THE HANDSTAND

MAY 2003

 

Apocalypse Soon ? ? ? ?

by Edgar J. Steele

April 23, 2003

These are extraordinarily perilous times.  As regulars followers of this list know, I believe we have embarked upon a path which leads to World War III, the first war started by America.  It is for that reason that I have so adamantly opposed America's actions abroad, of late.

And, no, I do not consider it necessary to close ranks and support the President once the shooting starts - not when we shot first.  (Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and obviously had no "weapons of mass destruction.")  And, no, I do not consider it necessary to support our troops in everything that they might do.

I have taken a lot of heat from a lot of sources for these positions, yet I refuse to budge even one inch from the standards imposed by my principles.

Some have dismissed what I have reported out of hand, as being lies created by myself or forwarded out of my desire to harm America.  Neither is true.  Would that it were.  I would much prefer merely to be deluded, to the reality of what America is becoming - and what some of her sons now are doing in her name.

I forward with this email a couple of photos.  Generally, I avoid forwarding photos, though I receive many from all over the world every day.  There are sundry reasons for not doing so; suffice to say that I endeavor to maintain a certain loft with these columns.  When I have incorporated photographs, it has been pointedly to dispel misperceptions.  That is my reason tonight and I do not do so lightly.

A correspondent of mine from the Middle East, who I will not identify so as to ensure his safety, forwarded the images I include herein.  It is important for America to see them.

Some were offended by my reporting that American soldiers had countenanced looting, some even encouraging it and still others actively participating in it themselves.  Many refuse to believe any of these things possible.  The following photo is of American marines in one of the Baghdad museums.  It speaks for itself.

Similarly, the next image speaks volumes.  Yes, the Iraqi soldiers in the foxhole are dead.  Yes, that is a white flag on a stick jutting up out of the hole.  Yes, those are American marines again.

I have no reason to believe that the marines in the second picture had anything to do with the deaths of the Iraqis shown, of course, but I am sure those men did not commit suicide.

In 1970, while I was back home in Seattle on leave from my unit, I met up with a college chum who had just volunteered for his second tour of duty with the Army in Viet Nam.  He showed me a series of photographs of dead Vietnamese who he claimed he personally had killed.  Some were soldiers, some were not.  Some were armed, some were not.  He carried them around with him always, he said, as one might carry photos of one's children, so proud was he.  He might as well have made a necklace of his victims' ears (don't laugh - some did that very thing).  Clearly, he had gone completely native, something like the message of the movie "Apocalypse Now."  I have never seen him since.

War does funny things to people, even when (especially when?) they are on the side of overwhelming superior force.  However, I firmly believe that following orders is no excuse for murder or looting.

This is not a just war in which we are engaged.  Nor are we acting with compassion and proper motives at all times.  Now we are preparing to enter into Syria and Lebanon.  This we must not do.  The killing must stop now.  No more can we afford to do Israel's bidding, for we are losing our souls as we "go native."

I am not yet ashamed of America - I love her so.  But, I am ashamed for some Americans.

New America.  An idea whose time has come.

-ed
"I didn't say it would be easy.  I just said it would be the truth."
            - Morpheus

Copyright ©2003, Edgar J. Steele

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The Victim as Moral Zombie

By Henry Makow Ph.D.
Excerpts,April 21, 2003

If I wanted to brainwash and manipulate a segment of the population, I would convince them they were victims. The economic elites have been controlling us for centuries this way.

Human beings are predisposed to victim status. It's like saying, you deserve better. Who can argue? Usually it's easy to support this proposition, easy to blame someone for our problems. Often grievances are legitimate but they are just pretexts for the elite to drive a wedge into society.

There is another perk. For some reason which I can't fathom, "victims" are conferred a higher moral status. They become Saintly, faultless and immune to criticism.

Historically victims have been the working class and Blacks. Today, victims include Jews/Zionists, homosexuals, feminists and after 9-11, Americans.

Victim hood transforms people. They become motivated, self-righteous and regimented. A complex world is reduced to black and white: Good against Evil, us against them. Morally and intellectually, they become zombies.

They no longer can think in terms of humanity as a whole. When I have written that the economic elite is using feminist, gay or Zionist activists, they think I am criticizing women, gays and Jews. I am not. I am talking about the effect of these movements on society. But they don't care about anyone but their own "oppressed" group. They don't care if society is destroyed as long as they get their way.

Sound like children? Victim hood is a form of arrested development. Caring about other peoples' needs is the basis of morality. It is synonymous with personal and social development.

Victims don't care about objective truth either. They feel their suffering gives them the right to manipulate the truth or even deny that it exists. . The whole project of western philosophy originally was to understand reality. Now it is concerned with manufacturing it. How easy then to lie!

Victims are also passive aggressive. Sanctimoniously, they pretend they are merely seeking "equal rights" when obviously they are attacking someone else. Before they complained about persecution. Now they are the persecutor.

The UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, said recently "all our work for development, from agriculture to health, must focus on the needs and priorities of women".

As Roberts reports, men are more disadvantaged than women. In almost every country, male life expectancy lags behind the female, in some cases by 15 years. How can the UN justify this discrimination? The financial elite does not fear women. They are making men redundant.

