deeper thoughts – on the semi-periphery

America’s Middle East Imperial Meltdown

Posted on 2015/04/24 by jd

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make in analyzing US foreign policy is assuming they actually know what they are doing – they in the Pentagon, they in the CIA, they in the White House, and so on. If anything has been proved since September 11, 2001 is that they are fucking clueless. Usually ‘policy’ from Washington is just a new reaction to something that happened to another reaction in the Middle and Near East that went not according to plan.

Of course, the imperialists have their goals and plans, but this does not mean they really have a clue how to be successful.

/jd

from the Editors of Against the Current,April 23, 2015

‘…In short, the fading Obama presidency has been drawn–and has dragged the country–into quagmires from which it had promised to escape. The Obama legacy will include the militarization of the U.S. border and urban police forces (greatly assisted by Israeli expertise in these methods), institutionalized legitimacy of drone warfare and assassinations, massive security oversight of the population, and permanent states of war, much of them half-hidden, from Pakistan to North Africa. The presidency that was supposed to clean up the mess that George W. Bush made has mostly served to confirm what the left has known but is sometimes tempted to forget: there is hardly any situation so appalling, so destructive, so catastrophic in human and political terms that “our own” imperialist government can’t find a way to make it worse…’
via Middle East Imperial Meltdown | Solidarity.

Newsweek: Nerve Gas Hit US Troops in Iraq in 1991

Posted on 2015/03/30 by jd

Sigh…, I feel old. Old enough to remember the first claims by US veterans complaining about ‘Gulf War syndrome‘ in the early nineties. I also remember that is was the American Left who took up the issue first, and I remember conservative and liberal politicians giving lip service to the issue later and the media attacking it as a ‘conspiracy theory’.

And here we are today, 2015, and it looks confirmed. At last.

Of course, we are left to only imagine the impact of these chemicals on the native Iraqis. They are not even part of the equation.

Much of the following has been known before – the news story here is that Newsweek is publishing it.

‘During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today.

A quarter of a century later, the troops nearest the explosions are dying of brain cancer at two to three times the rate of those who were farther away. Others have lung cancer or debilitating chronic diseases, and pain….’

via U.S. Nerve Gas Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq.

Jodi.org lives!

Posted on 2015/03/17 - 2015/03/17 by jd

Ten or fifteen plus years back there was jodi.org – a very confusing and artsy website, back in the day when ‘net.art’ seemed like a new idea. Now everyone and everything is somehow internet art.

The artist pushed the limits of browsers of that time – which frequently crashed if too much was happening on-screen at one time.

I had forgotten about jodi.org. But I now noticed that it still exists!….

found at: http://www.imal.org/en/activity/welcome-future

My only reason to go to ello.

Posted on 2015/03/01 - 2015/03/01 by jd

I gave up on ello.co a long time ago – For me it was a short burst of interest in finding a desperately needed alternative to facebook, but then it just felt like another tumblr. And I could neither ‘like’ nor <3 anything.

But there is one reason I do go back, that is Bruce Sterling. I am always interested in what he writes, or when he speaks, and what he posts is almost always some how in synch with me.

…ello.co/bruces

and me,
ello.co/redjade
if you wish to like me, friend me, follow me, whatever it is you do there at ello.

Est is the best, boo for the Goo

Posted on 2015/02/24 - 2015/02/24 by jd

Amerikai mesterlövész is not a chickflick

Est.hu is still the best, Google not so much.

Recently I discovered that Google is offering yet another good service – movie listings in Budapest.

Movie listings in a country where you do not fully understand the language is more difficult than you would imagine.

For myself, the first problem is figuring out what the Hungarian title of the film is that you are looking for. ‘Amerikai mesterlövész‘ sounds like it would be a chickflick about an American girl who rides horses — Amerikai = American, mester = master, lövész = horse rider because Lö means horse in Hungarian, oh wait, fuck! That’s Lö, not Ló! gggrr!! O! the frustrations of the Hungarian language and its fucking vowels!!!

At that point you get frustrated and usually give up — and, only later, you might discover after the film had left Budapest’s cinemas that Amerikai mesterlövész was really American Sniper. Not a chickflick, at all.

The second problem is finding a non-english language film with english subtitles. Forget about it! This only rarely occurs, usually it is a bleak human rights themed documentary French film at an international film festival.

The third problem is finding an english language film in english. say what?! Yeah, well, Hungarians love their Hollywood films dubbed. Strangely, this means that the best time to see an english language film in english is immediately after its Budapest release, because these films tend to quickly disappear and leave the dubbed version of the film lingering on in the cinemas for months.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Google now offers movie listings, but this is useless to me. Yes, you can click around and see the listings by cinema and by film title — but not by language or dubbed vs not dubbed.

So, Mr. Google, take my suggestion and change this. Est.hu has been offering this on their website for years.

Est.hu is still the best, Google not so much.

Can Virtual Reality change racist reality? — video

Posted on 2015/02/23 by jd

This short video from EuroNews is interesting, but I do not think this can end racism. The reasons for racism are more complex than simply not liking or not being able to identify with someone else’s skin colour.

