PunditRant: The Rude One is a MUST SEE...

I'm being a bit of a busybody today, writing volumes of crap that have little to do with the markets. I'm procrastinating a bit, trying to find things to do apart from a rather tedious and nasty database-tidying job.

The primary purpose of this missive is to heap praise on Rude Pundit; the man is as clear-eyed an analyst as ever drew breath. He uses far more colourful language than I do (although I swear like all get-out in actual speech). If political journalists were prepared to confront political bullshit the way that Rude One does, "Meet the Press" would be less like "Press the Meat" and more politicians would have red welts on their faces from being slapped hard every time the bullshit meter hit the red zone.

So seriously - check out the Rude One. People who know me personally will probably think I write it, but I swear don't.

Still'n'all, I think that it's time to ante up - for everyone who's not a brain-dead zombie. If you choose to sit in the warm bath of mainstream liquid fertisliser that passes for "news and current affairs", that's OK. Just don't be surprised when the sick bastards who want to run the world, come to force you children to go to foreign lands and kill other folk's kids (or be killed by them).

Just so's you know - there has never been a war that had public support before the State started the propaganda machine. In every major conflict of the 20th century, there was a requirement for the State to whip the masses into a martial fervour - and that's true on both sides.

In WWI, a simple territorial dispute between two Empires became a World War. Australian and American public opinion strongly favoured neutrality... then the government started the bullshit-taps. Huns were bayonetting nuns and babies in Belgium (so the story went at the time... it was entirely fabricated)... and off we went. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was elected on the specific promise not to involve the US... until he realised that if the Germans won, the US would stand to lose the debts that the Allies had accrued. So the Lusitania (a civilian ship carrying munitions - explicity rendering it a target) was used as the catalyst for US entry. And off they went, to the tune of almost half a million US dead.

WWII: similar... Roosevelt's blockade of Japan was explicitly designed to piss off the Japanese, who needed oil imports. The Japanese attacked right where the Pacific Fleet's (former) Admiral had said they would (before he got the sack). Agai, the Lend Lease debts that had been accrued by the Poms and the rest of Western Europe would have gone unpaid if the Krauts had won.

Vietnam: Bay of Tonkin... a bald-faced lie that Johnson knew was bullshit within 24 hours: 58000 US dead.

Gulf War I: babies thrown out of incubators; Iraqi forces amassed on the Saudi border (both bullshit)...

Gulf War II: mushroom clouds over Manhattan...

Imagine if nobody in the government had had a vested interest in war? (That is, if they had no ties - through political donors or personal stockholdings - in the military armaments industry, the oil industry, or the finance industry). If government was completely open - no secrets from its people or from the rest of the world? No capacity for subterfuge... no ability to say "I know stuff, but I cant tell you..."

Why do governments have such a penchant for secrecy? It can only be because they are doing stuff that most people would find unpalatable. What possible other reason could there be?

Of course, if there's stuff that they can pretend they know, but that they "have" to keep secret, then they can bullshit their populations and get away with it for long enough... then when all the lies unravel they simply say "Well it's too late to do anything now - we've all moved on from there."

Not good enough. It's the one instance where I strongly advocate the death penalty; if a decision by a government results in a death caused by a government agent or operative that would not have happened otherwise, the government minister responsible ought to be killed. (The exception here is deaths caused by the military and police forces while defending property or persons from acts of aggression within the national border).

Let's see how many party apparatchiks line up for ministerial jobs then.

 

So how come people are ever willing to believe anything that a government official tells them? Do you have any idea how long it took to get the US government to admit to all the US casualites in VietNam?

Governments have been shown thoughout modern history to be perfectly willing to lie their asses off even when the issue was one of war and peace (arguably the most important decision a government makes). How big a step is it from there (lying to get invovled in a war of choice) to actually causing or permitting to be caused the 'catalysing act' that 'drags' a country into war?

Roosevelt's foreknowledge of Pearl Harbour is now a matter of historical record, as is his deliberate ploy of attempting to get the Japanese to launch an attack. In some sense, it's no different to the Reichstag Fire or the incident at the Polish border (the probably-faked attack on a German radio post act that 'justified' German incursion into Poland).

What possible "benefit of the doubt" does the US government deserve when it comes to 911? Have they ever shown the least compunciotn about sending their kiddies off to die? Nup. Have they ever drawn the line at any subterfuge in their international relations? Wel, they've shown they're comfortable with invasion on false premises, swiftly followed by targetting civilians and civilian infrastructure, then moving on to mass imprisonment without due process, then to torture and rape. (And I'm not talking about stuff post - Sept 11 here... all of those things happened in the Phillipines in 1895...)

If you were confronted with that sort of track record, why on God's green earth would you look outside the borders for the culprits (not necessarily the perpetrators, but certainly the brainpower)

And the really disgusting thing: there's more airtime and political argument devoted to Janet Jackson's tit than to the inherent wrongness of the gobal war.

People who will permit their government to drop hellfire on children, but bridle at the word "fuck" or the sight of a middle-aged negress's boob, are not even worth calling a "civilised nation"... they're a psychotic rabble (more to the point, their leadership is the psychotic rabble... the American people are just too Sovietized to get rid of their leaders).

I've used the "f-bomb" a couple of times today, but the geopolitical situation really does warrant it. If John Howard sends troops to Iran when the US(or Israel) takes us abother step toward sgobal conflagration, he ought to be impeached. Does the Australian Constitution have a recall provision? If it does, we should "Gray Davis" his ass and force another election.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off down the shops to get some more tinfoil to make my hat thicker...

But seriously.. .as Cicero said: when looking for the likely guilty party, always ask Cui bono and cui malo; who benefits and who gets hurt?