One of the fifty million things wrong with hardcore

This really has nothing to do with the band Defeater or even the record label, Bridge 9. I do not know any of them, I know little about any of them, and I have never seen the band play. I have no interest in putting them down or any kind of such childish crap. This is a critique of ideas.

It's difficult to think of people in this country less deserving of aid than troops - cops, rich people, vivisectors, clergy, politicians...But here we have a month-long benefit for people in the military, with the help of Bridge 9 Records and the band Defeater, in honor of 9/11:

Boston, MA’s Defeater are no strangers to the themes of war with their conceptual albums Travels, Lost Ground and Empty Days and Sleepless Nights. All three albums tell the story of a family set in post-WW2 America and their trials and tribulations – from an alcoholic veteran father, his wife and their two sons. Consequently, Defeater has been well known for their support of US troops fighting for our country. With the ten-year anniversary of the September 11th tragedy just on the horizon, Defeater, along with Bridge Nine Records and All In Merch, will be donating proceeds from their merchandise sales to the soldiers returning home suffering from post traumatic stress disorder via the Wounded Warrior Project.

Starting today, $1.00 from every shirt sold on their webstores through September 30th will be donated to these soldiers that require assistance upon their return home. Additionally, Bridge Nine’s webstore will be carrying an exclusive t-shirt that will be sold for one time only this September, and 100% of the proceeds will also go to the Wounded Warrior Project. Defeater had this to say: 

“As the 10 year anniversary of September 11 approaches, we want to recognize the soldiers who have been fighting in the wars that resulted from the tragedy. Between now and September 30, defeater, Bridge Nine and All-In Merch will donate a portion of our merch sales, including every exclusive shirt, to the Wounded Warrior Project -- an organization that helps war veterans recover from the physical, emotional and psychological scars left by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This organization allows these heroes to successfully return to the life they left behind to fight for our nation's freedom.
Whatever our political beliefs, each individual deserves to return home to a support structure that helps them heal from conflict. Every person we know and love that is willing to put their life on the line for the people they care about deserves our attention and what little we can give back in return. Thank you for your purchase, and to all of our deployed friends and family.”

Wow, no. So, so many things wrong with that. Why, oh why, should anyone aside from oil companies and weapons manufacturers be giving money to individual soldiers? Here are people who volunteered to join the military. That's what we're talking about. No one was drafted. A standard stint of enlistment is four years. Anyone who has joined the military in the last ten years had a pretty good idea what was going on - you're probably going to war. Pointless imperialist wars. Pointless. No glory. No defense of the country. Long-term occupation style wars. Invasions.

So there you were, kicking in people's doors, terrorizing kids, shooting camels for kicks. Harassing people on the street. Asking for ID. Making fun of them and their customs. Waving guns at them. Humiliating them. Screaming "orders" at them in a language they don't understand. You are their new gods. And now here you are, back in the country. And you deserve money? No. You don't deserve ANYTHING. What did Charles Manson's followers get? Jail.

"[E]ach individual deserves to return home to a support structure that helps them heal from conflict" - umm, what about the people who already were home (Afghanistan, Iraq) and never will be healed because now they are living in seemingly endless civil war, because they had their lives picked up and dumped on the ground? What about the people of Iraq who were living in a sovereign country that was no real threat to anyone, especially the United States, and now have had their infrastructure ruined, their past looted, and their future damn near stopped? And the people who did that deserve to "heal"? "Heal"? From the violence that THEY'VE done? From the misery that THEY brought? This is so deeply offensive to the annihilation that they have visited onto millions of people who had nothing to do with anything. This is a perversion of responsibility.

"[W]illing to put their life on the line"? For what? For whom? No one wants you there except people in business and government. You fools. Tools.

But they were just following orders, right? Ha. Classic defense. I'm sure people would respect that were this country invaded, by people just following orders.