Could they, for example, do an identical experiment for poor and homeless people? How could this be used to combat Islamophobia? This experiment does nothing to help people understand the economic structural system needs to create an ‘Other’ and divide society so the elites can rule.

‘…Their new study shows that by using illusion techniques, it is surprisingly easy to trick people into thinking they have a body part with a different skin colour than their own, or even a different body…’
via Could virtual body swapping reduce racism? | euronews, science.

What exactly does Hungary make, anyway??

Posted on 2015/02/09 - 2015/02/09 by jd

I have lived in Hungary for almost a decade now and I still ask myself this question. It is not entirely obvious, actually. If you say ‘Saudi Arabia’ you think oil – If you say China, you might think you latest electronic gadget you bought. But Hungary still draws a black for me.

Two reasons for this, a) I live in the centre of Budapest and do not connect much with the country-side where the ‘real Hungary’ exists, and b) the economy is rather diversified.

Check out this chart and you can see that the Hungarian economy’s biggest chunk is in car manufacturing and auto parts – and this is only about 10% of the economy.

What_did_Hungary_export_in_2012-
Click here for detailed and interactive info… What did Hungary export in 2012? | The Atlas Of Economic Complexity.

Looking for perfection – WordPress vs. Medium vs. Tumblr

Posted on 2015/02/07 by jd

Here’s a good article about writing on these various platforms, and the pluses and minuses of each. I want to believe in WP and my instinct is to stay away from anything proprietary (and, yes, I hypocritically write those words from a Mac!)

I enjoy NoBlogs.org and I hope to contribute to making it a better publishing experience in the future — but I find myself futzing with it so much, too much! A line-break here, breaks a blockquote there, futz! futz! futz! Nothing is perfect, oh well.

But I did learn from this article Desk.pm! This looks like a dream come true! But first I have to update my Mac’s OSX, and then to pay for it.

A little while ago, I decided to publish some of my thoughts / concerns / excitements about a few of the big boys in publishing: WordPress, Medium and Tumblr.
via WordPress vs. Medium vs. Tumblr – The Epic Update.

Hungary PM Orbán uses Paris march to demonise immigrants

Posted on 2015/01/12 - 2015/01/12 by jd

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been saying many disturbing things about immigrants (and migrants of all kinds) since his re-election in 2014. But what exactly is he saying today? Again, like in previous quotes, he speaks against immigration itself – not merely the dreaded muslims or other ‘barbarians from the east’ so to speak – but against migration!

Is he also referring to EU migrants in this statement? He could be! One thing is for sure, he would like to build a big fence around Hungary to make it ‘safe’ from outside influences.

“Economic immigration is a bad thing in Europe, it should not be seen as having any benefits, because it only brings trouble and danger to the peoples of Europe".

"Immigration and cultural questions related to that must be discussed in a much more open, honest and straightforward manner than until now. I hope that a composed, calm analysis of the recent events will guide European leaders and Brussels towards a tough policy restricting immigration”, he added.

“While I am PM, Hungary will definitely not become an immigration destination. We don’t want to see significantly sized minorities with different cultural characteristics and backgrounds among us. We want to keep Hungary as Hungary".

via Orban uses Paris march to demonise immigrants.

happy 9.11 day

Posted on 2014/09/11 - 2015/01/11 by jd

Well well, here we are again, happy 9/11 Day. Another year goes by and now another endless undefined war we are expected to support.

13 years ago we didn’t understand that Al Qaeda was partly a blowback from a previous covert operation a decade before. But today we do know that ISIS/ISIL/IS is partly a blowback from a not very covert war less than a year ago! Even the mainstream media’s acknowledgement of this fact can’t stop Team America from Freedomizing™ the Middle East.

It does not matter that our Dear Leader this time was originally elected on a wave of disgust for the previous illegal war in Iraq – strangely, according the Washington DC logic going these days, the fact that our Dear Leader also received a Nobel Peace Prize only seems to legitimize his wars even more. We all know Orwell is laughing at us, and yet we allow this to happen anyway.

Obama’s election in 2008 killed the Antiwar movement just as the 2012 election sucked all the energy out of the American Occupy movement. The threat of next Sarah Palin is always more important to Americans (specifically Democratic voters) than all the thousands who will die in America’s next war.

A lot of people and important stuff died on September 11, 2001 – such as, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of this US Constitution. Today it is only footnote for another time when Congress approved or prevented wars. The Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House doesn’t even ‘consult’ Congress anymore and only requests money (which has already spent anyway).

The American Republic is dead. The Empire is weaker than the Elites themselves understand. Hubris is a powerful and addictive drug. In history, all this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

Happy 9/11 Day.

—jd

Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian writes: ‘…the White House signaled that Obama already “has the authority he needs to take action” against Isis without congressional approval. Obama said he would welcome congressional support but framed it as optional, save for the authorisations and the $500m he wants to use the US military to train Syrian rebels….’
— http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/obama-isis-syria-air-strikes-legal-argument