In Iraq, we may well be witnessing the eclipse of the US as the world's leading power. Lose, draw, stalemate in Iraq - especially lose, the most likely outcome - and the US will never be the same. Once beaten, its spirit will not recover, and it will go the way of Egypt, Athens, Rome, the Ottomans and Britons. It is finished on the battlefield, finished in the retail stores, even finished on the tennis court, the basketball court for god's sake. -- Larry Buttrose, On the rise of China and the decline of America
Been to the States lately? You would have had indexes and thumbs printed in the name of keeping the Middle West Christian Hordes safe from Dubya's war on everything but terror. That's the US-VISIT program, meant to beef up border security by humiliating what Americans call "aliens," or people from other countries.
It appears this is no longer enough to satisfy the most frightened people on earth. Beginning in 2008, they want to print all ten digits of anyone who wishes to enter the Greatest Nation ever to be favoured by Christianity's cover of the gaseous windbag on high. (The Judaic gasbag begs to differ, of course. Not to mention the Islamic version.)
The FBI, that organization notorious for catching crooks when someone finally turns 'em in, will then store your prints on a database, which will then be available to coppers in other countries (but not the French!) so they can join forces to enable a global police state. Naturally, this data will never get into the hands of unscrupulous criminals. And even when it does, they won't be the criminals, you will. They'll see to it that their prints aren't available worldwide, but yours will be out there for all to see, just like folks charged with misdemeanours and felonies used to be. A handy reversal of roles to insure total domination of us proles, rich and poor, by a neo-medieval Kakistocracy, that is, a world ruled by the very worst people.
All this for the privilege of entering the rotting corpse of the United States of America.
See the film Babel and you will have a glimpse of what to expect when the full criminal fingerprinting begins. The sequence of the border crossing from Mexico to the US provides us with the archetypal customs official. These arseholes are more effective than the Catholic Church in twisting innocence into guilt.
On the other hand, fingerprinting is archaic compared to the next big thing, iris scanning. So all this might just be Dubya's sop to keep folks thinking he's still on terrorism's case. The end result, of course, will be the same.
-- Tara R. Bümdier
“These arseholes are more effective than the Catholic Church in twisting innocence into guilt.”
Interesting observation. Flawed, erroneous, and baseless, but interesting.
I’m curious as to in exactly what fact(s) you find basis for this pearl of wisdom? I would suggest it doesn’t find basis in fact at all, but rather serves to portray the morally bankrupt, atheistic view held by its author. Unfortunately, it seems popular in a lot of leftist thinking to attack the Catholic Church, or religion in general. I digress on that point, and remain completely perplexed by it. The Catholic Church does nothing but invite and encourage all those values that any rational, ethical left winger would welcome with open arms.
You and others who share your view, may like to ponder an interesting fact – people have been attacking the Catholic Church for 2000 years; a lot of whom boasted a spectacular degree of power and influence with which to serve their anti-religious crusades.
Interestingly, they’re all dead. The Catholic Church remains.
Posted by Neo on February 21, 2007
Well, there isn't a lot of "fact" associated with Christian mythology either. You may not like it, but the Christian world has been acting on hearsay for 2000 years. Unfortunately you seem to think that those outside the Church are incapable of acting morally, but morals are not dependant on dogma. When you claim that "leftist thinking" people attack the Church, are you not then admitting that it is free of attack by the "right"? That makes sense, because with the exception of those priests and saints who were "left" (as was Jesus), the Church hierarchy has been repressively right wing since its inception.
As for the Church's longevity, let us hope that the "values" taught by Jesus Christ will someday transcend the Church's business of religion as the key to keeping its flock frightened and, therefore, in line.
Having said that, I find lapsed Catholics to be among the most interesting people I know. They endured the two-faced indoctrination as children -- that the "values" only applied to the unquestioning, and were physically punished if they deviated.
Protestants, on the other hand, are the money-changing drones of Christianity. With a Catholic, you might get a JFK; with Protestants, they're mostly John Howards.
I guess my point is: Enough religion, it's time the human race became spiritual.
Posted by Tara R. Bümdier on February 21, 2007
What's all this worry about these organised superstitions? After all, study of the chimpamzee communities show they have a fairly developed moral code, one derived from the necessities of survival. Moral codes, or beneficial social norms if you like, existed way back into antiquity. This existed long before mankind developed as a species, or developed small village groups etc. It was so long before society developed into proper tribal groups and the village chieftan began demanding explanations from his 'clever man', his witchdoctors or what ever you like to call them. As mankind's society developed, these 'clever dicks' had to give an answer, to invent some stories to explain the (then) unexplainable in such a way as not to get caught out with his bullshit and nonsense, otherwise they may go in the cooking-pot.
This developed over time, and the more organised forms of these superstitions developed. Today we call them religions, the belief in deities, or derivitives from them, that are figments of some primitive mind millenia ago. They are simply another form of political control, one that usually puts women down to the lower rungs and subugates whole populations to the whim of the modern day 'witchdoctor' who often wore a dog-collar and /or a funny hat. Mind you, it is also a huge moneyspinner as well. Oh, whilst I'm on it, Neo may like to realise that the Chimps had a far more humanistic moral code in their communities, and still do, than did the RC popes at the time of the dark ages of the Inquisition period. And what of today's paedophile priests and the other self-righteous people who pontificate around claiming to be doing good works (to earn their way into heaven perhaps)as a cover for manipulating old people into handing their assets over to them for their personal benefit? Does the Church of Rome condone manipulation of the elderly for personal gain? This church was Rome's answer to the advance of early Christian evangalism and has been around for some 1700 years; yet it still has a lot to learn about morality. Mind you, many of the other organised superstition groups (religions) are as bad, or nearly so. So we see that morality is not a preserve of religions and their superstitious nonsense, it is a behavioural code implanted in out genes since before the development of mankind. All we need to do is to develop that sense of fairness and protection of the good of all; past its current primitiveness (I believe we are still retarded in that development, none more so than in the areas of religion), to its fullfillment in a global communal society where the good of all is the deciding factor.
Coming back to the USA and it's inane and fearful reaction to the world's response to its foreign polcies and duplicity; the fingerprinting of all "aliens" ought be treated with the greatest of contempt. Simply stop going there. Let tourism fall to near zero. Tell them to take their bases and other bits of war machinery out of other countries and, preferably, shove it where it fits. Who wants to be tied to a putrid, gangrenous dying corpse, which is what the USA has become?
The intent of Imperial USA is, like other imperial powers before it, to dominate the world. In their case, the powers that control the US want to impose globalism, ie. world fascism; with the aim being to cower all workers, all non-members of the minority ruling sector into utter submission. As Tara R. Bümdier so rightly says, this global US controlled fascism will ensure the world is under the heel of the jackboots of the "neo-medieval Kakistocracy, that is, a world ruled by the very worst people."
Posted by Ugly on May 28, 2007