Tag Archives: President Obama

Humanity vs. The Rule of Law

It was back in my early undergrad years when I first came to understand the broad reach of US foreign policy. I completed a social work internship in Los Angeles at a safe house in east LA in a largely immigrant community whose goal was economic justice and solidarity with working families. One morning I came down to the kitchen to find two sisters from the Missionaries of Charity sitting at the table with our house administrators. They had a similar home just down the street from us and they were well known for opening it up as a sanctuary for refugees. That day they greeted us with a choice.

A family of refugees from Central America were en route to LA and needed housing since the sisters home was already filled to capacity. Our house admins had already agreed to do this but we would be permitted to go to another program, without judgement, if we were not comfortable with this decision. This was the late 80s and providing sanctuary for people from certain nations in Central America was both controversial and illegal. We were nervous, but young and very eager to do something that seemed radical. Over the following month we learned that the risk we had taken paled in comparison to theirs. Nothing could remotely compare with the horrors they had endured or narrowly escaped; threats of rape, violence and being abandoned to die in agony in the desert, or the uncertain future they faced in a country hostile to their very existence.

I remember the backlash I and others received from several in my class. In their eyes we were subverting the rule of law. But what rule of law were they speaking of? Was it the one that informs virtually all of American foreign policy? The one that trains mercenaries at infamous places like the School of the Americas? The same one that fueled the genocide of 250,000 Mayans in Guatemala in 1954 at the behest of the United Fruit Company? Or the rule of law that created a brothel for US corporate interests in Havana? Or backed the genocide in Indonesia done by rabid fascists? Or supported coups that upended a democratically elected government in Chile? Or the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Or Iran? Was it the one that carpet bombed Cambodia, napalmed North Korea or tested nukes on US soldiers and the unsuspecting inhabitants of the Marshall Islands? Would that rule of law include Indian Removal? Or Jim Crow? Or state sponsored lynchings? Or internment camps for Japanese Americans during WW2? When it comes to the American Empire what rule of law is there outside of that which pertains to the rights of corporations, or the ruling Capitalist class, or the military industrial elite? How many crimes has the global north committed against the global south; and how many of them have been explained away using the sanctimonious parlance of the rule of law?

I fast forward to today and wonder what has changed? US foreign policy certainly hasn’t. It continues to punish Cuba and has not stopped its war mongering against Venezuela. It still promotes the racist “drug war” that makes life a misery for countless people. It still defends industries that pollute the waters and the soil that indigenous peoples depend on, like in the Amazon in Ecuador by Chevron. It still backs rightwing coups like the one recently championed by Hillary Clinton in Honduras which installed a government that terrorizes its population and is ultimately responsible for the murder of scores of Indigenous and environmental activists, like Berta Cáceres who understood well the reach, ramifications and scope of American foreign policy, especially its impact on the lives of those who live on the margins of empire.

And what has changed at the border? The same people terrorized by American foreign policy are still dehumanized, traumatized, deported and even murdered in cold blood when they manage to arrive there hoping for a better life. Even Hillary Clinton advocated for sending undocumented people back as a solution, and Obama is on record for deporting more immigrants than other presidents. But if there is anything that has changed in recent days it is the deepening depravity of such policies. Thanks to Trump’s inhuman policy of separation of children from their parents, the breathless cruelty of the US Border Patrol and ICE produce a virtual Sophie’s Choice every day. Even showing human kindness toward these children is grounds for termination from employment.

So the outrage I have today is not dissimilar to the outrage I felt years ago. I still see the faces of those refugees I stood in solidarity with several years ago from Guatemala. And when I read about the migrants being detained and sent to cages with foil blankets or hear the recordings of inconsolable cries of children torn from their mother or father, I see their eyes peering through me. And I think of that “rule of law” argument waged by my classmates years ago. The same argument made by Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders who then buttressed it with Biblical references. Such a rationale only exists in the minds of those whose humanity has long been gutted. It’s one that has been used generously by scoundrels throughout time to ignore their complicity in creating the turmoil in the first place, and then defending the cruelest of policies against the human beings affected by that misery. And my response to such barbarity remains the same as it was back then: to hell with their rule of law.

Kenn Orphan June 2018

Canonizing Criminals and the Lobotomization of Public Memory

Resistance in an Age of Absurdity

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“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

From an incessant flow of paranoid tweets to bizarre statements about massacres that never happened or secret cameras fitted in microwaves, Donald Trump’s regime has ushered the unhinged spectacle of reality show television right into the Oval Office with stunning success. Were this absurdity to be contained within the confines of a political thriller it might be mildly entertaining. But in the real world, a world in which real civilians are being blown to bits by smart bombs, real children are starving to death, real refugees are being turned back to face certain death, and where the real biosphere is perilously close to the edge of catastrophe, this derangement is utterly terrifying.