I know I've said this before, but what's up with people not getting the idea that the troops ARE the war? They fight. They shoot. They invade. Rumsfeld ain't gonna crawl through the desert. You think Obama will? How about anyone on the board of General Electric? No. Put down your guns and the war is over. That's it. End of story. Troops made the invasion and keep it alive every day. They choose to do this.

Also, can I mention one more time that there is no relation whatsoever between 9/11 and Iraq? No one even claims that there is anymore. No one.

Even if you respect the concept of America having to invade Afghanistan and "go get em," which they really didn't, seeing as Bin Laden was alive until not so long ago, why are they still there, ten years later? What's going on?

All this shit is just nationalism. Blind patriotism. Giving money and "support" to people who've all engaged in horrible individual acts and one huge collective horrible act. Seriously, you look around, and when you think "Who could use some benefit money?", the answer you derive is the military? Fuck.

Sickening - care packages for Troops

Oh, how I loathe the cult of the American military.

Don't worry, there's "no political message, whatsoever." I guess "we love you, keep fighting, whatever you are doing is fine, we worship you, what you are doing is worthwhile and full of purpose" is not political.

Again, the troops ARE the war. They don't plan it, but they carry it out. They're the tools in the box. The people high above them are just the architects. You know that Obama wouldn't go shooting it out in Afghanistan. If it were really his war, it would be over immediately. So, yeah, fuck the troops. They do all the dirty work. Taking orders is not an excuse. Let us remember, no one is being drafted. If you don't realize that invading and occupying someone's country is wrong, then you should realize that kicking in their doors, blowing up their houses, creating a life of war for them and terrorizing their families is. And if you don't, fuck you. You've surrendered your right to live. I don't care what happens to you. You're being shot at because you are an invader. What would you do if Iran invaded the U.S.?

The American heroes in Iraq or Afghanistan are the ones who refuse to fight or turn their weapons on their commanders. Or someone like Bradley Manning. Taking it down from the inside. Resisters. They get put in jail and are remembered as traitors or enemy sympathizers. What else could they be when everything is so black and white? There is only right and wrong, with us or against us. What about "we don't want any part"? That is not an option.

Troops Oops

An oldie but a goodie.

I finally figured out why the U.S. is occupying Iraq

It's to rid the world of those gay little boy terrorists.

How to avoid getting redeployed to combat

This is fucking awesome:

[Army Spc. Marc A.] Hall has been jailed since Dec. 11, two days before his brigade with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division out of Ft. Stewart, Georgia, was scheduled to leave for Iraq. He was charged with the military offense of communicating a threat after telling his battalion commander that he might shoot or otherwise attack a fellow U.S. soldier, according to Army lawyers. He previously served in Iraq in 2007-08.

But it was a CD recording of a rap song that Hall wrote and sent to the Army's personnel office in July 2009 that gained notoriety for the case.

At that point, Army lawyers said, Hall knew his unit was scheduled to deploy — just two months before he was to finish his four-year enlistment contract. An unpopular Army policy known as "stop loss" requires that soldiers who are assigned to a unit at the time it deploys will be kept in the ranks for as long as the duration of the yearlong tour.

On the recording, Hall denounced the Army for the policy and rapped about opening fire with his military-issue M-4 rifle.

"I got a (expletive) magazine with 30 rounds, on a three-round burst, ready to fire down," Hall rapped. "Still against the wall, I grab my M-4, spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor. ... I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more, in your next lifetime of course. No remorse."

Pretty great. This guy seriously did not want to go back to war, and was willing to do just about anything. He fucking mailed a CD of the song to the Army! Man, that's gutsy. Good for him. It should really say something to people that he'd rather spend an indefinite period in jail that go back to combat. It probably won't though.

Fuck military service, at least in this country. You're just a tool of imperialism, suppression and oppression.

