God's Death Rattle

Several days before the orange-utan announced that the United States would leave the Paris Accords, the Great Barrier Reef off Australia was pronounced officially and irreversibly dead.  Another article at the same time described the complete ecological devastation of Borneo whose once rich and vibrant tropical forest, habitat to thousands of species, was now a strip mined, factory farmed garbage dump.  As dismaying as the pictures was the note that the human denizens seemed oblivious to the squalid, fetid, hell they were living in.

The news of Borneo and the Barrier Reef are just the latest funereal tolls of what has been obvious (at least to chipsters) for the past 20 years: the human race is destroying its one and only home.  The Paris Accords do not and will not change anything.  They are but a cynically small palliative designed to keep the environment at something just under an unlivable oven.  To anyone who understands even the rudiments of what   "ecology" means, since the word was first coined in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, that approach is fundamentally flawed.

But the death of the Great Barrier Reef raises an even more fundamental and theological question:  How can God negate Himself?

How is that possible?

God looked upon HIS Creation and saw that every unfolding part of it was "good".  He separated day from night and saw that it was good.  He parted the waters from the land and saw that they were good.  He created fruits and seeds according to their kinds and say that they were good. He created great creatures of the sea, teeming fish and flocks of birds vaulting across the skies, and blessed them all.  He then created insects and wild animals and saw that they too were good.  He then created mankind in his own image and gave them dominion over His Work.  He did not, however, say that  it was good. 

And so it came to pass that His image, acting with His authority is undoing all of His handiwork.  How is that possible?  Is God a cosmic, childish tantarum?

Now there are those, no doubt, who will contemptuously smile and say "There is no God" and "It is just a foolish tale for children."  But the foolishness, Oh rationalist one, lies in understanding Genesis in the manner of a child.  The account of a demiurge is clearly a metaphor for the more complex truth that what we call God inheres in and vivifies that which we call Creation.  God may be greater than Creation but he is not separate from it. He is its life-force or "breath" and the question becomes how can he also become its death-rattle.

In the Grundrisse, Marx points out that the "kernel" of capitalism lies in the "primitive hand that picks the fruit."  It is human labour that commodifies and kills; that turns a living tree into a dead plank of wood for use and sale.  But that hand is God's image. 

Does God cancel himself out?   It would seem so.

©WCG 2017

An Elephant and Integral Human Development

[Ed. Note - The following letters were sent to two prelates in the Catholic Church]

 

1 May 2017     

Rev. Msgr. Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso
Secretary Delegate Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Piazza San Callisto 16,
00153 Roma, Italy

Dear Monsignor,

Enclosed is a copy of a letter I have sent to His Eminence, Luis Antonio Tagle Cardinal Archbishop of Manila, concerning an elephant.    I think the letter speaks for itself but would like to add a few remarks.

Article 2415 of the Catechism states, “The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of ... humanity.    Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.”

I believe this articulation is inadequate, as it focuses too much on use for the benefit of Man and fails to draw the necessary connection between love of creation and man's own integral human development.

As you know, the word dominion is a derivative of domus and primordially refers not simply to the power of the paterfamilias but to his love, solicitude and responsibility for the beings within his household and, indeed, for the oikos as a whole.    It is in this sense, I believe, that Genesis 1:28, gives Man dominion (heb. radah) over Creation.    By focusing on use, the Catechism obscures that the essence of dominion is neither power nor benefit but love.

I have in mind Hans Urs von Balthasar who reminds us that "when the whole of worldly being falls under the dominion of 'knowledge', then the springs and forces of love immanent in the world are overpowered and finally suffocated by science..." (Love Alone.)
When we treat other creatures as material objects, we close ourselves to the forces of love immanent in them and, to that extent, we progressively deaden ourselves; for it is the nature of death to be inanimate and insentient.

 What this means is that “integral human development” necessitates that we ourselves refrain from descending to the material level and that we treat our fellow creatures not only with respect but with the affection of the fatherhood over them which was granted to us.
As I know you know, this becomes a matter of habitus and praxis. Studies have shown that materialism – that is, deadness of heart – begins in small things, often in childhood, and entrenches itself as man inures and accustoms himself to view the world “objectively.”   More than a personal failing, the indifference of the soldiers on Calvary was the product of a culture.