Trump is a master at manipulating the corporate media via the manufacture of controversy and melodrama. Of course the irony is that the very same broadcasting behemoths he routinely demonizes provide his unhinged theatrics with non stop coverage which, in turn, has given them unprecedented ratings and profits. But behind the spectacle lurks a far more insidious method to this madness. In a mere three months the Trump regime has managed to replace the heads of institutions like the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, with individuals who wish to dismantle them. He has codified racist xenophobia through executive orders which ban Muslims and persecute undocumented immigrants. And through his elevation of white supremacist Steven Bannon to astonishing power, he has animated the latent white nationalist movement.

The Trump regime has also demonstrated its eager willingness to expand the war machine of American Empire, pouring billions of dollars into an already bloated military industrial sector while gutting social and medical services. In this short time Trump’s militarism has empowered the Pentagon and has claimed the lives of scores of men, women and children from Syria, to Yemen, to Iraq, and it is only just ramping up. There is also little to cast doubt on the prospect of wars and military conflicts involving China, North Korea and Iran in the not too distant future given the administration’s unhinged saber rattling and provocation.

His appointment of former ExxonMobil executive, Rex Tillerson, to the State Department signifies a blatant display of the influence of the fossil fuel industry in regard to US foreign and domestic policy. Tillerson presided over the company in the 1970s, a period in which the oil giant launched massive campaigns to deny its own research which confirmed human caused global warming. Trump’s recent executive order related to climate change delivered a blow to reason. It was meant to. His absurdist view that it is a hoax manufactured by the Chinese is a hallmark of his risible ignorance and, remarkably, still has currency in many conspiratorially minded circles. But in this Age of Absurdity facts and the truth itself have become the first victims.

As a resurgent fascism stands poised to sweep over the West we can expect increasing brutality against dissent; and it would be foolish to think the repercussions of this would remain localized. We will be increasingly asked to choose between compliance with monstrous state repression or bold resistance. The protests which have sprung up against the onslaught of misogynistic and xenophobic polices have been encouraging to see, but there are already a slew of laws in the works designed to stifle direct action. And the Democratic Party establishment is not interested, nor is it equipped to offer up any kind of meaningful resistance since it has acquiesced to the demands and interests of Wall Street, corporations and the war industry long ago. Their role has been one of normalizing the ruthless exploits of global capitalism. Indeed, the Clinton and Obama administrations championed the brutality of neoliberal capitalism and weakened civil liberties and gutted social safety nets for the poor while deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and bolstering the imperialistic war machine.

If there is anyone to look to in these dark times for inspiration it would be the ongoing struggles of Black Lives Matter, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), and Standing Rock Sioux which largely began during the previous administration and are international in scope. These movements have endured and weathered police and state intimidation, brutality, violence and arrest; and it is their fortitude and integrity which offers us all a living example of how bold we will need to be in the face of an ever more oppressive tyranny. They were born of the historic struggles of indigenous peoples against colonialism, police brutality and environmental racism. And with the perilous times that lie ahead solidarity with them is needed now more than ever before.

Thanks to the convergence of a climate ravaged world and a fragile biosphere that is teetering on collapse and extinction, the global despotism rising today will be unlike anything we have ever seen before. The flames of nationalism and xenophobia will be fanned by fascists who will ride a rising and unfortunate tide of climate chaos. They will use famine, austerity and social unrest and uncertainty to justify brutal authoritarianism, repression and state violence; and they will have no problem employing chicanery, scapegoating and dehumanization to achieve their end. Indeed, their embrace of absurdity, or its pretense, is their strength.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt said: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” The more fascists are permitted to make a mockery of justice, humanity and protection of the living earth, the more easy it will be for them to manipulate the deepest fears and prejudices of the public. They will continue to launch mendacious smears against climate scientists, assault the poor and the most vulnerable, advance racism, expand war and militarism, disparage the press, and promote the inversion of reality to their favor even as the planet burns. And if we continue to allow them to bend the arc of truth we will most assuredly see truth itself begin to die. Our resistance to tyranny begins the day we refuse to allow this to happen on our watch.

