This picture speaks a thousand words about modern war-making.
I recently took a course led by a grizzled old Korean War and Suez peacekeeping force veteran named Robbie. On a lunch break I sat outside eating while he smoked and lamented the state of the modern Canadian military to other students.
He said that while he served he earned something ridiculous like 6 cents a day. Soldiers these days he said, expected big money and creature comforts like cell phones, video games and Tim Horton's coffee while killing on our behalf. I don't quite know if he was resentful or jealous that he had put in so much for so little. But it does speak to the changing nature of the military and how much comfort the modern solider demands. I bet the military can't wait until their have soldier-bots fighting for them.
But it is strange isn't it? These two fellows have somehow hauled portable heaters out to the middle of a hill in the presumably frigid Afghan countryside. I wonder if they brought along their Nintendo DS and text their wives and girlfriends regularly: LOL sitting on hill 4 6 daze str8.
It’s pretty clear that Julian Assange is going to end up in an American jail probably for the rest of his life. After his recent extraordinary legal treatment he’s likely to suffer from a rendition on the way to Sweden. He’s lucky that he’s white or he might end up hanging.
I wanted to share a premise from Derrick Jensen which rings true in this case (and so many others): The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
This intense focus on Julian Assange though, once again betrays a major weakness of the state. I remember numerous marches against globalization and the police attempting to focus on people who they viewed as ‘leaders’. So they will pressure those assigned leaders, snatch them off the street, arrest them, torture them, deprive them of basic things, hold them in solitary confinement. Essentially make an example of them. The case of Alex Hundert is also exemplary in this regard.
But it’s not going to work. There are no leaders. As King Abdullah, the rotting royal of Saudi Arabia impotently demanded in a leaked cable: “cut off the head of the snake”. There is no head, my dear king. But once yours and the one’s of so many other dear leaders hit the floor then we just might be getting somewhere.
Wikileaks will go on. It is not one man. It is the truth. It is shining a bright light at the shadowy powerful. It is essential. It cannot be stopped, as much as the small-minded might hope.
So Julian Assange will be sacrificed but the struggle continues.
Love miles. I had never considered them before. My friend Chris wrote a great opinion piece about the damaging impacts of flying this week. Flying is bad, we all know it. Actually we don't all know it. And certainly the elites don't care.
But then there are the love miles involved. We all have families scattered around the world. This is the result of Colonialism and its clever rebranding, the Global Economy. So to show our love (and apparent hate of the planet) to our families we travel to Australia, India, US, Canada, Antarctica and anywhere we're holding a family gathering. My family, hundreds of people easily wants to meet every year or so. They even have a clever acronym for it: GOM.
I won't be attending.
There are also our friends who decide to get married in Cuba or the Dominican Republic. How could you not go? Don't you love them? So our relationships and the pressures involved in them are even feeding the destruction of the planet at our tiny hands.
I can't tell them that it's precisely because I love them that I won't be going. I just say I won't be going. We all have choices after all. You don't tell others how to live.
How many of our parents, extremely privileged in their old age, have their to do lists before they die? I know many. The Galapagos Islands, China, Easter Island, New Zealand, South Africa. The list grows every day as does the death toll from climate change.
How do you talk to people about this? Tied to love, death is the other half of the coin of flying, of these international lives. How can we recognize this?
Are humans just assuming the role of the balancing force of life? Death must come with life after all. Is our job to destroy the planet? To turn it back into merely a rock in the cold universe. Or more likely to die trying. Would another species have taken this on if we had chosen to just be.
These thoughts keep me up at night. But I won't be flying anymore. So don't bother to invite me to your wedding in Bermuda please.
I just read a reasonable article about Julian Assange's rape charges in Sweden. My initial thinking on this was that this was a way to get him into custody so that he could be taken off to Guantanamo Bay to disappear for the rest of his life.
The circumstances were just so problematic: he is charged then the charges are dropped. And the charges seem a bit flimsy: not using a condom during sex? First off I don't know who on earth wouldn't use a condom with a stranger (clearly I don't know many people). But secondly why wouldn't the lady in question (who is obviously sensible) just check to make sure there was some rubber between her and Assange. Passion is passion but you usually can notice when someone is putting on a condom. It does take a little time to tear the package and pinch and roll as I was taught in health class. So it all feels a bit dodgy since people want kill this guy for what he has done.
The lesson, clearly, for anyone who would challenge the might of the state (let alone civilization) is to take every step cautiously and to avoid temptation. They will find every speck of dirt on you. They will bend people that knew you to speak against you. They will destroy you in the public mind. If Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, Swiss banks, Paypal, the Democratic and Republican parties, the EU, Canada, academics, etc, etc, etc (essentially the full state and all of civilization--apart from a few civilized hackers) are against you what hope could you have?
Temptation is a powerful stimulus. Assange has a lot of power. He's a hero and rebel. That's sexy. He obviously has let it go to his heads, both of them. This doesn't take away from his message which resonates strongly and is a challenge to the powerful and their secrets and lies. But by giving them an inch, a few it seems, they are going to rake him over the coals. Right now various intelligence agencies are combing the world for other Assange victims. What a monster! A sex fiend! You shouldn't listen to such a sinful man. Listen to sinless politicians, those paragons of virtue who have devoted themselves to the public good, who call for his death(?).
Makes you want to puke doesn't it?
Eventually the cables will be forgotten and so will Assange. This will pass into oblivion like all memory. But not after he has been discredited and savaged and broken for daring to challenge the powerful.
Just a short note to share an interesting resource. I was interested in learning about the rural-urban split in Canada and by province. Things have certainly changed since the first censuses in 1851. In some provinces it went from a urban-rural split of 0-100 in 1851 to 85-15 in 2006! It's quite shocking to actually see the numbers and how far people have moved from a connection to the land.
Of note is that the Maritime provinces have experienced less of a shift overall. They hover around 55-45 urban rural split. It's caused by the smaller population generally but I wonder if this may mean that the Maritimes will be better able to weather the coming changes. Of course many of these rural people are retired seniors so I wonder if they have any projections of what will change after the baby boom passes on.
With all the corporations buying up Africa perhaps one day all the people will just be in cities and the corporations will own all the countryside. But of course that assumes a steady and growing energy base which we always have to remind ourselves won't be with us for much longer.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks has two choices: death or indefinite imprisonment. He's likely to be rounded up soon. And since the kids don't like that he ratted them out to their parents, he's got nowhere to hide. Interpol has issued a warrant for his arrest. Ecuador has apparently offered him sanctuary against the vengeful kiddies. I'm impressed he's lasted this long.
One of Harper's top advisors joked that he should be assassinated. You have to wonder about these people. If you don't like someone you just kill him? Okay I'll remember that lesson. But hmm, I don't like you very much. You can watch the video below.
The person though, who inspired me to write this morning is Mike Huckabee, the folksy Republican presidential contender. The former preacher is calling for whoever leaked these documents to be executed for treason. Maybe this is the letter of the law but I just can't picture a man who loves Jesus so much pulling the trigger. He's a preacher. A man who talks about love and Jesus in one breath and killing in another. What a wonderful thing.
Posts
