If you do not want to sign it, please just forward it to everyone
> > you know.
> >
> > Thank you!
> >
> > To add your name, click on 'forward'. Address it to all of your
> > email correspondents, add your name to the list and end it on.
> >
> > When the petition hits 1,000, send it to comment@whitehouse.gov
> >
> > PETITION for President Obama:
> >
> > Dear Mr. President:
> > We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted on
> > recently which would allow illegal aliens to access ur Social
> > Security. We demand that you and all Congressional representatives
> > require citizenship as a pre-requisite for social services in the
> > United States .
> >
> > We further demand that there not be any amnesty give n to illegal
> > aliens, NO free services, no funding, no payments to and for illegal
> > immigrants

E-mail petitions always crack me the fuck up. Who the hell do they think they are petitioning to hm? Who gets the petition once all 1,000 “signatures” have been collected? I understand that to a lot of people, the internet is some big magical thing and these questions need not be asked, but to those of us who know how the damn thing works, how can this not be annoying as all hell? Maybe they’re smarter than I give them credit; maybe they are depending on the NSA to track this and forward it to the president as soon as the required amount of signatures have been collected… but I digress.

Apparently (and, as always) nobody checks their facts. A quick search on snopes.com gives us all the information that we need to know about this. Another thing that always fascinates me about these is their ability to change over time. For example, the original e-mail mentioned President Bush, rather than President Obama (which is funny, seeing as how I never got that one… I wonder why). I wrote a response, but not before harvesting ALL of the e-mail addresses from the message body, to, and cc fields (with the help of sed and grep of course) so I could send my [intentionally provocative] response to every last one of ‘em. I know that I’m fighting an uphill battle, but at least I’m fighting

My response:

So, does everyone believe everything that hits their inbox nowadays? 

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/petition.asp

DISCLAIMER: I'm about to say some offensive s**t so if you are easily
offended, stop reading.

###

I mean it. If you read any further, don't reply to me all hurt expecting
an apology; your words will fall on deaf ears.

###

Last chance.

###

Ok, I get it... hating the president is cool now that we have a black
guy in office, fine, but seriously people... where the f**k was all this
outrage when Bush was raping our constitution, involving us in illegal,
unnecessary wars based on lies (Iraq), draining the economy whilst
giving enormous kickbacks to his friends (the very people who put his
dumb a$$ in office to being with), and spying on each and every one of
us under the guise of "national security", huh? where? Nowhere. Don't
try to act like you actually care now because it's painfully clear that
you're being disingenuous.  

If you forwarded this to your friends, family, whatever, without first
checking your facts then you're an idiot. If you SIGNED YOUR NAME to it
without ever even questioning it's authenticity, then you're a bigger
idiot. One might argue that it's people like you who are to blame for
our current situation---Yes, you. You who bent over and took it straight
up the cornhole because "9/11 changed everything" ... you who let your
government run wild directly afterwards while you sat by in silent
agreement (just as long as we were killing Muslims) ... and you, who
probably still do not have a single f**king clue about the damage to our
country that the past ~8 years has wrought. Every last one of you should
be terribly ashamed of yourselves.

Terrorists aren't destroying this country; blind obedience, complacency,
anti-intellectualism, and laziness are. Do you really think that... even
if the bill mentioned in this e-mail was real, that signing your name to
an e-mail and forwarding it to other people actually constitutes some
sort of political action? Thomas Paine must be rolling in his grave.

I know that the majority will probably just delete this reply… sadly, they’re most likely the ones who really need to be reading it. Also, there were actually about ten lines above and below each ‘###’ but wordpress ate those. I know that this won’t make a difference though; hell, just a few minutes ago I got a reply (to my reply) stating: “i dont know. i just forward them. i did hear something about that recently on the news.” … two things, (1) No the hell you didn’t. (2) Thanks for proving my point.