Kenn Orphan 2017

The Enemy of Our Enemy is Not Always Our Friend

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With the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the throne of the American Empire there has been mounting opposition from what has been referred to as the “Deep State.” This is a term that refers to the idea of a shadow government which pulls the strings behind the scenes of the public face of the elected government. The CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, and DoD, among others, are often sited as the key players here and even a tertiary glance at history will attest to why this is so. To be sure, this term has been over used by unhinged talk show hosts like Alex Jones, and it often provides cover for a thinly veiled and utterly reprehensible antisemitism. But it isn’t a “conspiracy theory” to note the great power that these agencies and whom they represent have over American foreign and domestic policy. Their opposition to Trump is not so much ideological as much as it is about influence. To them Trump is an unpredictable, egotistical mess with mental instability on a grand scale. This makes him virtually uncontrollable and that terrifies the elites.
The Capitalist class has enjoyed the riches gleaned from neoliberal economic policies for decades; and Trump’s anti-globalism and xenophobic talk threatens their bread and butter. To be sure, their thievery is as abhorrent as Trump’s coming kleptocracy; and both signal the death throes of global capitalism. But the Liberal class and even some on the Left, have been aligning themselves with the oligarchy in order to derail and depose Trump. That they are inadvertently supporting increased militarism in a world where nuclear annihilation is still a menace, war profiteering for the wealthy elite, and the return of a new Cold War hysteria is of no concern to them. One must wonder if they have really thought any of this through.

Let’s face it. Trump is vile, but he is an easy target. His rise provides those of us on the left with a convenient, external decoy to lob all our fears and failings at. And although he may be emblematic of the essential rot that typifies late stage capitalism the powerful institutional forces that are seeking to depose him wish only to do so in order to sustain the very machine from which he emerged. A machine of absurd consumption of dwindling resources and war profiteering for the benefit of a few, on a planet whose biosphere is in a state of collapse thanks to the relentless marauding and pillaging.

It’s true that Trump has gathered around him a collection of religious extremists, racists, xenophobes, misogynists, science denialists, Islamophobes and militarists. But his overt bullying, déclassé style and grotesque vulgarity are really the only thing which distinguish him from the powerful elite whose plutocratic tyranny long preceded his infamous meteoric rise. They have always championed the bloody plunder of the Capitalist order of things because it has maintained their hegemonic control and filled their coffers with untold fortune. Granted they generally did this with the veneer of respectability through exploiting identity politics; but this was a diversion they used to placate the sycophantic Liberal and bourgeois classes while they fattened up on ill gotten gain and carpet bombed the poor of the world. Make no mistake, their Machiavellian machinations are one and the same with the orange tinted megalomaniac who is about to sit in the Oval Office. It is his loathsome, distasteful and scurrilous demeanor they find most displeasing, not his love of Capitalism.

It is ironic to me that so many are looking to this very same corrupt establishment to lead the opposition to Trump and his band of thieves. Certainly politics makes strange bed fellows, but few seem to question what will happen should they succeed in deposing him. Do any of them really think the CIA, DHS and all the other nefarious institutional players will cede power to the people, especially in a time of economic strife, ecological failure and geopolitical wrangling? Do they remember who it was who has led wars and directed coups to topple democratically elected governments around the world? Do they realize who it is these institutions really represent? Do they care? The answer is not too difficult to find.

An insidious and pervasive authoritarian fascism is embedded in every institution that controls or influences the US and it will not cede anything willingly to anyone. They protect the robber barons, industrialists and the aristocracy and their opposition to Trump is rooted in a defense of class privilege, not a love of democracy. And the Liberal class has always stood as a bulwark of defense for this system, carefully guarding their own privilege to hold a seat at the table while casting crumbs to the grubby masses. In desperation they will look to virtually anyone to protect this privilege against its inevitable decay.

Without a doubt the Trump regime is poised to speed up the unraveling of the American Empire. The idea that a narcissistic buffoon like him could have such power would be comically absurd were it not so disastrous for the climate, the water and already marginalized and oppressed people. But every administration, Democrat and Republican, in the last few decades has led us to the Age of Trump. Indeed, President Obama created the conditions for a more aggressive fascism with the sweeping powers he granted to the Executive branch.

Now Trump will be able to detain or assassinate any American citizen without due process and will be able to crush dissent with impunity thanks to “anti-propaganda” measures designed to limit, intimidate and curtail freedom of the alternative press. Obama also led the way in deporting more undocumented people than the previous administration, prosecuting more whistleblowers than all US Presidents combined, increasing aid to belligerent regimes in Riyadh and Tel Aviv, supporting right wing coups like the one in Honduras which has caused the murders of scores of indigenous and environmental rights activists, and pulverized the poor in seven nations with over 26,000 bombs in his eight year reign. Trump will likely succeed him in this blood soaked legacy, but to sugarcoat this horrific past and its impact on the future would be both intellectually dishonest and ethically impoverished.

