Doing the Right Thing - Mithraism

A blogger made a good comment yesterday in the comment section of yesterday's post titled Isolationism - What Is It To Mean?, because the commenter was thinking that I could be "underestimating" the conservative hard right, and was kind enough to share that concern:

I think you underestimate the conservative hard right. They'll support war with their dying breath and blame any ill-effects elsewhere."

A bit surprised, but interested, I replied:

That is not something I would expect many people who read Dredd Blog to conclude.

"Underestimate" is a meaningless word in this context.

I really do give them full "credit" for their madness almost everyday in almost every post.

Diagnosing a disease is not a matter of degree that has to do with overestimating or underestimating, it is a matter of simple recognition.

Recently I gave them full credit for having the ideology that is bringing on the extinction of the human species.

I also pointed out that they glory in the inglorious addiction to war and oil as pointed out in recent Dredd Blog posts.

(ibid). The interesting part (for today's post anyway) is that I had studied Mithras along with its meme-complex (Mithraism) some time back, so since the commenter disaffected had made a good point about the right wing political faction's way of thinking, I could not avoid the link in my mind to Mithraism.

In the excitement of commenting I goofed up and wrote way too much, which generated a "error more than 4096 characters" in my message. When I tried to break it up into segments, I goofed even more from there, eventually having to remove my scribblings because some of them were duplicate sections mixed together out of order.

But the beat goes on, so back to the story.

People like to compare empires to other and older empires of history.

For example, some writers have been comparing the declining empire of the United States to the Roman Empire of old.

Mithraism was a well known religion of the Roman Empire, just prior to its final demise:

Mithraism ... was a mystery religion centered on the god Mithras, [which] became popular among the military in the Roman Empire, from the 1st to 4th centuries AD.

(Wikipedia, emphasis added). There is general agreement about that part of the history, the fact of Mithraism being a religion of soldiers and their commanders.

Then another commenter, on the Dredd Blog post we were talking about, went on to comment:

There is lots of debate on the origins of Mithraism, but as far as it went in the Roman Empire, where some scholars believe it originated (others do not) it clearly is a militaristic religion:

"Upon enlistment, the first act of a Roman soldier was to pledge obedience and devotion to the emperor. Absolute loyalty to authority and to fellow soldiers was the cardinal virtue, and the Mithraic religion became the ultimate vehicle for this fraternal obedience. The Mithras worshippers compared the practice of their religion to their military service."

(quoting David Fingrut, emphasis added). Remember recently that in Afghanistan U.S. soldiers were killing Muslims with rifles with Christian New Testament verses on their gun sights?

This version of "Christianity" practiced by U.S. military religionists is far more like Roman Mithraism than was the religion the Christians were thrown to the lion's dens of Rome for practicing.

The religion Emperor Constantine made the state religion of the Roman Empire, circa 300 AD, was called "Christianity", but it was Mithraism more than anything else.

We should not underestimate the right wing Mithras religion of the imperialists in the U.S. government military, because they are fanatics like those who brought down the Roman Empire, as blogger disaffected pointed out.

Their Roman era thinking was centered around "control", naturally, because they saw the empire's "things" getting out of control (meaning out of their control), as do their modern counterparts in our midst.

Today, in that sense, really is like the times were when the Roman Empire was going down.

Many people were pointing out, just that as imperialism, along with the military's Mithras ideology, was becoming the political status quo.

The Mithras worshipers demand loyalty, unquestioned obedience to authority, and have a fanatical zeal.

The ultimate incarnation of their foundational world view is well represented in the control statements "the king can do no wrong" and "the Pope is infallible".

The problem is that they do not know what they are talking about, and like their ancestors did to the Roman Empire, they will do to the U.S. empire what was done to Rome.

We have a clear record over the past presidency of the High Priest of Mithras himself, Bush II, as an example of the devastation their ideology brings to us.

Isolationism - What Is It To Mean?

The "word morphs", those fog of war inducing folks who learned deceit and propaganda in the war colleges, now want to create a new meaning for a phony debate.

The word "isolationism" will be the vehicle for the propaganda.

They need it to mean something different than what it once meant in accurate academic circles.

They need to change it into something they can use to generate more propaganda in an attempt to keep the stupid wars going.

They know the people are sick and tired of MOMCOM's stupid wars, sick and tired of MOMCOM's brutal killing, maiming, and destroying other nations around the world.

The people are sick and tired of this being done in the name of the people of the United States.

The people are just sick and tired of the loser MOMCOM warmonger mentality.

