brainiac conspiracy

We're Doing It For Your Own Good

Because cities are for cars, not people.

To the point, there is something seriously wrong about your policy priorities when walking through an intersection---in the crosswalk, on a green light!---can merit a fine that's three times the amount you'd pay for leaving your car in a "No Parking" zone. If the local burghers want to encourage people to get out of their cars and use their own two feet for short trips---because, you know, it reduces congestion, smog, wear and tear on our roads, etc.---they've sure got a funny way of doing it.

---Baron V

We Still Need That Truth & Reconciliation Commission

Because atrocities are still being committed with each passing day.

---Baron V

Monday Night Music Blogging

Because we still need that Truth & Reconciliation Commission, and I ain't gonna stop blogging about it until it happens. I may go to my grave insisting on it, but as a matter of international law and basic human morality, there is no alternative position that any conscientious human being can take.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

The Most Trusted Name in Newspersons.

Seriously.

Put it another way: if they can figure out a way to "rebrand" their group, Al Qaeda would love to hear from them. Since both groups achieve their organizational objectives using the same methods, any marketing advice the Klan boys can provide would presumably be most appreciated.

---Baron V

Oh, How They Wanted to Believe in Those Days

Whatever nonsense our leaders spewed about Iraq. Why, exactly? Probably because very few people in our national media establishment wanted to confront the possibility that America had unwittingly allowed its executive branch of government to be taken over by a gang of amoral grifters who were as dishonest as they were incompetent, and whose eight years in the White House effectively sealed the nation's doom as a global political power. To some of us at the time, though, the bullshit was so transparent, its still hard to see how so many seemingly well-educated people took the bait. But it's yet another reason---if you needed any more---for convening that Truth & Reconciliation Commission!

---Baron V

Birth Pangs

Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here:

[A]s Iraq prepares for its first national election in four years on April 30, it is hard to imagine democracy activists rallying weekly in Iraqi streets. For months, suicide bombers have been dynamiting themselves in crowded Shiite markets, coffee shops, and funeral tents, while Shiite militias and government security forces have terrorized Sunni communities. The Iraqi state is breaking apart again: from the west in Anbar province, where after weeks of anarchic violence more than 380,000 people have fled their homes; to the east in Diyala province, where tit-for-tat sectarian killings are rampant; to the north in Mosul, where al-Qaeda-linked militants control large swathes of territory; to the south in Basra, home to Iraq’s oil riches, where Shiite militias are once more ascendant; to Iraq’s Kurds, who warn that the country is disintegrating and contemplate full independence from Baghdad.

More than 2,500 Iraqis have been killed since the start of the year, including nearly three hundred in the first ten days of April; in the capital itself, which has become a showcase for the country’s multiplying conflicts and uncontrolled violence, there have been several brazen attacks on government buildings, and a terrifying string of car bombings, including eight on April 9 alone.

Thousands of innocents were needlessly slaughtered while America's thought leaders cheered on the carnage. But hey, looking forward.

---Baron V

Truth, Reconciliation, Etc.

Yeah, I know we'll probably never get one, but that doesn't mean we should stop talking about it. Because sooner or later, our political and media leadership classes will need to acknowledge the respective roles they played in helping to destroy one of the world's great cities:

As recently as the 1970s, Baghdad was lauded as a model city in the Arab world. But now, after decades of seemingly endless conflict, it is the world's worst city.

That is, at least, according to the latest survey by the Mercer consulting group, which when assessing quality of life across 239 cities, measuring factors including political stability, crime and pollution, placed Baghdad last.

The Iraqi capital was lumped with Bangui in the conflict-hit Central African Republic and the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, the latest confirmation of the 1,250-year-old city's fall from grace as a global intellectual, economic and political centre.

Residents of Baghdad contend with near-daily attacks, a lack of electricity and clean water, poor sewerage and drainage systems, rampant corruption, regular gridlock, high unemployment and a myriad other problems.

Sure, Saddam wasn't the wisest ruler. The war with Iran in the '80s was a costly disaster. But I'm guessing that 20 years of Western sanctions and the subsequent U.S. invasion were the leading causes of the death of Iraq. Heckuva job, everyone!

Luckily, through the magic of the Twittertubes, we can always relive better days.

--Baron V

It's His Life

And he can do whatever he wants with it. No, I wouldn't have gone on TV with Pooty-Poot because (1) the optics are absolutely horrible, and (2) I wouldn't trust him anyway. Then again, I haven't been hounded into exile for exposing the criminal activities of my own government. Put in his position, I might view things from a slightly different perspective.

But either way, it's never been about Snowden. An imperfect messenger doesn't invalidate the message.

---Baron V

Of Course it was a CIA Op

And that's why they tried to cover it up.

More to the point, one of these days we will need to engage in a little conversation over whether or not it is in the best interests of the Republic to have an agency of the federal government that has no wider mission than destabilizing unfriendly governments and harassing leftist political movements. It costs a lot of money, it makes a lot of enemies, and it hasn't proven itself capable of protecting us from attacks. So we have this agency siphoning money from the federal budget for . . . what reason exactly?

---Baron V

Dead Horse, Flogged

Yeah, I know I do this a lot of it on this stupid blog, but it bears repeating that there has always been---and always will be---a strong moral imperative for convening that Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Because Iraq is a gift that keeps on giving:

[T]he Iraqi government is poised to legalize child marriage for the nation’s majority Shiite Muslim population. But the law, which some expect to pass before this month’s parliamentary elections, would do significantly more than that.

