Ukraine – Central European Perspective

Adam Something is maybe not as far left as to satisfy purists, but he is reasonably far left to seem to be a decent person and not be an extremist. I find most of his videos informative, and I think his last one – a length-ish take on Ukraine’s conflict with Russia, is very good.

Adam Something is a Hungarian Youtuber currently residing in CZ (these are public pieces of information that he himself has disclosed on his YouTube channel). That might explain why he, whilst being a leftist, is very critical of both current Russia and the former USSR empire. He does not have the personal experience with the failed socialist experiment of the last century that I have, but the cultural memory is still fresh. Thus he shares my deep dislike of tankies.

The cold war was not a conflict between good guys and bad guys, just between two different types of bad guys. And that has not changed, at least as far as the current proxy conflict between USA and Russia goes. For some baffling reason, there appears to be a sizable amount of people who think that because the USA was the bad guy in every conflict for the last 75 years that it makes their opponents into good guys.

Behind the Iron Curtain part 38- Vietnam War

These are my recollections of a life behind the iron curtain. I do not aim to give a perfect and objective evaluation of anything but to share my personal experiences and memories. It will explain why I just cannot get misty-eyed over some ideas on the political left and why I loathe many ideas on the right.

This one will be very short because the regime ended shortly before the Vietnam war was covered in the school curriculum, so we were not told a lot. History lessons in that last year were a bit scattershot, as is expected during a year in which revolution happens. And what little we were told I mostly forgot, except very few things.

Those few things could be summarized thus: The USA tactics and behavior in Vietnam were shown as essentially the same as German tactics and behavior in eastern Europe (edit: in WW2). Scorched earth, civilians massacred, war crimes committed left and right. We were shown short films about how the US forces were the baddies and how their defeat was a victory of good over evil.

It got embedded in my subconscious, but I was also aware that the USA has helped to defeat the Nazis in Europe, including in my hometown. I was unable to shake off this comparison with Nazis and I felt like it should not hold water on closer scrutiny. But it did not get better when I sought information about the conflict on my own, which was still difficult in the following decade with nonexistent internet and the history books being only slowly updated.

It would be a shock if it came quickly, but it was not because the realization came slowly over the years – whether you call it education or indoctrination, what communists said was accurate. The tactics the USA used in Vietnam were those of Nazis, no matter how you try to slice it. The USA probably could not present itself in worse light if they tried and they gave communists an excellent propaganda tool – the best propaganda might not always be one that is solidly backed by facts, it must address emotions first, but it does help if the facts are on your side too.

When I was visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. in 2000, it felt quite strange. There were people there, looking up their long-dead relatives and acquaintances. As with all war memorials, It felt quite somber and I have remained quiet and respectful as one should. But I could not shake the feeling that this is a memorial to victims of an unjust war and whilst most of the fallen soldiers being remembered were innocent draftees, there were very likely quite a few nasty war criminals with the blood of innocents on their hands among them too. To this day I did not quite figure out what to think about it.

Jack’s Walk

Modern Warfare by Chase Meuller

This morning Jack and I came across a pile of papers scattered on the sidewalk near my house. This isn’t unusual. We live near a high school, and I often find littered test papers and assignments on my lawn, but this pile was pristine and on examination looked lost, not tossed. There were a few job applications and several pieces of art, including the one above. Luckily, the young man’s name and phone number were on the applications, so I phoned him to let him know what I’d found. He hadn’t known he’d lost the papers and was quite glad to hear from me. He was very polite and thankful, and we made arrangements for him to stop by tomorrow to pick up his things. This piece of art appealed to me, and I asked him if I could post it. He’s given me his verbal approval, and so I present to you the artist, Chase Mueller.

Good Luck with the job search, Chase.