Do you see the UN promoting real victims like the aged who are often impoverished and neglected? Do you see elder beating portrayed as an epidemic so that old people are afraid of their offspring? The aged remain invisible. Championing them won't destabilize society and produce world government.

Each victim-zombie group helps to dissolve our natural affinities: race, religion, family and nation. The elite doesn't permit any human identity except consumer and producer and allows no starting point for common resistance.

On Sept. 11, 2001 the financial elite staged a grotesque terrorist attack to convince Americans they were "victims," to remove their civil rights and to invade Iraq.Watching CNN you would think the Marines had gone to Iraq to "liberate" Iraqis. Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves but let's not spoil a heart-warming story.

Increasingly I feel as though I am in a 1950's B-movie horror where most people have become zombies. They have lost their common sense, decency and interest in objective truth. They begin to question my sanity.

The world is like Orwell's 1984. Black is white and white is black, according to Big Brother and Newsweek. Nay Sayers will be punished. One city council is considering a code of conduct that urges elected officials not to roll their eyes. Or shake their heads. Or frown. Some day, this could be universal.

Western civilization is being destroyed from within by a conspiracy of the superrich administered by victim-zombies who have sold their souls to Satan and don't even know it.

Ultimately, God is Reality: absolute truth, goodness and love. We can evade Reality for only so long and only to our detriment.

Hello?

     Where’s the disconnect?
     When the phone goes dead, no amount of banging the receiver solves a thing if a squirrel chewed through the wire down the road.  Trace the signal to the disconnect and restore communications.
     Where’s the disconnect in the United
States?
     This is a country of good people.  Chat up politicians, soldiers, industrialists, peace protestors, bankers, college students, lawyers, musicians, assembly workers...you may not exchange holiday cards next December, but you can usually find intelligence, common ground, a shared laugh, and some warmth.
     So why can’t we talk about this country’s role in the world, or even our government’s role in our own neighborhoods, without a knock-down-drag-out?  Something big has been chewing on the line.
     Gurus of debate and conflict resolution say, “Go back to your assumptions.”  Some would look for our nation’s assumptions in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, documents which are touchstones for peoples around the world.
     “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal”...”Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”...”freedom of speech”...”the right of the people peaceably to assemble”...”the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”...”the right to a speedy and public trial”...the texts are sacred.
     But the disconnect must come before that, for the concepts of freedom of religion, separation of church and state, free speech, equal opportunity, equal protection, presumed innocence, rights to privacy and security—we could go on—are themselves fertile ground today for disagreement.  The Constitution itself is derided by our present “leaders” as a document of the past which must be adapted for the future...not how any of us learned it in school.
     What could possibly run deeper than these documents?  Could it be the sense we are a special, chosen people?  Unfortunately, others who have come to that have met unpleasant fates, but perhaps we are so special as to be beyond history.
     And, if we are so wonderful, is it not logical that we should be the ultimate arbiters of the fate of peoples and distribution of wealth throughout the world?
     It looks comical on paper, but is it possible we are homing in on the disconnect...and if we are, should we not be debating whether we are so special at all,  rather than the correct course action for an elite, master people?
     Is it possible that vast numbers of Americans believe they have rights, even responsibilities, to patrol the world?  Is it possible that a majority feel so mighty—and fearful—they would impose their own order rather that accept any rollback of their standard of living?  Is it even possible that many a Christian American feels there is only one religion on earth with any merit?  Yes?
     How else can we explain the genesis of the remarkable document, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, by the rightist think-tank, Project for a New American Century, and commissioned by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz in 2000?  In 75 pages, the writers outline a “defense” policy which explains much of the rhetoric out of Washington.
     The document opens with this question:  “Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?”  Note the word, “resolve.”
     What follows is a strategy for seizing opportunities presented by our default station as the world’s only superpower.  The assumption at the root of our national disconnect fuels a series of postulates, among them:  we can never allow another country to challenge our dominance again; we must build our military to shape events and further our interests all over the globe; and we must even extend our dominion to space to secure control over the planet.
     This is more that just a little disagreement on strategy.  This is full speed ahead on a different fork in the road, a road quite separate from the one which brought us to our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our former leadership among members of a United Nations.  It is a road traveled for short distances before by others who live in infamy.
     This road is dotted with settlements called racism, intolerance, greed, arrogance, war, injustice, slavery, pollution, misery, degradation, and death.  There are no lines open between these foul settlements and the great path of American ideals, and the only way to call back those wandering up this new road is to return to the point of our disconnect, the fork at which special Americans diverge from those rooted in the world community.
     How do we repair the disconnect.  Can it be repaired at all?
     We have to ask our neighbors, are Americans really better than anyone else?  Do Americans have more rights to water, air, oil, land, minerals, or freedoms than any other people?  Do certain Americans have more rights than others?
     Are wealthy human beings more worthy than poor?  Are Christians closer to God than Muslims?  Are English-speaking peoples more righteous than those speaking other tongues?  Are we morally superior?  Is our flag better?  Is our way of life better?  Our food?  Are we first, best, smartest, handsomest, strongest?
     We can repair the disconnect only if these questions give a significant number of Americans pause.  There is no certainty, though, that any questioned will even skip a beat.
     We need to know, for if the new road now represents our country, the rest of the world had better line up against the United States fast before it gets even more dangerously full of itself.

---by Alan Morse, Phillips, Maine, USofA...amorse@somtel.com