Called the Jaafari Personal Status Law, it would prohibit Muslim men from marrying non-Muslims, prevent women from leaving the house without their husband’s consent, automatically grant custody of children older than two to their father in divorce cases and legalize marital rape.

The law, which proponents say will save women’s “rights and dignity,” would also permit boys to marry as young as 15 and girls to marry as young as nine. Girls younger than nine would be permitted to marry with a parent’s approval.

These practices were banned under the tyrant Saddam. They are being reintroduced by our Friends in Freedom. When you think about the millions of people in the Middle East whose lives we have permanently fucked over, it really is amazing that we don't see truck bombs detonating every day in cities across America, now, isn't it?

---Baron V

Late Night Music Blogging

Because they have always hated us for our freedoms.

---Baron V

Monday Night Music Blogging

Because congratulations are in order for a job well done. Keep it up!

---Baron V

Lies We Tell Ourselves

Nobody likes to think they've offered up their sons and daughters in defense of their country when in reality, they're actually offering up their sons and daughters for no reason whatsoever, so to compensate, we mythologize our wars, and an unpleasant side-effect of this is a tendency for the people who fight our wars to mythologize their own accomplishments. For this reason (among others), we should expect to hear the time-tested "stabbed in the back by Obamabots and communists" line to reemerge from the primordial swamp as soon as the Taliban retake control of Afghanistan. And they will. It's their turf, and forewarned is forearmed.

---Baron V

Everything's Related

If there's a time that future historians will point to as the moment the American Experiment began its irreversible decline, I am guessing it will probably be around the year that we invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses, slaughtered tens of thousands of people for no reason whatsoever, instituted a regime of torture on many innocent people, made no attempt to atone for it, and suffered no penalty for it after the fact. I don't want to get too otherworldly here, but it sure seems that ever since Iraq, the nation has been visited by an epidemic of brutality---mass shootings, police beatings, prisoner abuse, etc.---and I don't think that these are entirely unrelated events. I think they speak to a coarsening of the national psyche that has occurred since Iraq, and I fear it is likely to get worse until there is an honest accounting of how we got there, and offer to make amends for our crimes. A thriving liberal democracy cannot endure when a culture of state-sanctioned violence is allowed to metastasize.

---Baron V

Moral Authority

As long as we keep evading responsibility for this shit, our nation will have none:

[T]he August 2002 Justice Department legal memo authorized sleep deprivation for Abu Zubaydah for 11 consecutive days, but Mitchell kept him awake far longer, the U.S. officials said, citing classified CIA cables. Abu Zubaydah was stripped naked, strapped into a chair and doused with cold water to keep him awake. He was then interrogated and asked what he knew, at which point, his attorney told Al Jazeera, Abu Zubaydah was “psychotic” and would have admitted to anything.

Additionally, the report allegedly says that Abu Zubaydah was stuffed into a pet crate (the type used to transport dogs on airplanes) over the course of two weeks and routinely passed out, was shackled by his wrists to the ceiling of his cell and subjected to an endless loop of loud music. One former interrogator briefed about Abu Zubaydah’s interrogations from May to July 2002 told Al Jazeera that the music used to batter the detainee’s senses was by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

If you had asked me five years ago if the incoming administration would simply turn its back and abjectly ignore the depravities of people who committed horrible crimes in our name, I'd have said you were crazy, that they'd at least make some symbolic gesture towards human decency: a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, perhaps. The fact that they haven't even discussed this and have actively run interference for the torturers is, well, crossing over into "evil" territory, much as it pains me to say it.

---Baron V

We Need More Snowdens

In the absence of a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, it's the best we can hope for.

Snark aside, this report needs to be released in full before the White House can take a black Sharpie to it. History demands it, and in the name of human morality, we should too. We paid for this shit, after all!

---Baron V

Missing The Aughts

There was so much awesome shit going on that made everyone feel real proud, wasn't there?

More to the point, there was a time in my youth when I aspired to be a member in good standing of the Washington press corps. Because, you know, Woodward and Bernstein, and Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson, and Helen Thomas and Izzy Stone! Sometime over the last 40 years, however---the Ron & Nancy years, perhaps?---real, i.e., adversarial journalists were gradually phased out in favor of the gang of sociopathic toadies and syncophants who currently serve as our nation's court stenographers, and who chuckled in delight while thousands were slaughtered. All of which is why your humble blogger is guessing that he'd have been a wash-out in Washington.

---Baron V

National Security = Harass The Hippies

Okay, I realize that there are genuinely bad people out there who would like to do us harm, so it is good to have some sort of national security policy, and perhaps an agency with a limited mission to implement it. In practice, however, our national security policy all too often gets distorted by the policymakers themselves, who think it's more important to spy on leftist political movements than on our sworn foreign enemies. This crap has been going on for decades, and if we don't put a stop it, we will eventually come to regret it. So, put a stop to it already.

---Baron V

Monday Night Music Blogging

Because like herpes, nightmares never go away, only into remission.

---Baron V

The Company We Keep

We really know how to pick 'em.

Short form: Benghazi was---you'll be shocked, I know---a CIA operation to run guns to the Syrian rebels via Turkey, which was purchasing them. After the consulate was torched, the operation was halted, but the Turks continued running supplies to the rebels, including (most likely) the sarin gas that was cited by the President as the "red line" that would lead to war. When the President was informed the gas attacks weren't coming from the Syrian army, he backed off and struck a face-saving deal with Assad. Now, I know that only an isolationist crank would ask what the hell we are doing over there when we have millions of people right here at home who could use some material assistance, but you know, it's a question worth asking---and at this point, I'm not necessarily opposed to an impeachment vote.

---Baron V