Trump, his minions and the new brand of authoritarianism must be opposed and the Left needs to mobilize quickly. But this cannot be done effectively unless the system which produced him is recognized as the real menace. It is the global Capitalist class which are the “men behind the curtain” so to speak. Aligning with the powerful to oppose the powerful will only end up serving their interests alone, and it will merely feed a machine that is hellbent on leading our species, and every other, toward certain destruction. Indeed, this kind of tactic will be a no win situation for everyone.

Kenn Orphan 2017

Syria: Making Sense of the Senseless

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Like many of you, I have seen the reports emerging from Aleppo, Syria (east and west) in the last day, and I have been attempting to sort through the deluge of info. The images and videos are heartbreaking, confusing and conflicting. And my Facebook newsfeed has shown me a great split of reactions. Undoubtedly this is a complex situation with many historic, social, ethnic and political nuances and intricacies. I have studied the Middle-East much of my life, worked with refugees from the region, and have several Syrian friends (on both sides) and others who worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in the war torn areas including Aleppo. Even still, I find it difficult to parse out the full truth in this age of utter absurdity, half truths, falsified or shoddy journalism and outright surreal propaganda. This is how I am making sense of the senseless so far.

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Syria cannot simply be viewed in a vacuum. In the global picture it is a proxy war between the US, Nato and Russia. And it is not a fantasy that foreign mercenaries and militants did unfortunately infiltrate the popular uprising against Assad. This is not surprising since the entire region was radically destabilized over the course of decades from US/Nato meddling, wars and CIA operations to subvert democracy. Where Syria sits on the map leaves it open for opportunists radicalized by the exploits of imperialist wars. Samantha Power’s (US Ambassador to the UN) nauseating hypocrisy yesterday notwithstanding, the US has already been at war against Syria, dropping over 20,000 bombs in the last year alone. And Power conveniently absolves her and her betters of the shame of decimating Iraq and Libya, and aiding Israel and the Saudis in their murderous massacres of civilians in Gaza and Yemen respectively.

Russia has had a bloody hand in this imperialistic game of chess from the start too. It sees the crumbling edifice of the American Empire. It knows that it is an arrogant beast drunk on its own hubris, yet despite its alarming madness it is armed to the teeth with nukes and has circled its borders and China with dozens of military bases. As any empire, even an ancient and faded one, Russia is asserting itself on the world stage and reinserting its influence on its own long held client states in the region. For the American Empire it is Israel and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia. For Russia it is Syria and, to a much lesser extent, Iran. To be sure, both Empires could not care one bit about the people in their client states. This is a chess game of psychopaths, authoritarians and tyrants, and they are in it to win even if everyone loses in the end. In essence, it is the powerful, big players and small, who have been responsible for the misery and carnage and I shall give not one of them a pass. It is the people I care about, not any one of their leaders.

My heart breaks when I read the reports and see the innocent victims in Aleppo. No, they are NOT all “head chopping” terrorists. In fact by many reliable estimates violent radicals make up only a small percentage of the total sum as many of them fled the city months ago. The vast majority are simply trying to survive and have been caught in the middle, just as civilians in Yemen and Gaza. Regardless of their politics, the people in East Aleppo are flesh and blood human beings with hopes, joys, fears and dreams, deserving of dignity, compassion and safe passage. Only the most hardened of cynics could see the mountains of ghoulish evidence and turn a smug shoulder of indifference to it or ignore the monstrous crimes of Assad.

It may seem ironic to some, but I have understanding for those Syrians who may be celebrating in West Aleppo and Damascus too. Their nation has been under siege and their entire way of life has been either shattered or threatened for at least 6 years. Can anyone of us blame these people for celebrating what might signal, accurate or not, an end to this horrific war? Would any of us be any different were it us in their shoes? I cannot celebrate with them because I cannot celebrate heaven while there are still those suffering in hell. But their hopes and fears should not be dismissed either. Most Syrians love their ancient nation, the cradle of civilization. But violent extremism is not an inflated fear. It is as real to them as the brutality of tyrannical dictatorship.

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How can we, as non-Syrians, make sense of all of this? I cannot speak for anyone but myself. And my principles remain unchanged. My solidarity is not with the powerful. It will never be. It will always be with those who suffer, the vulnerable, the oppressed, the persecuted. It is antiwar, ALL war. It is anti-imperialism, ALL imperialism. These are the principles I will continue to champion regardless of how murky things may become in the dire days ahead.