Our present culture is the most materialistic of all; not just on account of the fact that it has “the appearance of a vast warehouse of commodities,” but because what we call knowledge is actually a lower faculty whose focus and practice is on things as such.    We have become too used to executing tasks, so that the awesomeness of our technological progress stands in inverse proportion to our ability to stand in awe of the Creation we manipulate.

To quote von Balthasar again, “whoever sneers at Beauty... whether he admits it or not — can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love" (The Glory of the Lord.)    We see symptoms of our technological alienation everywhere.

Of course, this gives rise to paradox.    As a species, we could opt to live as simple savages without all the techno-material benefits we have discovered and created.    (And Mother Nature might very well punish us with just that after we have killed her off. ) Or we could develop a scintilla conscientiae equal in strength to our knowledge and serving to remind us, as through an aperture, of our original, savage righteousness in paradise. I do not conceive of this as a question of morals (itself a mere form of mathesis) but of vivification.

This task of reanimation falls heavily upon the Church. In fact, is that not her primary task?   And as with bringing anything back to life, back to mobility, the habit and progress begins with small things and small exercises, daily.

Some might say that an archbishop has more serious and more important things to do than to worry about an elephant.    I say not.    It was Jesus who reminded us that as unto the least so unto Him.    In fact, I would submit that the more we focus on systems for delivering charities, on institutional projects and programs for development, the more we distance ourselves from immanence and fall back into the materialism of knowledge.

The Church has been remiss in this regard.    Its bishops focus to much on management and too little on sparked response.    When they do speak out it is all too often on a small menu of issues that have become, frankly, moral fetishes.    To be fully alive to the world is to be alive to all of it. One does not smell a tree and not hear the bird or feel the sun or bask in the breeze.

Our Holy Father, has spoken out on environmental issues.    It was long overdue.    But he cannot – and should not – speak out on everything, daily. His authority would be diminished by over-use and eventually be ignored as just another voice in the increasingly competitive global cacophony.    It is therefore up to cardinals, bishops and priests to lift the burden from the Pope's shoulder's and to assist in the work that must be done.

Mali's suffering is heart-wrenching to anyone who is alive to Creation. It is as pitiable as the suffering of any child because, for all her grandeur and size, she is, before us, as helpless as any child in the house over which we have dominion. For our sake – for the integral development of our humanity – she deserves a cry of mercy from the memory of paradise.   And so, I have sent my letter.

I am sending this letter to you so that you may call attention to the fact that the Church's catechesis in this area is inadequate for the reasons I have discussed.    That is my opinion at any rate; and I believe it is a good one.    If I have addressed this issue to the wrong person, please be so kind as to forwarded it to the right one.
Sincerely yours,

                                                                                    18 April 2017

His Eminence Luis Antonio Tagle

Cardinal Archbishop of Manila

121 Arzobispo St., Intramuros,

1099 Manila, Philippines

Your Eminence,

I read with deep dismay about Mali, the captive elephant in the Manila zoo who has been kept confined for 40 years in complete isolation without the company and consolation of her own kind. This is barbarism. I quote to you Saint Aelred of Rievaulx,

“What forest bears but a single tree? Even in inanimate nature a certain love of companionship, so to speak, is apparent and thrives in society with its own kind. And surely in animate life who cannot easily see how clearly the picture of friendship is, and the image of society and love? For, although in other respects animals are rated irrational, yet they imitate man in this regard to such an extent that we believe they act with reason. How they run after one another, play with one another and betray their love by sound and movement. So eagerly do they enjoy their mutual company, that they seem to prize nothing else so much as they do whatever pertains to friendship.” (De Spirituali Amicitia 1164-67.)

Our Church has many times spoke out against materialism. But is it not a materialism of the cruelest sort to debase living, sentient creatures, lovingly made by our Common to Creator, to the level of inanimate objects, which yet remain alive if only to feel anguish? Mali is reportedly so lonely she tries to hug and caress her own tail.

Animal rights groups are willing to take Mali to a sanctuary where she can live the remainder of her days among her own kind and taste, if only for a short while, the joys God intended for her. But zoo officials refuse to release her. In naked contravention of Art. VII, § 2415 of the Catechism, they want their "object" for people to gawk at for a fee.

We are commanded to revere the least among us and to rescue the helpless. I implore you to speak out on Mali's behalf. It would be such a small thing for you to do that could have a saving impact.

Sincerely,

The Same Ol' Party

Day 1 of the New Democratic Era, saw the newly elected DNC chair, Tom Perez, taking after Donald Trump.  "New Party leader ridicules Trump's tweet..."  bannered the L.A. Times.