So what is "isolationism" going to be changed into, if the media lackeys of MOMCOM have their way?

When the people do not want to fight stupid wars, but the corrupt powers that be do want to continue those stupid wars, "isolationism" in the past has been changed to mean something conjured up by associating it with demonized metaphorical creatures such as "peaceniks", "hippies", or "pinko lefties" who do not know "the real world".

It may well be that this time they will try to associate "isolationism" with "liberals", "socialists", "weak on terrorism", or "elitists".

The typical MOMCOM rot.

But the real state of mind politically relevant at this time is that the people are "tired of the stupid foreign policy of the High Priest In Chief Bush II and his neoCon cronies who have severely damaged the United States".

The people want a simple policy of minding our own business and shutting down MOMCOM's thug imperialism that has ruined our reputation and our economy.

In short, the people want to "be a good neighbour to the rest of the world, and want to take care of the people at home".

Once upon a time "isolationism" meant:

the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by avoiding foreign entanglements and responsibilities.

(Dictionary). It is not the left or center who want to do away with treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions, which outlaws, among other bad things, the Bush II policy of waterboarding.

No, that would be the neoCon right who love torturing people, as Cheney has boasted about in public, which has been carried by television around the world.

The left and center want us to have home spun renewable resources to the maximum extent possible, not to recoil from good relationships with the world, but to remove the temptations nations can have to use resources and military power to change national policies.

The people want to be independent of undue foreign influence, free from debilitating wars, but that does not really translate into being isolationists in any bad sense.

The bottom line is that isolation is not the same as self induced solitary confinement.

It is good to be isolationist to the extent it means not meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations, to the extent it means not invading sovereign nations for bogus reasons, and to the extent it means lending a helping hand.

It is bad to be isolationist to the extent it means being a recluse, to the extent it means not being diplomatically active, and to the extent it means not being a friendly nation.

The Left & Right To Life

The defendant Scott Roeder testified that he stalked, then shot and killed Dr. Tiller because the doctor was doing late term abortions.

Roeder's testimony went on to say that only God can take human life.

Two deductions may be taken from his position:

1) Roeder is a god (because he took a human life) ...

2) a foetus (a.k.a. fetus) is a human life at some point in time.

Whether either of those two are true or not, Roeder was sentenced to life in prison without any parole possibility for at least 50 years (he will be 102 yrs. old then).

Roeder's belief system comes from far right ideology which denies the notion that humanity can harm the earth's ecosystem.

They tend to be climate change and global warming sceptics or deniers, at least when it comes to the anthropogenic (human caused) portion of the equation.

Far worse than that are those who believe in the anthropogenic origin of climate change and global warming, but continue to do those things that are bringing on the deaths of millions of people anyway.

MOMCOM is part and parcel of the global climate murder, through the oil baron members of the complex.

The federal government is an accomplice to the global climate murder, through the kowtowing and slavery to the oil addiction they have helped take hold and expand to nations around the planet.

Clearly these people do not understand that the earth is the foetus (fetus) of the human species, and they are doing a mass abortion for no cosmic reason whatsoever.

UPDATE: President Obama gets the nuclear weapon reduction logic, contrary to his failure to get the drill baby drill lack of logic.

When President Kennedy was given a list of options for how to destroy another nation, he had an observation that also applies to the killing of millions by anthropogenic environmental disaster:

After a briefing on the SIOP on Sept. 14, 1962, President John F. Kennedy turned to his secretary of state, Dean Rusk, and remarked, "And they call us human beings."

(Newsweek). How can we consider ourselves to be cosmic adults, with a mature view towards the lives of millions and billions of people, yet continue down the path of utter extinction?

They call that being human?

UPDATE 2: The Great Barrier Reef, said to be the earth's largest single organism, may have had its right to life taken:

"If this ship was to break further apart, if there was another very significant oil spill, then we would not only see tonnes of oil into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park but modelling shows it is likely to come up onto the beaches of Shoalwater Bay, which is a national park area."

(The Age). Get ready east coast of the United States.

Katrina Karzai Conspiracy Theory - 2

The conspiracy theory hot off the griddle is that our good and forever faithful friend and "president" Karzai, of the once sovereign nation of Afghanistan, said he might have to join the side of the Taliban because the U.S. kids did a no-no.

The military has already begun doing that (investigating into buying off Taliban warlords like they did with the Sunni in Iraq) so is he just following orders?

Karzai has family members on the salary of the CIA, so even if he does we will get plenty of "intel".

It will all have been worth it the neoCons will say in their monastic warmonger mantra.