But I will confess that, personally, I am tired of the grandstanding, ad hominem slurs, demonizing, straw man fallacies, bullying and petty fight picking I see going between activists on all political fronts. When it comes to this issue I am choosing to listen only to ordinary Syrians on which ever side they may fall. Their voices, while they matter the most, have been the most muted in all of this and I cannot help to think that this is by design.

Kenn Orphan 2016

On Funerals and Postmortem Snubs

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This is how one understands imperialistic hypocrisy. President Obama and other heads of state went out of their way to attend the funeral services for the medieval, oil drenched, head-chopping King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who mercilessly persecuted religious minorities, crushed political dissidents and maintained a system of misogynistic, theocratic oppression. Obama even cut short an important state visit to India to attend. The eulogies for this monarchial monster gushed from the lips of most of them, calling the King a “friend” and “visionary.” In contrast, several heads of state, including Obama and Justin Trudeau, have declined attending the funeral of Fidel Castro.

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Castro was not a saint. No leader is. In fact he was, by many accounts, an authoritarian leader. And his failings are not above condemnation or critique, from the early persecution of the queer community and political dissidents to his marginalization of devout Catholics. But all of this cannot be understood in the vacuum created by the quislings of the corporate media. And Castro did offer apologies and amends for many of his early mistakes and outright cruelties. All of it however, like anything, is meaningless without context.

Before Castro the island nation was governed by Fulgencio Batista, a US backed, mafia associated dictator who came into power via a coup and whose regime tortured and murdered up to 20,000 people. In the years since the revolution to oust Batista, and his class of robber barons and fascists, the United States spent every waking hour imagining ways to subvert the Cuban government including an attempted invasion (the Bay of Pigs) and terrorist plots aimed at innocent civilians. One plot was successfully carried out against a Cuban airliner. All 73 passengers aboard Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 were killed when timebombs were detonated by CIA backed militants. Incidentally one of the CIA affiliated terrorists, Luis Posada Carriles, is living comfortably in Miami, Florida. Under Castro it is estimated that there were upwards of 5000 killed in the revolution (far fewer than the American revolution) and a little more than a two hundred via execution in the years that followed.

Torture is never justified, murder should always be condemned, and those of us who have not taken one life have every right to criticize. But when comparing the sheer numbers of one government to another one can see that this postmortem snub by certain world leaders has nothing to do with Castro being a “dictator” and everything to do with his defiance of US and Western capitalist hegemonic power. The US alone is responsible for millions of deaths the world over through its aggression and support of repressive and despotic governments. And its internal death toll via police and prison violence is an international embarrassment when it comes to the staggering deaths and incarcerations of people of colour. In other words, it has no leg to stand on in judging any other government.

Castro’s successful defiance of ruthless US imperialism is unmatched and praiseworthy, surviving over 600 assassination attempts several of which were orchestrated or supported by the US. And the triumph of the Cuban people to build a society with an internationally renowned universal healthcare system (they send medical teams all over the world) and free education (literacy rates are at 99.7% compared to 86% in the United States) even under a brutal and inhumane US embargo is a testament to their resilience, spirit and will. Unlike the monstrous monarch from the medieval house of Saud whose regime is slaughtering thousands in neighboring Yemen, Castro’s Cuba did lend support to the struggles against racist apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, but never invaded or launched a war against any other nation.

The onslaught of negative coverage, outright lies and propaganda soundbites about Cuba since the death of Fidel Castro is not surprising to daily observers of the machinations of the US corporate press. They have served as a mouthpiece for American imperialism since their inception and cannot change who they are intrinsically. This is, of course, why they are so keen on exposing so-called “fake news.” Of course that “fake news” does not include the lies they told on behalf of the Pentagon and a murderous military establishment that spurred the criminal invasions and destruction of countries like Iraq or Libya and beyond.

Now that Castro has died the US corporate media has been feverishly painting the late President with every villainous color they can find. Interestingly enough they never did this when the murderous fiend of Saudi Arabia died even though his legacy was drenched in gallons of beheaded blood. But the “good King” was a dear friend to US business interests, so the press spent their time praising the medieval despot for “advancing women’s rights” even though his kingdom had scores of women and others executed for the so called crimes of witchcraft or apostasy. But grasping irony or seeing blatant hypocrisy is not a gift of the ruling elite.

To be sure, it is probably best that these leaders do not attend the funeral of Fidel Castro. If they did the stench of their hypocrisy might overshadow the space as it did at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. And after all, who could tolerate watching Bono again and the sickening spectacle of elitist selfies?