Y A W N

Hillary warmed over.  Blame the other guy is what you do when you haven't got anything to say for yourself.  That was Hillary's tactic during the primary and the election: shift focus.  And she did so in a nasty, gutter-level way by finding something negative to outrage over.  SWITCH AND BLAME.

So what does the "new" DNC offer?  More of the same, indicating that once again the Demorats hope to make progress not on the strength of their convictions (as if) but by playing FEAR and SMEAR.

“Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin,” said Perez

Oh really?  This is what working people should be worried about?

Parties worth the name have something affirmative to say and to peddle.  But the Demorats don't stand for anything; or more precisely, they are spread eagles for the corporate plutocracy.

And thus, the usual blather about "coming together, inclusively, under a rainbow, to fight Trump."  Not a word about fighting for those specific things that would actually benefit people and save the planet,  rendering Trump superfluous.

Meanwhile, Sweinstein was in town, meeting her constituents.  Per the Chron, "The hour-long, ticketed event, billed as a conversation with Feinstein with mostly preselected questions, wasn’t good enough for the protesters, who called on the senator to hold an open town hall meeting and answer questions from all comers.  Feinstein backed away from [that] request ..., but said she’d try to work something out the next time she was in the area."

Puke.

©Barfo

Reading between the Slime

The New York Slime reported (10/30) on CETA, as follows

BRUSSELS — The European Union and Canada signed a far-reaching trade agreement on Sunday that commits them to opening their markets to greater competition, after overcoming a last-minute political obstacle that reflected the growing skepticism toward globalization in much of the developed world.

...

On Friday, Wallonia, which has been hit hard by deindustrialization and feared greater agricultural competition, withdrew its veto after concessions were made by the Belgian government, including promises to protect farmers.


[T]he Walloon intransigence has underlined the extent to which trade has become politically radioactive as citizens increasingly blame globalization for growing disparities in wealth and living standards. Across Europe and the United States, opposition to trade has become a rallying point for populist movements on the left and the right, threatening to upend the established political order.

The key word here is “competition.”  Repeatedly the established political order, of which the New York Slime, is a primary cloaca, tells us that these agreements are trade treaties which are a win-win proposition which will promote “good paying jobs at home.”

The image evoked is that of two neighbours trading sugar for flour over the fence.  What could be more innocent, friendly and winwin for both?

But competition is “a contest or rivalry between two or more organisms, animals, individuals, economic groups or social groups, etc., for territory, a niche, for resources, goods, for mates, ...”  (Wiki)  Not so kumbaya after all.

How does the Slime pull off telling a misleading truth?

It does so because of the secondary meaning given to the word “competition” by capitalist propaganda.  Over and over again ad nauseam, competition is spoken of as a healthy thing, like exercise, which brings innovation and better products to market, like getting stronger muscles. 

In this vein the Slime quotes GLOBCAP’s newest poster boy, thus

"Mr. Trudeau said he wanted to “make sure that everyone gets that this is a good thing for our economies but it’s also a good example to the world.”

In actuality, capitalist competition is simply Economic Darwinism.  It engorges and destroys. Why else would this Friendly Trade Treaty require an addendum that “promises to protect farmers”? 

According to Turdeau,  “trade is good for the middle class and those working hard to join it.”   Not, however, if you’re a farmer in the target country.   Just as NAFTA destroyed the Mexican farmer,  CETA is not so good/good for the Walloon.

Nevertheless, having castrated the word “competition” of its true meaning so as to present a glowy picture of capitalist rapine,  the Slime goes on to disparage those who might think otherwise.

In saying that ordinary citizens blame GLOBCAP for inequity and austerity, the Slime insinuates that they are misinformed, childish naysayers.  What the Slime cunningly omits to mention is that despite this “good thing for our economies,”  inequity and austerity are ravaging societies across the globe.   Neither in the United States, nor Spain, nor India and certainly not Africa, do the metrics come close to proving that these Competition Treaties benefit society as a whole. 

The Slime needn’t engage in a prolonged digression from “the story line.”  All it needed to have written was that “citizens blame globalisation for [the] growing disparities in wealth and living standards that afflict countries around the world.   A simply five word clause would suffice to give objective validity to a blame which is otherwise implicitly characterised as a subjective idiosyncrasy. 