Kosmoss

As somebody famous once said, we are the pale blue dot. From far enough away, invisible. Insignificant. Tiny. An isolated speck in an isolationist universe. In the cold mountain air, I found the stars had an extra sharpness at night. Humans can go so far in that darkness, but it is laughably close on the grand scale of galaxies. Here’s a peek into the great universe, as taken by me in Austria:

Our satellite, our companion.
©rq, all rights reserved.

My favourite constellation, Orion. We call it the Hunter here, and I wonder if its variety of names is as diverse as that of the Big Dipper?
©rq, all rights reserved.

But as much as I want to be just excited about another scientific and technological achievement, it’s hard to disconnect from the news today. Humans can be so selfish, and inconsiderate, and greedy, and destructive. Anyway, here’s Muriel Rukeyser back in 1968:

I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
I lived in the first century of these wars.

It appears to be the second century of these wars. And the universe goes on and will go on without us, because humans are just that important. I just wish we could be selfish enough to consider mutual survival.

The Healing Arts: Medical Report of the Walcheren Expedition.

Click for full size.

The Winding Up of the Medical Report of the Walcheren Expedition. Thomas Rowlandson, Etching coloured, 1810. Subject: Lucas Pepys (1742-1830), Robert Jackson (1750-1827), Thomas Keate (1745-1821), Dr. James' Fever Powder, Chelsea Hospital, Walcheren Campaign, Military Medicine, Medical Boards, Drugs.

The Winding Up of the Medical Report of the Walcheren Expedition. Thomas Rowlandson, Etching coloured, 1810. Subject: Lucas Pepys (1742-1830), Robert Jackson (1750-1827), Thomas Keate (1745-1821), Dr. James’ Fever Powder, Chelsea Hospital, Walcheren Campaign, Military Medicine, Medical Boards, Drugs.

Walcheren Campaign:

The Walcheren Campaign involved little fighting, but heavy losses from the sickness popularly dubbed “Walcheren Fever”. Although more than 4,000 British troops died during the expedition, only 106 died in combat; the survivors withdrew on 9 December. […] Along with the 4,000 men that had died during the campaign, almost 12,000 were still ill by February 1810 and many others remained permanently weakened. Those sent to the Peninsular War to join Wellington’s army caused a permanent doubling of the sick lists there.

As for ‘Look Ass Peeps’ (Lucas Pepys):

In 1794 Pepys was made physician-general to the army, and was president of an army medical board, on which it was his duty to nominate all the army physicians. When so many soldiers fell ill of fever at Walcheren, he was ordered to go there and report. As a consequence the board was abolished; but Pepys was granted a pension.

It’s Universal Soldier!

Rick Wiles seems to have decided we have gone with Universal Soldier, for real or something like.

End Times broadcaster and right-wing conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles warned that the United States government has secretly created “soldiers without a soul” and has unleashed them in Syria, which is a sign that Jesus will soon return.

“Is it conceivable that we have bred soulless creatures, soldiers without a soul, with no remorse, no conscience, no fear—you can go in, you can cut a baby in half, you can cut out the hearts of Christians and eat them—there is no conscience, there’s no fear, there’s no fear of God?” Wiles asked. “Is that what we have created? Have we turned these monsters loose in Syria?”

Oh FFS. There’s no need to go for melodrama when it comes to war, or the travesties committed by people on all sides in any given war, at any time throughout history. It’s not as though soldiers aren’t already trained to kill without thought or hesitation. That’s what war is all about, killing. No one has a soul, so that’s of no import, and throughout the ages, it would be a “fear of god” which has motivated wars more than the opposite. People tend to be especially vicious when they think they are fighting for a fucking god.

“This is Hitler on steroids,” Wiles added. “The Americans have become worse than the Nazis.”

I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but the spectre of nuclear war is hanging over our heads once again. It certainly would be nice to see the U.S. military sit the fuck down for once though.

“It’s the end of humanity,” he said. “If these things get loose, it’s the end of humanity.”