Wikileaks editor on the Colbert Report, discussing troops murdering people in Iraq

What a well-spoken man. He holds his ground quite well in the face of Colbert seemingly leaving his character for a bit and pushing him, trying to hit at him with charges of deception and incitement.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Julian Assange
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

If you aren't familiar with what they are discussing, it is an American military video that Wikileaks obtained and made available on its own site recently showing American troops killing a bunch of people in Iraq three years ago, including two men who worked for Reuters. Of course, the military fucking lied about what happened (and the press, including the much-maligned "liberal" wing covered for them and accepted their word as truth), and still is, although they've had to change their story significantly since this tape came out.

These pig troops really get off on it. Woo hoo. I guess Counterstrike is even more fun in real life.

Listen to them laugh.

Watch them cut down people who come to rescue the wounded Reuters driver, people who display no weapons or hostile intent.

This is a wonderfully vivid example of how America subdues and intimidates people across the globe. Train people to be killers, remove as much heart from them as you can, and let them loose. Most of what they do remains with them and in the places in which they operate. We'll never know.

Let us again remember that the American military is in Iraq for no stated purpose.

This is exactly why I don't support the troops. They ARE the war. Why can't people understand that? Stop with the "following orders" excuses. Try following fucking rationality and compassion.

It's nice to know there are people documenting this shit and hammering away at the insane assholes who run our lives.

I despise your killing and raping...You're...despicable

More war. For nothing. Fight and fight. Attack. Return the attack. Go nowhere. No progress. Just moving sideways. Domination. New masters. Old masters return. No one wins. Same process, new participants. Ad nauseam. Ad annihilation.

Monument to Bush shoe-throwing shines at Iraqi orphanage

This is so fucking political. Jesus. The sculptor, Laith al-Amiri, had orphans help him build it. War orphans. The director of the orphanage opines that

"Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush's war," al-Naseri said. "The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist."

"When the next generation sees the shoe monument, they will ask their parents about it," al-Naseri said.

"Then their parents will start talking about the hero Muntadhir al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George W. Bush during his unannounced farewell visit."

Pretty badass.

I suppose that al-Amiri could be accused of using these orphans for ends that they do not fully understand. At the same time, I am sure that these kids have a sense that things are really fucked up where they live and that some people are much more responsible for it than others. And it's not like they're being exploited for sick, selfish gains. They helped a guy with a sculpture.

If a shoe and a sculpture is all Bush gets in retribution, he's a lucky guy.

Two ex-Gitmo detainees join al-Qaida: report

Big surprise. I'd probably join Al Qaeda too if some sadistic fucks locked me up for nothing for about five years.

As with most other Guantánamo returnees, the Saudis did not have evidence of criminal wrongdoing against Shihri. In such cases, Turki says, the men were charged with the minor violation of traveling to Afghanistan, a country Saudi passport holders are barred from visiting.

The war to come

A true invisibility cloak, six months off they say. This is legit a fucking horrible idea. There are no net benefits to this. People might talk about it being fun or making direct action sabotage kind of stuff easier. Sure. But you know what? You know what the overarching uses of this will be? Military and government. Violent fucking oppression. And street crime. 

Like a gun. The gun, hypothetically, could make direct action a lot easier and more effective. But it doesn't. Some people use it for revolutionary purposes, but overwhelmingly, people use it to kill indiscriminately and intimidate.

No one will win with this invention. Fuck.

It also has advantages. Unlike Harry Potter's one-of-a-kind invisibility cloak, a real invisibility cloak will likely be cheap and easily reproducible. It took Smith and his colleagues about nine days to design and implement the experiment.

The scientists used hobby-level circuit boards; Smith's rough estimate was that it took about $1.00 in circuit boards to cloak the one-inch bump on the metamaterial.

"If you were to commercialize this technology it would cost next to nothing," said Smith.

When I wrote "They pushed on because they could, but rarely queried whether they should", this is EXACTLY the kind of shit I was talking about. Fuck.

People just don't understand that some ideas should not be pursued any further. It's like we can't understand that things we do will have undesirable consequences. What a fundamental flaw of humanity - the insatiable quest for knowledge for no other reason than to have it. We always have to check and see if that burner is hot.