When all this mind-mushing is over and done with the Slimes then turns around and slap the reader in the face by admitting it and the competition treaties it champions are the established political order and FUCK YOU.

©

The Grand Duchy of Fenwick Saves the World (Again).

The Grand Duchy of Fenwick and its regional sister the (erstwhile) Margrave of Wallonia have together blocked ratification of the Canadian-EuroUnion Trade Treaty (CETA), after Germany’s Bundesverfassungsgericht failed to do so. 

Fenwickian Flag

Canada’s trade negotiator, Chrystia Freeland, visiblement très émue, returned to Ottawa stating “I am very disappointed.... but it’s impossible.”

According to the BBC  “The deal aims to eliminate 98% of tariffs between Canada and EU... It includes new courts for investors, harmonised regulations, sustainable development clauses and access to public sector tenders.”

What BBC does not tell its readers is that the trade is not really between “Canada” and the EU and that the “new courts” will be stacked in favour of corporations enforcing pro-corporate regulations.

Walloon Minister-President Paul Magnette, explained,

“We have clearly indicated, for more than a year, that we have a real difficulty with the arbitration mechanism, which could be used by multinationals based in Canada, that are not really Canadian companies, and on this point we find the proposals insufficient,”

That was Eurospeak for what we just said.

Neither the BBC nor the corporate-run press elsewhere disclose what these arbitration clauses mean.  However, what they mean is sufficiently proved by Trans-Canada’s $13 billion dollar legal suit against the U.S. government following Obama’s veto of the Keystone pipeline.

In simple English, the arbitrarion or “special court” provisions allow a corporation to sue for damages when it is prevented from damaging a country’s environment.   If you need to read that again, you read it right the first time.

One would never get the true scoop from pro-trade running dogs but what the “trade” treaties are about is establishing a supra-national, unaccountable corporate dictatorship.

Not Amused by That

The prostrated, depravity of the national governments is proved beyond doubt by the fact that none of them had any problem loosing their sovereign prerogatives to some anonymous corporation operating out of a domicile of convenience. 

However, under EU rules, all decisions must be unanimous and under Belgian Law no treaty can be ratified without the affirmative consent of its three, constituent erstwhile duchies, of which Wallonia is one.

Needless to say enormous pressure will be brought to bear on Wallonia to blackmail it into changing its mind before the October 27 deadline.   Needless to say, enormous inducements will be thrust at the Grand Duchy to bring it around and into submission.   If anyone does not think that the Great Obambi is not leaning on Paul Magnette, standing bold and dauntless amidst the wash of servile niebelungen and snivelling quislings that pass for Europe’s ruling elite, he does not know what is at stake or what Obambi is about.

Ave!  Conste Wallonia! 

©

The Real Debate

While the US presidential candidates were engaging in their chronic gutter-sniping, Marine Le Pen, head of the French Front National was giving an interview to Stephen Sackur of BBC’s hard talk.

Sackur:

Let me ask you.. do you see yourself and your movement as part of world wide phenomenon?

Le Pen:

Yes; there is something happening in  the world. The people’s will is clearly emerging against either supranational political powers such as the EU or big financial powers and against a system which for too many years has been defending specific [special] interests and no longer defends the interests of people 

That is Brexit but also all these referenda in Europe which clearly show that the EU is being rejected — in Denmak, in the Netherlands and in Hungary some days ago, and soon enough probably in Italy.

Something fundamental is happening which is the comback of nations, of sovereign states with people and frontiers.  People want to be in charge of their destinies and for a long time they were prevented for doing so.

-o0o-

In so saying, Le Pen staked out a position diametrically opposed to the corporate globalism Hillary Clinton represents.  While Hillary, ever the duplicitous dodger and dissembler, has pretended to have “come around” to being against the trade treaties, she has come nowhere.

The position stated in both the Demorat Party platform and Hillary’s web page is nothing more than a bunch of weasel clauses in search of a stance.   Any fool can see that Hillary remains committed to the “four freedoms” the bottom line of which is that the rich get to buy wherever they want while the rest get to scramble for work wherever they can find it, even if 1000 miles away.

Hillary, no stranger to fanning outrage over politically incorrect transgressions, remained stunningly silent when Trans-Canada, availing itself of treaty-clauses, sued the U.S. government for $13 billion dollars in “damages” after Obama vetoed Keystone. 