These “things”? When you start to think of people as things, it’s the start of all evil. And there are no ‘universal’ soldiers, or engineered critters wandering around in a terminator style lust for killing. Just regular soldiers and all the usual players, all sides. Perhaps it would be more to the point to get governments to stop thinking of war as a game.  As for the end of humanity, we’re doing a fine job of that one all by ourselves, no gods needed.

Wiles went on to explain that when Jesus said that he would return when the world is as it was “in the days of Noah,” that was a reference to the Nephilim, which were a race of giants mentioned in the book of Genesis that were supposedly born as the offspring of fallen angels and human women. God was so displeased with this corruption that He had to wipe out the entire world with a flood and the same thing will soon happen again, Wiles warned.

Yeah, except it didn’t end, did it? Your dumbfuck god kept a fair amount of the corrupt people, and it started all over again, going by the fairytale. There’s genius for you.

“We’re at the days of Noah,” he said. “God is about to say, ‘Enough is enough, the human race has got to end.’”

No, we aren’t at the days of Noah, those days never actually happened. Anyroad, I fail to see what Mr. Wiles is moaning about. He starts out with Jesus coming back, which they are always yelling about, but never actually seem to want it to happen. So, is Jesus a comin’ back, or is Jehovah about to burn the world with fire? And what the fuck would a christian care, anyway? Aren’t you all supposed to be ever so eager to go live in paradise mansions with your gods? Aren’t you supposedly living this life for the afterlife, the only one which truly counts? I’d think you’d all be lining up to be a martyr, but it does rather seem you’re all very attached to this life.

RWW has the story.

Sunday Facepalm: AFSS.

Remember Space Force? Oh, AFSS: Amerikka First Space Strategy! Yeah. The Fucking Idiot thinks he’s on to something here.

The White House on Friday unveiled President Donald Trump’s “America First” space strategy, only 10 days after the commander in chief called for a Space Force to militarize low Earth orbit.

“The Trump administration’s National Space Strategy prioritizes American interests first and foremost, ensuring a strategy that will make America strong, competitive, and great,” the plan claims.

The plan officially includes Trump’s promised focus on militarization of space.

I haven’t yet gone and inspected the great plan. Haven’t had enough tea yet. There might not be enough tea for this one. Oh yes, screw science or trying to fix anything here on the planet, the most important thing ever is a dick waving contest in space. I’m imagining the Tiny Tyrant at his desk with a coke and greasy fries, playing with Lego’s Star Wars.

“Trump’s National Space Strategy recognizes that our competitors and adversaries have turned space into a warfighting (sic) domain. While the United States would prefer that the space domain remain free of conflict, we will prepare to meet and overcome any challenges that arise,” the space strategy reads. “Under the President’s new strategy, the United States will seek to deter, counter, and defeat threats in the space domain that are hostile to the national interests of the United States and our allies.”

“Warfighting”, because I guess war isn’t descriptive or clear enough. You want “space domain” to remain conflict free? Easy, stay out of it. Plenty to do planetside, y’know. What fucking threats? Has the empire shown up? Space invaders from Mars? We have plenty of war threats right here on good old Terra Firma. I’d like to see those avoided, but that’s no doubt a forlorn hope.

Space wars are one of the four pillars of the new America First space strategy.

Space Wars! First thing, you’re gonna have to rebrand, you would not believe the amount of things with the name Space Wars attached. Don’t want to get lost in the shuffle or anything.

“Strengthen deterrence and warfighting (sic) options: We will strengthen U.S. and allied options to deter potential adversaries from extending conflict into space and, if deterrence fails, to counter threats used by adversaries for hostile purposes,” the plan directs.

This would be bafflegab for “Donny really really wants to play with nukes!”, right? I have to wonder if making for real light sabers is part of the plan somewhere…

Via Raw Story.

Space Force!!1!

Spaceballs.

The fucking moron has decided the military is not bloated enough, no. We need…SPACE FORCE!