It is just that Karzai does diplomacy and politics about as well as he does elections.

He is a bad actor because he does not follow the script that has been written for him.

He even invited the president of Iran over for a visit where they both bad mouthed the U.S. in public.

But aren't we supposed to be there protecting him from Iran, The Taliban, insurgency, or is it al Qaeda this week?

Not too long ago when the Bush II man Gates came over, Karzai said U.S. troops would have to be there for 30 years.

Karzai has been acting up as this blog has indicated in these past posts.

Don't you just wonder if the propagandists speech writers were up all night, and by now there is a big pile of bunched up papers torn up and thrown on the floor?

I can't wait to hear the final version of the gloss over speech telling us what good news this is because yada yada blah blah yada yada.

Just bring the economy home stupid.

Open Thread

Have an open mind with an open thread.

Kill Baby Kill

One of the campaign promises President Obama made was to listen to scientists, noting that the Bush II regime had utterly failed to do so.

Now, under Obama, the federal government proceeds as if it is the decider in chief on environmental law.

The drill baby drill philosophy Obama has recently adopted listens to the oil barons, rejecting clear warnings from scientists:

"Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years," the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution

"This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions."

Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the 'evil twin of global warming', is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming.

(Science Daily). The governments need to wise up or millions will suffer or die.

It is not a game or some academic argument, it is instead the security of human civilization we are talking about.

Do We Need A Blood Transfusion?

There seems to be some ambiguity as to what the lifeblood of the government and the lifeblood of the economy is.

One theory, which Alberto Gonzales would call "quaint", is that the lifeblood of the government is to be "of, by and for" the people.

Today things have changed, because we want change all the time, but it is debatable whether or not things have changed for the worse or for the better.

The U.S. Supreme Court has stated:

"taxes are the lifeblood of government"

(Bull v. United States, 295 U.S. 247, 1935). The U.S. Department of Energy has what could be considered a different view:

"Oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy"

(The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil). I guess it all depends on whether or not the government is of, by, and for the people.

One thing is for sure, when the government is not of, by, and for the people the whole world gets turned upside down:

"taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few"

(James Madison). James Madison was the 4th President and was also called The Father of U.S. Constitution.

If oil is the lifeblood, it being a finite resource, and said to be peaking in 2014 (if it has not peaked already as some say) our nation needs a blood transfusion or we will die out economically.

The truth of the matter is that the earth environment with its oxygen, water, food, and protection is the lifeblood of every living thing and nation.

Green renewable blood is better than toxic oil blood because green is of by and for the people, in the sense that the people need new blood that will not run out, or destroy the environment along with humanity itself.

Sue The Inglorious Basterds? - 2

Some federal courts have stopped playing footsy with the deluded rants of the federal Department of Just Us.

The press and some publishers, however, are still suffering from some delusional hangover as shown in a recent, ongoing case involving a former Bush II propagandist and unapologetic Cheney type neoCon.

The lies of former Bush II speech writer Marc "Cheney Wannabe" Theissen are being proudly published and advertised in the MOMCOM media, however, at the same time they are being exposed by court documents:

In recent months, former Bush speech writer Marc Thiessen has been on a public relations campaign promoting his book, "Courting Disaster," in which he defended the torture of Zubaydah, claiming that he reviewed classified intelligence that revealed Zubaydah's torture produced actionable intelligence that thwarted imminent plots against the United States.

...

The Justice Department has now backed away from the Bush administration’s more extreme claims in a 109-page court document filed in US District Court in Washington last September in response to 213 discovery requests from Zubaydah's attorneys in his habeas corpus case, which demands evidence to support his continued detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

...

For instance, the document refutes Bush’s direct statements about Zubaydah, including a claim that he was one of al-Qaeda's "top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."

For the first time, the government officially admitted that Zubaydah did not have "any direct role in or advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001," and was neither a "member" of al-Qaeda nor "formally" identified with the terrorist organization.

...

The government's retreat also could add to the mounting criticism of US Appeals Court Judge Jay Bybee, who in August 2002 as head of the Office of Legal Counsel signed memos authorizing the torture techniques that were applied to Zubaydah and other "high-value" detainees.

At the time, Bybee asserted, based on information he received from the CIA, that Zubaydah "is one of the highest ranking members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization," "has been involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by al-Qaeda," and was "one of the planners of the September 11 attacks." Bybee approved the harsh interrogation as necessary to thwart pending attacks on US interests, which the CIA claimed Zubaydah knew about.

(Truthout). The nightmare that went on for eight ghoulish years of the Bush II administration must not be forgotten.