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Kenn Orphan 2016

Fake News in the Epoch of Propaganda

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Since the fiasco of this last US Presidential election cycle the corporate press has been busy launching a crusade against “fake news” and scrambling to understand why it is that so many people despise and distrust them. Unsurprisingly, they have many fingers to point, but not one of them is toward themselves. In the last week we have endured self righteous, nauseating screeds by elitist blowhards like Dan Rather and Christiane Amanpour imploring the press to “step up” now that the fascist Trump has been swept to the throne of American Empire. Their egregious lack of introspection is baffling given that only six companies own nearly 90% of all media and has been the mouthpiece for and defender of Corporate State sponsored plunder, murder and mayhem for decades.

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Without a doubt Trump is horrifying. And now this megalomaniac who wears his racist, misogynistic ignorance as a badge of honor, has sweeping powers granted to him from the Obama presidency. So the question to them is where were they when President Obama was expanding these Executive Branch powers? Where were they when he was drone bombing wedding parties and ambulances? Were they too busy boozing it up at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner and laughing at the President’s joke about using these drones to take out the Jonas brothers? Where were they when he said he was “really good at killing people,” or when he codified the indefinite detention of American citizens by military tribunal, or when his regime was assassinating American citizens all without due process?

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Where were they when his administration excused the torturing criminals from the previous Bush regime? Or prosecuted more whistleblowers than all US presidents combined, like the mercilessly persecuted Chelsea Manning who exposed US war crimes? Or deported more undocumented people than any other US President? Or when the news of his “Kill List” surfaced? Or when his Secretary of State pushed for decimating Libya and ghoulishly celebrated the gruesome murder of its president on one of their news segments exclaiming in true imperialistic form: “We came, we saw, he died?” Their coverage of all of this was either weak as dishwater or buried in back pages, but they had no trouble reporting “news” related to celebrities or sports, or inflating crises and stoking paranoia as in the instance of the human tragedy of Ebola in West Africa.

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The same corporate news imploring the public to shun “fake news” had no problem peddling propaganda that led to the war on Vietnam and Iraq and Libya. It downplayed the cruelty of the medieval kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and the decades long system of apartheid in Israel. It has spent its lifetime being the mouthpiece for Empire, Inc. and made a career of manufacturing outrage, vapid celebrity obsession and paranoia, spinning the planet killing lies of the fossil fuel and war industries, and spreading Pentagon lies which have cost millions of lives and contributed to one of the biggest mass migrations in human history. It has suppressed existential news related to Fukushima and climate change, virtually ignored systemic racism and the prison/surveillance machine, and is turning a blind eye to the unfolding atrocities at Standing Rock Sioux. And yet somehow with all of this it has the gall to expect people of conscience to feel sorry for it, forget about these lies and omissions, and believe them now when they cry foul after that cloak of deception has been lifted.

The hubris of the powerful dances with willful ignorance in the most stunning of ways indeed.

Kenn Orphan 2016

The Omnicidal Madness of Empire

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The atrocities being committed by militarized police on behalf of the Fossil Fuel Industry against the unarmed Water Protectors of Standing Rock Sioux is beyond appalling. A horrifying page of history is being reopened which may signal a more radical fascist turn for the US in general. With barely a peep from a weak and sycophantic corporate media, jackbooted thugs in armored trucks are firing water cannons on protectors in sub freezing temperatures, using flash grenades that can cause blindness and burns, and firing rubber coated bullets which have already maimed many.

This hideous face of Empire is nothing unique. It is the same banal, raw, aggression and power seen all over the world. The militarized police of the Dakotas share their unoriginal brutality with the Israeli Defense Force in Palestine, and the Indian Army occupying Kashmir, and the Indonesian military forces against the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea. The aim of Empire is always the same: to crush, exploit, rape and plunder the vulnerable of the earth and the living earth itself for the gain of power and coin for a select few.

President Obama’s tepid response to what is happening at this very moment at Standing Rock Sioux is nothing less than complicity in the crimes of Empire. And it is chilling to think about a Trump regime which will most assuredly ramp up the violence and state aggression to a new and more horrifying level. He can do this thanks to expanded powers the Obama regime has enabled and empowered.

I would be saddened but not be surprised in the least if drones were employed by the coming regime. Water protectors could easily be labeled with vague, all encompassing terms like “enemy combatants” and “terrorists” because they threaten “US interests,” code words for corporate industry plunder and exploitation via the State. Targeted assassinations of US citizens are now completely legal thanks to the Obama administration. In fact, US citizens have already been assassinated without due process. Indefinite detention is also now completely legal and there is no reason to think that a Trump regime would not use these powers and even expand upon them.