Donald Trump addressed Marines at Miramar Air Station in San Diego on Tuesday.

In addition to touting record-breaking military spending and promising a raise to the military he also laid out plans for a space army.

“We should have a new force called the Space Force. It’s like the Army and the Navy, but for space, because we’re spending a lot of money on space,” he said. “I said maybe we need a new force, I was not really serious, then I said ‘what a great idea.’ Maybe we’ll have to do that.”

“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea,” he said.

Right. As if funneling yet more money into the military machine that is Amerikka isn’t bad enough, the Tiny Tyrant has come up with Spaceballs, because that’s what it would be, if we’re going to pretend this would actually go anywhere. Thankfully, it won’t, but fuck knows just how much money will be blown on such idiocy. I’ll bet NASA just can’t wait for a phone call from the Tiny Tyrant and his genius ideas for Space Force. Ah well, let the mockery begin! You can see some select responses at Raw Story.

U.S. Government Abuse: Manzanar to Guantánamo.

Clem Albers, “San Pedro, California, April 5, 1942” (courtesy National Archives and Records Administration).

Clem Albers, “San Pedro, California, April 5, 1942” (courtesy National Archives and Records Administration).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 1, isolation unit” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 1, isolation unit” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 6, Immediate Response Force equipment,” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 6, Immediate Response Force equipment,” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

The exhibition Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is what brought me to the International Center of Photography. After all, the wartime photos of Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake are much celebrated today, historical artifacts in themselves. But I felt compelled to stay for The Day the Music Died, British photographer Edmund Clark’s eight video, music, and photography installations on the post-9/11“War on Terror” around the globe.

The pairing of the two exhibitions invites viewers to search for parallels between US national security efforts more than 70 years ago and today: How does the forced relocation of virtually all ethnic Japanese people residing in the US during World War II resemble the dragnet of the current anti-terrorism apparatus around the globe? Both shows shed light on people, more that half a century apart, swept into detention by the US government without due process, in the name of national security. And the juxtaposition has become all the more timely since President Trump’s late January signing of an executive order to keep Guantánamo Bay’s prison open.

[…]

The exhibitions Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and Edmund Clark: The Day the Music Died continue at the International Center of Photography (250 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through May 6.

You can read and see much more about these terribly poignant photographs and their history at Hyperallergic.

The Quilts of War.

Army Uniform Quilt from the Napoleonic Era by an unidentified artist (Region unknown, possibly Prussia, late 18th/early 19th century), wool, probably from military uniforms; Silesian pieced (photo by the author for Hyperallergic).

Artist unidentified, Soldier’s Hexagon Quilt (Crimea or United Kingdom, late 19th century), wool from military uniforms, 85 x 64 in (courtesy the Annette Gero Collection, photo by Tim Connolly, Shoot Studios).

…These wartime quilts are incredibly rare, and Gero states in the release that “there are fewer than one hundred of these quilts in the world, and no two are alike.” War and Pieced highlights their diversity, whether in the distinctive beadwork on quilts made by soldiers stationed in India in the 19th century, or the motifs of African shields and spears embroidered on a late 19th-century quilt, likely made in tribute to those killed in the Anglo-Zulu War. A quilt made in India between 1860 and 1870 has its beads connected to small circles of fabric, the discs probably left over from punching buttonholes into uniforms. Although the conflict may be unnamed on the quilt, the patterns, needlework, and, above all, uniform materials, can place these fabric works in time.

They’re moving relics of the bloody battles that stretched across the globe in the mid-18th to 19th centuries, from the Prussian and Napoleonic wars, when elaborate intarsia quilts featured pictorial inlays of soldiers, to the Crimean War with its dense geometries. One from that mid-19th-century engagement has a checkerboard at its center, an example of the boards made from scraps of military uniforms to fend off boredom. The spare fabric that formed the checkerboard may have been from uniforms of the dead or wounded, thus adding a somber memorial to an otherwise vibrant wool quilt.