There must be accountability for war crimes.

Voting the "neoCon bastids" back into office is not one of the ways of dealing with madness; indeed, that in and of itself would be a touch of madness (of The Stockholm Syndrome type).

Hood Robbin' From Poor, Givin' To Rich

The military is not the only one robbing from the poor and giving it to the rich warlords who are their masters.

Nor are American banks the only banks plundering the treasury of the people.

Western banks in general have been robbing from the poor for a long time according to a British newspaper:

The report says globally in recent years much attention has been focused on corruption – the proceeds of bribery and theft by government officials – and this only makes up about 3% of the cross-border flow of illicit money around the world. The proceeds of commercial tax evasion, mainly through trade mis-pricing, contribute 60% to 65% of the global total, while drug trafficking, racketeering and counterfeiting make up 30% to 35%. The report says Africa's percentages are likely to be roughly the same.

The scourge eats into Africa's total GDP, says the report, Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development. Losses rose from around 2% of GDP in 1970 to a peak of 11% in 1987, then dropped below 4% for much of the Nineties, only to increase again to 8% of GDP in 2007 and 7% in 2008.

The GFI says that existing research shows that most flows to western financial institutions, and calls on G20 members to crack down on international banks and offshore financial centres.

(Guardian). It amazes me how the American mass media gloss over these things, not at all getting the big picture.

The mantra of their movie: "Life is sweet and life is warm because authority figures are taking care of your money and bringing you security" comes from such a lame screen play.

Our own Federal Reserve gave billions of federal money to a robber baron institution the Treasury Secretary had worked for.

Now we are waiting to see what else they did, which depends on the courts holding the fort for the people.

State secrecy is an enemy of the people that grows stronger in times of wars.

Endless wars mean endless secrecy, hence endless enmity between government and the people.

Open Thread

Will you write your senators and representatives to ask them not to approve the Obama policy of drill baby drill, or would that do any good?

What have we missed?

Is the government tripping on LSD?

Sue The Inglorious Basterds?

As you have probably heard, Chief Judge Walker of the Federal District Court For The Northern District of California, granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs who were suing the Bush II regime and the Obama regime.

The case involves electronic spying on the plaintiffs without a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant.

Many don't know that FISA allows private parties to sue the government for violations of FISA, one such violation being surveillance without a FISA warrant.

This case had gone through appeals and it had been boiled down to a case where they could not use the classified document erroneously given to them by the government early in the case.

The gist of the summary judgment motion by the plaintiffs, brought against Bush and Obama, was that they could make out a prima facia case without classified documents.

In so doing they invoked FISA provisions that require the government to then show it had obtained a FISA warrant prior to conducting any "wire" surveillance.

The judge had held that a prima facia case had been made, and ordered the government to produce evidence that it had a warrant at the time of the surveillance.

The government, pursuant to Attorney General Holder's directions, remained cocky and refused to produce such evidence because they said the judge was wrong.

So the judge ruled against the government and for the plaintiffs.

I have a PDF copy of the decision, and will include some excerpts from it, which detail the evidence in the public record:

1. During or after the fall of 2001, President George W Bush authorized the NSA to intercept international communications into and out of the United States of persons linked to “al-Qaeda or related terrorist organizations.” [page 35].

2. In October 2001, the Treasury Department created “Operation Green Quest” to track financing of terrorist activities, one of the targets of which were foreign branches of the Saudi Arabia-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation [page 35].

3. In April 2002, the FBI created its Terrorist Financing Operations Section (“TFOS”) ... on May 13, 2003, through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI was designated as the lead department to investigate potential terrorist-related financial transactions ... [pages 35-36].

4. TFOS “has access to data and information” from “the Intelligence Community” and has “[t]he ability to access and obtain this type of information in a time sensitive and urgent manner” ... [page 36].

5. In conducting investigations of terrorist financing, OFAC officers use “classified * * * information sources” [page 36].

6. In 2004 the FBI, under the direction of defendant Mueller, undertook activity using information produced by the NSA through the warrantless surveillance program ... [page 37].

7. The FBI’s search warrant on Al-Haramain’s Ashland, Oregon, office was executed on February 18, 2004 ... On February 19, 2004, the Treasury Department’s OFAC blocked Al-Haramain’s assets pending an investigation of possible crimes relating to currency reporting and tax laws as admitted in a press release of that date by the Treasury Department’s Office of Public Affairs; the press release contained no mention of purported links between plaintiff Al-Haramain and Osama bin-Laden [page 37].

