Hate Walks With Me, and Hate Talks With Me...

PFC Manning was forced to strip naked in his cell again last night. As with the previous evening, Quantico Brig guards required him to surrender all of his clothing. PFC Manning then walked back to his bed, and spent the next seven hours in humiliation.

The decision to require him to be stripped of all clothing was made by the Brig commander, Chief Warrant Officer-2 Denise Barnes ["Barnes said she plans to take things to another level within her new unit."] According to First Lieutenant Brian Villard, a Marine spokesman, the decision was "not punitive" and done in accordance with Brig rules. There can be no conceivable justification for requiring a soldier to surrender all his clothing, remain naked in his cell for seven hours, and then stand at attention the subsequent morning. This treatment is even more degrading considering that PFC Manning is being monitored -- both by direct observation and by video -- at all times. The defense was informed by Brig officials that the decision to strip PFC Manning of all his clothing was made without consulting any of the Brig's mental health providers.

This is common, or SOP, for "military intelligence". From a 2004 piece about Abu Ghraib: "Detainees were paraded naked past other prisoners and guards; some were ordered to do jumping jacks and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the nude, according to a several witnesses. Also, a father and his grown son were stripped, then forced to stand and stare at each other. The International Committee of the Red Cross, visiting in October, found prisoners left naked in their cells for days, modestly trying to shield themselves behind cardboard from meals-ready-to-eat boxes."

Remember...this is approved of by your Democratic President (if not, it would not be happening). Of course, this president has gone farther than the reviled GWB in that he has claimed the right to murder anyone in the world anywhere regardless of citizenship.

We are in a nation oozing systemic rot. These are not "insurgent" "bad actors" or mercenaries for hire who murder families while at weddings in foreign lands. This is your land, this is my land..."made for you and me" brothers and sisters. We are all in the brig with Bradley Manning. Manning is but one very clear example to you. Get with the program; Be "one of us". Or else. But that is really, the least of our worries.

Wisconsin's Governor is showing us the more of this same mindset--bullying and holding hostage the citizens of his state--defunding care for women; Ohio has already passed legislation to allow its labor force to be steamrolled into a third world existence; Arizona leads the nation in enacting hate legislation; systemic rot pervades our nation. We are lost. Were we ever the idyllic land our mythology proclaims? We are showing our true colors...the bully is in the ascendancy. He is your governor, your police chief, your president. He has the courts at his back. The bully is conservative; the bully says "my way".

I'm wondering when people are going to recognize that not only is the Tea Party socially conservative and uhm ... racially uncomfortable, their antipathy to taxes and government actually stems from those attitudes. It's not a coincidence or even a sympathetic constellation of various positions on the issues. They don't like government because they believe that government should not protect and support people they don't like. [bold emphasis added]

Please read that part in bold again. This is the animus--no government, small government, less government...means keep out of my business. I don't want to treat all people equally. I want to hate my neighbor if he's not like me--I want to hang him from a tree after I drag him behind my truck for a few miles. Having this kind of politician "in charge" will lead to laws that ALLOW this kind of hate-filled abusive behavior and call it "freedom". In this way your only real liberty will be your death.

I'm finished with my own polite response to this kind of inherent bigotry. I believe it is systemic in our white Christian nation. Poll the haters...poll the tea partiers...poll the Klan...poll the neo-Nazis...Do you believe in God, ask them...do you believe in Jesus as your savior, ask them.

I do not fetishize atheism (hate needs no religion or god) but I do not believe any good can come of a religion where the divinity walks with you while you carry your uzi and your flag and your noose.

You cannot disassociate the "ease" of coming to hate from within this religious system. Faith in Hate!

Do some comparative reading to discover which religions are the most warring, aggressive and hate-filled. If you belong to one of these, you really should be asking yourself why. Then take a gander at the tolerance inherent in Hindu religious traditions.

The Dark Heart of Humanity

I am continually disturbed by the human world as it has evolved a kind of systematic concatenation of ever and ever more abusive and rapacious ideologies in which the Powerful can now easily and readily marshal and inject sophisticated (and not so sophisticated) strategies of persuasion into every part of our daily living: from industrial food and religious brotherhood to military invasion and Hollywood entertainments, not to mention testing in education (both for teachers and students) and mandatory payments to the industrial "wellness" industry. The list of course goes on and on.

One often balks at "conspiracy" as an idea--rationally, too many parts must coalesce to be the work of conspirators. But I've come to simply think of it as a systematic conspiracy created by very the framework of our ideas of what it means to be a human and how we come to BE and ACT within this. In short, everything seems tied together when you start thinking about changing even one way of "being" in the world.

That said, I was struck yesterday by a Rolling Stone piece about the "proposed" use of Psy-Op techniques by the military on delegations of congressional members visiting Afghanistan for "on the ground" briefings. So, basically, military generals attempting to use propaganda against our elected representatives to encourage continuing and expanding the pillaging and domination of occupied territory.

Now, it's claimed that this tactic WAS NOT deployed as those ordered to do so refused the order. This is illegal after all--but illegal never stopped anyone before! However, my "read" on this is, "of course they do these kinds of things all the time, and anyway, how would anyone know if/when psy-ops is used."

Remember when it was reported that Donald Rumsfeld would pepper all his reports to Bush with bible verses? That is psy-ops 101.

Also, you might recall that the torture regime has been aided and abetted by psychologists. Look it up yourself.

Okay, so, to the tapestry of "like" ideology.

Psy-Ops really is no different than any application of "organizational" psychology. Daily we are subjected to this kind of manipulation. It's a corporate and academic industry after all.

[You might recall that I suggested you do a little investigating the fact that there are so many Religious colleges that offer HR degrees--well, HR is of course nothing more than manipulating the "human resource" in the corporate machine.]

Now, here is little essay about Industrial and Organization Psychologists written by one of their own. Skim it, it's not worth spending too much time on. But, I would like to call your attention to the first few lines of the author's bio:

Dr. Charles Handler is the president and founder of Rocket-Hire.com. Throughout his career he has specialized in developing effective, legally defensible employee selection systems.

Comforting, yes? This is the dark heart of humanity. I hope you think long and hard about taking this route in life.

I'm tired of this. How do people justify this type of activity as it is applied to their fellow humans? But of course, what part of your life isn't infested by psy-op applications? What the hell is advertising anyway?

Well, remember an earlier post about the "organizational" strength of a certain religion?

See, this is all coming together...onward Christian soldiers marching as to war...on everyone else. But my favorite phrase is next: "with the Cross of Jesus marching on before." It's the IDEA that marches on before (the symbol of torture by the state) because Jesus, as a man and philosopher is too complicated (and well, against violent and worldly domination) to be a symbol of war.

And, finally, for this post, what do you think the "morality of greed" (not softened by the use of "profit" to replace "greed") is but a psy-op attack on your very idea of human society (your social relations). Your responsibility is now to an abstraction called MONEY, or PROSPERITY rather than your fellow beings.

All this manipulation is fostered by the distancing hand of our technologies. More machines, more tools, less human empathy, what we once might have called "fellow feeling"...it's that simple.

Please stop it.