While Sanders and Trump are also against the trade treaties, they failed to articulate the fundamentals.  Their opposition was stated in mostly in terms of job losses with Trump adding immigration.  Neither mentioned that NAFTA caused as much job-loss in Mexico as it did in the U.S., as a result of treaty mandated restriction's on Mexico's "right" to support its domestic agricultural sector.   Neither spoke to the fundamental evil of the current trade treaties which is that they are a threat to national sovereignty in all spheres.  It has been left to Le Pen to triumph the cause of nationalism as such front and forward.

One of the inevitable concomitants of the mass consumer states is that it disables people from distinguishing what is fundamental from what is not.  The overriding habitus of the consumer state is the satisfaction of impulsive and idiocyncratic desires, albeit carefully cultivated and manipulated.  Social policy gets conceived of as a list of disconnected and often inconsistent wants.  SUMMUM WANNA

But some things are fundamental in that their existence or non existence determine all other ensuing issues.  The environment is fundamental because without a life sustaining environment nothing else exists and one’s desire for gender-free access to bathrooms becomes moot.

The nation state is fundamental because it acts as the environment for all subordinated political, economic and social decisions.

At this point, a qualification must be made. The nation state is not an eternal constant.  It was a specific historical phenomenon that began its formation in the 13th century with the Albigensian Crusade which was, at bottom, the suppression of local autonomy in favour of a centralized monarchy. In other words, the nation state was itself the emergence of a supra-manorial and supra-municipal power at a given point in history.

Indeed, the progress of history can  be viewed as the successive emergence over time of ever greater and more encompassing ambits of authority, although there are periodic retrograde retrenchments such as the so-called collapse of the Roman Empire, which in actuality represented a return of grass roots popular sovereignty.  Vive Asterix!

(We know that capitalist propaganda — aka the “enlightenment” — has obscured the true nature of feudalism so that all one can say at this point is that the reader will have to unenlighten himself as best she can.)

But what is a constant is that, at any given historical stage, a given unitary formation of a people (what the Greeks called a “polis”) retains sovereign control of their own destiny.

When nationalism usurped local freedoms what ensued over time was a reclamation of those freedoms in what are now known as the bourgeois revolutions of 1688 and 1789.  When Marine Le Pen refers to the French Republic she refers to fundamental political concord and control among and by the people of France at a given stage of historical development.

The obvious counter-point to Le Pen would be to assert that the new supra-national, global corporate state represents the ongoing evolution of human sovereignty.  The “next stage” as it were.

There are, no doubt, some socialists who might welcome the emergence of a global corporate state on the assumption that once in place it could be taken over by a triumphant proletariat working in the interests of the people.

The only difficulty with that long-term historical analysis is that by then no world will be left — or at least no world worth living on — because global corporate capitalism is not simply avaricious but fundamentally destructive.  It will in fact turn the world into a holocaust on Moloch’s altar.

The counterpoint between the national and the supra-national state boils down to the problem of size which, simply stated, is that you cannot have an infinitely large elephant.  At some point the skeletal structure required to support a mega-elephant is so thick and big that what exists, if it exists at all, is not an “elephant.”

The Roman Empire was a manifestation of the problem of size.  The idea (or at least the propaganda) of Julius Caesar for a Pan-Mediterranean (“global”) super-state of peoples united in peace and prosperity under aegis of Rome was simply not attainable.

Augustus rejected Caesar’s plan for a trans-national constituent assembly because, even if Roman jingoism could be overcome, the mechanics were all but impossible.  Instead, Augustus espoused a policy of “incremental romanization”.  As a result, what is called the Roman Empire was simply a class structure  — a band of romanized provincial middle classes adjunct to and supportive of a one percent elite in the four principal urban centers (Rome, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria) ruling over millions of repressed and dispossessed people. 

According to Edward Gibbon “The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valour. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury.”    But assuming arguendo a “happy period” from A.D. 98-180, more recent research has  painted a far more brutal picture beneath the exceptionalist blarney.  The empire was organized rapine — urban centres sucking the life blood out of their hapless surroundings —  and that translated into the misery of many for the wealth and luxury of a few.

The official Christianization of the Empire did not humanize this global, predator super-state; the urban episcopacy simply joined the one percent. The humanising impact of Christianity occurred at the local and feudal level under diocesan bishops guiding and giving voice to popular aspirations.