8. Soliman al-Buthi was subjected to electronic surveillance by one or more United States government entities during telephone conversations with al-Timimi on February 1, 2003 ... Soliman al-Buthi was a senior official of Al-Haramain in 2003 [pages 37-38].

9. Soon after the blocking of plaintiff Al-Haramain’s assets on February 19, 2004, plaintiff Belew spoke by telephone with Soliman al-Buthi on the following dates: March 10, 11 and 25, April 16, May 13, 22 and 26, and June 1, 2 and 10, 2004. Belew was located in Washington DC; al-Buthi was located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. During the same period, plaintiff Ghafoor spoke by telephone with al-Buthi approximately daily from February 19 through February 29, 2004 and approximately weekly thereafter. Ghafoor was located in Washington DC; al-Buthi was located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [page 38].

10. In the telephone conversations between Belew and al-Buthi, the parties discussed issues relating to the legal representation of defendants, including Al-Haramain, named in a lawsuit brought by victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Names al-Buthi mentioned in the telephone conversations with Ghafoor included Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, spouse of one of Osama bin-Laden’s sisters, and Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Auda, clerics whom Osama bin-Laden claimed had inspired him. In the telephone conversations between Ghafoor and al-Buthi, the parties also discussed logistical issues relating to payment of Ghafoor’s legal fees as defense counsel in the lawsuit [pages 38-39].

11. In a letter to Al-Haramain’s lawyer Lynne Bernabei dated April 23, 2004, OFAC Director Newcomb stated that OFAC was considering designating Al-Haramain as a SDGT organization based on unclassified information “and on classified documents that are not authorized for public disclosure.” ... In a follow-up letter to Bernabei dated July 23, 2004, Newcomb reiterated that OFAC was considering “classified information not being provided to you” in determining whether to designate Al-Haramain as an SDGT organization. On September 9, 2004, OFAC declared plaintiff Al-Haramain to be an SDGT organization [page 39].

12. In a press release issued on September 9, 2004, the Treasury Department stated that the investigation of Al-Haramain showed “direct links between the US branch [of Al-Haramain] and Usama bin Laden”; this was the first public claim of purported links between Al-Haramain and Osama bin-Laden [page 39].

13. In a public declaration filed in this litigation dated May 10, 2006, FBI Special Agent Frances R Hourihan stated that “the classified document that was inadvertently disclosed by a government employee without proper authorization” (i e, the Sealed Document) “was related to the terrorist designation” of Al-Haramain [page 40].

14. FBI Deputy Director Pistole acknowledged that the FBI “used * * * surveillance” in connection with defendant OFAC’s 2004 investigation of Al-Haramain but stated that “it was the financial evidence” provided by financial institutions “that provided justification for the initial designation” of Al-Haramain, in a speech delivered by Mr Pistole on October 22, 2007 at a conference of the American Bankers Association and American Bar Association on money laundering, the text of which appears on the FBI’s official Internet website ... A court document filed by the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon on August 21, 2007 referred to the February 19, 2004 asset-blocking order as a “preliminary designation” and the September 9, 2004 order as “a formal designation.” [page 40].

15. To allege that the above-referenced telecommunications between al-Buthi and plaintiffs Belew and Ghafoor were wire communications and were intercepted by defendants within the United States, plaintiffs cite to several public statements by government officials that most international communications today are “on a wire” and therefore subject to FISA’s warrant requirements, including: July 26, 2006 testimony by defendant Alexander and CIA Director Michael Hayden ... May 1, 2007 testimony by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell ... and September 20, 2007 testimony by McConnell before the House Select Intelligence Committee: “[t]oday * * * [m]ost international communications are on a wire, fiber optical cable,” and “on a wire, in the United States, equals a warrant requirement [under FISA] even if it was against a foreign person located overseas.” [pages 40-41].

16. A memorandum dated February 6, 2008, to defendant Szubin from Treasury Department Office of Intelligence and Analysis Deputy Assistant Secretary Howard Mendelsohn, which was publicly disclosed during a 2005 trial, acknowledged electronic surveillance of four of al-Buthi’s telephone calls on February 1, 2003 [page 41].

(Order Granting Summary Judgment, AL-HARAMAIN ISLAMIC FOUNDATION, INC v Obama). The thing to grasp is that any plaintiff can sue any of the bushies who have made public statements that render them liable.

Sue the "inglorious basterds" like Cheney, then?

The next phase in the litigation is the damages and costs portion of the case.

That is tricky ground because the amount of damages can't be too speculative, so more work must be done before all that can be determined.