This signals a major shift in the US that is nothing less than monstrous. And it forces a choice on the rest of us. We must either stand on the side of the Water Protectors or we lend our tacit, albeit apathetic, support to the omnicidal madness of Empire. This avarice fueled insanity will not stop at Standing Rock Sioux; and there is no middle ground when it comes to this. Our fragile biosphere is imperiled like never before. Water is life and we must passionately protect it. Otherwise we will all suffer the immeasurable misery and self annihilation of doing without it, and that potential nightmare is sooner than anyone could ever imagine.

Kenn Orphan 2016

The End of the Charade

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This is going to be a sort of political rant, so for those of you who are sick of or hate that sort of thing I encourage you to scroll on.

It is a rant regarding the charade which is finally coming to an end. It is about the selected puppets of the ruling elite in the American Empire who will be paraded before the world a little more before its subjects are told that they have “chosen” one of them to lead.

Here is the deal. I should be happy for the absurd theatrics finally being over, right? But the thing is, I’m not. I shouldn’t give a damn either, right? I no longer live in the heart of the most ruthless and powerful Empire the world has ever known. But the thing is, I do. America IS, in fact, the most ruthless and powerful Empire the world has ever known. And its machinations have effects very far from its contested borders.

I guess I fear what I know is coming next. If Hillary Clinton is crowned those of us on the far Left who weep will be ridiculed, maligned or chided for not celebrating with gusto the first female President and the continuance of American aggression and dynastic rule. If in some bizarre anomaly the orange tinted creep sweeps to the throne those of us on the Left who denounced Clinton’s horrific war mongering and corporate loving record and refused to play the inane game of “lesser evilism” will be pilloried and blamed for enabling it all.

In all truth I will be thoroughly shocked if Clinton is not selected. Even George W. Bush, the vile war criminal of the previous administration, has given tacit endorsement of Hillary Clinton in a letter condemning Trump. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, but it is remarkably simple to condemn that repugnant man with fire retardant flesh tone. And this letter speaks volumes because Bush knows full well that it will bolster Clinton in the neocon circles of the oligarchy. Scores of conservative newspapers have lined up endorsing Clinton also. So with Clinton nearly a shoe in, I know what else is coming.

With the Obama regime as historical precedent, it is safe to assume that white American liberals will shrug indifferent shoulders and fall asleep once more as their government drones children and grandmothers picking okra in their fields or subverts democratically elected governments in the Middle East or Africa or Latin America. They will become champions of reactionary nationalism as a Clinton administration leads the nation into open conflicts with nuclear armed Russia. They will once again turn their heads from the decades long Israeli apartheid regime as Clinton pledges even more support to the hard right despot Netanyahu. They will stay silent in criticism of Clinton’s promotion of fracking or dismantling of social security, something which can be done without much protest under a Democrat. But they can continue to post noncommittal memes on Facebook and Twitter expressing outrage or solidarity with black or brown or red people besieged by a racist system without demanding the dismantling of the very system of capitalist exploitation that is the source of their misery in the first place.

They will rest on the laurels in smug slumber since, in that case, a woman with a big “D” will be sitting in the Oval office. And we should all applaud that, right? First woman president of the American Empire and all? Never mind that a woman named Jill Stein who, while far from perfect, had much greater progressive credentials. Never mind that Margaret Thatcher was also a woman, and one who had a remarkably similar neoconservative resume to Clinton. Never mind that Ms. Clinton supported (and continues to support) a rightwing coup in Honduras that has taken the lives of scores of indigenous, environmental and LGBTQ people, including indigenous environmental activist Berta Cáceres. Or pushed Obama into decimating Libya, once the richest state in Africa, and ghoulishly celebrated the gruesome murder of its president. Or in Haiti where she aided in the creation of a sweatshop economy on behalf of American garment corporations upon an already historically oppressed and humiliated people.

But really, who seriously believes that the privileged white Liberal class in America gives a rat’s ass about those foreign black and brown people? How many white Liberals care about black, brown and red people here, the ones right at home labeled “super predators” by the Queen in waiting only a few years ago, or ignored by her at Standing Rock Sioux?

Forgive me if I fail to celebrate with the Liberal Class if Clinton is anointed Empress. It is beyond question that Trump is a racist vile creature of narcissism and arrogant stupidity. But if self described “progressives” think the Bloody Queen will promote a left friendly agenda that will stop military aggression, the collapse of the biosphere due to blatant rape of the earth by corporations, and cease support for Wall Street then they have been drinking a Kool-Aid far more lethal than any flag waving, Trump supporting, walking head wound.

