Category: ThinkableWords

It’s been some time  since Barack Obama gave his speech, in Cairo, calling for a “‘New Beginning’ Between US and Muslims Worldwide,” and, honestly, I haven’t payed much attention to his rhetoric or felt the need to crack off concerning it. That is, of course, until now.

In my inbox, this morning, fresh from Znet, was Bill Blum‘s piece Team Obama/Cult Obama;

“But since others have been pointing out these [Obama’s] lies very well I’d like to try something else in dealing with the problem — the problem of well-educated people, as well as the not so well-educated, being so moved by a career politician saying “all the right things” to give food for hope to billions starving for it, and swallowing it all as if they had been born yesterday.  I’d like to take them back to another charismatic figure, Adolf Hitler, speaking to the German people two years and four months after becoming Chancellor, addressing a Germany still reeling with humiliation from its being The Defeated Nation in the World War, with huge losses of its young men, still being punished by the world for its militarism, suffering mass unemployment and other effects of the great depression. […] Imagine how it fed the hungry German people…”

Good ‘ol Billy has yet to disappoint. And this is everything but an exception to that rule. As always very interesting reading…

Given the events taking place since last Sunday, in the very least, how exactly might “Are a lot of us potential militant extremists?,” such an absurd question?

“When [college students in the U.S. and advanced high school students in Serbia were] presented with statements that are in fact extracts of militant-extremist thinking, the typical response was somewhere in the range between ‘moderately disagree’ and ‘not sure.’ No one responded in a fashion one would expect from the most prototypical militant extremist: strongly agreeing with all indicator items. But respondents generally failed to strongly disassociate themselves from the sentiments found in these items. Thus the base rate of fanatical thinking patterns in the population does not appear to be low. […] Although militant-extremist leaders no doubt play a key role, it is probably not necessary for participants in militant-extremist movements to be brainwashed or severely indoctrinated. All that may be required is an intensification and an orchestration of sentiments and of ‘framings’ that many people are already or at least moderately sympathetic toward…”

That is if one Scott Roeder wasn’t already a right-wing nut job with a head full of shit. Go right ahead and, seriously, label me not so surprized this time…

In my previous post, Shocked By The Stupidity, I mentioned I was, wait for it, shocked. And upon posting it I went searching through my feeds — for something to do, sure, but sincerely hoping not to be outdone — when, to my astonishing surprise, I was. Even more so.

Jeremy Scahill, over at Rebel Reports, wrote a rather disturbing and unrelenting — in terms of the imagery I’m left with after reading his words — piece, “Mr. Obama, Rape of Prisoners is ‘Not Particularly Sensational?’” Sadly the title hardly prepared me for what laid within;

“At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee…”

Granted, the above quote wasn’t taken from Jeremy’s piece, in the sense that he wrote it, rather it was taken from a story from the Daily Telegraph of London. But both are worthy of your attention.

What the fuck is wrong with humanity?

Ever since the latter years of high school, I’ve been rather fond of the writings of Franz Kafka. And, one story in particular, The Metamorphosis. I’ll let you draw the parallels.

To which I’ve read, at least 4 more times since, being a grade 12 English student looking for the shortest amount of time I needed to spend on reading a book for school. Sadly, it was short enough to get me interested enough to finish. Little did I know what was just around the corner, eh?

And I guess it was last year, following my latest perusal of said story, that I decided to check out more of Kafka’s work. So in addition to “The Castle” and a “Complete Short Stories” collection, I ordered “The Trial,” as well. Unfortunately they’re all still in the queue. But, “The Trial,” just got bumped up. To next…

Continue reading The Trial