America to the world: "Fuck you"

Hey look, we can still do whatever we want!!

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey [whose nomination as attorney general last year was threatened by his refusal to say whether he considered waterboarding to be torture] said Wednesday that he saw no need for President Bush to issue blanket pardons of officials involved in some of the administration’s most controversial counterterrorism policies.

Mr. Mukasey told reporters that there was “absolutely no evidence” that anyone involved in developing the policies “did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful.”

The comments appeared aimed at tamping down speculation that Mr. Bush, before leaving the White House next month, might issue pre-emptive pardons to protect counterterrorism officials from legal jeopardy in the face of possible criminal investigations by the new Democratic administration.

Yeah. The torture-loving Attorney General made sure to let everyone know that the people running this country hold all their atrocities to be perfectly legal. Waterboarding, nudity, dogs, extreme temperatures, sensory deprivation, whatever. It's all in the rules, they say. Someone's gonna blow something else up, and the people running this country and the ones who put them there will be responsible. They won't tell themselves that though. And lots of other people will be responsible for not removing them from power, for letting them rule and for following their orders.

Killing whales with sound

The Supreme Court said it's fine for the United States Navy to maim and kill an untold number of whales on a permanent, recurring basis. The Navy does this, and has been doing this for over forty years, through sonar training exercises. Exercises. Yup.

The groups say that sonar can be as loud as 2,000 jet engines, causing marine mammals to suffer lasting physical trauma, strandings and changes in breeding and migration patterns. They contend that courts are perfectly capable of weighing the competing security and environmental concerns.

No matter though:

Chief Justice Roberts took a different view. Courts, he said, quoting a 1986 decision of the justices, must “give great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities” in making decisions about personnel, training and priorities.

He cited an observation, made by President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1907 message to Congress, that only “practice at sea, under all the conditions which would have to be met if war existed,” can guarantee a prepared Navy.

When you think about it, the court has a good point - they're just whales.

For the environmental groups that sought to limit the exercises, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe.”

People believe and live as though they can do whatever they want, that they have accountability to nothing. They can take and take, they can destroy, that if something is possible, then they should do it.

This isn't just about whales. We live, today, through annihilation. Our lives are predicated upon destruction. Destruction of life, both human and non-human, destruction of quality of life, both human and non-human, extinction of life, both human and non-human. This is one of the more glaring examples of totally wanton destruction. Fucking careless, deliberate. The people who run these programs would, and have, directly ruin people in the process if there weren't so many laws, and it hadn't become so expensive through lawsuits and bad publicity.

"An explanation is what we want. We want to know how things could get so fucked up, how things could get so out of hand. So many times we have waited on others to stand up for us and act on what we believe is so fucked and wrong with our generation. I know we are all so angry. I know I am so fucking angry..."

“Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War”

Are now American capitalist attempts to elicit false confessions from prisoners of war. You know, this is one of those times when I am caught off guard by these feelings of surprise. I did not think that the military could really shock me. But it did.

You see, what they have been teaching people in Guantanamo for at least six years, and I don't know where else or for how long, are techniques developed by the Chinese military and used in the Korean War. Supposedly, not too many people in the American military were aware of this, as "The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: 'Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.'” So that's what's been going on for I don't know how many years. And they've been teaching that these things work. These techniques, like starvation, forcing people to stand for super long periods of time and exposing them to filthy living environments were documented, by the United States Army in 1957, as succeeding in bringing about false confessions. FALSE CONFESSIONS. The military seems to have been working against its own conclusions, which I guess isn't all that surprising in and of itself.

What is surprising is that all anyone did was change the title of this chart. Other than that, it "had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners." It's just so fucking stupid. It was that simple - change the title of a chart, and turn it from something that was supposed to demonstrate failed and discredited interrogation methods into an instructional device on how to extract worthwhile and accurate information from people. Fuck.