Although there is a vision of hope in making something beautiful out of horror, there’s an eerie echo of the suturing of wounds in each stitch of the quilt. The intense labor of some of those made in convalescence — one from 1890 involves 25,000 blocks, hexagons, and diamonds — represents the incredible amount of time these men spent recovering. Viewed together, the quilts in War and Pieced are haunting reminders of the lives given and maimed in the British Empire’s global conquest, and those that continue to be lost to war.

Following the exhibition’s run in New York, it will travel to the Nebraska museum and open May 25, 2018.  You can see and read much more at Hyperallergic.

These amazing works remind me of Ernest Thesiger’s effort, after World War I, to help disabled soldiers to make a living with embroidery.

You can read about that here. (Yes, that Ernest Thesiger, aka Dr. Pretorius.)

Vaccinations Are…Population Control!!1!1

The Inner Rodney Howard-Browne, aka Belphegor.

Rodney Howard-Browne, that Master of Conspiratorial Idiocy, has actually dialed down the rhetoric a bit for this latest round of “look what shit I can make people swallow!”

“The dogs want war,” Howard-Browne said. “Our American men and women are being used as cannon fodder for the globalist agenda. We’re not in Afghanistan because we’re killing terrorists. The ISIS bases are in 49 states in America that the CIA brings them and trains them here and then ships them out to the areas of the world where they want there to be conflict. They are all trained here. Osama bin Laden worked for the CIA, so does Anderson Cooper. Work that one out.”

Pretty sure most dogs don’t want war at all. Attention, playtime, food, bones to chew, a nice place to sleep, that’s dogs all over. If you want to talk people, well, it’s people like the Tiny Tyrant who are slavering for yet more war. Donny and his puppet Pence can’t talk about those wonderful nukes enough. They are the morons who think you can settle all things with more war, and hey, why have a military if you aren’t going to use it?

Of course Afghanistan is fucking sham, the whole damn thing is, most people are well aware of that one, Rodney. 49 states? Oh, guess that awful island of evil isn’t included anymore, what with the issuing of birth certificates and stuff. Bin Laden is dead, and when he was alive, it could not be said that he had any regard for uStates. Pretty sure he wouldn’t want to be stuck in a secret CIA den somewhere. Damn, that Anderson Cooper must be one busy person! I can’t imagine how he fits all that into his schedule. Really, since you’re pushing the idea that the CIA does everyone’s thinking for them (there’s an insult and a half), I’d think everyone ought to be giving you a healthy side-eye, Rodney. “Hey, what better way to get people to not believe we’re behind everything – hey, Rodney, get on that right away!” Ooooh, conspiracy. It’s really easy, cooking this shit up, but it can’t be healthy, being so obsessed with it.

Howard-Browne claimed that vaccines are really just an eugenicist effort to impose population control on the world by sterilizing people and giving them diseases, vowing that he’ll “go Old Testament” if anyone ever tries to forcibly vaccinate him.

If vaccines sterilised people, we wouldn’t have the current massive population. If vaccines sterilised people, I would not have had such a difficult time when I started seeking sterilisation.

“There was talk about five years ago, they were going to stop people by the side of the road and give them forced vaccinations,” he said. “Let them try. I have a couple of injections for them and it’s going to be the size of a .45, I can promise you right now. Somebody said, ‘But you’re a Christian.’ Yeah, I am, but I’ll go Old Testament for a half an hour, it’s not a problem.”

:Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha: :hahahahahee: :Thud: No, there was never talk of vaccination stops, let alone forced ones. Going by your age, Rodney, you were duly vaccinated as a child, like I was. Yep, you’re 56, I’m 59, so that was all taken care of long days ago. You should be grateful, polio is nasty. Yes, yes, you’re a christian alright, declaring your intent to murder over a vapourous fantasy.

RWW has the story, and two videos.