In any case, we on the true Left must somehow stomach it all and struggle on against militaristic imperialism for the sake of building a more compassionate and just world while there is still time left. And I couldn’t be more serious about the “while there is time left” part. We are running out of that one precious resource rapidly thanks to climate change, the ever present nuclear menace, global pandemic and biosphere collapse. But after all, if we are still in possession of a conscience what else can we do?

End rant here.

Kenn Orphan 2016

The Cracking Mirror

3 Replies

The statistics are staggering. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook, the United States, according to a recent study, leads the world in mass shootings. This year alone there have been 294 such incidents. It should be noted that it does not take into account gang related gun violence or family slayings through the use of firearms. But the response is equally mind numbing. After each incident there is feigned outrage from the mainstream media and meaningless platitudes from politicians. Nothing is done to stem this epidemic in any meaningful way, shape or form. Some make claims that a dearth of morality and the removal of religious references in the public arena are the root causes, and that more guns are the answer. While others focus on a lack of mental health services and lax gun regulations. But in truth, the United States was founded on gun violence and it continues to underpin every one of its institutions.

Early on, illegal settlers of mostly European origin cleared the land of its indigenous population, and maintained centuries of slavery largely through the use of guns. And while the Empire expanded on this continent, it entered into wars for over 200 of its 239 years of existence. Indeed, violence has always been exalted in the culture of this country, from a military that is impervious to reproach or criticism, to a popular obsession with punitive and draconian law and order. It is a culture that can take a mass murderer like the late Chris Kyle and re-cast him as a national and cinematic hero.

In this atmosphere dissenting from the modern, reactionary interpretation of the sacrosanct Second Amendment might find you getting death threats which, in the current climate, can never be dismissed as merely rhetorical. As in any fundamentalist ideology, questioning the foundational belief system is viewed as a threat to be dealt with harshly or eliminated completely. But unless this historic reality is faced, the current situation will only continue and grow more brutal and terrifying.

The American way of life, by its very nature, is incapable of responding coherently to mass shootings since practically all of its communication and transactions are based upon the currency of violence. This permits the powerful to exist within a bubble of hypocrisy, where a sitting President can chide the nation on its gun obsession while not grappling with the irony of his ‘kill list,’ or his justifications for using the ultimate, modern firearm, the combat drone, to bomb wedding parties, hospitals and grandmothers picking ocra in their fields abroad.

At home, the powerful have steadily armed a corrupt police force with military grade weaponry. These forces serve as occupying armies in cities across the country, protecting the property of the ownership class, and preserving the status quo. And as the empire crumbles and ecosystems begin to crash they are not about to dismantle the very institutions that will provide them cover in the impending social unrest.

The arms industry, too, will stop at nothing to maintain a certain level of rage and paranoia for the sake of their bottom line. It drives the American economy; and, with the help of Hollywood, has deftly stoked racist and misogynistic hatred to convince countless young, white men that their way of life is threatened by lawless minorities, powerful women or foreign terrorists with Arabic sounding names. Fear is the industry’s profit maker, and in a nation where income disparities are growing and opportunities for meaningful advancement are shrinking, their business is booming.

All of this has contributed to turning the United States into a wasteland of alienation and emptiness for millions of people. And for many young, white, straight males, whose agency to control their lives is fast slipping away, this desolate landscape unhinges them. They are disenfranchised from their own lives, raised on the liturgy of cut throat capitalism and the oxymoronic “free market,” and fed a steady diet of jingoism and military conformity. They are conditioned to respond to all things with the language of aggression, and view competition as the only legitimate way of life. If you are poor, damaged or incapable of participating in this theater of cruelty you are mocked and ridiculed or, worse, rendered invisible.

Tragically, there are bound to be more mass shootings. Within the hypermasculine climate of modern American culture, cooperation and empathy are viewed as character flaws and fatal weaknesses. This, combined with the losing game of neoliberal capitalism, has become a recipe for rage among huge swaths of young people who, no matter how hard they may try, can never hope to succeed within a rigged system.

The United States is a nation that is awash in guns and filled with angry, mostly white, young men. It has been this way since its inception. It is its character and how it defines itself. But now gun technology is far more accurate and lethal. And the US, along with the rest of industrial civilization, is teetering on the verge of economic and ecological collapse. Hoping that the powers that be will take reasonable and responsible actions to address this will only guarantee disappointment. If there is any solution it would be in the American people’s courage to reflect and recognize the true face of aggression and its endemic nature. But time is fast running out for that. And the mirror is beginning to crack.

Kenn Orphan 2015

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