By analogy, the notion that a humanising socialism could effect a proletarian coup d’etat over a once established global super-state is, in our opinion, an unfounded pipe dream.   There are simply limits as to how big a “democracy” can get and still be a democracy.   James Madison himself made this point in Federalist Paper No. 10 wherein he discussed how the nature and constitutional structure of a republic depended on its size and extent.

It is arguable, perhaps, that at 140 million spread out over a continent, the United States still preserved the features of a true representative democracy; or, at least a democracy that was possible except for the country’s deplorable counter-democratic electoral system.  At 300 million, no form of democracy is possible; what exists is simply a degraded Roman farce.

Extent is as critical as size.  The dream of the 1812 Spanish Liberals for an ultra-marine constituent assembly compromising all inhabitants of Spain and the Americas was unachievable both logistically and in terms of the normal focus of each its constituent parts.  People are naturally disposed to be concerned about things in their proximate environments.  They don’t care about and are in any case not in a position to familiarize themselves with local problems a thousand leagues away.  Thus, apart from the mechanics of communication, size impacts on what people are disposed and capable to communicate about. The Count of Aranda had prophetically made this point in 1788 when he proposed that the only way to save the Empire was to break it up into distinct (albeit allied) sovereign nations — united by ties of religion and commerce and “in all events to the exclusion of England.”

Had his advice been followed there is a chance that an Empire of Sovereign Nations might have survived the Anglo-American onslaught.

In all events, both Aranda and Madison were on to the same problem of size. The ideal size for a parliamentary nation state seems to lie somewhere between 40 and 80 million.  A more accurate assessment would most likely be based on a correlation of population to GDP and other factors. However, what is evident, as a positivist fact, is that the current sizes of the major European states allow each of them to come to an articulable consensus derived from manageable differences. 

European nationalism would never prevent trade; it would rather base trade on priorities established by each of the trading counterparts.  Since the claque that governs the United States cannot conceive of priorities other than the financial bottom line, globalists like Clinton can’t conceive of differing priorities.  Doesn’t everyone believe that happiness is profit?  Actually not.  Profit like manure is necessary to fertilize productivity but right thinking people do not idolize dung.

With these considerations in mind, it can be seen that Le Pen’s call for a devolution of powers and a return to nationalism is not as reactionary and counter-historical as socialists of the internationalist mode might make it out to be.  In fact, in Latin America, liberationist and leftist thought currently rejects one-world globalism in favour of national and local political-economies based on and congenial to ethno-historical formations. 

The Gazette would prefer a Le Pen who was more to the left than she apparently is, although by troglodyte U.S. standards she out-lefts even Sanders.  That said, Le Pen is  about fundamentals and, on that level, the real debate last night was not between Trump and Clinton but between Le Pen d’Arc and the Whore of Globalism.

There can be no doubt where the Gazette stands.

©

Oh What a Lovely Encore!

In an editorial dated November 11 2008, the NYSlime, called on Obama to continue Bush’s wars by other means. Urging a withdrawal from Iraq, the editorial went on to endorse war in Afghanistan: 

“The United States and its NATO allies must be able to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan AND keep pursuing Al Qaeda forces around the world.” 

(Please to note “around the world”.) 

Written in Slimeze, the editorial was a de facto endorsement of neo-con full spectrum interventionism.

Today the Slime reports on, and endorses sub silentio, a New War in Africa. 

“The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor.”

With inestimable aplomb, the Slimes states that the current strategy will not repeat the “mistakes” made in Afghanistan and called for in its editorial of 11/11/08.

The Slimes quietly omits the Administration’s construction of a new drone base in Niger to serve as a key regional hub for U.S. military operations.

Once again, the P.N.A.C.’s  9/2000 white paper (Rebuilding America’s Defenses) serves as the ongoing blue print for a fully continuous foreign policy that has remained in effect since 9/2001.  The difference between Obama and Bush is simply a modulation as to which part of the spectrum will be active in any given place or time.  It's ultimate effect and secret purpose is nation destruction.

In all events what the Slime has just told anyone who wants to have a brain worthy of being used, is that the Annointed One, will continue the policy of nation-destruction which she and her boss so ably executed in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan — not to mention Yemen.

 
One correction needs to be noted. The New York Slime  speaks of this issue as a matter of United States foreign policy. That is anachronistic and misleading.  There is no such thing as “American” foreign policy.  There is simply a global corporate policy with economic, diplomatic and military aspects, carried out by a prime enforcer.

Pity the elephants.

©