Imperial Reach

The News: The Sheraton in Mexico City refused to give berth to a Cuban delegation. In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Sheraton in Mexico City was a subsidiary of a US-owned hotel group and therefore subject to US laws and regulations. Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez insisted that US law could not be applied in a third country.

The Note: If all U.S. citizens anywhere are always subject to U.S. laws and requirements they are effectively U.S. agents/agencies abroad. If a U.S. law prohibits contact with a Cuban in Paris, it can also require a U.S. citizen to report the attempted contact. Most Americans are probably blissfully unaware of whatever reporting duties they may be suspected of being engaged in by resentful natives.

The second interesting thing about the report is that the US was aware of the meeting and Treasury was alerted. Now unless the business men cleared this beforehand with the Treasury Department that would mean the US is spying pretty intensively.

©Barfo, 2006

The Truth were n'er so well bespoken.

And to conclude the year:

Bush: "I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat."

-o0o-

! He's not lying.

©Barfo, 2005
.

The Cult of Outsider-hood

The News: Fran Quigley, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, writes in Counterpunch, explaining why the ACLU has launched a full-scale assault on yet another Christmas creche.

"There are many more examples, because the ACLU is committed to preserving the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom for all. We agree with the U.S. Supreme Court's firm rulings that this freedom means that children who grow up in non-Christian homes should not be made to feel like outsiders in their own community's courthouse, legislature or public schoolhouse."

"To our "Merry Christmas" correspondents and all other Americans, we wish you happy holidays."

The Note: This is an example of precisely why the ACLU gets hated on this point. What the hell does it mean to say "made to feel like outsiders in their own community" What kind of nonsensical victim wailing is that?

If you are a religious or ethnic or sexual minority in a given society, by definition, you will always feel "not part of the majority" -- and by Venn diagram analysis, you will be "outside" the majority. That does not translate into being an "outsider in your own community" it simply means that you are a minority insider and can't be otherwise, unless you join the majority. What's the big fucking deal?

To a certain extent, all minorities suffer this kind of "exclusion". It goes with the territory. If you are gay, you are excluded from and inevitably made to feel excluded by baby showers, baptisms, mothers days, and the whole general social and economic construct built up around nuclear heterosexuality.

If you are Jewish in a Christian country or Christian in a Jewish one, you will feel like an outsider on certain holidays. In fact, you can feel like an outsider even when you are the majority. Ever try getting into a Lubovavitch dance circle as a Christian?

Diversity ends up meaning that all sorts of people are exlcuded from all sorts of things. The reason, we have secular holidays, like the Fourth of July, is so that we can have a time to celebrate our commonality and sameness, as distinct from those times when we celebrate our communion with specific portions of society.

The notion that government funding of a Christmas tree or reference to a "Christmas" tree is oppressive to the few when this is something 90% of the population celebrates is simply turning things on its head.

The idea that in order to protect people from the victimization of outsiderhood one has to suppress differences and erradicate any public display that might not coincide with a minority view is simply a perversion of the idea of the secular state.


©Barfo, 2005
.

PBS has trouble understanding The Policy

The News: PBS palaverer, David Brooks says: "No, that is ridiculous. And everyone I spoke to today was infuriated by the White House response and can't understand, by the way, why the White House can't explain their policy.

"You know, I had somebody who was on the ground there risking his life saying: Why are they AWOL on the home front; why can't they have a realistic explanation of what is going on here? Why instead are they attacking bitterly the people that are raising legitimate criticisms?

"Nobody should be questioning Jack Murtha as a person, as a figure of integrity. The problem with Murtha's speech is that nowhere in the speech does he actually consider what the consequences of withdrawal would be. There is no discussion of what Iraq would look like. There is no discussion of what the Middle East would look like, or what Zarqawi would look like."

The Note: Duh... The White House can't explain its policy because it has no "policy" you jackass. Plunder and Destroy is not a policy.

©Barfo, 2005
.

A Cryptic Confession within the Mea Culpa

The News: The New York Times offers the following -- "While this page was completely wrong in our presumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, we - and virtually everyone outside the Bush administration - warned about this danger from the beginning."

The Note: Huh? Presumption? Presumption, you say? Okay.... How do you "warn" about a presumption? So the New York Times admits not only to being wrong about its "presumption" but to urging war based on presumption. Wouldn't it be easier just to call them "bastards" and bomb them on that basis? Nice, the way they hide the real confession within the nostra culpa. What a loathsome rag.

©Barfo, 2005
.

L'echo du Likud

The News: "Racaille!"

The Note: Listening to Sarkozy it is hard not to hear the inimitable voice of the Likud. "Scum" "pressure blast" them out and deport them. Is it mere coincidence? It is clear that the protestors see him as the provocateur. So does the Conference of Bishops. The Left goes further and accuses zio-con "agents" of instigating the riots. At this point I would not put anything past Israel and its ziocons. But even assuming that no agents were at work, Sarkozy's talk and actions have all the "what me?" innocence of Sharon's tourism on the Temple Mount.

What do Sarkozy's masters want? To discredit Chirac's non-support of the Irak invasion, and to subvert liberties further by installing a "counter-terrorist" government in France; ie. one favorable to Israel, racially oppressive against "arabs" (the Jews equivalent to the Nazi's Jews) and, and, of course, hostile to anywone who looks askance at Jewish lies.

©Barfo, 2005
.

Perverse Muslims Reject Bush Charity Initiative

The News: A U.S.-backed Mideast democracy and development summit ended in rancor Saturday despite adoption of two initiatives that are part of President Bush's push to expand political freedom in a region dominated by monarchies and effective single-party rule.

A draft declaration on democratic and economic principles was scuttled after Egypt insisted on language that would have given Arab governments greater control over charitable and good-government organizations . . . Many Middle East nations are wary of Bush's second-term democracy agenda in the region, and some organizations the administration has tried to engage are reluctant to take State Department funding.

U.S. officials said the sticking point was a passage that pledged "to expand democratic practices, to enlarge participation in political and public life and to foster the roles of civil society, including NGOs," and to widen women's political and economic participation.

Egypt wanted the statement to stipulate that non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, be "legally registered," under each country's laws, a requirement that U.S. officials said would defeat the purpose of the statement. Egyptian delegates left the gathering early, after discussions on the final statement broke off.

Non-governmental organizations is a term used by the State Department and others to describe both humanitarian aid organizations such as the Red Cross and lesser known groups that promote social and political agendas.

The Note: Actually, Them-Crazy-Muslim resistance becomes very understandable once it is recognized that "NGO" is a term used by the State Department to describe infiltrating US wedge organizations that do Fifth Column work. The only people unaware of this are denizens of the US who are fed newspap like that quotes.

©Barfo, 2005.

.